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My review! No spoilers...


Visually its simply stunning. Aside from the 3D its fantastically inventive and stylish. Some people are complaining that Pandora looks like a "Yes" album cover brought to life, and the Mechwarrior suits have been done a few times now, but they've still never been done quite like this. Lord of the Rings was famous for making Middle Earth real, and also for Gollum as the first fully realised Digital character. In this case I'd say Avatar has outdone it in some ways. There's no question that the Navi are more consistently realistic than Gollum, but they have the advantage of being more fantastical creatures, so they avoid the "uncanny valley" effect. Pandora is a completely realised Ecosystem, but again, because its fantastical, they get away with more. There are some shots however that are just amazing.

Then there's the 3D. You've never seen anything like it. Its not the "stuff flying out of the screen" effects. Its more a sense of depth. You feel like you're looking into a room, rather than at it. Even the computer screens in the Comm room are 3D , so you're seeing 3D displays in a 3D image. When you go into the forest, insects fly between you and the scene, you feel like pushing aside ferns to see whats happening behind.

The story itself is a cross between a Vietnam war movie and Dances with Wolves, but it really works.

(Can you start a spoiler thread? I like to know who dies before I see a movie. )

This sounds interesting. We may have to take the kids to see it when they come visit this weekend.

Honestly, Lali, you'll have to ask someone else. I'm so anti spoiler that I couldn't bring myself to write the sort of spoilers you want. It'd be like asking me to breathe water. I'm sure someone else will oblige though.

Oh fiiiiiiine. I'll go find the info somewhere else.

Lali, this might help:

spoilerish review from CBC

Everybody else: don't read the review unless you've seen the film!

That helps a bit, thanks, Jude. I still want to know who dies and all of that, so I'll keep looking.

I'm sure there's a website that keeps track of that, but I've lost a lot of bookmarks this year. Best I can find with a quick search is this place: http://www.moviedeaths.com/searchform.php/ but Avatar isn't listed yet. I'll check the comments at AICN, cuz at least if a troll lies about plot points, they're usually trolled right back.

I just asked on livejournal heh. Highlight for spoilers.

Quote:

Eytukan (chief/Neytiri's father)
Tsu'Tey (who became chief after Eytukan)
Greace (Sigourney's character)
Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez's character)
Col. Quaritch (villain)

+ many Na'vi and human mercenaries

*E*

Dreamed I was getting married to a schoolfriend and decided to roam the place as a Na'vi Avatar.

I assume this is consistent with the way the film works - I haven't seen it. I liked having a tail.

*~Pips~*

Speaking of tails, I loved what they did with the Na'vis' tails and ears. The little movements, the twitching. It was great. Very realistic.

Thanks, *E*! You rock!

Nienor SharkAttack wrote:

Speaking of tails, I loved what they did with the Na'vis' tails and ears. The little movements, the twitching. It was great. Very realistic.

vison said on HoF she was really impressed with the Na'vi and said they were way better than Gollum!

Hopefully that means we can look forward to a new, improved Gollum for HOBBIT from Weta!

Well Jackson did show up on set to talk to Cameron about it all. Both he and Speilberg asked to see the processes. And according to an article I read Cameron snagged Weta people to work on this. All good signs that DT and PJ are going to improve upon the CGI effects for the next two installments of the Hobbit.

Hey.... I rather like Gollum every bit as much as the tall smurfs.

Me too.


Sequel plans: http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles ... tory.jhtml I don't know... Plans about sequels to a great movie always make the warning bells in my head ring. Especially since I feel that the story very much ended in the first movie.

Of course we all like Gollum...he was so brilliant, ground-breaking and "one-in-the-eye" for Lucas and his Jar-Jar Binks...

...but if the Na'vi are better, surely we should be pulling for Weta to up their game and restore Gollum to his right place at the pinnacle of CGI achievement?

In the director's commentary for Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson raised the possibility of redoing Gollum in a future release of the film, because they had changed his look for the next two films.

Since technology has progressed so far since then, there's more reason to redo him. Mind you, I haven't heard any more references to redoing him since then.

I hated Gollum, it never for one moment seemed real to me. I thought the Navi were real, that's how good they are. Their eyes engage you, which the Gollum thing's eyes never did. It was always obvious it was a SFX creature. There are moments in Avatar when the illusion fails briefly, but they are few and far between. The 3-D was very good, the odd time it was distracting, but mostly it added immensely to the movie.

The story was "neither here nor there", a predictable mishmash of love/war/nasty corporation/noble savage. I mean, I could have written the story myself, and I bet most of us here could have.

But by george, I could never have created Pandora. While the story has already faded into the past, the images from the movie are indelible - I can SEE the wonderful trees, the flowers, the birds. Being terrified of heights, I was watching with held breath, afraid I'd fall. Wonderful stuff.

I intend to see it again, just to absorb more of the forest.

After what you've said, vison, now I HAVE to go see this! Eyes that engage? Cool!

Vison

Your description also makes me want to go now even more so. I am planning on watching it this week sometime maybe the 25th.