Avatar post-release discussion - Page 3

Well assembled review Devin, I think that if more reviewers had actually reviewed the film and not just it's technical 'WOW' factor there might be a few more of these 6 -7/10 level assessments floating about.

I am gonna give it a shot next week or just after chrimbo but I aint paying IMAX money for it. Any idea how you would have rated it had it been a standard 2D experience?

But for now, to be WOWed by the technical factor is an honest reaction to the film if the whole package works for someone. The WOW factor is the film for the moment. As Devin says, the movie is in no way bad. And when something like Avatar is still a novelty, the WOW on display will take it a long way on first viewing.

Not having seen the movie, I think Devin's predictions about what people will think of the movie in the future is pretty accurate. What he would've thought about the 2D experience would probably be exactly what he's already written with a slightly lower number score. But Devin's never taken number scores seriously to begin with, so I think his review is the best indication of the 2D experience you'd find at the moment.

Fair enough, I guess I was just WOWed by the fact that some of the UK's more harsh critics, who rarely give films a pass based on just technical merit (KING KONG included), were slobbering all over this... in some ways that has got me curious to see if it can WOW me too.

Only one way to find out! Pay the extra money for IMAX3D! Hahaha.

UNOBTANIUM!

... I guess George Lucas has the rights to "HARDTOGETIUM"

No, just 'Sleazebaggano.'

To be fair to Cameron, the term isn't unique to this film. It's a term people in the real world use, e.g. scientists and engineers. It can refer to an unusual material or an element of a scientific or engineering model that does not yet exist or "obtain."

I was about to post the same thing - complete with link.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

Some comments.

- I liked the Stephen Lang character. He may have been a cliche but it was well done and I was always entertained when he was on screen.

- The 3D distracted me a lot of the time. It sort of impressed in the pure CGI sections (it looks like a pop up book in the human sections). In some scenes I should have been looking at the main characters but it was the jellyfish thing floating in the foreground grabbing my attention.

- I really thought it was going to go a bit more epic when they gathered all the tribes up, but it sort of went nowhere. The big army mostly got slaughtered and then the animal kingdom came to the rescue (only featuring animals previously seen).

- This film features too many slow mo death scenes.

- I did like some of the corny shots, like the general guy jumping out of the mega copter in his mech. The giant bird smashing copters around was also neat.

- All in all the actual 'avatar' concept felt a bit wasted. It boiled down to... "I'm helping the Navi, wait someone unplugged me. Oh now I'm free again and helping the navi. Oh wait I've been unplugged again. Lets escape from jail and go help the navi". As a sci-fi concept it seems like it could have been a bit more interesting.

- The "human to Navi converter" at the end was a bit too neat aswell. I nearly expected the words "AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER" to appear on the screen.

Interesting info... handwavium and wishalloy too!? Goddamn wikipedia is great. I'm way more interested in reading about this film than actually watching it. I suppose that would make my money unobtanium as far as Cameron is concerned. Zing!

Just to play devil's advocate on the whole Unobtanium thing...

Yes, it is an actual term that is really used. However, the fact is, it sounds goofy as hell and just based on the local anecdotal evidence here, people have to wiki it to believe that it is an actual term. So then the question becomes, WHY use this goofy-ass term? Why not invent some slightly believable name?

From my understanding, the term represents something not yet found that once it is, will fill a need. It would seem that in this film, they've found that substance and know what it will be used for. Is it still "Unobtanium" at that point, by definition?

(And yes, I realize how horribly nitpicky this is. And I haven't even seen the film. Just throwing thoughts out there and playing the advocate is all. I'm sure a goofy term will be the least of my concerns when viewing)


ETA:



Awesome.

Or would it?

Aah, talkbacks. Look at them go on Devin's review. Thank you for that, Mr. Faraci, a fair and balanced look, especially one so nicely written, is always welcome.

Great review, Devin. Always fair and balanced. My expectations are thankfully temperred.

Too bad he's wrong about the King Kong thesis. We've already had that this year - it was the piece of shit known as Watchmen. What a shallow, trite, flat, unreal piece of garbage, and defiling the original work in the process (which makes the King Kong analogy even more apt). I would've called it Watchmen: Shitting on the Mona Lisa.

So... what is worse.... Unobtainium or Crematorium?

Finally finished the review. Thanks for writing it; very enjoyable reading your fair and balanced take (regardless of what talkback idiocracy has to say).

I love how your very valid criticisms on the design and the effect that might have on the film are NOT allowed to carry over once you've seen it. There is one correct answer, apparently: fawn. Anything other than that, and you've "had your mind made up for months" and "can't admit when you're 'wrong.'"

As opposed to Drew, Harry et al, who clearly went in with an open mind. Nick's the only prominent online guy to love it who didn't spend the last year worshipping at the AVATAR altar.

Devin CAN admit when he's wrong. That doesn't mean he's right here. And he's specifically wrong when he talks about the the CGI being the only technological advance in the movie. (*) I'm sure he WAS fair about the movie, and since I haven''t seen it yet, I reserve judgment.

But it doesn't mean he's not shitting over Cameron in a wildly unfair way, the same way Jeff Wells shits all over Peter Jackson. When Devin started attacking Cameron this summer for, y'know, inventing and discovering things - THINGS THAT ARE POWERS OF MAGNITUDE MORE USEFUL THAN BEING A MOVIE GEEK - that's when I lost any pretense that Devin would be fair and balanced towards Cameron.

Towards his film, yes, I believe he tried his best to be objective. I believe Devin's honesty is unimpeachable. But just like Devin attacks the "noble savage" theorem, I attack the theory that there's any such thing as true objectivity.


* He's even wrong talking about Cameron's version of mocap and how much animators are involved with the performance. Hell, there was an article this morning about how medical outfits are now trying to figure out how to use his system in medical scanning, because ofhow it captures the subtleties of human movement instead highly-detailed scans of 2D pixel data. The whole POINT of developing this system was so they could "pour the motion-capture data into the rig and it would come out the other side right." That's why he was able to SEE the actors' performances, as Na'Vi, LIVE ON THE STAGE.

Using the word "right" means you don't understand criticism.

So Cameron invents and discovers things. Great. He's still at the bottom of the pile when it comes to writing an affecting and original screenplay, which to me is of far more value in a hyphenate like him than coming up with a great new camera.

I swear, some of you guys must have Cameron's face tattooed across your chests, Alan Partridge-style.

Two questions:

1) In what way has Devin been unfair to Cameron? Is he wrong about his scripts, his style of driecting etc.?

2) What does the last asterisked part have to do with the movies he makes?

Cameron's advances may have built far more solid guideposts, but the animators still have to step in and tweak. And that work is invaluable. Without it, none of these CGI creations would work at all.

Devin, that was a very mature, even-handed review. I enjoyed it immensely.

I went to my IMAX theatre yesterday to buy tickets, and not only did they not actually get Avatar for the opening weekend, they have no idea WHEN they will be actually getting it!! I just assumed it would be showing given how it's an IMAX-compatible film and all, but apparently not. Which sucks ass, as out of the 8 screens Avatar is showing on in the city, only 2 are 3D capable. I am trying to purchase tickets for Sunday matinee at one of those screens today. I definitely want to see it in 3D the first time out. Are any of you guys with IMAX theatres close to you experiencing this??

Yeah, it's called secondary animation and it's the bread and butter of a good animated show.

People weren't psyched about 3D, but now they are.

Every other director now HAS TO FOLLOW
(see Ridley Scott and the upcoming Forever War adaptation - another MUST sci-fi work BTW, despite the "not so" original themes again: war is bad, senseless death and blah blah, yet the story is brilliantly narrated and you end the book in tears unless you're a hopeless cynic).

Anyway, I can appreciate the criticism, but I also understand that with the money involved Cameron has to go for the masses, pick a more linear story and deliver a SPECTACLE.
This is what I expect from a theater night after all: to be blown away.
I look for dialogue and elaborate plots in serials, where the budget drives another kind of approach (and still serials get canceled all the time, if they're not "massified" enough).

Sorry for my poor english

I don't think I like people any more.

Welcome to my world.

1) He went on a rant about Cameron this summer, essentially calling him a fat-cat adventurer. In a world where people have little curiosity about anything, and even less enthusiasm about exploration and discovering, I thought it was deeply unfair.

2) It was addressing specific points in Devin's review.

An animator friend of mine told me about the bullshit behind the production of The Incredible Hulk. The production did invest time and money into using mo-cap for the CG characters. It didn't work. At all. In the end, it was pretty much animated by hand. But the movie still pushed the 'magic of mocap' on a world that could care less. Hahaha.

Except that's not true with the facial parts of animation. Cameron's perspective is that the animators, largely, wreck the facial performance. He specifically points out Gollum - not as an example of failure, but an example of animators shaping the performance, and flat out stating that it's not what they did on Avatar.

He also says that they did nothing at all revolutionary with the body mocap performances, so I'm sure the animators had a great deal with forming that part of the character action.

Wreck is an odd word to use. I don't think he put it like that. If he did, that's a slap in the face to animators.

Nonsense. If someone agrees with you, you believe it's right. The fact that you don't understand that 'right' is entirely subjective means YOU don't understand criticism. Siskel and Ebert spent twenty years telling each other that they were flat-out wrong.

And again, I'm not addressing the movie itself. I have no idea if I'll agree with Devin or not. (I usually do.) I'm addressing the extraneous stuff to which I take exception; what I see as attacks on personality, factual misstatements as I interpret them, et cetera. [/QUOTE]


The problem is, judging whether something is of quality is ENTIRELY subjective. Attacking someone for doing something useful is a character attack, and I think it was beneath Devin, who I believe is a generous and perceptive individual.

And incidentally, coming up with a new technology that everyone can use? That IS more valuable than a fucking action movie. Why? Because pretty much everyone CAN make a fucking action movie. Not everyone can invent. If you think the opposite, I think you're symptomatic of everything that's wrong with America.

You're not an objectivist by chance, are you?

He didn't use the word wreck, I did. But I believe that's largely what happens - if the actor disappears beneath a CG-mask to the point of nonrecognition, then it's a failure. Gollum was an amazing creation, but you weren't seeing Andy Serkis - you were seeing an interpretation of Andy Serkis, which has value. But you're seeing the actor through someone else's lens, instead of viewing the performance directly. It does more justice to the performer.

(I thought this was true of Bill Nighy's Davy Jones as well - it was a revelation to see feel like the actor was wearing CG makeup instead of being an animation. This type of mocap is the very opposite of uncanny valley, in that the soul comes through.)

I wrote this on the talkbacks, but I thought I would repost part of it here (with some grammar edits, as I wrote the original really quickly:

... the purpose of film criticism for me is to see what others are thinking about a film and to illuminate parts of a film that might otherwise have been hidden. Good criticism makes you think about a movie differently, or makes you enjoy it more. This review wasn't all that illuminating for me, but I think that has more to do with the source material not having much to hide and being pretty straight-forward. But there were parts that I will take in with me to my screening of Avatar to see if they ring true after I have seen the film. Which is what the very best film criticism does: frame a movie and give you a cypher through which to judge a work ON YOUR OWN. You would think that Devin writing this review is going to kill the movie for you or something. I look at it as a tool that I can use to make my viewing of the film better, not as a substitute for my own opinion.

Siskel and Ebert telling each other they were wrong had waaay more to do with the combative format of the TV show. In a written review, you take out of it what you want to, despite living in an age where you can directly interact with the reviewer. Also, I am not sure what is "factually" wrong in the review??

You're still not "seeing the performance directly" in Avatar.

And Gollum's facial structure is so different from Serkis's/any other human that to complain about animators having to step in to "fill in gaps" and manipulate the performance is silly.

I hate objectivism (and don't get me started how I believe Ayn Rand coddled a serial killer, and how that's exactly where objectivism leads). I just value unique and generous contributions to society, and hate it when that's made out to be a bad thing.

I don't believe in superiority in people, but I do believe there's honor in discovery and exploration. And I get furious at easy postmodernist attacks on people who engage in this.

With films there are things you can be right about and things you can be wrong about. If you think that Devin's honesty is unimpeachable, why are you saying he could be wrong? Also, as per shitting on, the film is being sold as the greatest adventure film of all time. That is hyperbole worthy of being batted around to see if it holds true. And ultimately the way the thing was achieved is like arguing over wether they used modern stock or nitrate stock. How the thing was achieved doesn't change how we respond to the thing itself.

There are three real IMAXs anywhere near me (a state and a half away), one of which is not showing Avatar in favor of keeping their educational programing (and one "Hollywood" IMAX Film, for one showing aday. It's Star Trek) while the other two are going all out to premier Avatar. Is the IMAX you went to part of a museum or aquarium or something like that? They might eschew the big blockbuster to show more UNDERSEA 3D stuff.

Wasn't Bill Nighy's Davy Jones also an interpretation of the man's performance via animators?

Eh... on film, all performance is seen through some layer/distance. You're not seeing it directly. You're seeing a performance through the volatile mix of the camerawork, the lighting, the cutting/combining of different takes that all leads back to the director. What we're talking about now is simply another level of distance from seeing a performance live.

Bottom of the pile? Really? I would put him somewhere around the middle at least (or in your case, at best). I swear, you must have "I Hate Cameron" tattooed across your chest, Alan Partridge-style.

It's not about facial structure. That has NOTHING to do with the performance. John Hurt was still John Hurt when he wore an appliance the size of a boulder in The Elephant Man. You ARE seeing the pure performance through this method. It's makeup.

The main guy at WETA said that when they had perfected the process (which involved a lot of tweaking, the same way that a makeup artist tweaks appliances and tones), they were literally dropping the facial mocap info into the model and it was DONE. Cameron was judging the peformances of the actors AS their full Na'vi forms, LIVE, on the set (albeit in simplified form, as full renders were still taking 50 hours a frame).

Davy Jones is a weird beast, because he WAS all animated, even the eyes, but was "rotoscoped" over Nighy in a process that ILM called "digital makeup". That's why it FEELS like Nighy's there. What also helped was that Nighy added tons of little unique idiosyncrasies to his performance knowing what effect it would have on the finished character (like the little "pop" he does with his lips after some words).

UGH! I LOVED that little pop!

"Price? ... mmpop!"

Didn't know that about Davy Jones. Thanks Greg.

On the first point: there are politicians who are honest and have good intentions and who I believe are absolutely dead wrong on something. Because I don't see the world like someone else does doesn't mean that other person is dishonest. For instance, I have a friend who's dead set about putting any more money in manned spaceflight; she things it should all go to social programs. I love her dearly, but I think she's completely wrong.

As for the hyperbole...I mean, fuck, we're gonna let advertising color our opinions of a film? There are genuine advancements in the film and I love talking about them, but if we're going to believe marketing campaigns, Pluto Nash would've been the adventure of a lifetime.

I get your last point, and it's probably true. However, I've always found that process IS part of the story for me; my enjoyment of Star Wars was always colored by seeing models blowing up against bluescreens, or having the giant carousel in my head while watching the Discovery scenes in 2001. This, however, is just me, and I concede the point.

This is coloring, but I think you can have bad taste, not wrong taste.

And this film is about being big, and selling itself as such - though Cameron toned down the hyperbole - and for people who haven't seen the film yet, giving it context to what it does is important in the face of that. It was called a game changer by many.

As per the how, I'm fascinated by it too, but showing the process of cooking doesn't make my dinner taste any better or worse.

Says you! hahahahaha...

As a sometimes-3D animator (admittedly, a terrible one), I have some idea what Cameron is talking about and his is a valid point. Basically, in Pirates (incoherent!) or LoTR (boring!) the animators would "trace" over the rough performance capture data using a simplified facial rig, so it's more akin to rotoscoping motion than "capturing" it in those cases. Not that this is inherently bad; Davy Jones remains the most impressive CGI character I've seen and his performance seems to match Nighy's pretty closely.

According to Cameron's claims, for Avatar he had the animators build a full facial rig for each character, with bones and muscles corresponding exactly with each actor's real bones and muscles. So the performance capture data isn't any better, but the system of translation is "purer." In other words, Cameron shifted the brunt of the work from animating to rigging; in earlier performance capture movies (this is solely as regards facial animation) the animators would painstakingly interpret the performance for a relatively simple rig; in Avatar, the performance is mapped more directly onto a painstakingly built complex rig. This may also be a matter of logistics; given the volume of performance capture work in Avatar, more time spent rigging might be more efficient than more time spent animating.

Also, to anyone (excepting critics or industry folks, who "have" to see Avatar irrespective of their feelings re: Cameron) who is complaining about this film in advance of having seen it: you are completely and profoundly dumb. Even Cameron's fans know this is a James Cameron movie--and we know what that entails. Yes, we've seen Terminator 2. Yes, that movie has terrible dialogue and is just about the most obvious and ham-fisted allegory since ever. Yes, that movie was the most expensive special effects extravaganza of its time and yet it had an explicitly anti-technology message at its core, which is completely ridiculous. (And it's no less ironic that Cameron made the flat-out "biggest" movie ever in Titanic and hubristically claimed it was unsinkable at the box-office; but fwiw, Titanic was superb.) We know who James Cameron is and what his movies are about. All I'm saying is: if you're looking for good dialogue, watch David Mamet or some shit and stop trolling about James Cameron (who actually is a good screenwriter; his command of story structure and genre convention is superb). Maybe you can't appreciate superbly staged action, technological innovation pushed forward by the most demanding and most tech-savy director in Hollywood, etc. Maybe it's not your thing. But it's a lot of other people's "thing"--and a few bad lines of dialogue and a story weird at odds with the technology behind it are as inherent to James Cameron's output as groundbreaking effects work, well-paced stories, and superb craftsmanship (especially as regards action shot choice). There are trade-offs that just exist in his films because of who he is as an artist. If you hate his movies, your loss. Not ours. You don't have to see this movie and you don't have to complain about it either.

(Furthermore, how can you not want this to be good? I honestly think John Carter of Mars, my next-most anticipated film after this and Tree of Life, was greenlit and conceptualized (w/r/t technology and production, obviously not story and yes, I know Stanton does not like 3D) partially due to the hype surrounding Avatar. Cameron actually did change the industry with Terminator, Terminator 2 (especially), and Titanic. If Avatar is good, even if you don't like it, it means more better movies sooner. I just can't get behind any amount of hate for this movie.)

edit: ^^ I'm not reading that

Anyone who says Devin's review was unexpected is deluding themselves. Doesn't mean it wasn't honest, thought out and well written, though.

I think you can have good taste but a wrong opinion!

I agree with your second graf, and I'm always interested in people putting things in context. I'm just annoyed that this stuff quickly becomes hagiography. Nick raves about Avatar - wow! I can't wait to see it. Devin half-pans it - what a voice of wisdom, I knew the emperor had no clothes!

Ah hell, I just need to quit reading pre-release reviews...

On the last point, there's been a lot of scientific studies showing how a sensation like taste IS highly colored by any number of external factors (like a piece of steak actually tastes different based on mood), and for me that's true with the filmmaking process and films. However, I'll retire this line of discussion before we follow this off the cliff. Apologies for the OT and I appreciate your cogent thoughts.