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James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)

Grade "Avatar"

  • Excellent

    Votes: 166 50.0%

  • Above Average

    Votes: 85 25.6%

  • Average

    Votes: 51 15.4%

  • Below Average

    Votes: 11 3.3%

  • Terrible

    Votes: 19 5.7%
  • Total voters
    332
The 3D, at times, sort-of blew-out my depth preception a few times when I was watching the screen and seeing a guy's head that was 50 feet tall and then one of the waiters/ushers would walk infront of me and it'd confuse my mind into thinking what was "real" and/or why there's a shrunken person walking around infront of Sam Worthington.
 
That might be due to the size of the IMAX screen... If you sit too close to the screen, your mind will get confused.

I saw it on a regular size theater screen (in RealD digital 3D), and sitting towards the back allowed me to see the entire screen image without the glass frames being in the way, or having to turn my head. After 5 mins I was accustomed to the 3D, and it worked great.
 
The biggest problem I have with the 3D has to do with depth of field. When things in the foreground are out of focus in the camera's image plane, you can still make them spacialy in focus with your eyes giving a very strange effect. It almost makes me think that all the shots should be framed with really wide DoF (and of course any purely digital shots can have infinite DoF as there's no real camera), but that goes against a significant portion of established cinematography and would look pretty strange when viewed normally.
 
There's nothing wrong with deep focus photography. It's used very effectively as far back as Citizen Kane or Grand Illusion. It's not done because it's hard to light (i.e. it requires a lot of light) and it's more expensive (because what would be out of focus in the background is clear and thus requires actors, extras, set dressing, and the like in greater quantity and quality). But, as you've indicated, that won't matter in purely digital shots.
 
I didn't say there was anything wrong with it, but it's not always appropriate. Focus is a very important tool in the toolbox and deep focus should be used intentionally, not just because it (may) work better with 3D... which I still consider to be more a gimmick then not.
 
Hyperspace05 said:
That might be due to the size of the IMAX screen... If you sit too close to the screen, your mind will get confused.

I saw it on a regular size theater screen (in RealD digital 3D), and sitting towards the back allowed me to see the entire screen image without the glass frames being in the way, or having to turn my head. After 5 mins I was accustomed to the 3D, and it worked great.
Click to expand...

I didn't see it on IMAX.
 
Avatar

Has anyone seen it yet?

Any good? Worth seeing? Great? Crap? Just M'eh?

I want to see it, but some of it just plain and simple look stupid while other parts look like it might be a good diversion flick.

General feelings on it by those who have seen it?

Thanks!!!
 
I finally saw this yesterday and voted "above average".

The CGI were fantastic - that is a given. I saw it in 3D as well, and that was awesome!

But the moment she was assigned to 'teach him their ways', I knew this was gonna be the CGI version of Dances With Wolves. And the rest, of course, was completely predictable because of that, except for the part about how he would get to stay with 'the tribe'. And as soon as Sigorney Weaver's character died, I knew how they were gonna do even that.

That said, Dances With Wolves is one of my top 3 or 4 favorite movies of all time...so I didn't particularly mind knowing what was gonna happen.

Might have been better if they had changed it up enough so that it wouldn't be COMPLETELY obvious that they lifted the story directly. But hey...it's a good story! :D
 
Re: Avatar

NIUPonyBoy said:
Has anyone seen it yet?

Any good? Worth seeing? Great? Crap? Just M'eh?

I want to see it, but some of it just plain and simple look stupid while other parts look like it might be a good diversion flick.

General feelings on it by those who have seen it?

Thanks!!!
Click to expand...

Uh... there's a whole thread here. Read through it! You'll find all kinds of opinions on it. :cool:
 
Re: Avatar

NIUPonyBoy said:
Has anyone seen it yet?

Any good? Worth seeing? Great? Crap? Just M'eh?

I want to see it, but some of it just plain and simple look stupid while other parts look like it might be a good diversion flick.

General feelings on it by those who have seen it?

Thanks!!!
Click to expand...

Look at the top of this page... See the results of the poll? That should tell you what we all think! ;)
 
Box Office Mojo is reporting that Avatar broke the Christmas Eve gross record with over $11 million. It's consistently been getting over $16 million a day all week. The film is almost at $400 million worldwide, and will probably be there after tonight. :) So much for failure...
 
T'Baio said:
Box Office Mojo is reporting that Avatar broke the Christmas Eve gross record with over $11 million. It's consistently been getting over $16 million a day all week. The film is almost at $400 million worldwide, and will probably be there after tonight. :) So much for failure...
Click to expand...

It's not going to be a financial or a technical failure but as far as dumb, popcorn flicks, it's the same as Transformers.
 
And the Na'vi lived happily ever after with the dozens of dead humans, billions of dollars in destroyed and abandoned equipment, and trillions of dollars worth of ore no longer being any concern to the RDA corporation...
 
Ryan said:
And the Na'vi lived happily ever after with the dozens of dead humans, billions of dollars in destroyed and abandoned equipment, and trillions of dollars worth of ore no longer being any concern to the RDA corporation...
Click to expand...

Which is as it should be.

Brit
 
Just saw it and i liked it.

The obvious is that the CGI is fantastic and the images are gorgeous.. you truly believe this to be an alien world and the Na'Vi live in it.

That said the story is like i thought it would be.. cookie cutter with little if any surprises. I've seen this story better acted and displayed with Dances with Wolves (as it's the current best example) but to be honest it doesn't take away from the movie itself.

We all knew that this movie wouldn't get an Oscar for Best Performance, Directing or Best Movie but then it took me on a ride for over 2 hours and made me believe i was seeing an alien world.

The days of cardboard walls, fake styrofoam rocks and painted backgrounds are truly gone replaced by our own ability to imagine and Avatar showed what people can come up with.

It's not intellectual but it was very entertaining and that's all i asked for.
 
Ryan said:
And the Na'vi lived happily ever after with the dozens of dead humans, billions of dollars in destroyed and abandoned equipment, and trillions of dollars worth of ore no longer being any concern to the RDA corporation...
Click to expand...

Ah... but you forget... now the sentient planet has the accumulated knowledge of a 22nd century united states marine... and the accumulated knowledge of a 22nd century scientist or scientist's if the others move their consciousness over as well... I highly doubt that stagnet world is stagnet no longer...

plus now because of the lawsuit, the na'vi now own the corporation over the loss of their home tree...
 
Thespeckledtree said:
It's not going to be a financial or a technical failure but as far as dumb, popcorn flicks, it's the same as Transformers.
Click to expand...
Eh, I beg to differ. Transformers is an abysmally paced movie and the action sequences are hard to follow, also the comic relief is terrible. Avatar has excellent pacing, entertaining action sequences, and can also be funny. This is very much the sort of entertaining spectacle a Transformers picture ought to have been, IMHO.

Ryan said:
And the Na'vi lived happily ever after with the dozens of dead humans, billions of dollars in destroyed and abandoned equipment, and trillions of dollars worth of ore no longer being any concern to the RDA corporation...
Click to expand...
James Cameron has said he may do a sequel (specifically: he has an idea for one), depending on how this one goes. It seems this one has gone pretty well. I'm sure whether or not Earth wants to have another go at that ore is something that will be explained in that picture.
 
^ If Cameron puts any thought into the possible sequel, the Na'Vi will have to confront the flipside to the knowledge they gained from the humans: The inherent human flaws from the humans, as well. If so, I'd have hope for a more nuanced and meaningful overall story.
 
Seen it, thought the movie is fantastic :techman:. I have not seen dances with Wolves, so the story was fresh and entertaining to me. And the visuals...wow :eek: !!

On the other hand, one of my friends that also saw the movie with me was less than impressed, and even said that they felt that the CGi in the children's movie Bolt looked more realistic than what was in Avatar :wtf:
 
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