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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

James Cameron, George Lucas discuss future of film at CinemaCon, video online

Andrew Rieger said:
My reactions:

Lucas was and always will be a one trick pony. He never got over how successful Star Wars was and has been idolizing himself ever since. Seriously? He releasing it again theatrically? Will he do this with each new generation? This is pathetic.

Don't even get me started with Cameron. There is nothing wrong with good old 2D at 24 fps. Let's boost the frame rate to make this 3D crap look better. Ya, that's the future. You know, people are going to the theaters in fewer numbers because the movies today are crap and 3D, higher frame rates and a plate of food will not solve that.

Funny how none of them said that the future of movies was in telling better stories. They should have had guy like Chris Nolan, Duncan Jones and Neil Blomkamp up there. Not these hacks. Oh well.
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Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, C'mon bro how can you call them "hacks". Chris Nolan, Duncan Jones and Neil Blomkamp are a new generation of excellent storytellers, but its cameraon and ucas that keep defying th status quo for everyone else to follow. They are born leaders and exemplary thinkers. Lets gve respect where resect is due. Even though we have outgrown thier storys there are still younger generation still awed by them.
 
Andrew Rieger said:
Oh please, stuffing political messages down the throats of the audience is so juvenile.

It's time we call out filmmakers for producing generic watered down content to try to attract every demographic. Everyone loses in the end.

Once again, the future of movies is better stories, not better fx tech.
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I guess to you Neil Blomkamp s a hack then.
 
shashbugu said:
I guess to you Neil Blomkamp s a hack then.
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District 9 did have a political message but it was no where near as heavy handed as Avatar. It was much more subtle and unique. In Neil's film we manage to feel genuine sympathy for a race of grotesque insects who live in trash and devoured raw meat like animals despite their ability to travel through space. The characters had depth and the story was compelling. The special effects were spectacular yet not over the top. Sci fi at it's best. Find me another film that it borrows from.

In Avatar, we are given a race of photogenic Disneyfied cat people who live in harmony on their lush tropical wonderland of a planet only to be slaughtered by a group of stereotypical army savages who are supposed to represent United States imperialism. Yawn. Sorry if you can't see the difference.
 
shashbugu said:
I guess to you Neil Blomkamp s a hack then.
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Well, I'm not exactly calling him a hack... but the whole documentary idea that somehow transformed into a regular narrative was REALLY REALLY bad directing. It was stupid and basically smashed the "4th wall" to pieces in the worst way possible. It was just a splinter in my mind that kept me from enjoying the movie. I mean, we could have been watching people MAKE the documentary AS characters in the movie... but you can't just present material as a documentary and at the same time switch to a regular 4th person narrative. It just become a paradox.
 
shashbugu said:
Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, C'mon bro how can you call them "hacks". Chris Nolan, Duncan Jones and Neil Blomkamp are a new generation of excellent storytellers, but its cameraon and ucas that keep defying th status quo for everyone else to follow. They are born leaders and exemplary thinkers. Lets gve respect where resect is due. Even though we have outgrown thier storys there are still younger generation still awed by them.
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Cameron and Lucas were both talented storytellers at one point but now, they are concerned only with pushing technology and the need for a good story has been forgotten. I love Cameron's T1 and T2 plus Aliens and the Abyss was visually spectacular but Avatar was basically six or seven other films with some shiny new tech and everyone is drooling over it like its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sorry but it was generic garbage meant to attract as many people as possible. Cameron used to be on the bleeding edge of sci fi and then he caught the PG13 bug and now we get watered down films from his camp.
 
Bryce O said:
Well, I'm not exactly calling him a hack... but the whole documentary idea that somehow transformed into a regular narrative was REALLY REALLY bad directing. It was stupid and basically smashed the "4th wall" to pieces in the worst way possible. It was just a splinter in my mind that kept me from enjoying the movie.
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Wow really? I thought it was very innovative and unique. It was one of my favorites of 2009. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
 
Andrew Rieger said:
Oh please, stuffing political messages down the throats of the audience is so juvenile.

If you want to see why Avatar sucks, please watch this and then you will understand why the future of cinema looks grim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA

Lucas decided that he had a cash machine on his hands and decided to dedicate his life to squeezing it dry of every last possible penny.

It's time we call out filmmakers for producing generic watered down content to try to attract every demographic. Everyone loses in the end.

Once again, the future of movies is better stories, not better fx tech.
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Hey Andrew, I'm sure your stories are very gritty and depressing, and that's why you say they are "good" because the "right" people (i.e other depressive intellectual snobs exactly like you) agree with you. However, Cameron brought millions and millions of people out to the theatre, so you can't say people stay home from the movies and then blame him. That simply makes no sense.
 
Andrew Rieger said:
Wow really? I thought it was very innovative and unique. It was one of my favorites of 2009. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
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Don't get me wrong... I loved the concept and writing... but the whole movie was told in a perspective-paradox cluster-Fk.

Something isn't innovative if I doesn't work... Let me elaborate:

The movie starts off a documentary, meaning that the main character and others are aware of the presence of a camera and so is the audience, establishing that these are actually people who exist in real life (that's what a documentary implies by it's inherent perspective, even if it's fake) and that the footage we are seeing RIGHT NOW has bee edited and distributed. Then, half-way through the movie it switches and we are watching the same characters, but through the traditional narrative perspective where they're unaware of the cameras. This IS NOT possible because the documentary perspective implied that they are "real" people and switching to a narrative perspective would require them to have been filmed and at some point... but wait, how could they have been filmed at some point if this part of the story is supposed to be happening RIGHT NOW (to the characters). Didn't the documentary sequences imply that the footage we are currently watching in this theater was filmed and edited? This creates the "perspective paradox" and not only does it make the film not work... it actually makes it impossible for it to happen, destroying the entire story illusion.
 
Andrew Rieger said:
Cameron and Lucas were both talented storytellers at one point but now, they are concerned only with pushing technology and the need for a good story has been forgotten. I love Cameron's T1 and T2 plus Aliens and the Abyss was visually spectacular but Avatar was basically six or seven other films with some shiny new tech and everyone is drooling over it like its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sorry but it was generic garbage meant to attract as many people as possible. Cameron used to be on the bleeding edge of sci fi and then he caught the PG13 bug and now we get watered down films from his camp.
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there is an educational value in a socio-ethno-conscious message, you never want to loose the message in the metaphor. It was watered down to the most basic human story, "the will to conquer vs the will to survive".
 
Rob Ruffo said:
Hey Andrew, I'm sure your stories are very gritty and depressing, and that's why you say they are "good" because the "right" people (i.e other depressive intellectual snobs exactly like you) agree with you. However, Cameron brought millions and millions of people out to the theatre, so you can't say people stay home from the movies and then blame him. That simply makes no sense.
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Intellectual snob? Really? I guess intellectual snobs like myself are the only ones who hate seeing films that rehash tired, formulaic plots. Ya, I'm glad Cameron got butts in seats but I just wish he had spent as much time trying to make the plot as innovative as the fx technology. Movies should not be commended because they make money. Little Fockers made money. And BTW, I love Pixar films so there is certainly room for creativity in the world of mass appeal entertainment. But I guess seeing Avatar for what it really is makes you a film snob.
 
Jake Bastian said:
I think it's NOT being able to watch Avatar for what it really is that makes you a film snob. (Both you and sleepy youtube guy)
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Yea, simple plots don't really bother me. Plots that don't work at all do... at least Avatar made sense and was coherent. The only films that really are piss me off ones with obvious plot holes and pretentious indie trash like Black Swan... sorry for the 'trolling' here, but that movie was laughably bad.
 
Should have had Walter Murch as part of the panel on the 'future of film'. He was sound editor on THX1138 as well as American Graffiti I believe and doesn't have a lot of favorable things to say about 3d. Murch mentions in The Conversations that the impetus for Star Wars in some ways came from Apocalypse Now...which Lucas was originally set to direct.

Also related and a good tongue in cheek read
http://prolost.com/blog/2010/7/8/seven-fetishists-and-why-they-should-relax.html
 
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I hope every film made is not a piece of grey realism. But its laughable to say that realism is the only way to tell a good and originally conceived story. I'm not saying it has to be mind blowingly original. I am happy with good genre pieces like Moon, Monsters, 500 Days of Summer etc...my favourite film thus far this year is 'Submarine' and it followed a pretty simple path of awkward kid trying to lose his virginity, however it was told in a wonderful and captivating way. But most of all just some decent damn writing.



Its pretty obvious that the only reason the industry moved to 3D so quickly was because it was a way to combat piracy and get people back into the cinema, which is fair enough. But the distributors and cinemas will only buy into something they can make a profit on.
A slight link and something to lift the mood. The director Submarine is in a british comedy called the IT Crowd and this is an anti-piracy spot that is quite funny.

 
Andrew Rieger said:
but Avatar was basically six or seven other films with some shiny new tech and everyone is drooling over it like its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sorry but it was generic garbage meant to attract as many people as possible. Cameron used to be on the bleeding edge of sci fi and then he caught the PG13 bug and now we get watered down films from his camp.
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Just because a story has been told many times before doesn't mean it's a bad story. I can be as much of a film snob as the best 'of em. I actually washed Rashomon via Hulu on my iPad a few days ago and thought it was pretty cool that Kurosawa had become so easily accessible for me to watch. It used to be hard to see those movies.

But here's the thing - Avatar really sucked me in the first time I saw it. I lost myself in the movie and in the story and the 3D was, for me and my entire family, what it should be - a subtle but effective emotional enhancement to the story. It was a fantastic cinematic experience and I was cheering with the rest of the audience when dude flew in on that big-ass pterodactyl and said "let's go kick some ass."

I'm a card-carrying Criterion Collection member, I think the first Saw movie was awesome, and Avatar was a rockin' good time.

In your slightly above-thou criticism, I think you've lost a key element of what a lot of movies are basically about... fun. Not every picture is a deep and thought-provoking introspection into the nature of man. Sometimes, seeing the good guy win and the bad guy lose with a generous dose of explosions and aliens is just as rewarding a cinema experience as grim Swedes with subtitles.

Lucas
 
Lucas Wilson said:
But here's the thing - Avatar really sucked me in the first time I saw it. I lost myself in the movie and in the story and the 3D was, for me and my entire family, what it should be - a subtle but effective emotional enhancement to the story. It was a fantastic cinematic experience and I was cheering with the rest of the audience when dude flew in on that big-ass pterodactyl and said "let's go kick some ass."
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I was going to say essentially the same thing, but you beat me to it, Lucas.

People can criticize the movie as long as they want, but to me, it was a terrific experience even if you just take in the technical side of it. No question, there's some cardboard characters and lame dialog, but in the end, I think Avatar worked very well. I have a much greater appreciation of the film after watching the 4 hours of documentaries on the Blu-ray; Cameron went through some of the most mind-boggling technical challenges I've ever seen.

BTW, kudos to Skip Kimball at Modern Videofilm for the color-correction -- on all 20+ versions of the film.
 
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