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AuthorTopic: Avatar (Read 2,012 times)
kerouac2
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Avatar
« Thread Started on Dec 16, 2009, 11:45pm »		[Quote]
Well, I went to see Avatar today, and I think it is pretty impossible not to say [image]

Even if you have seen the trailer, there is no way to imagine what you are actually going to see during the movie. It makes the special effects and settings of such things as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars look like cheap cardboard cutouts in comparison.

While it did not really move me emotionally, it was still an extremely satisfying and intelligent movie and incredibly appropriate to come out now during the Copenhagen conference and wars continuing in the Middle East -- and James Cameron has had the movie in development for so long that there is no way he could ever have planned such a thing.

There are references to countless other movies in this one -- it could almost be the object of a game.

In any case, the new 3D technique is pretty much reaching perfection now, because in spite of having to wear those glasses for 2h40, they didn't give me a headache for once.
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bixaorellana
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #1 on Dec 17, 2009, 5:16am »		[Quote]
I have been so curious about this movie! It's great to hear from a real human being about the experience of seeing it in the movie theater. What are the glasses like -- surely better than those cardboard things from the 50s?

About the references -- broad, subtle, what? Did it make the movie more fun?

I am absolutely going to see this on the big screen.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #2 on Dec 17, 2009, 5:37am »		[Quote]
The new glasses they use are pretty heavy plastic, polarized and very dark when looking at normal things. "Rental" is an extra 2€ or 3€ in France on top of the normal ticket price.
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bixaorellana
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #3 on Dec 17, 2009, 6:24am »		[Quote]
Really?! Did you take them off during the movie to see how it looked without the glasses?
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #4 on Dec 17, 2009, 6:34am »		[Quote]
Not this time. But I took them off during 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' and 'Up'. You get the usual blur similar to the old days of 3D but not quite as blurred as back then.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #5 on Dec 17, 2009, 9:18am »		[Quote]
I would say that the main achievement in the use of 3D in this film is that it is the first time that it is used other than as a stupid toy just to make things jump in your face. It is like watching a whole new world out of a picture window and plunging into it.

Subtitles are often annoying in 3D movies, but not in this one, as they seem to have finally found a way to incrust them properly. (Even people in English speaking countries will have plenty of subtitles to read, because quite of bit of the dialogue is in 'Pandoran'.)
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deyana
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #6 on Dec 17, 2009, 1:10pm »		[Quote]
I've heard so much about it. I want to see it so bad. I might do today, as I'm in town picking up my son.

I saw the interview with Sigourney Weaver yesterday, one of my favorite actresses. I'll let you know what I think of it later on.
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bixaorellana
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #7 on Dec 17, 2009, 5:22pm »		[Quote]
I had not realized that Up was a 3-D movie. Now I feel cheated!

Wasn't that part of the huge buzz and anticipation, that finally, after bad 3-D or holograms that never delivered on their promise, Cameron had broken completely new ground? I guess the 3-D glasses fit over normal glasses, correct?

I am fascinated by invented languages in books or movies. In the past, linquists have been consulted for movie languages, but Na'vi is a true language! Read this.

Semi-related factoid: One of my all-time favorite movies, Quest for Fire, had a primitive language created by Anthony Burgess, and body language choreographed by Desmond Morris.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #8 on Dec 17, 2009, 6:05pm »		[Quote]
Well, this invented language sounds totally authentic, as it should in the most expensive movie ever made.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #9 on Dec 18, 2009, 7:58am »		[Quote]
I found the New York Times review to be quite accurate.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #10 on Dec 27, 2009, 2:28pm »		[Quote]
Well, saw Avatar yesterday. I liked it, great affects and an undeniable message. Liked the sweet love story too.

I always go for those 'good conquers bad' and 'love wins in the end' kind of stories. :)
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #11 on Dec 27, 2009, 4:00pm »		[Quote]
Well, they are not going to spend $300 million on a depressing movie. :)
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #12 on Jan 15, 2010, 9:33pm »		[Quote]
I look forward to seeing it in 3-D.
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bixaorellana
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #13 on Jan 15, 2010, 11:45pm »		[Quote]
Just a quick semi-threadjack here, if I may. This is good! ("Send in the muscular heroes" ;D) I suggest watching it in full screen.

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Re: Avatar
« Reply #14 on Jan 18, 2010, 11:28pm »		[Quote]
Bixa - I viewed the trailer. I now realise that this film is not for me. I don't think I'd have the patience to watch it for many hours and isn't that Bruce Willis acting in it? Ugh!

Oh well...... that's a disappointment :-/
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #15 on Jan 20, 2010, 9:15pm »		[Quote]
That is not the real trailer, Spindrift. Bruce Willis is not in the film.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #16 on Jan 20, 2010, 9:26pm »		[Quote]
What Kerouac said, Spindrift! ;D That is a extremely well-done spoof about CG simulation.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #17 on Jan 25, 2010, 7:47pm »		[Quote]
Hmmmm....but it's put me off it. :-/
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #18 on Jan 25, 2010, 8:56pm »		[Quote]
You can go see "A Prophet" again. :D
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spaceneedle
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #19 on Feb 8, 2010, 9:28am »		[Quote]
I just saw Avatar and I think the effects are amazing. The plot was predictable and has been done soooo many times though. It's funny but it actually reminded me of the plots of "Dances with Wolves" and an old favorite "Little Big Man"- definite undertones around indigenous peoples/battles with invading oppressors. I saw it on IMAX which was fun, and Sigourney Weaver made it worth the price of admission, IMO. I love her and did not realise she was in the film.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #20 on Feb 8, 2010, 9:40am »		[Quote]
The Six Nations rugby tournament has started, and French television is doing some amusing ads for it based on Avatar, showing the players getting into a blue tanning bed and waking up as rugby monsters in the stadium. (At the end, they are squabbling on whose turn it is to get into the tanning bed.)
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #21 on Feb 8, 2010, 9:51am »		[Quote]
HA! Funny K2.

I also meant to write in my previous post that my Russian friend is pretty p-d off about Avatar, he swears it was ripped off from a series of Russian sci fi novels:

snip

Consider:

The Strugatskys call their world Pandora, and it is warm and humid and heavily forested. So is Avatar's alien world.

The books take place in the 22nd century. So does Avatar.

In the books, the natives of Pandora are called the Nave. Avatar calls its aliens the Na'vi.

More from the Guardian:

Strugatsky, 76, appears to have shrugged off suggestions of similarities between Avatar and his Noon Universe, and denied reports circulated last week that he was accusing Cameron of plagiarism. On Monday, however, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper devoted an entire page to the affair, and carried out its own close comparison of Avatar with the World of Noon.

There are differences: In the books, there are two humanoid species on Pandora, and Pandora itself is a health resort, not a wild planet.

For his part, Cameron has denied in the past that he's borrowed from other writers and has always insisted that Avatar is original.



http://scifiwire.com/2010/01/was-avatar-ripped-off-fro.php
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #22 on Feb 8, 2010, 5:19pm »		[Quote]
Maybe they both tapped into the collective sub-conscious, which could encompass worlds besides earth, and are actually channelling something real.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #23 on Feb 11, 2010, 9:00pm »		[Quote]
I'll have to face up to it....I'll never see Avatar.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #24 on Feb 15, 2010, 9:42pm »		[Quote]
I saw Avatar again today and I was very happy to be able to concentrate on different aspects of the film. I also unfortunately noticed how the actor's Australian accent crept through as the film progressed. I have nothing against that, but when they make such a point of a character being "American," it is unfortunate, just like in all of the roles played by Ewan McGregor or Jude Law who can't keep up an American accent either.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #25 on Mar 18, 2010, 6:25pm »		[Quote]
I finally saw Avatar and it was fantastic. But, this was on the small screen (I bought my own copy) and I want to see it in the theatre. I was delighted by the world it created and would love to have my own exotic bird that I could ride and link my thoughts to, or ride the horse-like creatures. 8-) This is a wonderful film for fantasy lovers.

Now that I've seen this and The Hurt Locker, the decision for best film is impossible for me, they are so different. They do share an anti-war philosphy. I can now understand that the Iraqis could relate far more to Avatar than to The Hurt Locker. I can also understand why the far right in the US may have wanted to block Avatar. War was distilled for me, to sadness and waste of a noble culture, for what? The painful senseless destruction of the beautiful world of the Navi was so upsetting. Their lives were simple and innocent and they lived in harmony with nature and each other. The brutality of the invasion is shocking.

Somehow, despite working so many years in the film business, I retain my innocent, layman's perception. I was totally lost in the film. I will see it again, I think that it needs to be seen on the big screen.



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Re: Avatar
« Reply #26 on Mar 18, 2010, 6:58pm »		[Quote]
Oh, most definitely. And in 3D if at all possible.
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #27 on Mar 18, 2010, 11:11pm »		[Quote]
Well, I ought to see it but no-one will accompany me to it; I really don't want to go alone :'(
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #28 on Mar 19, 2010, 6:32pm »		[Quote]
Isn't that a service that one can request from one's children, even when they are adult?
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Re: Avatar
« Reply #29 on Mar 19, 2010, 8:43pm »		[Quote]

Mar 18, 2010, 11:11pm, spindrift wrote:
Well, I ought to see it but no-one will accompany me to it; I really don't want to go alone :'(


spindrift, if I could, I'd jump on a plane right now and take you with me to see it. :)
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In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

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