Avatar 2 - We Need To Talk...

[Zack Birlew]

Alright, no spoilers but I went to see "Avatar 2" last night and I was amazed at the sheer lack of cinematic presence and choreography compared to the original film. For a movie that took over a decade to come out and with three years of filming, I was surprised that it came out the way it did and, most surprisingly, with an up and down frame rate strategy and in 3D!

For those who haven't seen it yet, you will most likely see a constant 24fps when seeing it in 2D but for the 3D show, the film jumps back and forth between 24fps and 48fps during action and big event scenes but it comes off as seemingly at a whim as the editing is so haphazard and quick and while having handheld cinematography throughout. Now, I have tried to consistently go and see films that have been using higher frame rates or filmed in a special way over the years but for high frame rates, the same lesson keeps coming through in that it takes you out of the film and it wears out your eyes and especially while it's being projected in 3D.

The first "Avatar" film seemed to take every scene and shot to the highest levels in order to make almost every frame of the film an iconic moment in order to draw you into that world and make for an unforgettable experience. Watching "Avatar 2", it clearly takes a very by the numbers approach with cinematography and you can almost stack the frames of the film together and end up with the same blocking for various scenes. This sticks out especially in 3D as it seems more like they wanted to flare the audience with light effects more than to create a 3D space to present the film and this is quite a feat as much of the film takes place underwater and at no point did I feel like the audience was underwater with the characters. From memory, I think the difference was that everything was too close by about one focal length for the most part, simply as if they filmed it mostly on a 50mm but needed to use a 35mm as the depth of the 3D just wasn't there.

While I know much of the "filming" was background plates and stand-ins for the motion capture process, which is neat, the frame rate issue when combined with the mostly CG scenes makes much of the film look like a videogame more than a film. Watching the film is very much like this as it's very akin to a videogame cinematic playing at 24fps or 30fps and then switching back to the 100+ frame rate of the game before another cinematic cuts in.

Aside from story issues with the film, again, no spoilers, I don't think the lacking presentation of the film will help push to the profit bearing $2 Billion box office that the studio wants and this was further made apparent as my brother and I were in a less than 1/4 full theatre screening during the 6PM timeframe.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

This film isn't for me, and that's okay. But it's interesting to note how Avatar has had zero influence on our culture. Compare that to Titanic and especially Terminator 2. COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.

 

[DJ Meyer]

I'll probably wait for it to hit streaming. Aggressively ambivalent about the sequel.

 

[Robert Hart]

It might be a horses for courses thing. I rolled the dice with COVID, masked up and went to see it this afternoon to escape the traffic jam and the heat after shopping for airconditioner parts. I found it fine to watch but I might also be easier to please. When you overhear someone's reaction "oh no" when a character is in imminent jeopardy, then there has been demonstrable audience engagement.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Didn't see the first Avatar and couldn't pay me to see the second. The filmmaker with the letters "JC" I want to see films by is Jane Campion.

Stephen

 

[Brad Grimm]

Looks like a videogame? Lol. Ok.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Looks like a videogame? Lol. Ok.

Check your local theatres and see if they're screening 48fps 3D and see it for yourself, watch it cut back and forth between framerates, yeah, videogame.

 

[Brad Grimm]

I did watch it, and saw the 48 FPS, I think it actually very much helped the 3D immersion. Not one shot looked anything like a video game. You may not have enjoyed the 48 FPS, but please don't dismiss peoples incredible work by saying these things, I expect these comments from people outside the industry, but anyone who understands what was accomplished technically with this film is going to laugh at you.

 

[Zack Birlew]

Nothing I've said is personal or meant to be, I'm talking about my experience seeing a movie and the ramifications of those findings on a technical level. I do criticize the creative decision to cut back and forth between frame rates, had the film been full 48fps the whole way through like "The Hobbit" films did then that would have been a much better experience regardless of how anyone feels about 48fps in general. Also, I'm not worried about people laughing at me, there are plenty of reactions out there reflecting my experience and if someone wants to take a movie review personally then that's some incredibly thin skin and shows some severe close mindedness to criticism and technical discussion. The framerate switching interfered with the movie watching experience and despite the work everyone on the crew and the performers put in, this technical aspect overshadowed everything put into it and it was a jarring experience for over three hours of runtime. I don't want to replicate that choice in my movies and I'm putting out the word in the cinematography forum so others can discuss the practice and in this case, I would say it's a controversial method and choice to display "Avatar 2" in this way.

 

[Brad Grimm]

Look, Don't make this about me having thin skin. Your comment was disrespectful to people who worked very hard on something. If you want to have a critical discussion then that's great, lets have it. But for my peers in the industry, to have other peers say all your hard work looks like a video game is down right disrespectful and does nothing to move the conversation forward in a more construction direction.. And Yes, art is personal.

 

[Zack Birlew]

I understand what you're saying but as for the "videogame" aspect, yes, graphically intensive games with cinematic aspects in particular, like some of the more recent "Resident Evil" games, the frame rate becomes variable particularly when cinematics or cutscenes play before popping back to regular gameplay. In the final fight sequence near the end of the film, you can see this as certain characters fight while others in the water or facing less action-packed situations have different frame rates cutting back and forth. I remember one particular shot in the climactic fight where Jake's daughter is in the water while he fights and the shot was a 1 second or less cutaway to 24fps from 48fps and back, that aspect of the film was, as I've said, "jarring". I don't know what the editing process must have been like but I again would have advised a consistent 48fps rather than a variable rate.

 

[Brad Grimm]

Yeah I didn't love the flipping back and forth either, 48 the entire time would have been much better, and I am surprised to be saying that as I did not like it at all with the Hobbit.

 

[Les Hillis]

Saw the 48fps 3D version today.

I liked the 3D effect in the first Avatar, as an experience in itself, but wasn't really into the story and found it boring towards the end, even during the big action scenes, so I'm definitely not a fan and have only seen that first movie once, in a cinema.

Actually found the second movie more interesting. Still like the 3D effect and thought it was used well overall. But it still seems more like a novelty that often alternates between being something I wish some shots lingered on for longer, or a distraction drawing attention to itself. It can look aesthetically pleasing when it adds to the composition, can add to the sense of realism of the images being captured, and can add a level of superficial interest to a shot that might be less interesting otherwise. There were a lot of shots in the movie that for me were just plain great examples of 3D imagery, and there's no way I'd pay to see that movie in 2D, but there's a kind of inconsistency to it that I think is unavoidable. I guess it's just like cinematography in general, where not every shot is going to be a Rembrandt, to the point where sometimes some really good looking shots just make others look worse by comparison, if you know what I mean. The 3D adds another layer of creativity and aesthetic choices, and once you're in that pond, you're in, for better or worse, shot by shot.

I noticed the frame rate changes, and would have even if I hadn't read about them here first. Funny thing is, if I hadn't read about it here, I probably would have been confused by it, thinking the HFR effect was intermittent due to the lack of movement in the frame or something, not necessarily a creative choice as to which frame rate to use. I actually like high-frame-rate imagery, so I would have been fine with the whole thing being 48fps. Similar to the 3D effect, I think the movie would have been less interesting and visually engaging if it were 24fps only. And again, similar to the use of 3D, once you go there you up the stakes in terms of whether the sense of immersion in the story can be maintained. I think they managed to keep it from being too distracting in itself. What I did notice in some shots was micro-stuttering that looked like they were simply struggling to project the movie smoothly without some kind of buffering problems. From a technical stand-point, that was actually the most jarring part of the whole experience for me, which I guess had nothing to do with the movie itself (though as I recall, it was stuttering on very high-detailed and demanding shots).

I didn't find the extensive use of CGI as bad as I thought it might be. There probably were shots that could have just as easily been in-game cinematics, but not enough to make me sit there thinking I was just watching an animated movie. When you're making things at the level of the Avatar movies, the CGI elements don't really look any more fake than physically constructed sets and props would.

I am left thinking that from a traditional film-making and story-telling point of view, there was something lacking in how it was all put together, but that quickly runs into the subject of creative choices and of what story was being presented, so I won't go there. I found myself being engaged by the story, as were others in the cinema with me at the time, so I can't be too critical of the story they were telling or how it was told. The whole thing could so easily have been so much worse in every way.

Anyway, those are some of my impressions of the movie.

I'm left thinking more than anything how the whole big-screen HFR/3D/CGI thing would be the perfect medium for a straight up fake documentary about some interesting goings-on on some other planet, elements of which both of the Avatar movies so far have had their fair share of.

 

[dio Zafi]

Saw the 48fps 3D version today.

I liked the 3D effect in the first Avatar, as an experience in itself, but wasn't really into the story and found it boring towards the end, even during the big action scenes, so I'm definitely not a fan and have only seen that first movie once, in a cinema.

Actually found the second movie more interesting. Still like the 3D effect and thought it was used well overall. But it still seems more like a novelty that often alternates between being something I wish some shots lingered on for longer, or a distraction drawing attention to itself. It can look aesthetically pleasing when it adds to the composition, can add to the sense of realism of the images being captured, and can add a level of superficial interest to a shot that might be less interesting otherwise. There were a lot of shots in the movie that for me were just plain great examples of 3D imagery, and there's no way I'd pay to see that movie in 2D, but there's a kind of inconsistency to it that I think is unavoidable. I guess it's just like cinematography in general, where not every shot is going to be a Rembrandt, to the point where sometimes some really good looking shots just make others look worse by comparison, if you know what I mean. The 3D adds another layer of creativity and aesthetic choices, and once you're in that pond, you're in, for better or worse, shot by shot.

I noticed the frame rate changes, and would have even if I hadn't read about them here first. Funny thing is, if I hadn't read about it here, I probably would have been confused by it, thinking the HFR effect was intermittent due to the lack of movement in the frame or something, not necessarily a creative choice as to which frame rate to use. I actually like high-frame-rate imagery, so I would have been fine with the whole thing being 48fps. Similar to the 3D effect, I think the movie would have been less interesting and visually engaging if it were 24fps only. And again, similar to the use of 3D, once you go there you up the stakes in terms of whether the sense of immersion in the story can be maintained. I think they managed to keep it from being too distracting in itself. What I did notice in some shots was micro-stuttering that looked like they were simply struggling to project the movie smoothly without some kind of buffering problems. From a technical stand-point, that was actually the most jarring part of the whole experience for me, which I guess had nothing to do with the movie itself (though as I recall, it was stuttering on very high-detailed and demanding shots).

I didn't find the extensive use of CGI as bad as I thought it might be. There probably were shots that could have just as easily been in-game cinematics, but not enough to make me sit there thinking I was just watching an animated movie. When you're making things at the level of the Avatar movies, the CGI elements don't really look any more fake than physically constructed sets and props would.

I am left thinking that from a traditional film-making and story-telling point of view, there was something lacking in how it was all put together, but that quickly runs into the subject of creative choices and of what story was being presented, so I won't go there. I found myself being engaged by the story, as were others in the cinema with me at the time, so I can't be too critical of the story they were telling or how it was told. The whole thing could so easily have been so much worse in every way.

Anyway, those are some of my impressions of the movie.

I'm left thinking more than anything how the whole big-screen HFR/3D/CGI thing would be the perfect medium for a straight up fake documentary about some interesting goings-on on some other planet, elements of which both of the Avatar movies so far have had their fair share of.

+1

Happy to buy a ticket in support of the local theater owner


good for 20th century fox's year end market share

and ok for the target audience

 

[Les Hillis]

Curiosity got the better of me and I went to see the 24fps 3D version of the movie yesterday, exact same seat in the same cinema, just a 24fps screening instead of variable 48fps.

Noticed the traditional motion-blurriness you get at 24fps when there's high speed movement in frame. Choosing between that and the 48fps HFR effect, I'd rather see the action more clearly but too life-like at 48fps than less clearly but more 'cinematic' at 24fps.

A consistent frame rate is another element in itself though, and there is a benefit to it, even at 24fps, in the way you don't have to consciously perceive it once it's set. Which I think gets back to one of the original points of the thread.

Ideally, the change in frame rate shouldn't be noticeable, which comes down to editing and how you capture the content in the first place (and to some extent what that action is) and which makes changing it from shot to shot seem questionable. (I say 'ideally' because even if the frame rate is putting up a barrier or sense of distance between the viewer and their sense of immersion in what they're seeing, the constancy of it is still beneficial in that it allows the viewer to focus on what's still there beyond that distancing barrier, instead of on the changing level of 'distance' itself.)

I vaguely recall something about 48fps just being used to mitigate motion blur in high-movement shots. If so, I think it worked. But also, if that's the case, I wonder what consideration was given to the other consequences on the viewing experience of doing that? Was it simply a case of only having the option to choose one HFR version of the movie? I guess the people making that choice have their personal preferences and their test screenings to draw on, so they probably made the right choice. I would have gone to see the movie again though, if there were a constant 48fps version available, just for the different experience of it. So maybe there's a gap there and cranking the release versions of the movie up to 11 instead of just 10 would have been better.

As it is, seeing the movie twice now, I think I've done enough to satisfy my curiosity in regards to where the medium is at, and to contribute to the enrichment and advancement of...whatever. Just glad I found it to be a fairly inoffensive and innocuous and entertaining family oriented action movie behind all the technological artifice.

On that subject of the technology though, the CGI in the movie really is nucking futs in a lot of places. From the characters that come across as just prosthetically made-up real people a lot of the time, to the animal and environmental effects that are at times indistinguishable from what a camera would really capture (including the underwater stuff). The movie definitely has its moments and was worth seeing in 3D on the big screen.