Yeah, but Ridley Scott directed that one. The scene in Aliens that stands out for me is a depressed, borderline-catatonic Ripley in her apartment, sitting perfectly still while the cigarette in her hand burned nearly down to the filter. The cigarette wasn’t meant to look cool, it was just a handy indicator of the character’s emotional disconnect.
I probably noted that Weaver’s Avatar character was smoking, but didn’t pay much mind to it. I tend to chuckle when I see the copious amount of smoking in old movies, though.
It must suck to live in a universe wherein every movie plot is boring and trite. I just saw Avatar, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. They imagined an entire world, lush and overwhelminly detailed, and in my mind, set a new standard in CGI.
To my unsophisticated tastes, I liked the fact that they presented the Na’vi with sufficient realism that I could distinguish among them by sight. I read emotions on their faces, felt a little bit of voyeuristic guilt during the sex scene, and teared up a little at Neytiri’s gut-wrenching wailing over her father’s body.
I’d heard Sigourney Weaver talking about the motion-capture helmets they wore wherein little cameras pointed at their faces to pick up all their facial movements, and was impressed at how realistic the results were. I also liked the ever-more-realistic representation of Newtonian physics. Nothing’s perfect, but I haven’t seen a movie that’s handled it better (yet). And the 3D was good enough that the only time I was conscious of it was when it was impressing the helll out of me.
I hope that there are good script writers among those who disliked the simplistic plot; hopefully, we’ll soon be able to watch movies that have incredibly cool art direction and CGI, along with deep, wonderful, original plots.
It would be awesome if someone with the bucks (and the balls) could use that kind of technology in service of a simply human story. If I were a billionaire, I’d back the Avatar sequel as a simple family story of Jake and his new family. Little domestic dramas, nothing exploding, no Evil Bad Guy, just him adjusting to his new life and starting a family. Like and Ozu story, realized through the kind of 3D CGI of Avatar. That would be awesome.
Of course, I’ll cut my own foot off with a spork and eat it raw if it ever does.
Well, maybe just a little, but I’m also being serious. It’s not a bad thing that the unwashed masses will like the movie – he has absolutely raised the bar in terms of art direction and techniques in CGI. So in a few years, the little indie movies will be able to afford similar cinematic feats. Kind of like the iPhone – even if you don’t like the iPhone, the next smartphone you buy will be better because of it.
You know when it really, truly hit me? I mean, I was sold from the trailers, and right from the onset the 3D and CGI were seamless. No uncanny vally, no Spidermanesque “WTF do they think they’re fooling with this artificial stuff?” moments. It’s also abundantly clear how much Cameron loves diving and coral reefs, from those fold-up plants to the tree seeds.
But when the Home Tree was down, and ashes were drifting everywhere, 3D and out-of-focus, that’s when it hit me. This was the future of films. At least, SF/Fantasy action films. Any film that sets out to create a world not our own. It’s like Cameron held open a door and said “This is the way. Step inside”, only it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. This was exactly how I felt after LOTR, too. Shoulders of giants and all that (and yes, WETA was involved here too - I so want to tie Richard Thompson in my basement with a full workshop)
So many stories/universes I think would benefit from this tech coupled with Cameron’s approach (which echoes the approach of Peter Jackson, Del Toro, Whedon - they’re all fans. Fen, if you will). Bank’s Culture, Brin’s Uplift, Ringworld, Donaldson’s Land, Discworld, Bas Lag - and that’s not even thinking about the original stories still to be written.
Just one thing…
… we need to assasinate Uwe Boll before he gets access to this technology, and we’re laughing, mates.
You mean Richard Taylor. And he just designs and builds the physical effects, he has nothing to do with the CGI side of things (Joe Letteri was in charge of them).
This isn’t appropriate for Cafe Society, where we focus on the content of the post and refrain from personal remarks about – and attacks on – other posters.
Christ he does. I spent the entire movie trying to work out if he was trying to do an American accent with his native Aussie breaking through or if his Aussie accent has been affected by Americanisms too much.
For what its worth I really, really enjoyed it. This is because, thankfully, I have different expectations of different styles of movies and hence if a movie fulfills the expectations for that specific movie then it has been a success. I don’t need every film to be the Seventh Seal. I knew going in to it that this was an effects movie and the key to enjoying it was to drink in those effects. So I did and it was bloody amazing.
I know. He designed the guns for this one, there’s a youtube bit about them somewhere. I just mentioned him in passing, though, not in relation to my main train of thought.
I’ve not read the rest of the thread, but my comment to Mrs. Plant was, “The Earthlings (I keep starting to say, “White Guys”) will be back in twelve years with nukes.”
Saw it in 3D today and loved it. Noted that the plot was basic and didn’t care; I was totally immersed in the world and its incredible detail.
Did anyone else notice that the direhorses looked reminiscent of ancient Greek horses? That thought popped immediately to mind when I first saw them. I wonder whether Cameron had the horses of Alexander the Great in mind when he created them.
I’ll have more thoughts after some writing and after reading the rest of the thread…
The two things that made me roll my eyes were the use of the word “unobtanium” for the mineral the humans were mining, and the use of Papyrus font for the subtitles.
Really? You spent how much money and couldn’t use some other made-up term and some non-default Windows font?
Still…
Overall it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in years.
For those complaining about how humanity is coming back with nukes, consider that the humans on the planet aren’t the government, they’re a private business. And they didn’t have cruise missiles or any weapons of mass destruction, the only thing they had for the final battle was gunships and pallets of mining explosives.
I find it unlikely that they are going to be able to come back and fuel-air bomb the locals. It would be too politically unacceptable.
Also any future attempts to mine the planet are going to be at a huge price, because humans know that the local megafauna will run up and ruin any new mining facilities. No huge corporation is going to take the PR hit that comes with genocide.
