Octopunk and I were talking about this on the phone last night. There's a growing bilious reaction to James Cameron's upcoming Avatar. My favorite new stuff is on Gawker, here:
The Mounting Evidence That Avatar Will Suck, Part 1
The Mounting Evidence That Avatar Will Suck, Part 2: An Eyewitness Account
Anyway, are we not men? We are geeks! So we have to talk about this. My attitude is, Michelle Rodriguez...enough said. Thoughts? (If you can't see my cartoon above...and you want to...click to bigify it.)
5 comments:
Awesome, I look forward to reading this! I'm on my way to VT at the moment but I couldn't resist commenting on this. Ever since the original trailer was released I've had zero interest in this film. Since then I've seen a few scenes and an additional trailer and my opinion hasn't wavered one bit. Avatar is clearly a Titanic love story in cartoon form and I'm sorry but the aliens just look stupid. Bleech.
Unless there's high praise for Avatar when it's released I have no intention of seeing it.
I have to agree, I was looking forward to it at first but the more I see of it the more it loses my interest. The love story in it has almost a Disney feel to it, at least in the trailers.
Two quotes I like here:
"...we should all strap in and prepare for what could well turn out to be the worst movie you have ever felt obliged to see."
and
"...the absolutely horrible fetishizing of azure humanoids that James Cameron has obviously been drawing on the back covers of his notebooks since middle school and secretly getting off to in the gym locker room."
The two cents I threw in with Jordan during the conversation he mentions were this: the animation doesn't look like it's better than stuff we've already seen. Specifically the military mech suits stomping around -- they don't look as good as the similar machines from Matrix Revolutions, which came out six years ago. Is there any excuse for that?
Also of specific interest to me is this point from the second Gawker article: "The new technology they've been using to eliminate the headaches and sickness conducive to old 3D tech has not been used properly in the action scenes throughout Avatar. The problem is with cutting in between 3D focal points and perspective - the mind cannot adjust to it without a buffer - thus, Avatar is literally vomit inducing."
A cg animator friend of mine who works for Disney pointed out that exact focal point problem when I was griping about the Cameron undersea documentary Aliens of the Deep. It's sort of like a high tech shaky-cam-like problem inflicted on your brain, and it made the doc very hard for me to watch. But get this: I know the quote mentions new tech that bypasses the problem, but my friend said the focal point fuckery was actually a directorial choice on Cameron's part. That he would sit there in post and move the focal points back and forth for each scene. Damn foo.
This could be a serious dealbreaker (for me, I'm sure the public at large won't care). I've seen Beowulf, Meet the Robinsons and Coraline in 3D and suffered no brain pain. Notably Meet the Robinsons opened with a Donald Duck short in old-style 3D that did hurt my head, only to be followed by the harmless MtR.
Beyond that, I've been watching a bunch of the Avatar TV spots and while the stupidity is certainly in play, I have to admit I'm intrigued to see it. My feeling is that it's going to be bluntly clichéd and schmaltzy all over the place, falling far short of the visionary masterpiece implied by the long gestation and the enormous hype, but possibly fun to watch.
I find myself particularly curious about the giant jungle-wrecking vehicle, because I have a soft spot for foolishly huge ground vehicles. It reminds me of the show Thunderbirds, in which a couple of these charming devices were introduced, inevitably malfunctioning later and running amok.
By the way, Jor-El, loved your Cameron-riffing title list. I'm embarrassed to admit SR2 threw me for a second even though Scary Robot was one of my favorites.
At first, seeing the thumbnail, I thought it was a scan of something you drew in high school. Probably because I was searching the blog archives recently and came across the post containing the Star Wars II poster that you drew as a kid (and if you haven't seen this, 'thonners, you should).
Hello to all, how is the whole thing, I think every one is getting more from this web site, and your views are pleasant for new
users.
my weblog - Watch this video on Mississauga painters
Post a Comment