Avatar: Hexapedal Lemur - Need I Say More?

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Permalink Reply by Francis L. Camacho on January 4, 2010 at 8:20pm

I totally agree with you Daniel. I went to see it in Imax 3D expecting to be less than enthralled after all the hype but was blown away after I saw it. I was amazed on so many different levels by its entertainment factor, its technical achievements, and its pure artistry.

Cameron never resorts to gimmicky stereoscopic gags like arrows or spears coming at you but rather uses the technology to ground you in the depth of the universe he has created. Especially during the scenes with the wide vistas and seemingly shot from atop high cliffs looking down through trees or when Sully and the Na'vi are ascending the floating rocks.

Since I work in the visual effects industry and had worked on a live-action/CG stereoscopic film I have a deep appreciation for the sheer amount of work that went into it. I know a number of people who worked on it so I had heard the immense scale of it and the incredible attention to detail that was required. The animation did not lose the audience because the level of the performance-capture of the live actors were done at such a high level every little nuance, every facial tic, every catch light in eyes were based so deeply in the real world. Sure, its live-action/CG but even in the total CG scenes, Cameron moves the camera as if it was a live shoot, giving the moves a certain weight to them even in the dynamic moves of the flying shots.

Yes, it is indeed a game changer. It raises the bar for sure to the advantage of audiences everywhere. Cameron has a way of influencing certain trends in moviemaking from Terimnator2 to Titanic; milestones and starting points in their respective times.

There is so much more to say but I'll refrain from rambling on. Go see it in 3D, IMAX 3D if there is one near where you are.

If you want to know more, check out the behind the scenes article in the latest edition of Cinefex. Here is a digital sneak peek of it at the Cinefex website. Click on the Contents tab at the bottom of the page too see pages:
http://www.digital.cinefex.com/nxtbooks/cinefex/120/?ap=1#/0

Permalink Reply by GB Hajim on January 4, 2010 at 8:25pm

It was a technological accomplishment, but I was not that impressed. Remember this film cost 3 times as much as Final Fantasy and I don't have to say how much technology has grown since then to this crowd.

I expected a whole lot more as far as the landscapes - it wasn't much more impressive than the scenery in Disney's Tarzan and it didn't seem that alien.

I hate to be a party crasher, but if someone is going to spend $237 million on making a movie, they are obligated to impress me with every moment. The dialog verged on painfully bad. The characters were probably the first 1 dimensional characters rendered digitally in 3D. I really didn't care about any of them. Cameron really gave me little reason to.

Karen, who doesn't have any experience with VFX work, was first to point out that the live characters were constantly changing in scale relative to the CG characters. I did think that the green screen work was good (much better than LoTR), but again I hope so...LoTR was incredibly expensive at $95m, but a bargain compared to this film.

I loved the bioluminescence and some of the other imagery was indeed beautiful, but these were just window dressing on a story that was a cobbled together narrative of both verb and visual cliches. Princess Mononoke was a much more beautiful film, with great characters and had a much better story.

After all this you might think I hated the experience. I did not. I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the Star Wars prequels and I think they are of the same ilk.

The racism of these films is atrocious. White dude leads native people because the native people are some how too 'wild' to lead themselves (other note: Natives are all played by minority actors). White dude whose name started with 'J' (I have a treatise on that if you are interested) makes decisions that lead to native male leaders being killed off and the one minority 'good' human is killed off too! (Do these guys ever think about this at all? Cameron: "Hmmm. We gotta kill off some people" Jon Landau: "Who we gonna kill?" Cameron: "Let's keep the white ones and kill the one latina chick" Jon Landau: "That sounds good.")

The text comes across as being a pacifist film, but the subtext is all about promoting the idea of a crusade or 'just' war - which I guess is very important to Cameron and Co. since the video game is a first person shooter where you get to kill the wildlife and everything else also that the action figures are sold in "Battle Packs".

My kids even said 'meh' about it, but they enjoy movies and television that have engaging characters who say witty original stuff.

Permalink Reply by Chris Hall on January 4, 2010 at 8:51pm

It seems that the CG tech has finally matured enough to avoid the Uncanny Valley effect, when something is just slightly wrong.. The Navi were humanoid, but not trying to act like or be human, so that helped avoid the effect. I think it was cool how they totally created new creatures from scratch, but with some similarities to existing earth creatures.

Permalink Reply by Pake Salmon on January 4, 2010 at 10:01pm

I totally loved this movie! It is by far the best movie I have ever seen. Not just the new technology etc. but I liked the fact that it was addressing a real important issue. The taking of native resources and destroying creation for money. However, I can see what you are saying about the racism in this film. It is the typical Hollywood distortment of NATIVES/minorities needing the whities to show US the way. But this is how it is in Hollywood's story telling. Sad but true. I did think about all that you stated when I was watching the film but the overall good message, game or not was excellent. Thank you for your discussion and remarks. I tend to look at Hollywood in that same manner too=).

GB Hajim said:

It was a technological accomplishment, but I was not that impressed. Remember this film cost 3 times as much as Final Fantasy and I don't have to say how much technology has grown since then to this crowd.

I expected a whole lot more as far as the landscapes - it wasn't much more impressive than the scenery in Disney's Tarzan and it didn't seem that alien.

I hate to be a party crasher, but if someone is going to spend $237 million on making a movie, they are obligated to impress me with every moment. The dialog verged on painfully bad. The characters were probably the first 1 dimensional characters rendered digitally in 3D. I really didn't care about any of them. Cameron really gave me little reason to.

Karen, who doesn't have any experience with VFX work, was first to point out that the live characters were constantly changing in scale relative to the CG characters. I did think that the green screen work was good (much better than LoTR), but again I hope so...LoTR was incredibly expensive at $95m, but a bargain compared to this film.

I loved the bioluminescence and some of the other imagery was indeed beautiful, but these were just window dressing on a story that was a cobbled together narrative of both verb and visual cliches. Princess Mononoke was a much more beautiful film, with great characters and had a much better story.

After all this you might think I hated the experience. I did not. I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the Star Wars prequels and I think they are of the same ilk.

The racism of these films is atrocious. White dude leads native people because the native people are some how too 'wild' to lead themselves (other note: Natives are all played by minority actors). White dude whose name started with 'J' (I have a treatise on that if you are interested) makes decisions that lead to native male leaders being killed off and the one minority 'good' human is killed off too! (Do these guys ever think about this at all? Cameron: "Hmmm. We gotta kill off some people" Jon Landau: "Who we gonna kill?" Cameron: "Let's keep the white ones and kill the one latina chick" Jon Landau: "That sounds good.")

The text comes across as being a pacifist film, but the subtext is all about promoting the idea of a crusade or 'just' war - which I guess is very important to Cameron and Co. since the video game is a first person shooter where you get to kill the wildlife and everything else also that the action figures are sold in "Battle Packs".

My kids even said 'meh' about it, but they enjoy movies and television that have engaging characters who say witty original stuff.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on January 4, 2010 at 11:00pm

Hey GB - I guess this is where friends just have to agree to disagree :-) I loved Cameron's rainforest. If it was so alien as to not be recognizable as a rainforest, it would be less compelling. The giant terrestrial soft corals that receded on contact were fantastic, as were the bioluminescent plants and the graceful dancing aerial invertebrates.

I realize in many ways Pandora and the Navi are less alien than the Strange Frame universe, but I think thats comparing apples to oranges. Don't you? I don't think they were, for example, looking to do anything as complex as redefining people's perception of gender. Avatar was more about straightforward entertainment - sitting back and taking the ride. The goal was to have a beautiful and entertaining universe. I think they succeeded admirably in both objectives.

I also enjoyed some of the characters such as Neytiri. I'm sure that has nothing to do with Zoe Saldana being a hottie, which was strangely enhanced by stretching her 12 feet tall and making her blue with fairy ears :-) But on a more serious note, I found her to be an interesting character. Clearly they should have worked harder on some of the dialog.

re: Racism
I think if you are looking for it, you can find racism in almost any film. Many of my friends of various colors do the same to directors of various colors. There are certainly racist directors, but I doubt Cameron is attempting to forward a nefarious white supremacist objective :-) I think the "white dude" was good at leading the battle against the enemy because he understood them (being one of them.) Hollywood is a weird beast when it comes to race issues. Its been both an enabler of racism and a leader in civil rights. Its hard to characterize.

re: Comparison to Lucas' dialog in the Star Wars prequels

Common' That's like kicking a man in the family jewels after insulting his grandmother. The dialog could certainly have been better, but nothing compared to, "Your skin is smooth, not rough like sand."

I know its fashionable to pan the mega-budget film, as many SF and NY rags are doing, but I just can't do it. I thought it was a very entertaining ride. Maybe we went in with different expectations. Forget you dislike Cameron, have a couple beers, and try it again :-) <-typed with a friendly smile

Permalink Reply by GB Hajim on January 5, 2010 at 12:23am

No hard feelings.

As far as being as alien as our film...our film has no aliens. It is all earthfolk being their strange selves.

I have no beef with Cameron per se: The Abyss...except for the ending...is one of my favorite films and Dark Angel was one of those TV shows that died too early.

For me? Avatar is not worth re-watching. When you have the kind of access and control Cameron has, there is absolutely no reason for poor dialog, thinly developed story, thinly developed characters. Watch The Incredibles again or better watch an episode of Firefly. Each line bristles with character development, moves the story forward, and of course wit. When I come out of a well written film my kids and I are exchanging our favorite lines because they are great quotes from great characters. We didn't have a single line we liked from that movie. Do you find yourself quoting lines from the movie? Saying "Fly with me brother" because it reminds you of great characters in great moments? Or "The sky people killed their mother, now they wanna do the same here", "This is how it's done. If someone is sitting on top of something you want you make them your enemy and take it", "All energy is only borrowed, it must be given back eventually" Maybe it isn't as bad as The Phantom Menace which I can't remember any lines from, but it, IMHO, isn't a great film or even a very good one.

I guess on some levels it is a case of de gustibus non disputandum est.

But re: Racism
Films that are morality plays (like Avatar, not Fifth Element) have a larger responsibility to not killing off the one latina chick. On top of that, she was the most assertive female character. There was no man she was tied to. Why couldn't have she lived and the lab assistant died? What thematic reason or even narrative reason justifies that? This is just one example. I'm not here to shred the film but you did ask how we felt!

I'm not saying Cameron set out to make a racist and sexist film, but he did. Most of his other films have strong female leads - Ripley (which was really Ridley Scott's doing), Sarah Connor, Max of Dark Angel, etc. Max is important because she is a woman of color. I could go on (I'm a filmmaker. I'm plagued with a deconstructivist eye when it comes to my medium).

I'm not even going to point out all the breast shots he sneaked in there because I have nothing against breasts. ;)

Now "will someone get this walking carpet out of my way?"

Permalink Reply by Gus Higuera on January 5, 2010 at 12:44am

It's always interesting to see how people can view the same thing differently.

P.S. Avatar rocks!

Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on January 5, 2010 at 1:04am

GB: Films that are morality plays (like Avatar, not Fifth Element) have a larger responsibility to not killing off the one latina chick. On top of that, she was the most assertive female character. There was no man she was tied to.

I respectfully disagree. Walking on racial eggshells leads to crappy writing. If the story calls for an evil Eskimo, write about an evil Eskimo. That being said, note that _every_ villain in this film was white, and most of the nobler characters were not. The standout character was really Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and the latina you mentioned, actress Michelle Rodriguez, died a samurai's death. She didn't die because she was unimportant. She died _because_ she was important.

GB: I'm not even going to point out all the breast shots he sneaked in there because I have nothing against breasts. ;)

I'll go further and say I'm a huge fan of breasts :-) I'd rather our films have plenty of healthy, beautiful bare breasted women and less violence. I think children are far more likely to be traumatized by people being brained (which is very common in PG and PG13 movies) than, God forbid, they see a nipple!

Permalink Reply by Kimo Watanabe on January 5, 2010 at 6:56am

Daniel, WHERE can I find this movie about the evil eskimo? I have to see that one! hahahaha too funny.

Hey, I wanted to weigh in on Avatar. My take is that visually it was incredible, and I loved seeing the indigenous people taking it to the colonialists, but in the other areas it was seriously lacking.

The story was nothing new (a bad Dances With Wolves), the dialog was laughable (the part where he comes out to the Navi could've been stolen from the movie She's All That), and additionally the acting wasn't doing it for me.

I think it came down to a few things, and I KNOW that I'm definitely in the minority here with my take on the film, but I wanted to get my take out there. I feel like I don't need heavy handed exposition, the planet's name is Pandora? The stuff the colonialists are after is Unobtainium? Come on, that's just bad.

I have a hard time buying the Marine's transformation from steely cold to warmhearted environmentalist and friend to the Natives. Was he really ever NOT that guy? I also didn't really buy his transformation into the greatest Navi that ever lived. He spent three months in training and now he's the best? Really?! I thought it was fun to see, but I didn't buy it. Also he say's, "Hooah!" at some point which is definitely and Army thing not something a Marine would say.

Additionally I wasn't a huge fan of the chanting and dancing around the tree as well, to me, it felt like it was a bit much.

One last comment/question. I wonder if the director was trying to make any comparison's to the middle east? There were some lines about trying to figure out what these people want, and how maybe at the core, these "people" just don't want the outsider influence, and if the director was making a comparison to what's happening in the middle east, did he get us to boo us/America? I realize that one might be "out there" but it did make me wonder.

Again, I thought that visually, the movie was stunning, but in this case, I didn't feel like they made up for what was otherwise a poorly told story, with bad dialog, and ham fisted exposition. Like I say, I fully realize that most people LOVE this movie, but wanted to get my two cents in anyway.

A hui hou a e malama pono ia kakou!

Kimo

Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on January 5, 2010 at 8:32am

Hey Kimo - I think you are in good company. GB, a film guy, agrees with you.

Daniel, WHERE can I find this movie about the evil eskimo?

I'm working on a script that pits evil Eskimos against an army of transgenic lemur cyborgs lead by
Edward James Olmos. I'll keep you updated.

The story was nothing new (a bad Dances With Wolves)

True, but there are few new things under the sun in terms of story lines, and Dances With Wolves was a bad Dances With Wolves.

the dialog was laughable (the part where he comes out to the Navi could've been stolen from the movie She's All That)

I nearly choked on my coffee when I read this. Touché. There was something She's All That-esque about it.

and additionally the acting wasn't doing it for me

I think it was hit and miss. Saldana (Neytiri) was good, as was Lang (the Colonel.)

I feel like I don't need heavy handed exposition, the planet's name is Pandora? The stuff the colonialists are after is Unobtainium?

I wrote off Pandora as a random name the colonialists made up for the planet. Its happened many times before - Where did the names Japan and Madagascar come from? Drunk white folks :-) They don't sound anything like the Japanese or Malagasy words for their own country. On the name unobtainium, we agree. It was comically stupid.

Permalink Reply by Nate Sanders on January 5, 2010 at 8:49am

I still haven't seen Avatar, so I can't weigh in, but I recently saw this, which should shed some light on things.....

:)

Permalink Reply by GB Hajim on January 5, 2010 at 9:20am

Precious find! I did something like this on another blog, but not nearly as witty! Mahalo!

Nate Sanders said:

I still haven't seen Avatar, so I can't weigh in, but I recently saw this, which should shed some light on things.....

:)

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