Indeed. Papyrus is a sore spot for hair-trigger font geek rage: see this xkcd, for example.
There are many people complaining at various sites on the Internet about Papyrus in Avatar. And the unrealistic lack of orbital bombardment. And how unrealistic it is that the Na’vi only have four limbs (and two eyes, and one USB port) as compared to most of the other Pandoran fauna.
I find all of these amusing and perplexing in equal measure. That “I’ll never go to Pandora” depression, though; that’s just perplexing.
I’m a graphic designer and if I could travel back in time and kick one font designer right in the nuts as he’s getting the idea for a typeface it would be Papyrus. Every cheezy new age bullshit shop on the planet has a papyrus storefront. Gah.
It’s not really unrealistic, considering the company was a business working under the auspices of the UN with a small security force, not an army.
I think the Na’vi are triggering some people’s latent furry-gene.
Can it be really classed as a religion though as it’s not based on any faith?
It’s based on facts. When they plug in they can hear the ancients. That is a repeatable and testable phenomenon. It’s not a religious belief that powers the love of nature, it’s the fact that mother nature (for want of a better word) answers back.
We really can’t blame them for using Papyrus font - movie directors still believe that shakycam and extreme close up should be used all the time. These are not clued-in people.
The fact is, only a tiny portion of the audience will actually recognize the font - or even care. Maybe it’s overused, but has any movie ever used it for subtitles before? The only thing I noticed was that it wasn’t one of the typical fonts used for subtitles (and I deal with fonts to some extent, though not for publications that would be likely to use a font like Papyrus).
Moviemakers do still have a little to learn about 3D, and there were two mistakes I think Cameron made with it: First, if you’re going to have things coming in front of the plane of the screen, you should make sure that none of those things are near the edge of the screen, or you’ll end up with one of the two images going off the edge: Basically, the frame is obscuring objects that are in front of it. Second, you don’t want to change depth too abruptly: If you’re going from a low-depth indoor scene to a high-depth jungle scene, or the like, you need some sort of transition to give the eyes a chance to adapt.
As for the story, I could definitely see a number of influences from classic science fiction (the biggest, I think, being “The Girl who was Plugged In”, by James Tiptree, Jr.). But the inspirations were drawn widely enough, and melded together smoothly enough, that the resulting story was still quite good enough to support the movie. It won’t be winning any Best Screenplay awards, but it was certainly no worse than Hollywood’s usual science fiction fare.
And, of course, despite the small mistakes I mentioned with use of the 3D, the visuals were all simply astounding, which is of course one of the things that makes movies what they are. Ranking it on the whole, I’d definitely have to give it two thumbs up.
I don’t get irrationally angry when I see the Papyrus font, like some people do, even if I do agree that it tends to be overused.
The problem, IMO, with using it as a subtitle font is that it draws attention to itself. It’s too distinctive. If I see a subtitle and think to myself “Hey, that’s the Papyrus font,” then I’ve been momentarily pulled out of the movie. A subtitle should be as unobtrusive as possible, while being easy to see and read. That’s why Helvetica and Ariel are so ubiquitous in commercial usage–they’re simple and clean and generic.
I think the intent was to convey that a truly alien language was being spoken, and in that I think it succeeded well. It was in keeping with the rest of the visual richness of the movie. I noticed it on first use, but after that I didn’t find it distracting.
I can’t say I’ve really seen the Papyrus font getting much use around here, so I thought it was a nice change from the standard white or yellow block font that subtitles are usually in. Evidently- like most other viewpoints I hold on these boards- I’m in the minority, it seems.
No, you’re not the only one. I guess I don’t pay much attention to fonts. The only one I could have even named by sight before this thread was Comic Sans. I like it. I agree that it was a nice change from the usual boring subtitles.
Well… after going to a late-night showing at the Imax last night, I’ll admit that I can relate to these people at least a little bit. I mean… the problem with escapist fantasy is that it’s only going to exacerbate a desire to escape that existed before you engaged in the fantasy! I’ve got a pretty good life and have never been any more depressed than your average 20-something, but when I got out of Avatar my first impression (aside from awe at the depth and breadth of the world) was one of ‘… damn. I don’t think I’ll be hopping on a banshee any time soon’.
I’m not depressed because it’s all fiction, but is there anything wrong with wanting to be a part of a world that is wholly alien and beautiful? I mean… who wouldn’t want to soar through those floating mountains? Allowing yourself to be truly depressed because you connected with the whole notion of ‘hopping into another body’ or just the physical beauty of Cameron’s world isn’t stupid; it’s indicative of larger issues in your life that are simply being expressed through this desire to be transported to Pandora.
All that being said, I loved this film. Loved it. I had the plot figured out from the minute we met Ribisi’s character (and yes, I do love Ribisi, Ethan Suplee, Jason Lee and a whole slew of other Scientologists despite their collective insanity), but that doesn’t make the fact that this iteration of that time old story was extremely well executed.
I don’t feel the need to dissect to the nth degree something that made me feel happy, and this movie did exactly that.
