lol people living in the past
― =皿= (dyao), Thursday, 31 December 2009 02:55 (fourteen years ago) link
also tbh was kinda letdown the "mating" ritual didn't involve a symbolic locking of the ponytail USBs... too obvs?
― ┌∩┐(◕_◕)┌∩┐ (Steve Shasta)
yeah was looking fwd to this bit and it never happened! don't think 'too obvs' would have been a problem for this film. also in general i was expecting freakier jungle shit, like plants that attack you, nasty creepy crawlies, etc. all the potentially threatening plants and insects just turned out to be beautiful and harmless! all they had was giant dogs, dino-rhinos and big lizard-birds? kind of lame.
― jabba hands, Thursday, 31 December 2009 03:05 (fourteen years ago) link
but i guess it's for children so there wasn't going to be too much bio-horror stuff. which actually suits me fine cos that stuff grosses me out! in fact i don't know what i'm complaining about.
― jabba hands, Thursday, 31 December 2009 03:09 (fourteen years ago) link
1) slocki y u hardmanning shakey mo for doing exactly what 99% of everyone in this thread was doing for the first half of the thread?
it was annoying when they did it too!
― super mario bros. (s1ocki), Thursday, 31 December 2009 04:54 (fourteen years ago) link
i will venture to guess the director's cut of this will be much better, you can tell when they were just ffwding along to get to the ending.
― ┌∩┐(◕_◕)┌∩┐ (Steve Shasta), Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:49 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
thank god, if there had been 45 minutes more rainforest babble i seriously would not have been able to take it
― super mario bros. (s1ocki), Thursday, 31 December 2009 04:55 (fourteen years ago) link
also in general i was expecting freakier jungle shit, like plants that attack you, nasty creepy crawlies, etc. all the potentially threatening plants and insects just turned out to be beautiful and harmless!
agreed, my biggest complaint
― Restless Genital Syndrome (HI DERE), Thursday, 31 December 2009 05:53 (fourteen years ago) link
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/first-family-sees-avatar-in-3-d/
― ♖♘♗♔♕♗♘♖ (am0n), Thursday, 31 December 2009 21:05 (fourteen years ago) link
I want to see this again at Imax but every show is sold out and I'd really rather wait til it's died down a bit.
― Nate Carson, Friday, 1 January 2010 00:57 (fourteen years ago) link
boxofficemojo has worldwide gross through dec. 30 at $745 million. i guess cameron gets to toast the new year with a big bottle of told-you-so.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 1 January 2010 01:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Shit. I should probably dust off my old 3D resume. It's gonna be a growth industry again...
― Nate Carson, Friday, 1 January 2010 01:52 (fourteen years ago) link
i saw it 3d, no imax, and was not impressed. glad to see i was not alone in perving over michelle rodriguez in 3d :O
― bnw, Friday, 1 January 2010 01:55 (fourteen years ago) link
actually the best part was when we walked out and there was this 7 ft tall guy coming into the theater. my dad saw him first was like "holy shit!"
― bnw, Friday, 1 January 2010 01:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Thursday12/31
AVATAR
$14,925,000
SQUEAKQUEL
$8,750,000
HOLMES
$8,720,000
― A™ machine (sic) (omar little), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:46 (fourteen years ago) link
should cross $300 million tomorrow
― A™ machine (sic) (omar little), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:47 (fourteen years ago) link
which is prob abt how much it actually cost
― ice cr?m, Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:50 (fourteen years ago) link
That sounds about right. I remember reading somewhere (maybe earlier in this thread?) that it cost $300 million to film, and another $150 million for advertising.
― Quiet, I'm making my Youtube Star Wars Review (Z S), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:51 (fourteen years ago) link
$500 million is a more realistic estimate
― doomed... to fart (cankles), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:51 (fourteen years ago) link
ur a more realistic estimate
― ice cr?m, Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh. Well, this Vanity Fair article cites estimates from $230 to $500 million, and says that $280 million (for production costs alone) is probably the closest.
― Quiet, I'm making my Youtube Star Wars Review (Z S), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:54 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/21496/1/THE-BATTLE-OF-AVATAR039S-BUDGET/Page1.html
― doomed... to fart (cankles), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:54 (fourteen years ago) link
i think cameron was under some kind of contract clause to keep production costs under $300 m, so somehow he'll figure out a way to make it look like that whatever the real story is.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:55 (fourteen years ago) link
this was unmitigated shit
― the shart of noise (history mayne), Saturday, 2 January 2010 23:58 (fourteen years ago) link
ie, another Best Picture speech on the way! ka-ching
― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 3 January 2010 00:24 (fourteen years ago) link
the 3-d is annoying and distracting. would probably need to know about perceptual psychology to say why, but imo in most instances it does nothing interesting and draws attention to irrelevant things. more damagingly it splits the image, quite brutally, into separate panes. why do this? it also dulls the colours.
it was long and boring. the lead character had negative charisma, and he along with everyone else had to work with a completely terrible script. 'the abyss' isn't perfect, but it has an emotional core and characters you give an f about. the central relationship here was furry-friendly crap. it can't be that hard to write stock characters like ribisi's, lang's, and weaver's, and yet all three are paper-thin. plot was basic but still didn't make sense. do the blue people "get" what avatars are? this doesn't seem to be explained: the avatars are clearly marked out by their clothing. worthington carries a gun. and saldana almost kills him for no reason.
all of the tree-hugging stuff is obviously an embarrassment and it takes up probably a third of the movie.
was not expecting a masterpiece but the easy ride this has received from critics is shameful shit.
― the shart of noise (history mayne), Sunday, 3 January 2010 00:42 (fourteen years ago) link
― Quiet, I'm making my Youtube Star Wars Review (Z S), Saturday, 2 January 2010 00:54 (Yesterday) Permalink
But it also says that the 280 doesn't include the R&D involved in making the cameras, the 3d tech etc. I can't understand how anyone wouldn't consider that a production cost...
So it needs to make about a billion, which I guess it will. I question whether people will be interested in two more Ferngully 3Ds though. I guess the sequels will be cheaper?
― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, 3 January 2010 02:38 (fourteen years ago) link
Considering that probably a lot of the budget went into developing technology and character designs that would be re-used in any sequels, I'm sure they wouldn't cost as much.
― some dude, Sunday, 3 January 2010 02:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, I had the same thought. But I imagine that finding outside funding for R&D would be easier, because any new technological "developments" (har har) would be useful for others, not just the Avatar team. So I would guess that R&D isn't included as a production cost because other outside, non-Avatar interests helped to pay for it.
― chicken sandwich CARL!! (Z S), Sunday, 3 January 2010 02:46 (fourteen years ago) link
finally saw this, it was easily an hour too long and the last hour was the most boring thing ever. the tree-hugging stuff got tired but not as tired as the relentless blowing up of shit at the end which was just mind-numbing, and by that point the novelty of both the cgi and the 3d was completely taken for granted. also, miliatary dude drinking coffee while blowing crap up easily the worst character in any movie I've seen in ages. both led guy and weaver were awful except when cgi, maybe this was intended in order to breathe more life into the cgi characters. all that said, it was still okay.
― akm, Sunday, 3 January 2010 15:30 (fourteen years ago) link
also voice over was awful
there were so many things bad about this I'm not sure why I still kind of liked it. starved for entertainment I guess
― akm, Sunday, 3 January 2010 15:40 (fourteen years ago) link
u liked it because it was AWESOME
duh
― ice cr?m, Sunday, 3 January 2010 15:41 (fourteen years ago) link
this wasn't as entertaining as My Bloody Valentine in 3-D
― Ward Fowler, Sunday, 3 January 2010 19:26 (fourteen years ago) link
this is unmitigated shit, and yet i still had a good-ass time watchin it in IMAX 3D after a day at the zoo.
as a tech demo, it's pretty fukkin amazing. am cautiously optimistic that we get a crop of dope sci fi movies in the next few years that can marry it to scripts that aren't woeful
― dome plow (gbx), Sunday, 3 January 2010 19:34 (fourteen years ago) link
this would have been fine if all the excesses had been tamed (plot excesses that is, like over-the-top miliary boneheads, over-the-top tree hugging, over-the-top relentless neverending battle)
― akm, Sunday, 3 January 2010 20:50 (fourteen years ago) link
will it take the dvd release for everyone to realize how crappy this movie is?
― Simon H., Sunday, 3 January 2010 20:55 (fourteen years ago) link
For sure. I have yet to see a 3-D movie - any 3-D movie - that was remotely watchable at home in 2-D. Well, maybe "Coraline" excepted. Then again, "Coraline" was well written. "Avatar" - I enjoyed the hell of it, but damned if I can't recall a single character's name outside of the lead. If it has anything going for it, it's that it's not totally steeped in portent like the "Lord of the Rings" flicks. But its very dopiness will make any potential post-Oscar excitement crash like, well, "Crash." I mean, I've seen "The Hurt Locker" a couple of times now, and the second viewing was even richer than the first. A second viewing of "Avatar" would likely totally deflate any enjoyment I had of it the first time around. I'd concentrated even more on the pretty foliage and ignore anything that talks.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 3 January 2010 21:36 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/03/avatar-rules-tops-1-billi_n_409804.html
― ice cr?m, Sunday, 3 January 2010 23:02 (fourteen years ago) link
movie reminded me of this passage from John Crowley's Engine Summer, in that as much as I wanted to just enjoy the few good things it had to offer, in the end this fucking movie is definitely a part of the problem
the mechanical dreams the angels made with great labor and inconceivable ingenuity, dreams broadcast on the air like milkweed seeds, all day long, passing invisibly through the air, through walls, through stone walls, through the very bodies of the angels themselves as they sat to await them, and appearing through every angel simultaneously, to warn and to instruct, one dream dreamed by all so they could act in concert, until it was discovered that the dreams passing through their bodies were poisonous to them somehow, don't ask me how, and millions were sickening and dying young and unable to bear children, but unable to stop the dreaming even when the dreams themselves warned them that the dreams were poisoning them, unable or afraid to wake and find themselves alone
― Milton Parker, Monday, 4 January 2010 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
milton, john crowley's review of avatar ~Yes, I went out and made history, seeing Avatar on the day after Christmas. I found it delightful all through -- I was never bored and often thrilled and elated. That was by the astonishing and convincing 3D effects, the care and attention lavished on every detail of every moment -- the 300M that Cameron spent was all on show. The scenes in the Floating Mountains (whose gravitational oddity was never explained; maybe something ot do with the huge planet around which the moon Pandora revolves? Nemmine: Lots wasn't explained, and much was unexplainable).there's more herehttp://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/
― kamerad, Monday, 4 January 2010 03:49 (fourteen years ago) link
ha, wow
he's a little kinder on it than I felt overall
― Milton Parker, Monday, 4 January 2010 04:14 (fourteen years ago) link
lool
― ice cr?m, Monday, 4 January 2010 05:27 (fourteen years ago) link
saw it this weekend....
well, it's certainly pretty corny in a lot of ways...
seemed like something written by a gifted 15 year old sci-fi fan.
but that said, the visuals and 3D etc were really cool to see, the na'vi were way cooler in the context than i thought they would be.
it's a lot to look at and genuinely sorta awe inspiring at points.
plotline was boiler plate sci-fi/fantasy jizz, but it did make me realize just how convoluted and poorly ploted a lot of current blockbuster efx epics are - thinking transformers, the new star wars movies, pirates of the carribean, etc..
like it was almost refreshing to have a plot that established the main characters, the villains, and a main conflict in a sensible way, then actually went about a textbook a-to-b resolution of the plot.
not that that should be something to PRAISE, but in the current times i guess it is...like going back to the student thing, it seemed like someone had paid attention to a freshman film writing class and tried to follow the "rules" at least....which is a lot more than you can say about the other films i mentioned.
― jealous ones sb (M@tt He1ges0n), Monday, 4 January 2010 18:38 (fourteen years ago) link
― Ward Fowler, Sunday, January 3, 2010 7:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
can't believe i missed the possible I WISH THEY'D GIVEN OUT EARPLUGS FOR AVATAR joek here.
― the shart of noise (history mayne), Monday, 4 January 2010 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2010/01/james-camerons-avatar-disneys-pocahontas
― just someone who's l o s t (history mayne), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:29 (fourteen years ago) link
plotline was boiler plate sci-fi/fantasy jizz, but it did make me realize just how convoluted and poorly ploted a lot of current blockbuster efx epics are - thinking transformers, the new star wars movies, pirates of the carribean, etc..like it was almost refreshing to have a plot that established the main characters, the villains, and a main conflict in a sensible way, then actually went about a textbook a-to-b resolution of the plot.not that that should be something to PRAISE, but in the current times i guess it is...like going back to the student thing, it seemed like someone had paid attention to a freshman film writing class and tried to follow the "rules" at least....which is a lot more than you can say about the other films i mentioned.
I think this is very OTM
― Restless Genital Syndrome (HI DERE), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 16:33 (fourteen years ago) link
ppl pissed at Sigourney Weaver smoking, get a life
― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 20:50 (fourteen years ago) link
hahahaha waht
― i accidentally touched the nub and it was squishy (HI DERE), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 20:50 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/business/04smoke.html?scp=2&sq=avatar%20smoking&st=cse
"For the record, apart from the 3-D tobacco use, Mr. Glantz said he found “Avatar” to be “a great movie.”"
― lazy cold meat and chocolate seasonal mentality (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 20:53 (fourteen years ago) link
... and that he was happy to give them a bit of free publicity.
yeah M@tt otm, the straightforward storytelling was in a weird way one of its strengths, as much as it could've benefitted from some more fleshed out characters of a goddamn subplot
― some dude, Tuesday, 5 January 2010 20:57 (fourteen years ago) link
or characters that were interesting or engaging in any way at all imo
― meryl streep post-brazilian (s1ocki), Tuesday, 5 January 2010 20:58 (fourteen years ago) link