James Cameron's Avatar

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by seventeen, Aug 20, 2009.

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  1. Driver 8

    Driver 8 Senior Member

    I read a recent article in USA Today or somewhere that movie box office is actually up during the recession, just as it was during the Depression. Movies are still a relatively cheap luxury during hard times.
     
  2. apileocole

    apileocole Lush Life Gort

    Not only is having a partial language developed for fans old news because Star Trek's Klingon has been there, done that long ago, it's been done well before Trek with more impressive scope: even if folks hadn't heard of J. R. R. Tolkien, they've probably heard of The Lord of the Rings...

    Although I'd suppose it's possible that the higher the bar is set, the greater the Blockbuster Effect: folks being selective, resulting in common choices having bigger booms than ever and reduced audiences chancing smaller titles. That may not actually be a healthy situation for the movie business at large.
     
  3. Drew

    Drew Senior Member

    Location:
    Grand Junction, CO
    Ticket prices aren't going down. They're going up.

    http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/25/tec...et_price_spike/index.htm?section=money_latest

    I usually get a box of Raisinettes when I go to the movies. But when I saw
    Avatar in 3D I didn't even go to the concession stand.
     
  4. neo123

    neo123 Senior Member

    Location:
    Northern Kentucky

    I never buy anything at the concession stand when I go to the movies (or ballgame.) I always sneak in my own snacks and drinks in my coat, pockets or one of the girl's purses.
     
  5. "Unobtainium" is contemporary slang for rare material. I think that it was used the same way in Avatar--not the actual name of the mineral they were mining, but a tongue-in-cheek reference to the scarcity of it.

    For a current example, see here:

    Congress Holds Hearings on Unobtainium

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/congress-holds-hearings-on-unobtainium/
     
  6. Driver 8

    Driver 8 Senior Member

    By that reasoning, "Thismoviesucksium" would be contemporary slang for Avatar. ;)
     
  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I don't think it's fair to say that a movie that spurred 881 messages on a discussion board and made $2,700,000,000 is deserving of the word "suck." I think it would be fair to say it's a commercially-successful movie that has some flaws, and some people are bothered by the flaws more than others.
     
  8. JohnG

    JohnG PROG now in Dolby ATMOS!

    Location:
    Long Island NY
    I agree completely. It is one of Hollywood's biggest success stories ever. Suck doesn't enter a discussion of a movie that wowed so many people.
     
  9. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Man, you're arguing with a brick wall there. And don't get him started on "The Dark Knight". :sigh:

    The perfect rule of Driver8 posts: he will defend movies/music popular with the masses if the people here look down on it. If the movie/music is popular with the masses AND the SHF, he will attack it.

    If 99% of the SHF posts about "Avatar" savaged it, he'd defend it as the greatest thing since toenail fungus removal...
     
  10. I don't get it.
     
  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yeah, I've dealt with people who dislike something even without seeing it, on the basis of "if it's a huge mass-market success, there must be something wrong with it."

    I have the opposite point of view: sometimes, I'll go to something that I otherwise wouldn't see just because it's popular, if only to be able to say, "ah -- I see why people liked this." What kills me is when really bad movies like Transformers or Twilightare popular, and I just shake my head in bewilderment. At least in the latter case, most of the critics seem to have the same opinion as I did.
     
  12. SgtPepper1983

    SgtPepper1983 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Agreed. And it's this crowd that claims Avatar to be the best movie ever made.

    I know it's been discussed to death but I would like to have an answer: do you guys think the special effects in Avatar do really look better than those of Episode I? And I don't mean the quantity of them.
     
  13. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    According to my wife, who went to that same theater during a matinee, it was a pretty full house, but at "prime time" on a Saturday night it was a ghost town. That tells me something.
     
  14. Drew

    Drew Senior Member

    Location:
    Grand Junction, CO
  15. evanft

    evanft Forum Resident

    Location:
    Taylor, MI, USA
    So basically there's no reason to buy the BR/DVD.
     
  16. darkmatter

    darkmatter Gort Astronomer Staff

    Watched it on BRD finally last night, and enjoyed it :)
     
  17. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    saw it last night on DVD. well done, would probably enjoy the 3D version.

    i'm sure there will be numerous releases of this over the next couple of years:

    additional footage
    3D version
    director's commentary
    deleted scenes
    gag reel
    etc
    etc
    etc
     
  18. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Saw Princess Mononoke for the first time a couple of days ago—James Cameron stole a lot from that brilliant movie. If you haven't seen it, do. It has many similar themes to Avatar but is far superior as story-telling. As regards visuals, Hayao Miyazaki is the master of animated cartoons. I love how he slips in Ukiyo-e references into his frames.
     
  19. Feisal K

    Feisal K Forum Resident

    Location:
    Malaysia
    Have you seen Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind?

    [​IMG]


    Amazon's writeup
     
  20. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
  21. Feisal K

    Feisal K Forum Resident

    Location:
    Malaysia
    You'll love it!

    there ought to be a dedicated Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli thread around here... are we waiting for him to die to declare him a genius?
     
  22. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    The Nightwalker in Mononoke is sooooo reminiscent of the Navi and all that acrobatic jumping through the forest echos similar scenes in Avatar.

    I think Miyazaki doesn't have to worry about his status as genius. Sounds like you should start the thread, I'm a newbie, relatively speaking.
     
  23. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    I don't get that everyone's giving Driver 8 a hard time because he thinks a movie(it shouldn't matter WHAT the movie is) sucks. Y'all can give me a hard time too then because I thought it sucked as well. To say it didn't suck because it made a lot of money and there's a long thread about it makes no sense to me. If someone starts a Kenny G thread in the Music forum and the thread grows to 40 pages does that make him un-suck?
    Robin, you have a Ponyo avatar but you only recently saw what is possibly Miyazaki's most famous film?
     
  24. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Well of course it does! :winkgrin:

    Wait till the Forum finds out that all the Beatles instrumental tracks were actually laid down by the Wrecking Crew. :shh:

    Not only that, but one of my favorite and most admired friends told me to watch Princess Mononoke ten years ago. Weird, eh?
     
  25. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    Strange experience watching AVATAR on Blu-ray at Best Buy:

    The images were so sharp and so delineated that watching it was quickly fatiguing. It was like reading the razor-sharp ratings info at the beginning of every Blu-ray, if you had to look at them for several minutes instead of seconds.

    My guess is that the picture was set to vibrant, maximum sharpness and everything else they do to make an HDTV look more immediately impressive than the others on display. And I'm pretty sure the seats were too close for the screen's size. But, wow, it was tough to watch. I wanted to hit a fuzz-it-up-a-little-bit button.
     
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