_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

avatar story board exclusive
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http://thunderbaseball.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/thundercats.jpg

http://www.mannythemovieguy.com/images/smurf.jpg

I haven't managed to watch the trailer, but saw a bit on TV. First thoughts were "ugh/lol, furries" and "roger dean/patrick woodroffe should sue" but WTF I imagine on a big screen, in 3D, it would be an entertaining enough spectacle. I agree w/whoever it was who said it looks like a game cutscene.

The 7 Eeriest Parallels Between Avatar and Delgo

Damage Control via io9:

Avatar Day has come and gone, poised to convert people disappointed by the trailer or confirm their worst fears. Make no mistake, though, Avatar will be a unique visual experience, but one that should probably only be experienced in 3D.

I will admit that I was thrown off by the negative reactions to the trailer. I was blown away by the footage I saw at Comic Con, but I was beginning to worry that I hadn't seen the movie I thought I'd seen. But after seeing the footage again and watching the trailer a dozen more times, I'm convinced that Avatar is an evil plot by James Cameron to force people to watch their movies in the theater if they want to enjoy the full experience.

The Avatar Day footage is more or less the same footage shown at Comic Con, although some scenes were truncated and a brief moment was added. They give you a taste of the immersive experience Avatar is. When a creature chases Sully in his Avatar form through the jungle, it's a visceral experience that simply wouldn't be the same in two dimensions. And when we get to stand still and really look at the background, there's the sense that you're really a visitor to Pandora, drinking in all the details of a fantastical world. Cameron and his fellows have infused these clips with an incredible amount of detail, from the way the Na'Vi ears twitch and move to a few stray moths in the background. Especially in the bioluminescent scene, Pandora feels like a real and breathing world, one with all the natural chaos of fluttering leaves and errant insects.

There are certainly design choices that could attract criticism from CG enthusiasts. Na'Vi skin is opaque, rather than slightly translucent like human skin, and of the animals we've seen so far, none have fur (there are also some wearying instances of Zack Snyder-style slowed-down action). But where Cameron chooses to focus his attention, the detail is remarkable. Rocks on Pandora look like rocks; hair comes in individual strands (though it is often bound up in braids) and falls naturally; and, while the animals don't have fur, their muscles pump and pulse beneath their flesh. Even the colors are richer when seen inside the theater.

All of the footage shown comes from the first half of the movie, so we don't get a very good sense of how the story will unfold. But the method behind Avatar's marketing madness is becoming clearer; no footage on your computer or TV can live up to the experience of seeing it in the theater, and Fox is hoping that Avatar Day word of mouth can sell tickets to the movie in a way no promo clips or trailer ever could.

http://www.candycomments.com/images/comment_sets/images/yeah-right.gif

Cameron stans beginning to pedal hard.

Hey, hopefully it will live up to all this big talk - if only on the cinema screen. From here though it looks like the "revolution" is off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb50GMmY5nk

this looks like something i would have drawn in my notebook during history class

but with smaller boobs

pics or we don't believe you.

i stopped drawing that shit after a girl sitting next to me saw it and asked to be moved to a different assigned seat.

story of my life.

I'm convinced that Avatar is an evil plot by James Cameron to force people to watch their movies in the theater if they want to enjoy the full experience

What is with this crap. If the story looks stupid then it ain't gonna fly.

James Cameron...Freemason?

i stopped drawing that shit after a girl sitting next to me saw it and asked to be moved to a different assigned seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5y-66M4G9E

that might as well be a documentary, just replace boobs with spikey nipples for dicks

How long ago did Final Fantasy come out? This trailer really defines 'meh'.

Shit, there was a Magic Roundabout movie?

With Whoopi Goldberg doing a voice? What the fucking fuck?

Please do yourself a favor and read the Avatar article in the new Entertainment Weekly. They're discussing the likelihood of the movie's success based on near-universal praise from the fan community. Choice quote:

While some naysayers called the dialogue cheesy, other audience members were blown away: "My eyeballs were raped" was a common sentiment on Ain't It Cool News. (In fanboy-speak, that's a good thing.)

Uh.

hahahahahaha talk about spin

preliminary digging on AICN (which btw: gross) shows that EW did actually get that correct

EWw

Seeing the trailer the other day waiting for Inglourious Basterds did it no favors on the big screen.

it's weird to me how dead the blue people's eyes look...you get the feeling that the character designers purposely made their eyes almost anime-size to try to get a more lifelike effect, but it just doesn't work

James Cameron is a weird dude:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/10/the_truth_about_james_cameron.html

According to Titanic star Bill Paxton, the word "no" gives James Cameron an erection.

Many things about this sentence raise questions.

But where Cameron chooses to focus his attention, the detail is remarkable. Rocks on Pandora look like rocks; hair comes in individual strands (though it is often bound up in braids) and falls naturally; and, while the animals don't have fur, their muscles pump and pulse beneath their flesh. Even the colors are richer when seen inside the theater.

i cant wait to see a movie where rocks look like rocks... FINALLY

and hair. HAIR!

Rocks and Hair, coming this holiday season.

hair that comes in individual strands... what would the lumiere brothers think

• Something James Cameron actually shouted to Arnold Schwarzenegger on the set of True Lies: "Do you want Paul Verhoeven to finish this motherfucker?"

god, true lies would have been an awesome verhoeven.

yeah totally

Paul Verhoeven's Titanic

Rocks and Hair, coming this holiday season.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, October 19, 2009 12:52 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol.

The NY article makes you admire Cameron, and really, really wish he had decided to make something other than Avatar.

thats it exactly isnt it

its like you're dedicating decades and millions of dollars and your genius to...

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/409/555656-furry2_super.jpg

THIS??

That New Yorker article is amazing. I've only read the first paragraph!

“Watching him light is like watching two monkeys fuck a football.”

in their pursuit of a precious superconductor called Unobtanium, are beginning to do the same to Pandora.

wait is James Cameron aiming to make a serious movie involving a material called Unobtanium?

that is Lucas-level bullshit right there

"It’s a two-fingered inverted draw past the head, like a Samurai,” he said, tracing the shape in the air over his left shoulder. “The archery instructor came and said, ‘Do you want me to teach them archery or do you want me to teach them this? This would never work.’ I said, ‘See that bush?’ It was a hundred and fifty feet away. I nailed it.”

James Cameron = the IT guy from The Office

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geZoES9KQ-Q

I love this bit:

After he finished making “True Lies,” Cameron called Kubrick, by then a recluse, and invited himself over. They spent a day, in the basement of Kubrick’s house in the English countryside, watching “True Lies” at Kubrick’s flatbed editing station. Cameron went over the shots—Schwarzenegger in a Harrier jet firing a missile, with the villain attached to it, through an office building and into a helicopter: boom!—so that Kubrick could learn how the effects were done.

Sounds like the best friend from hell.

i like that he apparently went over to kubrick's house with a 16mm or even 35mm print of his own movie.

Kubrick was thinking "Man, I wish we were watching the new Verhoeven instead."

“We made it in the papers once, for a U.F.O. sighting over a hot-air balloon that we built and launched at night that was powered by candles.”

loooooooooool

Right, screw Avatar, I want to read his memoirs!