Pajiba

Please understand that I care nothing for the artwork or photography or whatever mishmash that is of Zoe Soldana's face. It's the 'From the director of "Titanic"' that completely turns me off ever wanting to see Avatar.

Affect or effect?? You were covering all bases there, huh?

When it comes to movies I like to see trailers, posters generally aren't going to make go see it, unless there's some pretty dude on it, I'm fickle that way. Stills I am not remotely bothered about.

Yes, I'm sick of "Avatar". I've yet to be given any reason to be interested.

Is that a woman on the poster for Avatar, some sort of feline creature, a space alien, or some combination? Whatever, it looks annoying so I voted c).

In the movies, how come every alien has two arms, two legs, a head with forward facing eyes, a mouth, and can often speak English? Besides to save money on special effects, I mean.

Lizzie, it's an Eames chair. The original is extremely expensive, but you can get knockoffs (homages?) at a reasonable price. Design within Reach has them for the low, low price of 3 grand.

Three grand is reasonable? Holy shit. Now that you mention it though, I have heard of Eames before. Thanks, Mrcreosote.

Three grand. Sheeeeeesh.

Yes.

Screw the studios, I'll wait for the movies to come out before I get excited. BTW, Cameron did direct "Titanic", but don't forget he also did the original "Terminator", and "Aliens". For that, I'll cut him some slack and see his picture. The man does know how to tell a story.

Apropos of nothing in particular, has anyone else noticed the rather juicy typo in the ad for Mary Jo Buttafuoco's book?

-Ralphie

Given how long it has been since James Cameron's last movie (and what it was), I sort of feel that buzz on Avatar has been really quite quiet and low key. I know there was a Comic Con panel and some footage is being released to certain select theaters in a couple of months, but I really haven't heard much about this movie or know all that much about it.

Is there really that much fanboy buzz? Maybe I am blissfully unaware, but I don't see the Twilight connection at all. I believe this is one of those instances where Rowles is simply trying to project his view onto the rest of the world in order to justify it. He's done this in past. (See, e.g., Carell, Steve).

Titanic aside, this is the man that made two of my favorite movies of all time, Aliens and Terminator, a damn good movie (with some exceptions) in Terminator 2 and a highly underrated film in The Abyss (the director's cut of that film is actually awesome and actually makes sense). Given that Avatar looks a lot more like the genius of the films listed above than Cameron's most famous work (Titanic), I will definitely be seeing this film at the theater. The man has more than earned that from me.

As for Iron Man 2, I liked the first one well enough. I thought it was a good, fun film. Not great, but definitely better than most comic book faire and RDJ definitely was worth the price of admission. Odds are 50/50 that I see it in the theater. I am not thrilled with Scar Jo as the Black Widow, but, that's really not enough to affect the way I view the film.

I'm getting worried about IM2 because I fear it will be overplotted and overbusy and end up not making any goddamn sense (like Spider-Man 3), and will ruin my memories of the original movie.

I have never cared a shit about Avatar and will probably not look at it until it ends up on TNT years from now.

Lizzieborden - three grand is for a real one, the knockoffs aren't that pricey. I think that was a dig at Design "Within" Reach.

And it took me a second to realize, looking at that second poster, that it reminds me of Chiwetel Ejiofor in Kinky Boots. That's just not right, makeup people.

Based on the poster for Avatar, the special effects are going to look just a little dated.

How long has he been working on this movie? Is he still using the computers and software from when he started?

Posted by: Snath at August 4, 2009 10:24 AM

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Effects are the last thing I'd worry about. The effects in Terminator 2 don't even look that dated. A bit, yes, but given that the movie is, what, 18 years old now, that's pretty impressive.

Cameron has always done a good job of making science-fiction movies look and feel very real and tactile as well as having excellent effects.

Between this film and District 9, I am hopeful to finally see some science-fiction films that aren't all just about effects and blowing shit up.

Wow... I had no idea admin was a haiku artiste.

Henceforth, I will be concluding all my haikus with "Now I have to stab."

Based strictly on the fact that I'd never seen an advertisement for Avatar and the poster, I would have voted no to this movie. But after reading up on the movie via imdb.com, my interest is definitely piqued!

Sorry, "Avatar" will be his first sci-fi since "Terminator 2", not "The Abyss".

That poster was up in San Diego, part of the lamp-post marketing for Comic Con. Dunno, the technical word for it, but you know the posters they decorate lamp-posts with? Horrible description on my part... I'll move on.

Avatar hype has been a non-issue for me also. I'm sure the PR crew will ramp up the closer we come to its release date (nothing new there), but up to this point, I've had no complaints. When I saw the panel listed for Comic Con, I penciled it in as a "Love to see" - but Twilight freaks prevented that from happening.

I do agree that the Iron Man 2 hype is superfluous. I was at that panel, and Favreau and company sold the movie very well. (except for ScarJo - absolute airhead). But this strategy of releasing pointless stills like the one above is retarded.

The reason it doesn't affect me is you're right, it's nothing. That picture of RDJ will obviously not be in the film, because the producer's in it. That poster gives no background information whatsoever into the film, it's characters, or really anything. These are just studio-created wastes of our time, which hopefully won't extend to a description of the films themselves.

Look at RDJ's shoes!!

I saw this and thought you were talking about the movie they're doing on Avatar: The Last Airbender. Now I see it's about....something else I really don't care about. But I am looking forward to IM2.

Speaking of which, I want the above chair and its current contents sent to my house.

The Iron Man 2 picture doesn't do anything for me. I'll probably see it no matter what. But the Avatar picture makes me less likely to see it since the word Titanic appears on it.

I haven't seen much from Avatar by which to judge its success, but I will say that I'm sick of the following cycle:

1. The "YAY" Phase: Something is coming that should be Great! Maybe it's the director, maybe it's the intellectual property being adapted/continued, or maybe, gasp, it's the early word of a cool new original work.

2. The "Wait, what?" Phase: The first tidbits from the production (casting news, script news, production stills) trickle out and are instant red flags.

3. The "Well, maybe" Phase: As evidence emerges that the filmmakers are not, in fact, making the awesome work that one envisioned in Phase 1, one's own internal apologist/appeaser keeps trying to imagine a way in which the evidence of a blatantly stupid/wrong/unimaginative/worn-out product is actually a stroke of genius that will reinforce the quality of the work and not a clear sign of a horrible and large mistake. This part is a lot like following politicians. One keeps hoping that there is a wondrous and powerful architecture of greatness underlying all of the stupidity one is seeing on the surface, a bold and subtle plan, complicated and effective beyond imagining, but in fact, the stupidity is the veneer, the core, and everything in between.

4. The "Cassandra" Phase: One has gathered enough information to realize what is coming; the vacillation has all but ceased. Not only is one now resigned to the missed opportunity, but one additionally has to listen to the incessant wailing of the unimaginative apologists whose expectations for the film start with knowing that it is being made, and extend no further. The religion of "I love me some____" and "it is what it is" and "I just want to go have fun" takes over and its disciples begin to worship at the altar of 90 minutes of noise and lights. One's cinematic agnostic nature still holds out the hope that, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and the fact that most of those holding the opposing viewpoint do so in the basest and most unimaginative ways possible, there might still be some shred of possibility that the filmmakers will be redeemed and that the work will deliver on the awesome promise that it held in Phase 1. Suspicion of saying anything with absolute certainty, on the basis of incomplete evidence (which is, by the way, the opposing viewpoint's calling card) prohibits one from making a final judgment without having seen the work. And thus, in order to form a truly fair and thoroughly researched conclusion, one moves on to:

5. The "I hate being right all the time" Phase: It turns out that, having critical thinking skills, knowledge of film history and human nature, and not being a mollusk, one's opinions in Phases 1 and 2 were correct. One goes and sees the movie. This could have been great, and it wasn't. One has earned, through long periods of hope, doubt, suspicion, confusion, and constant intellectual stress, the confirmation that things were exactly as they appeared. There was no great mysterious counterplan at work. Further, there were probably little glimmers of the film it could have been sprinkled throughout the film; a mockery of what one imagined in Phase 1. Often the filmmakers execute very difficult portions of the film correctly, only to fall apart on what should have been the easiest parts. The end result of the exercise is confirmation of one's perceptive abilities and knowledge that one's imagination far outstrips that of the people making the "magic". This is a sobering realization, leading to a new phase:

1.5 The "Well, yeah, but" Phase: Any explosive and imaginative burst of enthusiasm one experiences at the announcement of a new and potentially great project is now immediately tempered by knowledge of the historical results of the battles between good storytelling and lowest common denominator pandering.

I'd love to say in December that the cycle didn't apply to Avatar. I'd love to have a different cycle, with Phase 1 leading to a Phase 2 known as "Damn, that was really good".

Mr Cameron, who has told some excellent stories, has been squirreled away unseen in his Wonka factory for a billion years, bending endless financial resources and the talents of an entire race of his own hybrid stock of uber-creatives to the task of realizing the most personal, imaginative, and compelling story he's ever conceived. The potential is amazing, but so are the expectations, and now we have production design evidence.

What evidence do we have to support the promise of a truly visionary adventure on a truly alien world, in a distant futuristic time and place beyond anyone's imagination? An intelligent and incomprehensibly unimaginable races of aliens, vividly brought to life? Well....what does the early glimpse of the production design tell us?

The unrestrained creative genius assembled for this project has thus far yielded a walking, one-man pickup truck cab that looks like what a Japanese Mecha designer would slap his 4-year-old child for drawing, a fan-powered attack helicopter whose design would have been laughed out of a Hasbro planning meeting in the late 80s, an alien race made of tall blue people with kitty eyes, and some alien forest animals. The toys of the alien animals look pretty cool, but all the well-designed and imaginative animals with which you populate your alien world won't mean a thing if there is no worthwhile story there. That is where my hope lies for this film; that Cameron's ability as a storyteller will come through even if there are a few rough edges on the designs used to tell it. He's stated that the aliens are so extremely anthropomorphic because the movie is at its heart a love story between one human and one alien, and I hope that works out. I hope that is what's going on and not that it's easier and/or cheaper than thinking up something weird and cool and non-human and executing that on screen. I know, Avatar, isn't cheap, right? Well, Star Trek wasn't cheap and they filmed the interiors of the Enterprise in a power plant, with visible steel columns on concrete mounts and slabs! They found Scotty on a subway-tiled Saw set on another planet, with 1990 era panic hardware on the door featured prominently in the scene. Really? Big Budget Sci-Fi Epic? I guess the money went somewhere. Additionally, it appears from looking at the Avatar action figures that Sigourney Weaver is playing Carrot Top in this film.

So that's what we've seen. One the weight of these images, the cycle might be starting, and Phase 1 might be moving through 1.5 and into 2. I appreciate the efforts the filmmakers are going through to make this a fresh and surprising experience. I know very little of the film, and I'm glad; that, and the potential of Cameron's ability to tell a very good and personal story, are where my hope for the movie currently lies.

that ad, the one that gave me the epilepsy, says i can win a free
best buy? gift card.

why is there a question mark after best buy?

also, now that i have the epilepsy, i will no longer ever shop at best buy. ever.
you hear that, best buy? you like giving people the epilepsy? well, what if i come over there and give you the AIDS?, you blinking piece of shit!
how dare you flash at...well, goddamnit, i am going to kick you in the nuts!

damn blinky blankety-blank. grrr.