Quote :

"Lucas used hundreds of alien races. Cameron created one."

cameron had a dedicated grass scientist for every blade of grass in the film

12/2/2009 2:47:59 PM

The article is a good read.

I'm very interested in seeing it; but from the previews I don't think the story is going to be able to compete with star wars.

12/2/2009 2:52:44 PM

What?

12/2/2009 2:54:27 PM

thats cool and all, but the goal is immersion. Even if the world is super realistic, it wont matter if the story is out of place. If they are going for the killing people for oil/land/resources allegory, then it needs to be realistic. It would be absolutely fantastic if the invading humans completely wipe out the native population after we spend the first half of the movie learning about them and their culture.

If they pull some cop-out low-tech-wins-the-day bullshit it would completely devistate any semblance of realism created by the detailed environments.

12/2/2009 2:55:57 PM

its not an issue of low-tech vs. high tech, its tech vs. nature, vehicles vs. creatures that sort of thing

they have mobility, agility, maneuverability, and lots of other ilitys on their side but then so do the humans

what we have to be worried about is another ewok situation where they dont even seem CAPABLE of doing the job and somehow pull it off

12/2/2009 3:03:40 PM

The more I read and see about the film the more I wish something like this could be made in the Starcraft universe

12/2/2009 3:05:23 PM

If you try to look at the ewoks as a realistic fight is just doesnt make any sense. That was fantasy. If cameron is going for the same thing i guess good for him, but its not exactly ground breaking.

A pretty well done example of low tech vs high tech was the last samurai. At the end they use the terrain features + the arrogance of the high tech folks to do a bit of damage, but in the end they just whip out the gattling guns and hose everyone down.

12/2/2009 3:08:01 PM

Quote :

"He started by hiring USC linguistic expert Paul Frommer to invent an entirely new language for the Na’vi, the blue-skinned natives of Pandora. Frommer came on board in August 2005 and began by asking Cameron what he wanted the language to sound like? Did he want clicks and guttural sounds or something involving varying tones? To narrow the options, Frommer turned on a microphone and recorded a handful of samples for Cameron. The director liked ejective consonants, a popping utterance that vaguely resembles choking. Frommer locked down a “sound palette” and started developing the language’s basic grammatical structure. Cameron had opinions on whether the modifier in a compound word should come first or last (first) and helped establish a rule regarding the nature of nouns. It took months to create the grammar alone. “He’s a very intense guy,” Frommer says. “He didn’t just tell me to build a language from scratch. He actually wanted to discuss points of grammar.” Thirteen months after he began work on Avatar, Frommer wrote a pamphlet titled Speak Na’vi and started teaching the actors how to pronounce the language. He held Na’vi boot camps and then went over lines one by one with each actor. “Cameron wanted them to be emotional, but they had to do it in a language that never existed,” Frommer says. If an actor flubbed a Na’vi word, Frommer would often step in with a correction. “There were times when the actors didn’t want me to tell them that they had mispronounced a word that had never been pronounced before,” he says. With the language established, Cameron set about naming everything on his alien planet. Every animal and plant received Na’vi, Latin, and common names. As if that weren’t enough, Cameron hired Jodie Holt, chair of UC Riverside’s botany and plant sciences department, to write detailed scientific descriptions of dozens of plants he had created. She spent five weeks explaining how the flora of Pandora could glow with bioluminescence and have magnetic properties. When she was done, Cameron helped arrange the entries into a formal taxonomy. This was work that would never appear onscreen, but Cameron loved it. He brought in more people, hiring an expert in astrophysics, a music professor, and an archaeologist. They calculated Pandora’s atmospheric density and established a tripartite scale structure for the alien music. When one of the experts brought in the Star Wars Encyclopedia, Cameron glanced at it and said, “We’ll do better.”"

Jesus christ

12/2/2009 3:28:04 PM

Unless they plan on talking about plants for half the movie I could care less.


Nope, edit, I still wouldn't care.

[Edited on December 2, 2009 at 3:50 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/2/2009 3:49:41 PM

I'm not sure why the Mechs mimic human motions so Mechs can do Kung Fu. They have fucking guns don't they. Shit if its so far into the future they might even have a Farsight by then

12/2/2009 4:03:17 PM

do yall think its worth going to IMAX over a regular theater for this?

12/2/2009 4:08:04 PM

hell yea. But you gotta get there early cause theres nothing worse than bad seats in an imax

12/2/2009 4:43:45 PM

this will be my first 3D movie at IMAX

12/2/2009 4:51:13 PM

^6 Yeah that's like some Tolkien shit right there

Although since he hired people to do it instead of doing it himself it's not quite so OCD as Tolkien

[Edited on December 2, 2009 at 4:52 PM. Reason : 6]

12/2/2009 4:51:54 PM

from imax website

Quote :

"Are some seats better than others? No. The theatre features steeply-tiered seating decks so that every person's view of the screen is unobstructed."

12/2/2009 5:45:48 PM

unobstructed? yes. neck-brace inducing pain free? not all of them.

12/2/2009 5:48:10 PM

yeah thats what i figured, if i remember correctly the seats form a semi-circle so you dont wanna sit towards the edges

i'll be there 30-45 minutes early

12/2/2009 5:50:40 PM

im not interested in seeing any more movies in IMax after Spiderman, i couldnt even make out the action on the screen half of the time

12/2/2009 5:53:08 PM

I like his playboy interview the best.

Quote :

"PLAYBOY: Does this prejudgment remind you of 1997, when people predicted big failure for Titanic because it took so long to make, busted its budget and had no big stars? CAMERON: They know Avatar is expensive, but that story hasn’t gathered any traction because—what the fuck?—I always make expensive movies, people always like them, and people always want me to do it again."

[Edited on December 2, 2009 at 6:07 PM. Reason : .]

12/2/2009 6:05:15 PM

just got my raleigh imax tickets 10:15 on 12/18!

12/4/2009 4:27:04 PM

^ had him get mine for me. that's how i roll...

12/4/2009 5:34:42 PM

in other news AVATAR was in last weeks new Bones... thought that was interesting..

Going either 12/18 or 12/19.... haven't decided yet.

12/5/2009 7:07:40 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWhPxTgPt0w

12/6/2009 6:18:58 PM

I watched the HBO First Look earlier today. The split screen they showed of the actors and their Na'vi was very cool. I've been lukewarm about Avatar (even though I still wanted and planned on seeing it), but the First Look warmed me.

12/6/2009 6:26:48 PM

the biggest problem with bad seats in imax is audio, not video. If you aren't in the middle you'll end up with audio louder on one side/corner than the other.

12/6/2009 7:11:45 PM

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-11-awards-campaign-2009/posts/golden-globes-ready-to-go-gaga-for-avatar

Quote :

"After a screening yesterday morning, very reliable sources have told Awards Campaign that the HFPA were incredibly positive about Cameron's latest endeavor. In fact, it's now very likely to be nominated in both the Best Picture - Drama and Best Director categories when the Golden Globe nominations are announced next Tuesday. This was almost unthinkable a week ago and may push expected Globe nominees such as "The Hurt Locker" or "An Education" out of the Best Picture - Drama race."

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/12/09/steven-spielberg-gives-james-camerons-avatar-two-thumbs-up/

Quote :

"Sources close to filmmaker Steven Spielberg say he watched the film last Friday on Fox’s studio lot in Los Angeles and loved it. “He flipped for it,” says a person close to the acclaimed director."

12/9/2009 11:40:31 PM

why do films like this even have actors when the whole thing is CGI and filmed in front of a green screen.

12/10/2009 8:10:53 AM

Tolkien did the whole inventing new languages thing 70 years ago (written and pronounced). And he didn't have to hire an outside source as he was one of the finest linguists around for his time. If the nature of the constructed languages for this film amazed you, you should read up on the language construction Tolkien did, blows this away imo.

not knocking the movie at all as I am interested to see it, just responding to something earlier in here.


[Edited on December 10, 2009 at 8:24 AM. Reason : ]

12/10/2009 8:22:06 AM

Quote :

"Sources close to filmmaker Steven Spielberg say he watched the film last Friday on Fox’s studio lot in Los Angeles and loved it. “He flipped for it,” says a person close to the acclaimed director."

A Spielberg endorsement isn't what it used to be.

12/10/2009 8:53:01 AM

^^^^ Hype machine in full force

12/10/2009 9:05:05 AM

Quote :

"Tolkien did the whole inventing new languages thing 70 years ago (written and pronounced). And he didn't have to hire an outside source as he was one of the finest linguists around for his time. If the nature of the constructed languages for this film amazed you, you should read up on the language construction Tolkien did, blows this away imo. "

Of course he didn't need an outside source. Tolkien was a linguist first, and a writer second. LOTR is a great series, and will be mimicked for all eternity, but anyone who has read them will tell you that they aren't the easiest things to read. The story definitely drags at points, particularly during most of The Two Towers.

Cameron is a huge budget film director, and he knows jack about language. I don't think there is anything wrong with him hiring an outside source.

[Edited on December 10, 2009 at 10:28 AM. Reason : ]

12/10/2009 10:27:53 AM

Oh yea, it definitely wasn't wrong for him to hire an outside source, I wasn't saying that. But I just wasn't extremely blown away reading the write-up on the film's linguistics background because I was spoiled having read up on the linguistics behind all the constructed languages in Tolkien's work.

And I enjoy all the books a ton. I can see where some people think The Two Towers dragged (being the middle part and all), but I think it was my favorite of the 3 the first time I read LOTR. Oh well, my fault, I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into a Middle Earth discussion. .

Back to Avatar!

[Edited on December 10, 2009 at 10:46 AM. Reason : ]

12/10/2009 10:43:47 AM

This movie better kick ass.

12/11/2009 3:10:15 AM

9 reviews in so far, 100% RT.

12/11/2009 4:48:58 AM

So Raleigh's IMAX3D theater won't be showing this?

11/11 Fresh on RT now!

12/11/2009 9:14:49 AM

Just a matter of time until some troll makes a negative review for the sake of being contrary.

12/11/2009 10:46:37 AM

Quote :

"So Raleigh's IMAX3D theater won't be showing this?"

Quote :

"just got my raleigh imax tickets 10:15 on 12/18! 12/4/2009 4:27:04 PM"

/head desk

12/11/2009 11:03:48 AM

^^yep 92% now.

^No, I saw that but when I looked online for ticket prices I didn't see any showings. The Avatar site also only listed Concord and Charlotte, so I assumed I had misread it and they had just purchased regular tickets.

12/11/2009 11:44:37 AM

http://www.imaxraleigh.org/nowshowing/?film=AV01

12/11/2009 11:57:10 AM

just watched the avatar trailer in 3d

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg_W9zOOfuw&feature=player_embedded



notebook dividers FTW!

12/11/2009 12:51:24 PM

^ That's some MacGyver shit right there.

12/11/2009 2:21:06 PM

Quote :

"Just a matter of time until some troll makes a negative review for the sake of being contrary."

haha, everyone is commenting on the one bad review, fans are pissed
but i dont like the review, he seems to be wanting to find a reason to give it a negative review

12/11/2009 2:43:22 PM

It's up to 3 negatives, two of which completely pan the film without dedicating a portion of their article to it's good qualities; the work of trolls.

12/11/2009 4:29:33 PM

Good thing I'll be flying and hence miss out on this cinematic adventure.

fml.

12/11/2009 4:37:07 PM

Just spent $105 on 9 tix at IMAX for 12/18 @ 10:15

12/11/2009 4:51:38 PM

we still have to buy special 3-d glasses, right?

12/11/2009 4:52:51 PM

interested in seeing this mostly just to see how horrible michelle rodriguez' acting is

12/11/2009 5:14:30 PM

^^^tdub avatar party!

12/11/2009 5:22:51 PM

90% bitches. where are all the haters?

12/12/2009 8:59:48 PM

Where are yall buyin these tix from? I want to go ahead and buy some for the imax in charlotte, but it says "not available yet". It says the same thing when I check the Raleigh one too.

12/12/2009 10:21:26 PM