• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

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
In other news... Yesterday Avatar officially passed Titanic as the #1 domestic grosser - $601,141,551 and counting... (after $2,688,514 on Tuesday) And it still is making $30m+ weekends at #1!

Avatar already has the Overseas and Worldwide record.
 
Hyperspace05 said:
In other news... Yesterday Avatar officially passed Titanic as the #1 domestic grosser - $601,141,551 and counting... (after $2,688,514 on Tuesday) And it still is making $30m+ weekends at #1!

Avatar already has the Overseas and Worldwide record.
Click to expand...

:techman:

"I have no idea where we go from here," Fox domestic distribution president Bruce Snyder said. "The only picture that has gotten this high was "Titanic,' but 'Avatar' is coming off of a $30 million weekend while 'Titanic' was ending its theatrical run at the same point in the cume."
Click to expand...

T'Baio said:
So their pushing back Clash Of The Titans a week so they have time to 3D it. The studio is trying to convince Michael Bay to make Transformers 3-D (what a nightmare that would be). Len Wiseman is making another Underworld...in 3D. The last two Harry Potters are gonna' be in 3D.

And they laughed at Cameron when he said Avatar would be a game changer.

Who's laughing now?
Click to expand...

The way the studios will "convince" directors to go 3D is simple: you get "X" budget for a 3D picture, and either "X-minus-a-lot" for 2D or not greenlighted at all.

The studios want to get out of the business of distributing films on celluloid. The success of Avatar in Digital 3D is the turning point for them (as Fox executives were fully aware and planned for when investing 300 million dollars in it). Their message to exhibitors is "go digital or go out of business."
 
Last edited:
Biden only watched it in 2D. I wonder if Obama or the Secret Service kept him from watching it in 3-D because they were afraid he'd keep slinging his Coke and popcorn all over everyone around him everytime something lept out of the screen?
 
Kegg said:
Horner's done worse ("Troy") and I liked the touch of people singing in Na'vi, so I actually rather liked his score for this film; though if Avatar is the next Star Wars he didn't exactly drown us in memorable leitmotifs like John Williams did.
Click to expand...
I agree about Troy -- it was utterly forgettable and mostly boring. And while Avatar isn't exactly the best Horner has created, and while it does riff (very obviously) from his prior work, it is an immensely "listenable" score. I bought it the day I saw the film and have been listening to it consistently since then.

In a sense, the soundtrack is a bit like the film -- Quite enjoyable with some fantastic flourishes, but far too reliant on previous material to be truly innovative.
 
Horner's score reminded me of his past, better works (the one for Enemy at the Gates, also a better "war film," was much more intense) but also of Hans Zimmer's underwhelming scores for the Pirates sequels.
 
Samuel Walters said:
In a sense, the soundtrack is a bit like the film -- Quite enjoyable with some fantastic flourishes, but far too reliant on previous material to be truly innovative.
Click to expand...

Really? I thought the middle "Na'vi tracks" to be quite innovative (tracks 3-7) for Horner, and IMO the best part of the released soundtrack. Track 6 has a few things reminiscent of previous efforts, but otherwise I think that whole section is pretty original. But maybe I am looking at it too much from a per-track point of view.
 
Avatar past Titanic(domestic) today, it's all gravy from here on out for this flick.
How high can this thing go, maybe $700 million and 2.3 billion worldwide when it gets through the second run theater's.
 
It'll be interesting to see how it does on Blu-ray and DVD if it's not released in 3D (Murdoch indicated that it might not be, because the "technology's not ready").

The studio exec says they're now in unknown territory where the box office is concerned, since Titanic was (obviously) near the end of its run when it got up this high but Avatar is still pulling down thirty million dollar weekends.
 
Oh it will be released in 3D - but not until the format is ready for mass consumption, and when 3D players and 3D televisions/players are ready. It will be either near Xmas in 2010 or sometime in 2011.
 
It seems obvious that they'll run this thing in theatres as long as it people continue to see it. I wouldn't be surprised if the June street date for the Blu-Ray/DVD is pushed back if audience numbers continue to hold.

It's probably best just to release it in 2D, if the only 3D technology for home video is still the awful red/blue process. I recently saw Coraline in this format on DVD, and quickly chose to watch the 2D version.
 
T'Baio said:
So their pushing back Clash Of The Titans a week so they have time to 3D it. The studio is trying to convince Michael Bay to make Transformers 3-D (what a nightmare that would be). Len Wiseman is making another Underworld...in 3D. The last two Harry Potters are gonna' be in 3D.

And they laughed at Cameron when he said Avatar would be a game changer.

Who's laughing now?
Click to expand...
That's just Hollywood being its usual derivative self. How many films did bullet time and wire work after The Matrix? How many are doing it now?

3D isn't going to last, not as a mainstay for big releases.
 
Ryan said:
T'Baio said:
So their pushing back Clash Of The Titans a week so they have time to 3D it. The studio is trying to convince Michael Bay to make Transformers 3-D (what a nightmare that would be). Len Wiseman is making another Underworld...in 3D. The last two Harry Potters are gonna' be in 3D.

And they laughed at Cameron when he said Avatar would be a game changer.

Who's laughing now?
Click to expand...
That's just Hollywood being its usual derivative self. How many films did bullet time and wire work after The Matrix? How many are doing it now?

3D isn't going to last, not as a mainstay for big releases.
Click to expand...

It is easy to dismiss - But Hollywood has been looking for something for a while so separate itself from home viewing, and this may be it. (of course, with home 3D around the corner, it won't be separate for long, but theaters can hardly fall behind)

But many things have been accused of being gimmicks, and are now being taken for granted:
- Sound
- Color (it took a long time, 30 years)
- Cinemascope (surely only some epics would be presented in widescreen, they thought)
- And more...
Will 3D be one of those, something that truly brought the medium forward, or a true gimmick? I think it is far to early to say.
 
I just hope it continues drawing in the worldwide box office that would otherwise go to native films in each of those countries. Screw the natives. Hollywood uber alles!
 
Ryan said:
That's just Hollywood being its usual derivative self. How many films did bullet time and wire work after The Matrix? How many are doing it now?

3D isn't going to last, not as a mainstay for big releases.
Click to expand...

Thing is, plenty of tv and movies had been doing frozen time stuff BEFORE it showed in MATRIX as bullettime. In fact, Berman shot down a frozen time look for INSURRECTION on the basis that it was already played out by 1998 ... MATRIX came out, what, 4 months later?

You can reinnovate on a technique to keep it fresh, assuming there is imagination as well as dollars to do it. Considering that there are competing 3D in-theater systems, it might be more a matter of which happens to be deployed in the most profitable cinemas that dictates how the process will evolve. It might be a VHS beats beta situation, rather than a 'quality uber alles' outcome.

EDIT ADDON: I didn't see the 'hollywood uber alles' above my post till just now. Sorry, must have been REPO MAN's lattice of coincidence at work.
 
Last edited:
Dennis said:
Ryan said:
3D isn't going to last, not as a mainstay for big releases.
Click to expand...

Wrong, this time.

The one thing that will impact Avatar's box office shortly will be the release of Alice In Wonderland in 3D - Cameron's movie will be ceding quite a few 3D theaters to it.
Click to expand...

It'll be interesting to see how audiences respond to Alice, which was shot in 2D and only converted into 3D after the fact, as opposed to Avatar, which was shot in 3D.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top