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AVATAR Trailer is here!

Well I found it impressive. Story and filmaking will make all the difference, CGI or not. I always think of Yoda in Empire. That was a rubber puppet, plain and simple, but the story and character made him real along with skilled film making. I trust in Cameron's skill and that in its entirety, Avatar will be mind blowing.
 
One of the things that really makes realistic CGI look real is the post-processing they throw on top of it to simulate the way that a camera changes the image(colors, light, etc) that it shoots. In addition to possibly not being the final renders, I can almost assure you the post-processing to help it match the real footage hasn't been completed. CGI never looks as good in a trailer as the finished product.
 
I could care less about the special effects, those are just one of the means to help tell the story. The story is what I'm curious about. From the teaser it looks like a mixture of The Last Samurai, Ferngully, Aliens and The Matrix. I'll be there in theaters to see it.
 
I watched the trailer and I don't see what all the fuss is about. The CGI is good, no question but they're going to have to show me a lot more to get me interested.
 
I'll jut cross-post from myself on another message board:

I have no problem with (most) of the all-CG shots in the trailer; certainly the forests look much better than any similar all-digital shots in the Prequels. But to show that I'm not totally out of the loop on the anti-Avatar negativity here: WTF is up with the rigid body elements in this film? Seriously, the spaceships, armor, mechas, aircraft, etc. look like ass. They're pretty enough if they weren't attempting to pass themselves off as real objects, but nuBSG did some solid mechanical objects better than this. On a TV budget.

No, seriously, WTF is up with that?
That said, story is everything. If it's a good story, I wont care that this revolutionary CGI looks like the filmmakers popped open Vue 7 and rendered away with the default settings. And not that there's anything wrong with that--if the folks making this hadn't talked it up as some kind of game-changer.
 
I think the biggest problem with the trailer is the "expectation game." With the advertised "revolutionary" visuals, the trailer just doesn't measure up -- no matter how interesting or compelling the CGI already is.

I agree Gep Malakai: "Story is everything." The visuals, no matter how they look, won't matter unless the story is a good one.
 
Given that they've spent years at this point hyping this as a revolutionary film you think they'd release finished shots in the trailer. And if these are finished shots then they've really shot themselves in the foot with the overhype. It's Cameron's first (non-factual) film in over a decade; they don't need to claim it's going to change cinema forever to get us excited.
 
Aw crap, well, color me really disappointed. That looks really bad. Like Waterworld bad.
 
Well, I'm going to see about 16 min. of footage from this in 3d here in Sydney in about 8 hours. I'll post my reactions here when I get home. I'll be curious to see if the 3d effect adds that much to the experience or not.
 
A lot less than I expected, and I'm a guy who hasn't liked a Cameron pic since T2, and still hasn't gotten through a half hour of TITANIC, so my expectations were low.

As a technical exercise, it might be okay, but as for buying off on the images ... you'd have to be seriously suspending disbelief to take some of that w/o an eye roll.

Honest to God, sometimes I think the bug at the end of MEN IN BLACK is still the best CG creature ever in terms of visual credibility (then again, I'll take FARSCAPE puppets over just about any digital character.)

Saw a pic of Cameron on yahoo just now and he looked like Quentin Crisp mixed with George Washington ... guy needs a haircut.
 
Yeah it certainly isnt what I expected it to be after such hype for the last what, three years? But then again think of it like this: the trailers for Terminator 4 were absolutely delicious!! But we all know how the movie ended up in theaters. It could be the opposite here: the trailer is "meh" but the story and final visuals for the movie will blow all of us away!
 
ok I just saw it... um yeah, well Ill be honest I was very skeptical about the supposed hype that this was gonna look ultra-real. I just dont think when it comes to humanoid creatures its something that can be done(am I the only one who thinks this?) Mechanical things, non humanoid creatures like the D-9 aliens, landscapes, yes, but we are just too good at picking up when something humanoid is "off". I think its... so ingrained in our nature, sorta like how its hard to create a truely sentient machine.

that said, the thing that bugged me the most while watching it wasnt the cgi(& some of it did look vid-gamey) it was the main alien character design- those big wide apart eyes just seem to throw the whole realism of the character's faces off...

Im still gonna watch this though, I wasnt following this movie for the CGI, I was following it b/c I loved Sam W. in T:S & I want to see him as a giant blue alien hybid. :p
 
Okay just watched it:

-- Visually looks interesting. Not "blow me away, this is the next level" but good
-- Stylistically I got a very "Sci-fi/Fantasy MMORPG" feel from the visuals.
-- Looks like one of those films that can go great and blow us away when we're not expecting it, or one could tank hard very easily.
 
Honest to God, sometimes I think the bug at the end of MEN IN BLACK is still the best CG creature ever in terms of visual credibility

What about the Prawns in District 9?

3840769035_6ca2389e05.jpg


(^All CGI.)
 
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