y'all just keep adding fuel to my avatar fire
but i wont see it unless its imax 3-d

12/29/2009 12:01:17 AM

After seeing it that way, that's a wise decision

12/29/2009 12:08:04 AM

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html
Article about the differences between the scriptment and the actual movie (I have the scriptment if anyone wants to read the entire thing). If the scriptment had been made into the movie I don't think anyone would have an issue with Avatar (it certainly clears up every issue I've heard anyone have with it), but then it would have been a 5 hour+ long movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61kMpOgkZRs#t=04m29s
Some behind the scenes stuff showing several scenes being filmed from the scriptment that weren't in the cinematic cut.

Also listened to a podcast of some visual effects guys that were shocked to see the movie since there was a ton of stuff they worked on in post-production that didn't make the cinematic cut.

So it sounds like the extended edition/director's cut of the movie is going to change it quite a bit (especially if a certain Na'vi raiding Hell's Gate to rescue Neytiri scene is added back in).

WTB director's cut on bluray already.

12/29/2009 1:44:44 AM

Quote :

"Unobtainium is a humorous name for any extremely rare, costly, or physically impossible material needed to fulfill a given design for a given application. The properties of any particular unobtainium depend on the intended use. For example, a pulley made of unobtainium might be massless and frictionless. However, if used in a nuclear rocket, unobtainium would be light, strong at high temperatures, and resistant to radiation damage."

Source

12/29/2009 1:49:56 AM

Quote :

"I mean the 3d was crazy! Whoever said it felt like you could just peak around the corner of the screen and see more of the world was right."

that was me

12/29/2009 2:26:41 AM

^he even tried, I SAW IT!

12/29/2009 2:35:45 AM

It was real i tell you!

12/29/2009 2:42:51 AM

http://blog.vfxshow.com/?p=341
link to the visual effects podcast with the comment about how much was cut. Highly technical, really interesting, but some of it was over my head.

12/29/2009 3:06:26 AM

after seeing it at both a regular 3d and IMAX 3d, IMAX 3d BY FAR is the way to go.

12/29/2009 11:18:16 AM

Quote :

"no, they weren't. The actors playing the navi acted out their scenes, and their faces were filmed separately as well to get high detail on the actors facial expressions and emotions during filming. They were painted over but they were not 100% CGI."

Ah. I was unaligned with your definition of what "CGI" actually meant. In that case, yeah, you're right.

12/29/2009 12:19:15 PM

I wonder if anyone bothered explaining our situation to the Navi. There is metal on their planet that we need to survive (an exaggeration, I admit), certainly a way can be found for us to get it without the Navi trying to kill us for doing so. Just because there is nothing they want from us goods-wise does not mean they cannot be reasonable. (which I don't buy: if they are sorry for the need to kill animals for food, we can technologically provide them with food that you don't need to say sorry for killing (chickens or maybe cabbages).

Yes, the company went about this all wrong, the tree was clearly their private property and blowing it up was criminal, not to mention the lives lost when it fell. But the Navi were shooting at the sky people long before this atrocity. They were already shooting humans lost in the woods on sight, not very diplomatic. Given this, I suspect both sides of the equation had bodies piling up.

If it is the case that the only (or the best) deposit is under the big tree, then maybe shaft mining would be a better alternative. But tunnel mining would be impossible with the Navi shooting at you. As such, I blame the Navi for some of what went wrong in the situation. The sky people exist and have needs too, needs that can best be met by that rock. To say "you must leave and never return", in effect pretending the sky people didn't exist, is no better than pretending the Navi didn't exist and bulldozing the land. It is just another situation of different peoples meeting and failing to communicate. Yes, the company manager didn't understand the Navi and didn't put forth enough effort to do so (although it must be recognized that at least some of his people were trying), but neither did the Navi understand the sky people, and didn't put forth any visible effort to do so beyond learning English for the audience. If either side had been enlightened, the whole war could have been avoided.

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 10:45 PM. Reason : .,.]

12/29/2009 10:43:48 PM

^ It's the navi's planet.

If their deity/precious resources is the flora on the planet (which apparently is like one giant brain/consciousness), then it's their right to tell outsiders that they can't destroy those plants. I highly doubt, based on the movie, there is anything that could be traded for the right to destroy their deity.

[Edited on December 29, 2009 at 10:49 PM. Reason : ]

12/29/2009 10:48:51 PM

Dad, my brother and I all went to see the movie. We all thought it was great. Enjoyed the story, the visual, the plot, the acting, and the movie.


III

12/29/2009 11:49:09 PM

just think according to the movie the major cost is in the mining! which is why cheap cheap strip mining was used instead of 100% subterranean mining, b/c those costs would have been 'just too much' you know this would make some level of sense, if you know, THEY ALREADY DIDN'T HAVE TO TO INTO FUCKING SPACE TO GET IT

good movie in 3d, they didn't use the 3d as much as they could have but they used it pretty well, more 'into' the screen than 'out' of the screen i thought

12/30/2009 1:02:50 AM

^^^^In the scriptment there was no unobtanium under Hometree.

12/30/2009 1:44:46 AM

^5 I dont think the na'vi are blameless in this situation, They aren't completely innocent like most assume. However, they are under no obligation to learn anything about the humans. IMO it's not really a movie about good and evil, it's a war movie with 2 sides, both have valid reasons for fighting, but one side is more sympathetic than the other.

^ True, but the original scriptment is irrelevant at this point.

[Edited on December 30, 2009 at 1:55 AM. Reason : ]

12/30/2009 1:53:13 AM

anyone get stuck sitting on the first couple of rows in the IMAX showing? i saw it tonight... i'm in the middle of a multi day trip out of town so I bought tickets last night online for tonight's show. i get there 15 minutes early with my prebought tickets and find out that I still need to have the movie theater print out my tickets, and of course the line is about 50 people deep. this is in addition to a line that must have formed an hour early to get IN to the movie. i couldn't believe it. this was on a tuesday night almost two weeks since this thing came out and it's like opening night for Star Wars.

so naturally i'm stuck in the corner on the 2nd row. the 3D was ok i guess but nowhere near the experience i'm reading about from others. the far side of the screen was blurred most of the time. anything fast motion parts were almost unwatchable. i can't believe i paid 30 bucks for my wife and i and we couldn't even get the full effect. i'd want to try again except no way i'm going to shell out that much again for just an "ok" movie. how do they even allow those seats in an IMAX theater?

12/30/2009 3:18:24 AM

saw it in regular 3d and loved it. may have to go out and see it in imax 3d sometime, if i can afford it.

definitely some interesting parallels to the Alien/s movies.... I didn't remember Cameron did Aliens until I got back from the showing and checked imdb.

12/30/2009 7:39:40 AM

Quote :

". the 3D was ok i guess but nowhere near the experience i'm reading about from others. the far side of the screen was blurred most of the time. anything fast motion parts were almost unwatchable."

I was about 3 rows from the back, and on many scenes, the background elements had a very subtle shadow.

I think the issue was that the polarization was not perfect, and there was some bleed-through.

It’s one of the drawbacks I guess from using the passive polarized glasses vs those active LCD shutter things they used to use (or maybe still do in certain places?).

12/30/2009 9:57:53 AM

^Linear versus circular polarization.

Quote :

"good movie in 3d, they didn't use the 3d as much as they could have but they used it pretty well, more 'into' the screen than 'out' of the screen i thought"

Also depends if you saw it in IMAX 3d or reald. One has more an "into" feel while the other has more of an "out" feel.

http://3dvision-blog.com/what-to-choose-imax-3d-versus-reald-versus-dolby-3d-for-3d-movies/

12/30/2009 11:52:17 AM

Quote :

"It's the navi's planet. If their deity/precious resources is the flora on the planet (which apparently is like one giant brain/consciousness), then it's their right to tell outsiders that they can't destroy those plants. I highly doubt, based on the movie, there is anything that could be traded for the right to destroy their deity."

There should be an expectation of charity among sentient creatures. If it is true that there can never be anything the Navi want from the sky people, that should only be the beginning of the discussion. If the Navi arrived on planet Earth with nothing to offer in exchange for land or food, land and food should still be made available to them (although I realize it will probably be land we don't want and just barely enough food for survival, see District 9). Charity is sometimes necessary for co-existence. As such, when the reverse is true and it is the sky-people from Earth that need the charity from the Navi, in the form of sacrificing some small area of their planetary consciousness (land), enough to get subterranean mining going. Let them bless and thank the creatures/plants for their sacrifice in the name of our need just as the are sacrificed to the needs of the Navi. I realize it would substantially increase the costs of mining, but only then could both people coexist, as opposed to what did and will happen: many sky people die, no mineral is returned to Earth for many years, and the Navi find themselves and much of their consciousness ripped from the planet by mass-drivers from orbit. Flying dragons cannot defend against fireballs from space. Truly depressing this is how it turned out. But thankfully, this is a work of fiction, and I strongly suspect any real Navi species would have counterparts similar to Weaver's character, desperately eager to understand the ways of the sky people and trying to explain our situation to their leaders (and working with Weaver to explain theirs to ours). While it would probably still lead to war, it would be less likely than the no-win situation we saw in the movie.

12/30/2009 12:25:25 PM

there was a very good pop out effect in the 3d ad they ran after the somewhat fuzzy "put on your 3d glasses" frame

12/30/2009 1:28:07 PM

^^ if you were writing the story, it could have played out that way.

But apparently the humans set down and started digging, and when the navi tried to stop them somehow, they gunned them down and a “battle" ensued.

And i would guess that digging tunnels under a tree that big, with live, active roots, in order to get to a mineral wouldn’t be a good idea. I don’t see the navi ever letting them dig under their home.

12/30/2009 1:32:02 PM

some people are giving the humans in this story more moral credit than they deserve. the movie i saw had the humans in charge make no effort towards diplomacy.

12/31/2009 6:19:47 PM

they were obviously analogues for the bush administration which is when this movie was being written and filmed

12/31/2009 7:25:54 PM

saw it last night in 2d (3d is too distracting for me to attempt to see the 3d that I wouldn't focus on the movie)

AWESOME!

the only thing bad about the movie is what Cameron said:

Quote :

"[There will be] possible sequels if it does well."

That's the quickest way to ruin an awesome standalone movie.

12/31/2009 7:55:12 PM

Star wars, Indiana jones, lotr, etc disagree

12/31/2009 8:57:53 PM

LoTR wasn't a off the cuff production.

12/31/2009 9:30:28 PM

i cant imagine how this can be awsome in 2d
can someone explain

1/1/2010 4:04:19 AM

yeah i judge everyone that sees it in 2d in the theater i work at.

It took the man 10+ years after titanic for a reason.

1/1/2010 6:43:53 AM

Quote :

"[There will be] possible sequels if it does well."

They can title it Empire Strikes Back. Screw Avatars, "Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Just kidding, I'm sure everyone is going to run off to the press.

1/1/2010 11:31:51 AM

Quote :

"some people are giving the humans in this story more moral credit than they deserve. the movie i saw had the humans in charge make no effort towards diplomacy."

What do you think the Avatar program was for?

Diplomacy wasn't working (because the Na'vi didn't want anything) so they eventually resorted to force. Quaritch didn't mind obviously, but you could tell Parker didn't want to attack them if he didn't have to.

1/1/2010 1:02:09 PM

Just saw this tonight. Loved the visuals, hated most of the characters. The colonel and corporate guy were just dumb blowhards. And they beat you over the head with the political message. I didn't like Jake either. His whole brash, free spirit thing was very cookie-cutter.

Did I miss something about the mineral they wanted? My understanding was that they wanted it just because it was very valuable. I don't recall anything about it helping the earth and its people.

I might see again at IMAX, since apparently that's the best way to see it.

1/2/2010 2:00:46 AM

All the articles I've read say XpanD is the way to go but the only theater with that even remotely close to Raleigh is in Goldsboro.

1/2/2010 2:31:45 AM

^^Yes, it was just capitalism. I think you arrived at the conclusion I had from the trailer.

1/2/2010 3:40:15 AM

In the scriptment Earth is an urban wasteland devastated by humans. Global warming is off the charts, there is hardly anywhere that is still green; which is one of the reasons why Jake is like a kid in a candy store out in the jungle on Pandora. The movie even starts out on earth where Jake sees a story about the last wild lion dying and we learn about how shitty Earth is and about Tommy's death (in a car accident and not in a flashback). The unobtanium is used to fuel some thing that is supposed to have some positive impact on the planet. Unobtanium is a superconductor at room temperature (which is what the floating mountains are made up of).

The Avatar program was supposed to be a way of getting the Na'vi to do the mining for them so they didn't have to spend all the money shuttling humans back and forth constantly.

The scriptment really is a much better story with a lot more background, character development, and scientific explanation. I'm sure a lot of it is going to be in the extended edition/director's cut, which is why I don't think it's irrelevant (to whoever said that earlier). And I haven't read the entire scriptment, I've just skimmed it briefly and read articles that refer to it, so if any of my facts about it are off, that's why.

1/2/2010 9:40:37 AM

In human society, the price of something represents how badly the human race wants it. A super-conductor at room temperature would be very valuable to human civilization: generators, motors, transformers, and batteries that are 100% efficient. Not to mention the ability to levitate heavy objects, such as trains, for free. Add on industrial processes and it is not much of a stretch to say we need it. About the same as the Navi need their tree: as other Navi tribes survive elsewhere, so could these Navi. As for what was said in the movie, it was correct: if you ask a coal miner why he is after coal, he doesn't say it is to keep the lights on at the children's hospital, he says it is to make money for him and the shareholders.

^ I got the impression there were lots of wars going on back on Earth. Judging from what you have said, I suspect there was a world war and the Americans won with a full nuclear exchange (How else can one explain there is hardly anywhere that is still green on Earth and only Americans made it to Pandora; Global Warming and human civilization alone cannot explain the loss of greenness).

Getting the Navi to do the mining seems like it would have felt unlikely. There is a reason the Chinese send their own citizens to build the roads and mines in Africa. But it is always good to hope, maybe the Navi would turn out to be fast learners; they did pick up English without trying.

1/2/2010 10:50:00 AM

^You're really reaching. All the (brief) dialogue centered around its value. I'm not buying that the corporate guy had any noble cause behind his mission whatsoever.

1/2/2010 12:35:31 PM

It seems odd that the original scriptment is thrown around a lot on this thread, when the movie that they released is nowhere similar to it. From what has been said, the original scriptment seems as if it would be the story that everyone wanted for the movie with such a painstakingly crafted visual experience. I think they must have canned the original ideas because the fact that Earth is in peril and in need of help means that the audience would have a hard time trying to relate to Jake when our home needs help. It would seem then as if Jake were a traitor to the human race and the Colonel were the noble hero. So it seems that they instead demonized the entire human race, capitalism, made many political jabs, and then were able to make Jake the hero. That's why I don't like the story.

1/2/2010 12:47:58 PM

^ I don’t think they demonized the entire human race at all, or capitalism.

They demonzied certain humans (because there were obviously “good” humans), and the demonized greed, and greed isn’t synonymous with capitalism (although if often seems like it).

You just need to stop being so sensitive...

1/2/2010 1:19:04 PM

This was a very bad movie.

It was visually stunning.

The story was old, played out, un-original, and annoying.

We get it Hollywood. Humans are bad, evil, greedy, hate plants, and will destroy anything they touch.

Mother earth is wonderful, blah blah. This movie was just horrible.

^telling someone to not be so sensitive is pretty funny coming from you. I can't believe you aren't bitching about the stereotypes that were running around in the na'vi.

1/2/2010 4:13:45 PM

^^Everyone on Pandora was there for personal gain, be it profits or for a once in a life science experiment. The hasty measures were taken to push shareholder profit over shareholder sympathy for the Na'vi (I take the shareholders to be "humanity"). Although I'm not sure how news got back to Earth. A select few humans transcend greed and "do the right thing" and to end it all, the protagonist CHOOSES TO LEAVE HIS HUMAN BODY.

1/3/2010 1:16:51 AM

Quote :

"Everyone on Pandora was there for personal gain, be it profits or for a once in a life science experiment."

This is an overly broad definition of “personal gain.” the scientists obviously were looking out for the interests of the planet, which coincided with their personal gain, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Quote :

"The hasty measures were taken to push shareholder profit over shareholder sympathy for the Na'vi (I take the shareholders to be "humanity”)."

And this happens in the real world too. There was a situation nearly identical to the one in Avatar where a gold mining company down in south america wanted to pan for gold near a lake that was sacred to an indigenous people (called the suhura or uhuru or something like that), and they actually used witchcraft to try and get them to leave.

I don’t know why you’d choose to view this as an attack on humanity rather than greed, which we all know exists, and is looked down upon, by practically every society on the planet.

Quote :

"A select few humans transcend greed and "do the right thing" and to end it all, the protagonist CHOOSES TO LEAVE HIS HUMAN BODY."

1 of all the good humans chooses the navi body… what’s the big deal? You realize that this human couldn’t walk in human form, and his wife and love of his life was a navi? You’re telling me you wouldn’t choose the navi body in the same situation?

The movie does however play on the populist idea of corporations being greedy and willing to divest morality in exchange for profits, but as Lokken points out, this is an old idea. Why anyone would be upset but this is beyond me. This though is not an attack on capitalism, because capitalism is also against the idea of moral depravity, and excessive greed, evident in the fact that monopolies are disallowed (and wrong-doing is very frowned upon) by mainstream capitalist theories.

Quote :

"We get it Hollywood. Humans are bad, evil, greedy, hate plants, and will destroy anything they touch. Mother earth is wonderful, blah blah. This movie was just horrible. "

haha you need to lay off the Rush Limbaugh.

[Edited on January 3, 2010 at 1:38 AM. Reason : ]

1/3/2010 1:37:58 AM

Ive never listened to a minute of rush limbaugh, or any talking heads. you see I dont appreciate know it all pricks preaching their political views to me. On the radio, movies, tww, or anything.

That doesn't change the fact that this movie is just regurgitated 'military bad natives good' rawr rawr rawr bullshit that hollywood stuffs in a lot of its products. It's dances with wolves on another planet.

I wouldn't call it upset, just hugely disappointing. It can be quite distracting when you're trying to suspend your disbelief and get engrossed in a movie and they keep taking 'shock and awe' pot shots.

On a more specific note, there was nothing done to really give me any compassion for the na'vi. They weren't particularly bright or competent. After all it took a random human grunt to tame their super red flying fella(omg fly above him guise!) and actually bring them together enough to put up some kind of a fight.

There are a lot of wtf items like this. They are essentially a result of a very poor writing and scripting that focused more on trying to get a message across than tell an interesting and competent story.

I guess looking at this as a technology showcase is the thing to do.

1/3/2010 2:11:29 AM

"The military" wasn't even in the movie. They were all mercenary security employees of RDA.

1/3/2010 2:29:09 AM

I noticed some things that no one has mentioned.

* The dragon riding was taken from Panzer Dragoon

* Most of the animals were just derivatives of earth creatures. Horses, Wildcats, Dandelions, Pterodactyls, Dogs and Monkeys just to name a few.

* The body jacking was taken from Matrix.

* The story was taken from Fern Gully, american Indian, or almost every other time in history when a technologically advanced civilization meets an indigenous people.


The idea that the plants and animals connected and communicated was original though (At least I don't know of any previous works that this was taken from). I thought that was clever the way they mated pony tails to ride horses and dragons.

Overall though, JC took an average story that has been beaten to death and made a great movie. 3d effects are excellent and acting was great. I thought the Indigenous people were believable and it did a great job of submersing you into their world.

Great movie, I would say see it even if you not crazy about the story. I enjoyed the movie even though I didn't think much of the story.

1/3/2010 10:00:24 AM

Quote :

"^You're really reaching. All the (brief) dialogue centered around its value. I'm not buying that the corporate guy had any noble cause behind his mission whatsoever."

And like I said, he would not: the coal miner honestly believes that his purpose in life is to make money for himself and the shareholders. That he also keeps the lights on at the children's hospital is beyond his field of view. However, just as someone bringing room temperature superconductors to Earth will get filthy rich, they will similarly be contributing to keeping the lights on at the children's hospital.

Quote :

"The idea that the plants and animals connected and communicated was original though (At least I don't know of any previous works that this was taken from). I thought that was clever the way they mated pony tails to ride horses and dragons."

I agree. When we as a species get truly awesome genetic engineering, I suspect we are going to do something similar. Silicon has its uses, particularly in its ability to interact with the electromagnetic spectrum, but it sucks as a decision maker. In the future vehicles and the like will likely be engineered biological creatures, able to self-repair, self replicate, and think on their own when left alone, until a human pony-tails in to either train or direct their activities.

While it is possible that the Navi co-evolved with the rest of the planet to be interconnected in this way, although I cannot think of any evolutionary fitness benefits at this time, it is also possible to imagine that the Navi and their planet were self engineered generations ago and then regressed, abandoning all the technology they used to make themselves awesome.

[Edited on January 3, 2010 at 12:39 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/3/2010 12:29:23 PM

Quote :

"I noticed some things that no one has mentioned. * The dragon riding was taken from Panzer Dragoon * Most of the animals were just derivatives of earth creatures. Horses, Wildcats, Dandelions, Pterodactyls, Dogs and Monkeys just to name a few. * The body jacking was taken from Matrix. * The story was taken from Fern Gully, american Indian, or almost every other time in history when a technologically advanced civilization meets an indigenous people."

Most everything has already been done in movies. Thats why you see so many sequels, prequels, spin offs. Also, they always generate more money because of an established fan base. So coming of with a completely original idea is almost impossible. There will always be something similar with anything you can think of.

The animals looking similar to earth animals is simple. If you create a jungle planet similar to earths jungles, you will have animals that adapt to jungle environments. Same shit that keeps animals alive in earth jungles would work in other jungles.

The only way to get completely original animal characteristics is to put them in a completely un-earth like environment. And then you would have to completely make up adaptations because nobody has ever seen anything like it. And it most likely wouldn't feel right or seem genuine.

[Edited on January 3, 2010 at 12:41 PM. Reason : gfh]

1/3/2010 12:40:19 PM

I think the reason they made the animals so similar to earth animals is because it is easier for the audience to relate to. The same probably goes for the blue people as well. If they were really freaky looking we might not care as much about them.

1/3/2010 3:11:21 PM

There was no "body jacking" in the matrix, they just transfered their consciousness to a digital environment. They didn't transfer it into another physical body over long distances.

Are you going to credit Panzer Dragon with coming up with dragon riding?

1/3/2010 6:53:54 PM