Ummm, alll of it? (Aside from the actor.)
I mean, it looks good damn good, but "off enough" to not look live action.
I mean, it looks good damn good, but "off enough" to not look live action.
James Cameron's Avatar: Discuss/Countdown
- Thread starter T'Baio
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God dammit, I am interested to see Avatar but I do not see the 400+ million dollar difference between this and District 9.
Answer: Everything in that shot is CG (even the actor). It was confirmed by a WETA employee at CGtalk.
The cockpit part is real. There was an interview with Cameron on "60 minutes" and he was instructing one of the actors inside the cockpit.
Yes, they built the cockpit for closeup shots like that. But it is not used for all shots - and not where a CG double is needed. (Which is what was used in this specific shot according to a Weta employee)
That's the most impressed I've been about Avatar's effects so far. If that's not human, and I can't even tell even after knowing it's not human, then the uncanny valley, if not yet bounded... we're nearing the finish line, at least.
South Park still has me thinking of South Park as a painfully unfunny series, and honestly that's one of the more obvious jokes you could make (dances with wolves and smurfs were all over the 'net when then first trailer hit - combine them, voila, you are a TV god).
But hey, whatever works for folks.
But hey, whatever works for folks.
So, the game is almost out and there's still a question that I wouldn't mind having spoiled for me if anyone knows the answer.
If both the game and the movie are about a dude in a freaking pod going against orders, why don't the humans just disconnect the pod and kill the dude? I have to believe that there's some reasonable explanation - otherwise the movie would make absolutely no sense - but has it been revealed yet?
If both the game and the movie are about a dude in a freaking pod going against orders, why don't the humans just disconnect the pod and kill the dude? I have to believe that there's some reasonable explanation - otherwise the movie would make absolutely no sense - but has it been revealed yet?
I've been wondering the same thing.
Speculation based on the second trailer:
It's not just Sam Worthington who goes against orders. It looks like a number of other soldiers (and maybe even the Sigourney Weaver character, since there is a scene of troops grabbing her) also oppose Stephen Lang's character. Which makes it less of one man going native and more of an insurrection within their own ranks, if I read that right.
Now, since Weaver is shown to be the one in control of the whole pod thing, I guess she does something to stop the obvious plug from being pulled.
And if anyone exclaims spoilers!, I'd like to insist I am wildly guessing based on the second trailer here. Granted, I have seen it one too many times...
It's not just Sam Worthington who goes against orders. It looks like a number of other soldiers (and maybe even the Sigourney Weaver character, since there is a scene of troops grabbing her) also oppose Stephen Lang's character. Which makes it less of one man going native and more of an insurrection within their own ranks, if I read that right.
Now, since Weaver is shown to be the one in control of the whole pod thing, I guess she does something to stop the obvious plug from being pulled.
And if anyone exclaims spoilers!, I'd like to insist I am wildly guessing based on the second trailer here. Granted, I have seen it one too many times...
Yes, this is not really a spoiler... But there are more than one person who 'go native'.
And the movie does address what happens when someone severs the connection to the Avatar - I saw a clip that showed that. (But I shall not spoil the circumstance) But that question will definitely be answered.
And the movie does address what happens when someone severs the connection to the Avatar - I saw a clip that showed that. (But I shall not spoil the circumstance) But that question will definitely be answered.
I hope all the originality expended on this movie doesn't just go into the effects, which, granted, are impressive. But I have my concerns about the story. Noble savages whose village in the primordial rain forest just happens to be on the deposit of a mineral the evil human military-industrial complex must have? Did they go to the library and check out How to Write a Story with Every Politically-Correct Cliche? If it's told well, it can work, but the pitch in the trailer is a tad ham-fisted.
But that is such a silly argument overall. Condense the plot of any film down to a sentence, and they all sound like giant clichés.
It is execution that matters, as you also noted. Avatar, like any other film, will succeed or fail depending on how well it executed on its premise.
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On a side note, here is a neat little quick video (from MTV yesterday) which shows how the filmed the elements of a chopper landing which included both Avatars and live action: (no spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_HC92Ylzf0 (Too bad the quality is pretty bad, and the buffering is a part of the source video that was uploaded)
But it is neat to see how they establish the LOTR-esque size differences between the characters.
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It's really not. I'm mostly a defender of this film so far, but does the plot look strikingly unoriginal? Most definitely.
This can't be brushed off with a recourse to Joseph Campbell* or that all movies are unoriginal; the premise as outlined in the trailers feels like - as Lapis put it - every politically correct film ever. Dances With Wolves, Ferngully, even the recently and unseen Battle for Terra - arguably The Last Samurai incorporates elements of this - always, always the film about the white guy who goes native to protect the natives from the rapacious forces from his culture. This is as paint-by-the-numbers in premise as the dozens of rom-coms that get churned out every year, but the high production values and purportedly stunning SFX - and the star power of Cameron, naturlich - is giving this film the heft it needs.
Whether it becomes a rather good and flashy take on the trope, or merely a flashy one, remains to be seen. I'm cautiously hopeful, as always.
*Aside: I am beginning to hate that every argument for unoriginality involving someone sooner or later bringing up The Hero's Journey. Thank you, Campbell, for empowering generations of hacks.
When did I bring up Campbell? All I wrote was "condense the plot of any film down to a sentence, and they all sound like giant clichés". While there are exceptions, I believe this is true for 99% of the films out there. Someone is welcome to prove me wrong.
I was making a general observation, apologies if that wasn't clear (but I've seen people defend Avatar using Campbell.)
My point was it's more than films being distilled to cliches, there are certain kinds of cliches and certain ways which one can reliably expect to remain prevalent in Hollywood. And the 'white guy who defends the natives' narrative has been fairly popular as of late.
Well, I think it's more a matter of any film being reducible to basic storyforms, which is different from being reducible to cliches.
Crippled, soldier white guy, no less, in this one. I don't even mind a cliche from time to time, but this is white guy defends the natives on steroids. Pandora is the ultimate untouched primordial paradise. The natives are not only noble savages who are naturally peaceful, living in perfect harmony with their unspoiled environment, but they are badasssssss warriors when provoked. The humans are unadulterated in their avaricious desire to rape the beautiful rain forest, because apparently in the future we've forgotten the lessons of the genocide of the Native Americans and the mass extinction of animals on Earth. It just all smacks of a 13 year old boy's fan fiction at this point.
"...and then there's this awesome double bladed copter that fights soldiers in giant robot armor, while 10 foot tall blue warriors fly around on dragon-dinosaurs with 2 foot long fangs. Yeah!!"
That said, I loved Cameron in his action days, so hopefully the trailer has been cut to appear this way entirely on purpose to get all the 13 year old boys in the theater, and the real meat of the story is still obscure. We'll see.
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