“the mother of all movie battles.”"
CGI-driven gigantic battle scenes are usually pretty boring IMHO.
― Adam Bruneau, Wednesday, 28 October 2009 18:55 (3 years ago) Permalink
Exactly.
― M. Grissom/DeShields (jaymc), Wednesday, 28 October 2009 19:30 (3 years ago) Permalink
New trailer
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 30 October 2009 17:51 (3 years ago) Permalink
And various reactions to same.
Everything about that just makes me think Cameron woke up one morning and decided "You know I liked the technology in the forest bits in The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith, why didn't George make a full movie out of it?"
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 30 October 2009 17:56 (3 years ago) Permalink
it's pretty amazing how a guy who was once, like, the toughest mfer when it came to writing and directing action films has turned into such a weirdo furry.
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:03 (3 years ago) Permalink
Creatures and "jungle wonders" still look cheezy as hell, and the sawed-off jarhead dialogue sounds worse, but the new trailer does make it look like an entertaining (and perhaps even moving) Aliens/Abyss-style military adventure flick. In, yeah, a weirdo furry kinda way.
― from alcoholism to fleshly concerns (contenderizer), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:09 (3 years ago) Permalink
CGI-driven gigantic battle scenes are usually pretty boring IMHO
― modescalator (blueski), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:11 (3 years ago) Permalink
xxp Well it was always there. See the The Abyss.
― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:11 (3 years ago) Permalink
at least i think i got tired of it after 2003 xp
― modescalator (blueski), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:12 (3 years ago) Permalink
It would be so, so awesome if everything we've seen/heard about "Avatar" was actually restricted to the first 30 minutes of the movie, and the rest was all, like, talk. Sort of like the opposite of "Aliens."
I say with tongue obviously in cheek, because a) this would never happen and b) Cameron is actually a pretty weak writer, classic line-or two and bits of "The Abyss" aside. "Avatar" just seems like such an obviously, well, obvious allegory - and lo and beyond, the primitive other has lessons to teach us all! - that it would take a really clever, perceptive screenwriter to transform it from spectacle to anything substantive. Giant blue Thunder-Ewoks don't help matters.
That author of that b.s. "New Yorker" profile, by the way, clearly had seen little to no more of the film than any of us plebes have. Either that or he was legally obligated to keep it confidential.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 30 October 2009 18:27 (3 years ago) Permalink
"Should I talk about the bit where they -- "
"Shut up, you."
"Sorry."
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 30 October 2009 18:28 (3 years ago) Permalink
Oh, by the way - what fucking bureaucrat would call the planet Pandora? That's just asking for trouble! What were the runner-ups? Pompeii? Krakatoa? Hades?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 30 October 2009 18:29 (3 years ago) Permalink
Titanic, Hindenburg and Lusitania were also under consideration.
― (oh PORRIDGE) (HI DERE), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:31 (3 years ago) Permalink
Also, Last.fm.
(ba dum bump)
― Bears Are Alive! (Pancakes Hackman), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
"we're headin' to the planet warsaw ghetto..."
― jØrdån (omar little), Friday, 30 October 2009 18:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
― Ned Raggett, Friday, October 30, 2009 1:51 PM
ha yeah thats the one i saw
― am0n, Friday, 30 October 2009 18:59 (3 years ago) Permalink
lol giovanni ribisi
― am0n, Friday, 30 October 2009 19:00 (3 years ago) Permalink
That’s a great trailer. Anyone who H8s on this is dead inside and should move on to another career.Comment by Movie Fan — October 29, 2009 @ 12:03 pm Reply to this post
Okay, is it me or does this sound like a James Cameron sock-puppet? Comment by G. Lira — October 29, 2009 @ 2:13 pm Reply to this post
― am0n, Friday, 30 October 2009 19:05 (3 years ago) Permalink
i'm the king of the world woo
― da croupier, Friday, 30 October 2009 19:06 (3 years ago) Permalink
The design of this whole thing, right down to the title font is just atrocious. It's like his aesthetics just woke up from cryosleep.
― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Friday, 30 October 2009 19:21 (3 years ago) Permalink
district 9 meets ferngully
― am0n, Friday, 30 October 2009 19:31 (3 years ago) Permalink
I read that thing in the New Yorker last week. His hyper-detailed approach to everything (getting special cameras made, special underwater techniques on The Abyss, etc. etc.) EXCEPT the actual writing is quite astonishing. "We can hire an entire division of an aeronautics company to make us a special camera plane but we can't hire ONE. SINGLE. FUCKING. ACTUAL. WRITER. Nor do we think writers actually do their jobs very well or we would have hired one."
Cunt.
― fields of salmon, Friday, 30 October 2009 21:03 (3 years ago) Permalink
uhh, that's because he writes.
Would you prefer he hire dozens of script doctors like they did for the first Charlie's Angels movie?
― Matt Armstrong, Friday, 30 October 2009 22:07 (3 years ago) Permalink
ANd what's with that Woody Allen not passing along work to some screenwriters anyway?
― Bears Are Alive! (Pancakes Hackman), Friday, 30 October 2009 22:18 (3 years ago) Permalink
James Cameron's Interiors
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 30 October 2009 22:30 (3 years ago) Permalink
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, October 30, 2009 2:27 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
what's your point?
― banned, on the run (s1ocki), Friday, 30 October 2009 22:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
it's a great fuckin' profile!!
this looks sorta awesome u_u
― ice cr?m, Friday, 30 October 2009 22:46 (3 years ago) Permalink
I think a lot of folks are failing to view this trailer/film thru the eyes of a naive 11-year-old sci-fi geek. Seems like that's who it's aimed squarely at, and on that level, carping about the font seems ridiculous. "The Little Mermaid was charming, but that font!"
― from alcoholism to fleshly concerns (contenderizer), Friday, 30 October 2009 22:54 (3 years ago) Permalink
but this doesn't look charming at all
― da croupier, Friday, 30 October 2009 23:17 (3 years ago) Permalink
Aye, this just looks gash.
― krakow, Friday, 30 October 2009 23:30 (3 years ago) Permalink
is this a sudan allegory btw
― ice cr?m, Friday, 30 October 2009 23:32 (3 years ago) Permalink
nah brazil
― am0n, Friday, 30 October 2009 23:42 (3 years ago) Permalink
the movie or
― banned, on the run (s1ocki), Saturday, 31 October 2009 00:46 (3 years ago) Permalink
or?
― am0n, Saturday, 31 October 2009 00:59 (3 years ago) Permalink
so this has nothing to do with airbending right
― how rad bandit (gbx), Saturday, 31 October 2009 01:59 (3 years ago) Permalink
― This revisionist bible is delicious (reddening), Saturday, 31 October 2009 03:59 (3 years ago) Permalink
I wasn't carping about the font inasmuch as it seems to punctuate the awful look of this movie's design and overall aesthetics--as far as looking at it from the POV of an 11 year old... I was 11 when Terminator came out--that shit looked scary and cool.
― WARS OF ARMAGEDDON (Karaoke Version) (Sparkle Motion), Saturday, 31 October 2009 06:44 (3 years ago) Permalink
could see this being a movie where a surprisingly wide range of non nerds are all that was cool
― ice cr?m, Saturday, 31 October 2009 06:47 (3 years ago) Permalink
all that was cool in an effed up world.
― banned, on the run (s1ocki), Saturday, 31 October 2009 07:17 (3 years ago) Permalink
... in 3D!!!
― ice cr?m, Saturday, 31 October 2009 16:12 (3 years ago) Permalink
x-post It's totally a great profile. My point was that all the audacity on display in the piece perhaps needed a bit more counterbalance than the single graf related to the negative reaction to the teaser.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 31 October 2009 16:33 (3 years ago) Permalink
I mean, Cameron=jerk is not news.
he lets him hang himself with his own rope dude... what did you want, an anti-james-cameron expert to give the opposing view?
― banned, on the run (s1ocki), Saturday, 31 October 2009 16:58 (3 years ago) Permalink
won't be as good as 2012 fuiud
― coz (webinar), Saturday, 31 October 2009 18:07 (3 years ago) Permalink
someone needs to take cameron's $$$ away and force him to work with a small budget again, like with Aliens and the Terminator.
also bring back michael biehn and lance henrikson.
― i ain't no daggum son of a gun (latebloomer), Saturday, 31 October 2009 18:20 (3 years ago) Permalink
I really think lower budgets force people like Cameron or George Lucas to be more inventive.
― i ain't no daggum son of a gun (latebloomer), Saturday, 31 October 2009 18:23 (3 years ago) Permalink
hard to say, cuz the only time they had them was so long ago...
― banned, on the run (s1ocki), Saturday, 31 October 2009 18:27 (3 years ago) Permalink
I'm not sure Aliens counts as low budget. $20 mil in 1986? That's about twice as much as "RoboCop" the next year.
x-post If Avatar is a huge hit and every bit as technologically successful as he's promised, then we're all the dupes. He's arrogant, that's for sure, but it's only hang-yourself hubris if he's wrong. It would have been nice had the author been privy to a bit more and been able to come to some conclusions, but my guess is at the time of the piece's filing the movie wasn't anywhere close to done, at least not enough to really show off.
Personally, I would have rather read a balanced Michael Bay profile in the New Yorker a la the Michael Savage piece. At least we know what Bay's been up to. Cameron, on the other hand, has been more or less off the grid for a decade, so the piece doesn't advance his particular story very well; there's simply too much of his reputation riding on "Avatar" for them to have given the author the access he needed to transform the profile into more than a on-the-go with James Cameron behind the scenes piece. Brody's Wes Anderson profile (and the Haneke piece - lots of directors in the New Yorker these days!) parallels the Cameron one, but took a firmer critical stance and made room for more analysis.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 31 October 2009 18:28 (3 years ago) Permalink