"Avatar"

[chipotle]

So the real trailer for James Cameron’s next movie, “Avatar,” is finally out, and I’ve been observing three general strains of reaction:

• This looks really awesome!
• Meh, that’s an awful lot of CGI and we’ve seen it before. What’s all the hype about?

My reaction is more the first than the second.

I think the hype—which should be noted is only present in some quarters, as I know more than a few people who haven’t heard much about this movie at all yet—is unfortunate, since it can blow expectations to an unrealizable point. It’s also inevitable, given that “Titanic” remains the highest grossing film of all time, and “Terminator,” “Terminator 2” and “Aliens” are among the best genre action films ever made.

But that is an awful lot of CGI and we have seen it before. Right? AFter all, we’ve seen fully CGI actors before, like Gollum in “Lord of the Rings.” Of course, that was just one CGI actor. Well, we’ve seen whole movies with CGI actors before, though, like in Beowulf.

Right then. Really, we haven’t quite seen this before.

CGI hit a point a few years ago where the challenge started to be less about being true to life and more about being true to film. Can you direct the “virtual” camera the same way you can direct a real one? Can the CGI actors be real enough to act? So far, the only CGI films that have really been pushing the true-to-film limits have been Pixar’s.

Cameron has been (at least implicitly) promising a paradigm shift with this film, so if expectations are unduly inflated he earns a good chunk of the blame. But the thing is, he may actually be right. The “paradigm” isn’t about technology, per se. It’s about making the technology seamless to the director, and about what possibilities for storytelling that may open up.

What he’s trying to do, in other words, is bring Pixar-esque magic to live action, to make CGI more than just special effects. Will “Avatar” manage that? After just two minutes of footage, I’m pretty sure it’s the best shot we’ve seen to date.

And it has Space Marines and 10′ tall blue cat people. C’mon.

(N.B.: There is also a third strain of reaction, mocking the movie for looking like “Ferngully” or having a “Dances with Wolves” kind of plot. The first comparison is bluntly pretty stupid; the second one isn’t, although what came to me was Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest. Cameron’s never been a particularly original storyteller. But his execution is always top-notch and—I’m looking at you, Bay—he doesn’t believe action/adventure tales require you to turn your brain off.)

Comments

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

So far, the only CGI films that have really been pushing the true-to-film limits have been Pixar’s.... The 'paradigm' isn’t about technology, per se. It’s about making the technology seamless to the director, and about what possibilities for storytelling that may open up.

Bingo. Pixar has basically never indulged in "look, shiny technology!" like some George Lucases I could name - they have focused, all along, on delivering a solid, emotionally compelling, well-written story. Without one of those, producing a flat, forgettable movie is inevitable no matter how much visual technology you buy (Speed Racer's meteoric disappearance comes to mind).

[inaki.livejournal.com]

THIS.

I'm thinking of starting a group of folks to truly appreciate cinema. Whether it be current releases or older films.

[smackjackal.livejournal.com]

And it has Space Marines and 10′ tall blue cat people. C’mon.

This is what I'm saying!

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I dunno, it feels really 'star wars prequel' to me.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Really? The CGI is notably better, although to a large degree that's just from the passage of time. Beyond that, I don't think there's a lot to go on. "Phantom Menace" looked pretty terrific, but had a weak story, weaker acting, and even weaker dialogue; these two minutes of "Avatar" don't tell us much about the story other than painting a few central premises in broad strokes, and the dialogue consists of just one three-word line.

...and so far I'd have to say that even with no dialogue, the blue cat woman's performance beats out Natalie Portman's. So I can't go with you on that one. :)

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I dunno, it's all "Look! Big flappy monsters! Tribal aliens!" is that an alien planet, or a regular rainforest? I was kinda hoping for alien/creature designs that were more.. y'know, ALIEN. Not just cats with fronds on.

[toob.livejournal.com]

People who complain about Dances With Wolves plots haven't seen Lawrence of Arabia, which this seems to much more closely resemble.

[tilton.livejournal.com]

Sigh. It looks like your run of the mill Boy Meets Giant Blue Cat Thing, Boy and Giant Blue Cat Thing fall in love, Boy Saves Giant Blue Cat Thing movie.

I mean really, if you've seen one Boy Meets Giant Blue Cat Thing movie, you've seen 'em all.

</sarcasm>

[was1.livejournal.com]

Good points, the cinematography and composition of those shots looks very impressive. The CGI still falls a bit into the Uncanny Valley for me, but the film also looks positively beautiful. It will be worth checking out at least.

[bfdragon.livejournal.com]

Cameron’s never been a particularly original storyteller.

"Original" is less about the story you tell, but what you bring to the table when you tell it.

[toob.livejournal.com]

Aliens SHOULD give you an uncanny valley feeling.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Well, as I said, so far Cameron's execution of his storytelling has been really top-notch. Even his comparatively weak films -- for me, that's "True Lies" and, despite its box office mojo, "Titanic" -- were far more entertaining and even emotionally involving than their slight plots should have allowed. And he's always shown a very good knack for weaving emotion and character development into action movies that other directors would never have paused the explosions for.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Hmm. First I generally agreed with this, then I thought more and started to disagree, then I thought still more and realized that I'm really chewing over an orthogonal issue relating to movie aliens, which perhaps I'll write about in another post. :) I think there's a sense in which Cameron is consciously challenging the way pretty much every single alien in cinema has been visualized since (at least) the movie "Alien" 30 years ago.

[balinares.livejournal.com]

Direct link for the non-Quicktime-equipped: http://images.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h480p.mov (set your user agent to 'QuickTime/7.6.2').

I don't know about the aliens. Are they supposed to look that human? It's like the CGI team got cold footed and stopped partway on the road to awesome (and furry). :}

And oh, speaking of awesome and furry... Any progress on C&Q? =)

[fatkraken.livejournal.com]

I guess the "spy/invader/infiltrator goes native and fights his former masters" story is popular and long lasting because it touches on such strong themes that are common to everyone. I wouldn't even call such a plot "derivative" so much as archetypal

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

The Na'Vi (the aliens) do look pretty human, but they also look pretty "furry" by fandom standards. One might wish for actual fur, but the other fauna we see on their world doesn't seem to be furred, either; there's probably a whole imaginary ecology they've come up with which nominally explains the look of everything. I think that only because Cameron has always struck me as really being that kind of nerd at heart. I saw someone criticize the look of the Na'Vi and their world, Pandora, as what a fantastically-talented 16-year-old might come up with, but I think that's always been what Cameron's original stories have come across as -- he's a really talented storyteller in many ways, but it's hard not to imagine him scribbling things down on notebook paper and every so often saying "oooh, this'll be really cool!"

C&Q's progress has been, to be diplomatic, slow, thanks to the contract work I've been on (which I'm actually putting off getting back to even at this very moment). But it hasn't been entirely stopped, either. I'm hoping to write something more about it again finally before the end of the month, and also get to a point shortly where I can show off the Mercurial repository and have anyone who knows programming wince at my coding practices.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*thumbs-up*

[balinares.livejournal.com]

That, and I suspect a good part of the sense of aesthetic appeal (and alieness too) comes not so much from the looks as from the motions (the Beast in Disney's Beauty and the Beast is a striking example), and what little of that can be seen here is pretty damn good. :)

Still, in the end aesthetic calls are subjective, and to me (after re-watching the trailer a few times) the Na'Vi's faces are still that little bit too close to human-skull-with-prosthetics; a smaller cranium volume, perhaps, and an actual muzzle would have been sweet. But hey, it's just me, and who the hell cares? :D This looks like it has the potential to be really damn good and I'm all excited about it! In good part because, as you rightly point out, Cameron's business is storytelling, and he knows his business like nobody.

As for C&Q, good to hear there'll be some sort of public release soon! I'm really looking forward to it. For whatever reason I fancy that it'll prompt me to write more. One of the first few Google hits for "claw & quill" is a Trac, by the way, with a Subversion view, so if that's not supposed to be public some access control might be in order. :)

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I didn't know the Trac was Google-able, although it wasn't meant to be terribly well-hidden. It is, however, completely out of date and will probably be going away in the not-too-distant future, since after I moved things to Mercurial I didn't look into how to "reconnect" Trac up to the new repository.

[balinares.livejournal.com]

Oh, apparently that's not very complicated (http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracMercurial), drop the Hg plugin in Trac and change a few lines in trac.ini; but even that is probably not worth the trouble if you don't really use the Trac in the first place. :)