James Cameron's Avatar

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

thats what i'm confused about

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

I don't think many people here are dissing the quality of CG (possibly a little un-inspired but still not crappy), just that it seems to be a replacement for an interesting story.

leave the smurfs alone!

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

Haters gotta hate

  On 11/15/2009 at 3:15 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

I don't think many people here are dissing the quality of CG (possibly a little un-inspired but still not crappy), just that it seems to be a replacement for an interesting story.

what kind of story would you prefer?

Cameron has never really written a story that I would call inventive or original... at least in terms of the basic premise... but its how he tells the story that makes his movies so special. I mean think about the Terminator for a second... its about a robot killer sent back from the future to kill the mother of the main human leader.

Sounds like some stoner came up with that. The movie kickass though cause Cameron knows how to cast, direct, and pace his stories.

  On 11/16/2009 at 12:17 AM, karmakramer said:

Cameron has never really written a story that I would call inventive or original... at least in terms of the basic premise... but its how he tells the story that makes his movies so special. I mean think about the Terminator for a second... its about a robot killer sent back from the future to kill the mother of the main human leader.

 

Sounds like some stoner came up with that. The movie kickass though cause Cameron knows how to cast, direct, and pace his stories.

actually Harlan Ellison came up with it,, and he subsequently sued James Cameron for it, the cameron camp knew they were in the wrong so settled out of court for a hefty sum paid to Ellison's camp

  Quote

Ellison claimed that James Cameron's film The Terminator drew from material from two episodes Ellison wrote for The Outer Limits ("Soldier" [24] and "Demon with a Glass Hand" [25]). The production company that made Terminator, Hemdale, and its distributor Orion Pictures, settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, "gratefully acknowledging" Ellison at the end of the film.[26]

  On 11/16/2009 at 12:12 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 3:15 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

I don't think many people here are dissing the quality of CG (possibly a little un-inspired but still not crappy), just that it seems to be a replacement for an interesting story.

 

what kind of story would you prefer?

i'd prefer a film where creativity isn't sacrificed for a saccharine love story.

It's pretty much Romeo and Juliet - IN SPACE ™

  On 11/16/2009 at 1:22 AM, Hoodie said:

  On 11/16/2009 at 12:12 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 3:15 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

I don't think many people here are dissing the quality of CG (possibly a little un-inspired but still not crappy), just that it seems to be a replacement for an interesting story.

 

what kind of story would you prefer?

 

i'd prefer a film where creativity isn't sacrificed for a saccharine love story.

Lol, space is infinite place, there very well could be some living alien race that look almost identical to the Na'Vi. It's just as possible as any other "creative" thing you could muster up.

Also, all stories are stories that have been re-told at one time or another. What films do you guys watch these days?

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

I don't think the CG is crappy... but I do think that those characters look a little too clean and perfectly sculpted to come off as ingidenous forest people... they don't look sweaty, or dirty.... everything seems like it exists in a state of perfection, if that makes sense...

Also, blue is a fairly uncommon animal color, in nature if I'm not mistaken.

from wiki on the color blue: "When an animal's coat is described as "blue", it usually refers to a shade of grey that takes on a bluish tint, a diluted variant of a pure black coat.[citation needed] This designation is used for a variety of animals, including dog coats, some rat coats, cat coats, some chicken breeds, some horse coat colours and rabbit coat colours. Some animals, such as Giraffes and Lizards, also have blue tongues."

so having characters that are SO vibrantly blue... I think seems unnatural by default... especially for the skin tone of a mammal.

now, I know this might seem like I'm digging too deep... or just looking for faults, the whole suspension of disbelief kind of stuff.... but I think the human brain assumes thing without us knowing it... seeing a giant vibrant blue mammal, just doesn't make sense to us, naturally. \

that could be why some people think they look fake or silly.

just a thought...

(im personally very excited to see the movie)

I have a different problem with the vfx, as I said before. It's a matter of bad compositing, something I think weta has always struggled with (as opposed to ILM, who normally do a good job). Most shots look "greyed out", without the contrast you normally see on film. It also seems to be a matter of poor lighting; in most scenes the default lighting seems to be pure white light, which rarely looks that way on film; usually it has a yellow or bluish tint, but rarely just a flat, evenly lit white. Maybe it's just due to a lack of proper HDRI. In any case, it doesn't look realistic. Edit: also, anim is not so good and the "digital doubles" are pretty obvious.

  On 11/16/2009 at 3:17 AM, Kcinsu said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

 

I don't think the CG is crappy... but I do think that those characters look a little too clean and perfectly sculpted to come off as ingidenous forest people... they don't look sweaty, or dirty.... everything seems like it exists in a state of perfection, if that makes sense...

 

Also, blue is a fairly uncommon animal color, in nature if I'm not mistaken.

 

from wiki on the color blue: "When an animal's coat is described as "blue", it usually refers to a shade of grey that takes on a bluish tint, a diluted variant of a pure black coat.[citation needed] This designation is used for a variety of animals, including dog coats, some rat coats, cat coats, some chicken breeds, some horse coat colours and rabbit coat colours. Some animals, such as Giraffes and Lizards, also have blue tongues."

 

so having characters that are SO vibrantly blue... I think seems unnatural by default... especially for the skin tone of a mammal.

 

now, I know this might seem like I'm digging too deep... or just looking for faults, the whole suspension of disbelief kind of stuff.... but I think the human brain assumes thing without us knowing it... seeing a giant vibrant blue mammal, just doesn't make sense to us, naturally. \

 

that could be why some people think they look fake or silly.

 

just a thought...

 

(im personally very excited to see the movie)

These are valid points, but from every report I have seen, the Na'Vi become very real once it settles in. So basically once you see them in context and you see them animate and behave in their environment does your brain accept them as real... I personally think James chose a design that he knew would be very challenging to pull off, but if he did it would kind of prove that filmmakers can create completely real looking/feeling CG characters that have souls.

Do the blue hippies have a rave to psytrance?

  On 11/16/2009 at 3:22 AM, lumpenprol said:

I have a different problem with the vfx, as I said before. It's a matter of bad compositing, something I think weta has always struggled with (as opposed to ILM, who normally do a good job). Most shots look "greyed out", without the contrast you normally see on film. It also seems to be a matter of poor lighting; in most scenes the default lighting seems to be pure white light, which rarely looks that way on film; usually it has a yellow or bluish tint, but rarely just a flat, evenly lit white. Maybe it's just due to a lack of proper HDRI. In any case, it doesn't look realistic. Edit: also, anim is not so good and the "digital doubles" are pretty obvious.

I'm going to wait for the final product cause my counter-point to this would be that James is overseeing pretty much every frame of this movie, so I don't think its really up to WETA.

sure, I'm actually more on your side than not, I'm really hoping Cameron delivers what he wants to.

  On 11/16/2009 at 3:46 AM, lumpenprol said:

sure, I'm actually more on your side than not, I'm really hoping Cameron delivers what he wants to.

Yeah I kind of agree with what your saying about the contrast and lighting, but I just don't think judging from a trailer is the best idea.

like all movies with great CGI overload (episode III, king kong, lotr) some scenes look astonishing. the problem is in the avatar trailer and in the 20 minute preview there seems to be a lot of work and details on the textures only in about 25-30% of the cgi. one scene in particular stands out as looking really unfinished which is when the navi are riding on the horses. The closeup face shots of the navi talking to eachother i'm really impressed by. I don't think it's a huge leap forward from say Golum, but it's definitely the next notch up from there. I just saw a Christmas Carol and there were some scenes with Oldman's character that looked totally convincing to me. Some of the scenes with the navi look that good to me, but they are few and far between.

yeah, it's just an impossible task to make a flawless looking all-cgi movie. The amount of man-hours it takes to get everything looking right is prohibitive.

  On 11/16/2009 at 3:17 AM, karmakramer said:

  On 11/16/2009 at 1:22 AM, Hoodie said:

  On 11/16/2009 at 12:12 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 3:15 PM, mcbpete said:

  On 11/15/2009 at 8:11 AM, Tauhid said:

Someone explain how that CG is crappy. Go ahead.

I don't think many people here are dissing the quality of CG (possibly a little un-inspired but still not crappy), just that it seems to be a replacement for an interesting story.

 

what kind of story would you prefer?

 

i'd prefer a film where creativity isn't sacrificed for a saccharine love story.

 

Lol, space is infinite place, there very well could be some living alien race that look almost identical to the Na'Vi. It's just as possible as any other "creative" thing you could muster up.

 

Also, all stories are stories that have been re-told at one time or another. What films do you guys watch these days?

it's rather uncreative to make a bipedal mammal with a slightly odd skin tone when you have "infinite" space at your disposal.

Does anyone else think this film has failed before it's even been released? Certainly in the UK at least.

Maybe I'm in the wrong demographic, but no-one I know cares or has even spoken about this film.

avator will be pretty good.

avator will do good boxoffice, and have legs as word spreads.

thus spoke zarathustradamus.