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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

Though "Avatar" is a great movie, it bugs me a bit that ALL big-budget science fiction has to be an action-adventure movie to sell tickets worldwide. We rarely get big-budget cerebral experiences like "2001" or "Solaris" much anymore. If "Blade Runner" were remade today, there would be a high-speed Spinner chase scene, flying through the city (like the one in "Attack of the Clones") in the middle of the movie, and the climax would involve Roy Batty and Deckard hunting each other down inside a giant Nexus 6 factory as it explodes around them. Even the "Star Trek" movies have had to embrace a "Star Wars" type action style.
 
Yes, but David, you know darn well that what you are asking for is nearly impossible.

If you want to make a "big-budget" sci-fi picture ($150 mil budget), that movie is going to have to be seen by huge, huge numbers of people to make a profit. Frankly, there are just not enough intelligent cinema-goers around to support intelligent sci-fi without chases, explosions and gimmicks. I mean, have you turned on TV lately and seen what people are watching?

What percentage of people have ever read "War & Peace" cover to cover? Maybe 15%? And half of them probably only read it because they were forced to in college. What percentage of people can name a single piano concerto by Beethoven? Maybe 10%? Less?

This is why a beautiful, spiritual, exquisite sci-fi film like Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" (with no explosions or space-ship chases) earns only $10 million while garbage like "Transformers 2" rakes in $400 million.

I give a lot of credit to Cameron here for "sneaking in" all the spirituality, anti-imperialist and nature-worship stuff, into a film that will be seen globally by hundreds of millions of people. I mean, parts of "Avatar" really do play out like "Baraka in Space."

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Avatar had science fiction devices, but I wouldnt nessecarily classify it as a science fiction film, and I dont think it seeks to be that. Avatar wouldve worked just as well as a spiritual movie, where, for example, the alien planet was the 'afterlife'. In general I dislike the term "science fiction", because a theme or setting isnt necessarily what should be driving the story.. Yes Avatar has relatively simplistic archetypes, but considering the mass commercial viability this film must be capable of to break even, I applaud James Cameron's balanced sense of commercial artistry. Quite easy to be complex and artsy. Quite easy to be completely commercial. Quite hard to do both.

And in a sense, the complexity in this film arrives when you start to deconstruct it (if you are so inclined that is..)
 
Ace said:
The box office on this film will surpass 3-4 Billion that's for sure. 5 Billion considering many people will want to see it multiple times with friends, family etc. Titanic made a worldwide box office of 2.5 billion. Hard to see how this will be beneath that. Except it probably wont be shown in many countries due to "political themes"...So I'm not sure. Titanic was in cinema's for what, a whole year?
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You think it will significantly surpass Titanic? I dont think it will even match it.

I saw it today at a packed matinee, the movie ended and the room did not applaud.

It's definitely a "must see" movie for the sheer stunning level of design work on screen, it's very overwhelming. But after it's all said and done, the story leaves so much to be desired that I'd be greatly shocked if it drove the repeat business necessary to go over 1 billion domestic gross.

I think this is James Cameron's "The Phantom Menace". That movie overwhelmed me with awe years ago. The underwater gungan village, the pod race, etc., were all stunning examples of what a ton of computer farms can render, this is the next step. David Mullen well summed it up by calling it a good evolutionary step. It's the next thing in visuals. Story? It's just Pocahontas crossed with Dances With Wolves and Fern Gully, except the natives and all the other animals have a USB port out of the back of their head.

But the sheer volume of work in world creation is stunning. It's mind blowing how much design and render time went into this. I eagerly watch to see how it does and how the copycats do.
 
Just saw Avatar for the 2nd time. This time I saw it in 2D. You can really see just how incredibly good the CG is when viewed in 2D. Wow, just wow.

However, I don't feel like it's a game changer. It pushes technology, it does things that have never been done, but it's not a game changer. Movie are not changed forever.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Though "Avatar" is a great movie, it bugs me a bit that ALL big-budget science fiction has to be an action-adventure movie to sell tickets worldwide. We rarely get big-budget cerebral experiences like "2001" or "Solaris" much anymore. If "Blade Runner" were remade today, there would be a high-speed Spinner chase scene, flying through the city (like the one in "Attack of the Clones") in the middle of the movie, and the climax would involve Roy Batty and Deckard hunting each other down inside a giant Nexus 6 factory as it explodes around them. Even the "Star Trek" movies have had to embrace a "Star Wars" type action style.
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I completely agree with you on this point.

Blade Runner and 2001 are my favorite SF films, and I often yearn to see something new like them. There are promises but nothing comes to fruition. Moon wasn't bad it just lacked something special.

Hollywood has found an avenue in which they can be guaranteed to make money and I think they will exploit it as long as possible.

The high cost of Avatar means it needs to appeal to the whole world so it can recoup it's money. :wink: Plus I get the feeling that if they spent $320 million on a hard SF film without any modern spectacle it would fail at the box office. Moon cost $5 million and that is more in line with with expectations. It has made $7,191,615 so far.

Out of interest I was looking at the Box Office Mojo statistics for Ridley Scott (I worship this man) and his average box office earning is $59,974,538. Not bad. James Cameron has an average of $146,743,414. My point is that if you give Sir Ridley a hard SF film he has to keep the budget around $15-30 million. Even a legend in the SF realm such as Sir Ridley does not generate a huge haul at the box office. I only mention these numbers knowing investors are keen for a return. They would not be happy when you say they won't make their money back but we will be creating the best modern hard SF film.

http://totalscifionline.com/features/3809-the-100-greatest-sci-fi-movies

Most of those films are not really SF. They are set in the future, in space, have aliens, have cool science-looking props, and generally feel like SF but they are not.

I mean look at all the crappy SF remakes recently. WTF? The Day The Earth Stood Still is a good example. The remake was horrid, the original was great. The Earth ACTUALLY STOOD STILL in the 1951 version... Hollywood is remaking these SF films and stripping them of the SF element and replacing it with science-action.
 
I predict a box office performance of anywhere between $450-$900 million for Avatar. It will reach $1 billion given enough time. I also don't feel it will make it's money all in one weekend. It is not a franchise or sequel/prequel so it is tough.

I think it will have the "legs" to last out December in January and perform well.
 
Walter Murch on stereoscopic 3D movies

Walter Murch on stereoscopic 3D movies

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Walter Murch discusses future technology...Stereoscopic 3D movies...

"Stereoscopic 3D is all the rage now, but you may not know that Walter Murch also worked on one of the iconic 3D short films,
Captain Eo, starring Michael Jackson. Francis Ford Coppola directed Eo for the Disney theme parks in 1986. It’s too early to tell
whether the latest 3D trend will be sustained, but Murch offered his take. “3D certainly has excellent box office numbers right now,
but there is still a fundamental perceptual problem with it: Through millions of years of evolution, our brains have been wired so that
when we look at an object, the point where our eyes converge and where they focus is one and the same. But with 3D film we have to
converge our eyes at the point of the illusion (say five feet in front of us) and simultaneously focus at the plane of the screen
(perhaps sixty feet away). We can do this, obviously, but doing it continuously for two hours is one of the reasons why we get headaches watching 3D.
If we can somehow solve this problem and if filmmakers use 3D in interesting ways that advance the story – and not just as gimmicks – then
I think 3D has a very promising long-term future.”

LINK>>>
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Though "Avatar" is a great movie, it bugs me a bit that ALL big-budget science fiction has to be an action-adventure movie to sell tickets worldwide. We rarely get big-budget cerebral experiences like "2001" or "Solaris" much anymore. If "Blade Runner" were remade today...
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It took 25 years for 2001 to break even, 25 years for Blade Runner to break even. They failed utterly at the box office. Stanley Kubrick blew his Dr. Strangelove and Spartacus capital to make 2001, Ridley Scott mined his Alien cache.

James Cameron spent some of his Titanic capital getting Soderbergh's $50m Solaris made (which bombed with a piddling $15m), and then spent the rest on Avatar. Good thing Avatar stands a better-than-good shot at making money.

The original $70m version of "The Fountain" with Brad Pitt was much bigger in scale, involving extended battle scenes. Aronofsky cut the budget in half, made an incredible and indelible film, and it got cast down into box office hell. Sad.

We can only hope that more visionary directors with box office clout will blow their wads on big budget cerebral sci-fi, and studio execs with sci-fi plated balls will greenlight them. Ridley Scott, make "Forever War" already (in IMAX 3D pretty please)! Get rolling on Rendezvous with Rama, David Fincher! In the meantime, content yourself with low budget brainy sci-fi (try on Jones' Moon or Rivera's Sleep Dealer or Natali's upcoming Splice or Herzog's Wild Blue Yonder). ;) Or turn on the TV (Dollhouse, anyone? The Virtuality pilot! Both canceled... )
 
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David Mullen ASC said:
#4 Shooting the movie in HD and doing the efx at 2K just didn't seem like there was enough resolution. Although I have this problem with 3D movies in general, they always seem a bit blurry. But it's amazing that Cameron had such control over the 3D process that I didn't get eyestrain after nearly 3 hours.
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I agree on hte bluriness.

Given the fact that the polarization scheme for blocking light in 3D glasses isnt 100% (when looking at titles on a black background, you can see "ghosting" from both offset images, etc..) I wonder if increased resolution will really be that much more noticable though.

David Mullen ASC said:
By the way, I saw the trailer for "Piranha 3D", which was shot in 2D and converted to 3D in post... and looks it. It felt like someone took chunks of the frame in post and decided whether to make the foreground, midground, or background, it looked like some old Viewmaster slide.
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Ditto. Not to mention it looked horribly lame. Although in the first 15 seconds, my wife and I both thought "Jaws remake??"

The 3D trailer for the Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland remake looked great though.

-sc
 
Zach Nelson said:
I think some people are just suffering from the over-hyped marketing machine.
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YES!!! I am so sick of the commercials inside of commercials. I'm sick of TV shows plugging the movie inside the show. It has been marketed to death and has pretty much turned me off.

I think the marketing went way overboard and personally I feel that I am being told that if I DON'T see it than I must be a bad person.
 
Is anyone else just a little bit disturbed that we are now replacing reality with CG?

Hmm, maybe soon we will be plugging in to a port on the back of our necks and experiencing it all firsthand.

Didn't I see that done already somewhere?:emote_22_yikes:
 
Tim Hole said:
I saw Tarkovsky's STALKER not so long ago on the big screen. That was a dream come true.
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Sorry for a bit offtopic, but how was the quailty of the print you saw? I keep dreaming of a blu-ray release, but I guess that will never happen.
 
OK... Saw it last night.... In IMAX 3D. Overhyped? Yes. Religious experience? Not for me, anyway. Visually impressive? Definitely! All things considered, it's a truly remarkable film from a technical and cinematographic (er, 3D CGI) perspective. I will definitely be seeing it again this week. I'll probably hit the Dolby3D one closer to me - I want to take my dad to see it.

Actually I've avoided this thread thinking there may be some potential spoilers, but I guess not now that I've read through. Anyhooo.... AVATAR was very impressive. I really think the comparison to The Matrix a ways back in this thread is spot on. There wasn't much in the film that was truly revolutionary or that had not been done before on some level. But like the Matrix, what makes the film special is that it merged so many cutting-edge concepts and VFX techniques, nearly all seamlessly too, into a film that typically would not be so mainstream. From a VFX / CG artist point of view, I'm totally geeking out over many aspects of the film. From the point of view of a Sci-Fi nut, I just wasn't totally enthralled with the story. As Ace said above, it really isn't even a Sci-Fi film. It's a fantasy film, almost spiritual in nature and would work as a spiritual film. I agree with Ace about typical Sci-Fi using a single device or theme should not drive a film or story. That is precisely what is WRONG with Hollywood Sci-Fi these days. But getting back to AVATAR, the revolutionary visual experience was undermined by the over-used and overly-predictable story. But why should I complain about that, I knew that going into this. It's all about mass commercial appeal and has many of the typical "safety nets" we see with typical Hollywood story structures.

I can't call this film a "game changer". And, damn, I hate that phrase. But the bar has definitely been raised, and raised quite high, for many aciton / adventure / fantasy type films from this point forward.

The 3D added a lot to the film. As others have said, it wasn't a gimmick. Although non-gimmicky 3D has become common with most new 3D films over the last year or so and I'm glad to see this trend. Filmmakers have stopped with the in-your-face 3D tricks and have let the effect expand the visual sense of the film in a very subtle, but very noticeable way. AVATAR does not depend on the 3D to make this a good movie and it will hold up just fine without it.
 
It seems like the question is now coming down to, "Is it a game changer?"

I would argue, Yes, it is, but this can't be stated as a fact, only as a prediction. You have to look at how the film industry is reacting. What is Spielberg doing? He's been down in New Zealand with Peter Jackson making a digital 3D film called "Tintin." Another film series to watch is "The Hobbit." Del Toro has stated that the success or failure of AVATAR might determine whether "The Hobbit" goes 3D.

One of the most telling stories about the "game-changing" nature of AVATAR was a reported comment made by a director overheard leaving the AVATAR premiere: "What do we do now?" To me, comments like that are indicative of a ground-shift. Or look at Michael Mann, who now says he's going to jump into 3D. Mann on AVATAR: "There's before this movie and after this movie."

Let me ask this question: if you were a high-powered director or DP right now and you had a huge-budget upcoming sci-fi or fantasy project in the pipeline, are you going to ignore 3D? Are you going to ignore "performance capture"?

I guess, ultimately, that the long-term box office numbers for AVATAR will tell the final tale. As several people here have pointed out, watching this film almost feels like you "visited" this far-away planet, Pandora... it's nearly a physical experience. The thing to watch for is huge repeat business at IMAX 3D screens, as people try to relive that experience, and also as word of mouth spreads. The fact that my MOM is going to drive 50 miles to an IMAX 3D theater because all her friends are talking about "Avatar" is one indication! :thumbsup:
 
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