But? The first thing is proof of the second thing.
Is this safe space where I can confess that until last weekend I thought this Avatar movie was the Last Airbender project?
As a director, I agree he’s been more hit than miss: both Terminators, Aliens, even The Abyss are among my favorite scifi films. [Hell, I’ll even let True Lies slip into the party as long as everyone pretends not to notice.] But as a writer? Umm…I’m pretty sure he uses a spellchecker?
I really like True Lies. There’s not enough big dumb spy movies, True Lies is probably the best of that genre… not that I could name any other entries off the top of my head.
The bottom line for me as far as Avatar is concerned is that I have absolute trust in James Cameron as a filmmaker. I will go into Avatar feeling that I’m in good, trustworthy hands. That doesn’t happen very often, but it’s a pleasure when I can go into a movie and KNOW it wont be a complete abortion.
For me, yes, if there are actually humans in the film for me to juxtapose against the CGI characters. Gollum has come the closest for me I guess, but even that could be a little weird. These CGI characters still have movement and expressions that feel really off to me.
For me it’s the opposite, I think he’s a shitty writer and a solid action director, but his track record falls far short of blowing me away. This trailer also failed to blow me away while leaving me with the feeling that he’s making an overpriced cheesy sci-fi/fantasy movie. I’ll still check it out but I’ll be curious to scan some reviews from critics and people here.
Well I thought Gollum was kinda a failure alot of the time though. Specifically I remember audiences laughing in scenes where the tone was obviously supposed to be very serious. Gollum was supposed to be a dramatic character, but the cartoon voice Andy Sirkus gave him made him play funnier than he should have or does in the books atleast. I think Gollums animation was too exagerrated as well. The moments in the Avatar trailer where you see the Navi’s smiling or angry or crying are much more subtle, in terms of animation. There’s no doubt about the Navi’s expressions, whereas in LOTR Gollum’s face was often some awkard combination of smiling and breathing or something.
I still think the Avatar CGI is VERY impressive. It only takes one tiny thing being off for a person to recognize it’s CG and in most of the shots in the trailer everything is CG. There’s no jungle. There are no characters. It’s all incredibly intricate for an artificial image, but the chances of it being flawless enough to fool a human whose primary function is to interpret the world through their senses is EXTREMELY low.
Maybe we should take into account we are seeing a 2D trailer for a movie intended to be seen in 3D.
Really? Titanic is worse than Piranha II: The Spawning? Are we really this far gone now?
Fine, second-worst.
Although they may be using the Pixar/Disney stamp on John Carter, the animation is being done overseas, in London-- which may be a good thing, unless you like your critters settling into sharp poses with excessive pelvis bop. ILM had feverishly been ramping up into preprod, just to have it snatched away at the last second by the 40% tax breaks you get in the UK.
Not to say it won’t look great, but it’s a sad statement for calfiornia that it can’t retain, not only shooting on location, but the post prod market as well.
But he wrote both of the Terminators, Aliens, the Abyss and True Lies. How they be among your favorite scifi movies and you don’t like the writer?
Also, didn’t James Cameron call one of these ten-foot-tall aliens hot at E3?
Easy: his skill as a director compensates for his weakness as a writer. His plots are spartan (which is not a bad thing per se, but they don’t impress me with their cleverness either) and his dialogue is not great, but he usually works with a great cast (though maybe his casting directors deserve credit for that) and he knows how to keep things running. IMHO, Titanic was too self-indulgent and exposed his weaknesses as a writer AND a director and was his worst film (that I’ve seen), but it was also obviously his biggest commercial success, so what the hell do I know?
Pocahontas
in space
with furries
Furry Uprising. Not sure I’m interested in this movie…
Yeah… I’m going to have to agree with you.
I’m gonna wait for the 3d.
First glance makes me think what’s the point of just watching a videogame when I could be playing it?
But 3d could change that. One thing that occurs to me, District 9 has made such a strong impression on people, visually, that this could be exactly the wrong time for any fantasy/sci-fi to show up. It reminds me of the ET/The Thing fiasco. ET ruined audiences for The Thing. District 9 could have put people in ‘realism’ mode for now, while Avatar looks to be more like Star Wars type light fantasy.
Uh, the aliens don’t have fur.
Also, despite the alien design differences, this is an expensive, 3D and slightly more fantastical Americanized version of District 9.
Yeeesh, so much for Tom’s hope that this makes more money than Transformers 2. Cameron’s made a fool of you, Tom.
Not only has District 9 beaten it out on the human/alien thing - but Surrogates is beating it out on the remote presence idea. Ouch.