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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 :)

"I just saw Avatar" Thread

Avatar impression from a Harvard trained psychotherapist:


I have had the privilege of seeing James Cameron’s movie, Avatar, twice now over the holidays. The first time I sat at the end of the movie with tears rolling down my face, not out of sentimentality, but because I had a sense that I had seen a work of art profoundly original, beautiful, true, and one that spoke to me very much as a woman.

When I looked at what I thought would be glowing reviews I found that even though an enormous number of reviewers thought the movie was outstanding and gave it a four to five star rating, many, maybe even most, described the movie as clichéd in some way. Comparisons with Dances With Wolves abounded. Reviewers spewed scarcely concealed derision at the “sensitive” white man who ends up going native. Avatar, apparently, is a movie that reviewers both love and loathe. The therapist in me got to thinking, why is this? How did the reviewers and I end up seeing such different movies?

I saw a movie where the white man loses and is sent home packing. Originality, check. I saw a movie about a group of indigenous people where the women were on equal, if not higher, footing with the men. Originality, check. I saw a movie about a world where connection is the highest good and disconnection is a form of insanity. Originality, check. I saw a movie where the deity is female. Originality, check. I saw a movie where woman both embodied fierce warrior and tender lover. Originality, check. I saw a movie where feelings and intuition must trump logical thought. Originality, check. I saw a movie that literally showed a planetary mind united with itself as a thing of splendor, power and beauty, a thing not to be used or violated. Originality, check. I saw a movie with a non-adapted script that creates a whole new planet, ecology and inhabitants. Originality, check.

This was not a movie of clichés. This was not a movie of good vs evil as so many are projecting. This is a movie about connection vs disconnection as the highest forms of good and evil. Let’s take a moment to examine this distinction more closely.

On Pandora all the creatures have evolved to have the potential for directly interlocking minds via the pigtail like “queue” of the Nav’i. The queue also bonds the Nav’i pairs for life in an act similar to but more intimate than Earth based lovemaking. Additionally, the planet herself is full of interlocking structures of consciousness that are united by and in the Goddess wisdom of Eywa, the deity of Pandora and the Nav’i. Eywa seems to be not only the sum of all consciousness that has ever lived on Pandora but has Her own awareness that is more than the sum of Her parts.

Daniel Siegel, MD, a psychiatrist who has pioneered the idea of interpersonal neurobiology gives speeches on the importance of interconnection to audiences as distinguished as the Pope and Dalai Lama. He observes that when the middle brain is functioning optimally, people not only feel a sense of peacefulness and tremendous wellbeing but also feel profoundly connected to themselves and others. He has proposed a scientific definition of spirituality as the awareness of the reality that we are part of an interconnected whole, a definition that has been widely accepted by researchers and spiritual leaders alike.

Environmentally, we lack the mechanisms for connection that James Cameron’s vision of Pandora provides. Being connected here on Earth is not just a matter of plugging in our queue to the nearest Tree of Souls. We need to cultivate deep sensitivity, deep empathy and groundedness to achieve the kind of connection the Nav’i enjoy so effortlessly.

Humans, especially of Western European descent, today are deeply conflicted about cultivating this connection. We want people to be sensitive to our needs and happiness without being sensitive to theirs. We extol the value of “interconnectedness” while devaluing sensitivity, as if being sensitive is a flaw to be overcome, especially in males. I used to call this “white man’s disease” – the disease of disconnection and insensitivity. It is, however, found to be rampant in every conquering culture. We cannot behave badly to another without first shutting down our sense of connection. Otherwise hurting someone else becomes injuring oneself, and attack is no longer an option.

Avatar wisely challenges us to go deeper, to examine our connection to our world and to each other. It exposes the folly of force without nobility, greed without consideration, and the hollowness of co-existence without connection.

Thank you, James Cameron, for making my job a little easier and my world a little more beautiful. I see you.




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Quote from Nick D

I give it 0 stars because I felt conflicted while and after watching the movie. Yes, Jim Cameron is the Cecil B Demille of our time, but I can't recommend anyone go see this movie, hence the 0 rating because...

1. I morally object to Jim Cameron's $500 million Wicca celebration and I don't want my young daughters to see this movie and confusing this foul soup of moral nonsense to be truth, ever...

4. After sitting thru 2 Wiccan forest rituals and prayers to a Pagan Mother Planet life-force, I wanted to walk onto the IMAX 3D screen and say: Navi, have you heard of the Navajo or JC and salvation? Because I know the director of this flick has, and he thoroughly rejects JC and the apostles.
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Nick, your remarks are 100% spot on. There are many comments on this thread praising the spiritual nature of the movie... and I don't think that it can be denied that the movie was spiritual in nature. But it's certainly not a Christian spirituality that's portrayed, and I think that's what you're objecting to.
 
Well, just from a logic standpoint, it wouldn't make much sense for this alien culture to have a specifically Christian belief system and spirituality... You're already pushing credibility as it is that this culture has so many Native American qualities and values. I don't see how their spirituality could be portrayed as specifically Christian and have the movie retain any plausibility.
 
Something cool you may not know

Something cool you may not know

Some of you wonder if the CGI is ground breaking or revolutionary? Some of you have said "It's just motion capture".

It's not.. It's accurate in a way that's never been done before..

How do I know? Because I am mostly deaf and read lips to hear everything.

For the first time, ever.. I was reading the lips of a CGI character...

And they were dead on. I shit you not.. And I would know if they were off.

Many of the most impressive things about this movie, most of us may never see.

Jay
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Well, just from a logic standpoint, it wouldn't make much sense for this alien culture to have a specifically Christian belief system and spirituality... You're already pushing credibility as it is that this culture has so many Native American qualities and values. I don't see how their spirituality could be portrayed as specifically Christian and have the movie retain any plausibility.
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Lol. This reminds me of some of the angry letters the Spanish conquerors of South America sent back home to the Christian leaders in Europe. They complained that the local "savages" were deliberately mocking Christianity, because they worshiped a god born of a virgin who died and was resurrected. These "savages" were tortured and killed to punish them for mocking Jesus. Nevermind that this same basic religious story had been told around the world by dozens of geographically isolated cultures for thousands of years before anyone had ever heard of Christianity. Joe Campbell documents this brilliantly in his various books, including his lectures in Myths to Live By.

Wow, Jay, that is fascinating regarding the lip-reading.
 
Tom,

That sounds really interesting. I'm going to look that up.

Jay... that is very cool and quite amazing. My appreciation for the CG work on the film just went up a notch. Thanks for sharing that.
 
I've seen it 4 times already, and each time it keeps getting better, and more epic than the last time I saw it.

I'm going to see it a 5th time on Monday, and then again in IMAX 3D when I get back to Toronto next week.

The one thing I keep hearing about from complainers is the length. If anything, I wanted Avatar to be longer, I wanted to explore this world that Cameron and his amazing team created. Everything about it is so perfectly done, and if this movie does not win Oscar's I will be amazed.
 
Mark Collins said:
The one thing I keep hearing about from complainers is the length. If anything, I wanted Avatar to be longer, I wanted to explore this world that Cameron and his amazing team created.
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Don't worry, you'll have plenty of opportunities in "Avatar: The Game":

http://avatargame.us.ubi.com/ (VIDEO)

Hopefully, eventually in 3D. :-)
 

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Mark Collins said:
I've seen it 4 times already, and each time it keeps getting better, and more epic than the last time I saw it.
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He he, that is do no doubt because there is so much to absorb especially in most Deep Focus sceneries with incredibly vast and detailed Landscapes.

But it is mostly do to a simple factor, you get better at Stereopsis each time you actually Exercise the Ocular Mussels by forcing them to Converge and accommodating the visuals created by the Disparities presented from the two images that create Stereo 3D, so just like anything else in your body the more you exercise the better you get at it.


This is also what makes huge difference from a Stereographer that works considerable amounts of times in actual 3D space and in visualizing on 3D monitors, and off course viewing and enjoying 3D material, vs. that which does not, and the capacity to spot any Disparity troubles which could and will cause Retinal Rivalry issues which in turn cause Headaches

And this is also why I have been digesting tone of 3D during this past year in preparation of doing S3D Feature Films.

But again, the most obvious reason fin Avatar for your enjoying much more in each visit is also do to the tremendously well executed S3D effects and CGI parameters, just stunning.
.No matter what
 
Jay A. Kelley said:
Some of you wonder if the CGI is ground breaking or revolutionary? Some of you have said "It's just motion capture".

It's not.. It's accurate in a way that's never been done before..

How do I know? Because I am mostly deaf and read lips to hear everything.

For the first time, ever.. I was reading the lips of a CGI character...

And they were dead on. I shit you not.. And I would know if they were off.

Many of the most impressive things about this movie, most of us may never see.

Jay
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I can't comment on whether or not other films are lip readable (Although I've heard anecdotal accounts of Gollum being lip-readable. However I think the point isn't that it wasn't really well done performance capture, just that it's not the first time it was employed. Benjamin Button also utilized a very similar system although they weren't capturing it on set.

You can check out Image Metric's system. They've been around since about 2003 or so and have consistently delivered some pretty impressive results. Unfortunately it looks like their site is down right now. I think this is just a case of films which started using this 3-4 years ago are only just now starting to come out. You don't start a project without a solution and it's only recently become reliable and 'safe'. Of course this is what many have been saying for years and years to all the naysayers of motion capture ("It'll never bridge the uncanny valley.") "Just wait. Eventually, with enough resolution it'll be perfect." It won't be too long before a 4k camera will fit on a small stick and then the performance capture will be even better.
 
Tyler Black said:
Nick, your remarks are 100% spot on. There are many comments on this thread praising the spiritual nature of the movie... and I don't think that it can be denied that the movie was spiritual in nature. But it's certainly not a Christian spirituality that's portrayed, and I think that's what you're objecting to.
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I fail to see how this is Christian or Non-Christian. (Full disclosure I'm an Atheist with 12 years of Christian education and was raised by a University Theology and Philosophy Professor, so I'm by definition a bit of a contrarian when it comes to such things.) They even explicitly say in the film "It's not some superstition it's biology!" Elwah isn't actually a Goddess. She's referred to as one by the Na'vi and for all intents and purposes she serves as such, however at the end of the day she's a creature. A fallible and limited creature who only has power over the creatures of Pandora. What they did was find an emergent intelligence from an interconnected society.

To attribute the idea of community and interdependence exclusively to wiccan thought is to only glance at the transparent veneer without examining the actual thought. If anything Elwah isn't Wiccan, it's Gaian which is a scientific/philisophical not a religious argument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis) and in no way contrary to Christian doctrine. Even Paul in the bible speaks to the subject in 1st Corinthians 12:14-17

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
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If you only take away from Avatar that a bunch of Blue People worship a tree you're missing the spirituality completely. And if you just see it as a bunch of Blue People worshiping a tree then you'll very easily miss the fact that a message of interdependence and symbiosis is not Pagan or Christian but a universal idea shared by all. Avatar was not about tree worship. It was about community. Elwah could have just as easily been a mainframe computer as a tree and it would have been just as relevant to Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and yes even Wiccans.

The world is full of allegory and metaphor. Every other word out of Jesus's mouth was a parable. It's how humanity communicates. It's how film works. We learn from stories. It's your responsibility as a parent to provide context if children can't find it on their own. If that's a Christian context then teach them the importance of community as a part of the Body of Christ. If parables were beyond the understanding of children then singing "The wise man builds his house upon the rock." would be of limited use in Sunday/Sabbath school beyond a brief lesson on engineering.

Perhaps teaching your daughters how to recognize and understand different perspectives would be a more valuable lesson than whatever you had hoped they would have instead learned from 3 hours of violence, sex and profanity (It is a PG-13 film, just saying...).
 
Just saw it for the second time. This time it was 2D, on film. The CGI carried over okay but the live action suffered from the camera system used. Any idea what kind of cameras make up the Pace/Cameron system? Clipped highlights, purple fringing and compression artifacts that weren't noticeable in digital projection 3D. I wouldn't see it on film if you have a choice between that and digital projection. My next viewing will be IMAX.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
Just saw it for the second time. This time it was 2D, on film. The CGI carried over okay but the live action suffered from the camera system used. Any idea what kind of cameras make up the Pace/Cameron system? Clipped highlights, purple fringing and compression artifacts that weren't noticeable in digital projection 3D. I wouldn't see it on film if you have a choice between that and digital projection. My next viewing will be IMAX.
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Jepp, Agree.
In 2D, there was a definite "video" feeling. But the complexity of shooting 3D, is not to be taken lightly. To use a solid and proven production pipeline is a cure for the producers ulcers. Naturally RED is my first bet, and not Sony. :)
 
KETCH ROSSI said:
He he, that is do no doubt because there is so much to absorb especially in most Deep Focus sceneries with incredibly vast and detailed Landscapes.

But it is mostly do to a simple factor, you get better at Stereopsis each time you actually Exercise the Ocular Mussels by forcing them to Converge and accommodating the visuals created by the Disparities presented from the two images that create Stereo 3D, so just like anything else in your body the more you exercise the better you get at it.


This is also what makes huge difference from a Stereographer that works considerable amounts of times in actual 3D space and in visualizing on 3D monitors, and off course viewing and enjoying 3D material, vs. that which does not, and the capacity to spot any Disparity troubles which could and will cause Retinal Rivalry issues which in turn cause Headaches

And this is also why I have been digesting tone of 3D during this past year in preparation of doing S3D Feature Films.

But again, the most obvious reason fin Avatar for your enjoying much more in each visit is also do to the tremendously well executed S3D effects and CGI parameters, just stunning.
.No matter what
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I've actually only seen it once in 3D so far, and that was the day it came out at an IMAX. I'm going to see it in 3D again though on monday.

But yes, one thing I notice is that this film should be viewed on a digital projector and in 3D. On a film projector, it just can't stack up visually against a digital one.

Still a good film, and a good reminder that visual's aren't everything, but it's just that this particular movie needs a digital projection system, preferably one in 3D.

Before this movie, I hated 3D, and saw it as a gimmick. Now, I just want to shoot 3D and play around with it. If films that are shooting 3D can do what Cameron's team did with it, then I would love to see it take the market.
 
Tyler Black said:
I don't think Avatar holds a candle to The Matrix in terms of the genius that went into the Matrix story...
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Matrix story was written cca. 2-3000 years ago in ancient India and what's in the movie is not even the tip of the iceberg.
 
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