MEH!

for me the bar of emotive CGI characters was raised with Gollum, then with King Kong and finally with Davey Jones (pirates 2) , the Navi in avatar don't really look like a step up from any of those. but im willing to withhold judgement until i see them in 3d and actually conversing. we dont see them talking at all in this trailer. the physics of CGI is something i am able to look past sometimes. I love the physics of the CGI in spierman 2 and 3 but they don't look real, i just think they are stylistically well done.

can you give us an example of a movie with good CG?

Tron

Young Sherlock Holmes

when i saw this as a little kid i had no idea what cgi was so i was pretty freaked out by this scene

THE THING!!!

a serious must see for pre-CGI stuff

I love how faggy people get over this shit. Especially the ones who love it.

"OH YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRAILER - YOU'RE A FUCKING FAILURE RETARD WHO DIDN'T HAVE A CHILDHOOD"

And the classic "Maybe you need to smoke a joint" yeah, because there's nothing like only being able to enjoy something when you're not in a sober state of mind. Kind of like being fucked in the arse.

Seriously though, I'm joining the negative crowd. The trailer didn't wow me with its effects at all. Too cartoony. Lovely and colourful sure, but the character designs are underwhelming. Also complete agreement on the physics thing. The elf in the water wank* thing moved terribly.

I realise that it's only a trailer, but the effects in Pirates of the Carribean 2 & 3 look better than this. Will update this opinion when I see it in the cinema.

OR MAYBE I JUST NEED TO SHOOT SOME HEROIN INTO MY EYEBALLS TO APPRECIATE IT LOL

Edit: *typo left for lols

I agree about Gollum. I still marvel at how they pulled that off. You'd think there'd be tons of copycats since, fuck me, The Two Towers came out in 2002!

Nope. Mostly still shit, very much including Beowulf.

  On 8/22/2009 at 12:21 AM, Obel said:

I love how faggy people get over this shit. Especially the ones who love it.

 

"OH YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRAILER - YOU'RE A FUCKING FAILURE RETARD WHO DIDN'T HAVE A CHILDHOOD"

 

And the classic "Maybe you need to smoke a joint" yeah, because there's nothing like only being able to enjoy something when you're not in a sober state of mind. Kind of like being fucked in the arse.

 

 

Seriously though, I'm joining the negative crowd. The trailer didn't wow me with its effects at all. Too cartoony. Lovely and colourful sure, but the character designs are underwhelming. Also complete agreement on the physics thing. The elf in the water wank* thing moved terribly.

 

I realise that it's only a trailer, but the effects in Pirates of the Carribean 2 & 3 look better than this. Will update this opinion when I see it in the cinema.

 

 

 

 

 

OR MAYBE I JUST NEED TO SHOOT SOME HEROIN INTO MY EYEBALLS TO APPRECIATE IT LOL

 

Edit: *typo left for lols

  On 8/22/2009 at 12:29 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

  On 8/22/2009 at 12:21 AM, Obel said:

I love how faggy people get over this shit. Especially the ones who love it.

 

"OH YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRAILER - YOU'RE A FUCKING FAILURE RETARD WHO DIDN'T HAVE A CHILDHOOD"

 

And the classic "Maybe you need to smoke a joint" yeah, because there's nothing like only being able to enjoy something when you're not in a sober state of mind. Kind of like being fucked in the arse.

 

 

Seriously though, I'm joining the negative crowd. The trailer didn't wow me with its effects at all. Too cartoony. Lovely and colourful sure, but the character designs are underwhelming. Also complete agreement on the physics thing. The elf in the water wank* thing moved terribly.

 

I realise that it's only a trailer, but the effects in Pirates of the Carribean 2 & 3 look better than this. Will update this opinion when I see it in the cinema.

 

 

 

 

 

OR MAYBE I JUST NEED TO SHOOT SOME HEROIN INTO MY EYEBALLS TO APPRECIATE IT LOL

 

Edit: *typo left for lols

 

Calm down sweetheart. Maybe you should smoke a joint.

when this movie comes out and blows your mind you are going to feel very silly my friend.

very silly indeed.

  On 8/22/2009 at 12:24 AM, The Overlook said:

I agree about Gollum. I still marvel at how they pulled that off. You'd think there'd be tons of copycats since, fuck me, The Two Towers came out in 2002!

 

Nope. Mostly still shit, very much including Beowulf.

too true, i still think Davey Jones was great cgi but as an emotional character his facial expressions are mostly obscured by cgi tentacles

and you know why Gollum was done so well? it wasn't because they had any crazy motion capture technology on his face, it wasnt because of any sort of eye tracking bullshit it was entirely based on the animators watching a video of Andy Serkis delivering his performance/dialogue. It seems like such a simple concept right? have someone with a very expressive face read his/her lines for the cgi character and then model that cgi character's facial expression based off the actor reading his lines. i don't know why someone hasn't pulled this off since, it seems like with automated technology like with the stuff Cameron raves about in Avatar you loose something huge

  On 8/22/2009 at 12:32 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

when this movie comes out and blows your mind you are going to feel very silly my friend.

 

very silly indeed.

I doubt it. Actually, I'll be happy if it surpasses my expectations.

But it's silly to announce that it's amazing before it's out.

Ohhh, you're right about Davey Jones, and again the formula was probably somewhat the same. Get an actor with the skills of Bill Nighy (and VOICE!) and you're already 3/4 the way toward your goal. That's an interesting theory.

Ever seen the HBO film Longford? Watch Serkis in that. The guy is just a remarkably expressive and skilled actor. I'd like to see his version of Ian Brady animated.

james cameron's hype is to blame for people being dissapointed, if it was presented more like 'hey i was just really influenced by the way lord of the rings was done and wanted to kind of do my own huge epic scifi fantasy thing' i'm sure a lot more people would be impressed by the results, instead he literally said 'now i know how it feels when they were going to the moon' i mean come on

Jurassic Park still has the best CGi ever. Fuck everything else.

lumpenprol, are special effects going to affect your opinion of the movie? if not, i dont know why you're making such a big deal about it.

i don't remember anybody saying the CG was the best in history; i thought press junctions were making a bigger deal about the camera/real-time compositing system they used to shoot, as well as the 3d effect (which obviously isn't conveyed with this trailer).

  On 8/22/2009 at 12:37 AM, The Overlook said:

Ohhh, you're right about Davey Jones, and again the formula was probably somewhat the same. Get an actor with the skills of Bill Nighy (and VOICE!) and you're already 3/4 the way toward your goal. That's an interesting theory.

 

Ever seen the HBO film Longford? Watch Serkis in that. The guy is just a remarkably expressive and skilled actor. I'd like to see his version of Ian Brady animated.

I have not seen it, but yeah i think it was Obel who posted this a couple weeks ago

i think they did some motion capturing but it looks to mostly like his eyes were left intact or were the basis of the entire animation, which is obviously the way to go. it grounds it in reality to a large extent

i would like to see more of Serkis. It's a shame he isn't in more films

edit: i think honestly this motion capture technology for facial expressions isn't ready yet. but at the same time why is body motion capturing so inconsistent in movies? remember Tekken 3 ? when i first saw that character Eddy doing his capoeira moves flipping around like a real human i was pretty impressed. motion capture hasn't advance much since then, the navi don't really look better moving around than eddy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsLJo2fd1xk

Yeah, check it out. It's a pretty great film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCyhVLQF_gk

I tried to find clips of just Serkis' performance, but no luck. Needless to say, Broadbent, Morton, and Serkis all know how to handle themselves in front of a camera, so it's worth watching for performance alone.

Did anybody else guffaw when they learned that the blue monsters in Avatar are from a planet called...*gasp*...Pandora?!?! You don't say!

gtfo

the take home is that some people in this thread haven't quite yet gotten the marketing hype out of their system yet since the cameron interviews at e3 and some have ... of those who haven't some will join us .. but there will always be hold-outs and so this thread will rage on .. pointlessly debating the same key positions of each side over and over ... with nothing ever resolved ..

/end topic (for me at least)

i didnt even see any of the "hype" that you guys are talking about. your opinions seem to be coming from it, which is a shitty way to judge something if you ask me.

expectations aside i will definitely be seeing this film. I have a special place in my heart for this whole new 3d movie craze. When i saw polar express on imax 3d for the first time i didn't even know it was 3d when i walked in, i was jaded thinking it was going to be some pretty average shit. seriously though i actually felt tactile sensations of movement and falling, as average as the CGI was the way the 3d immersion was done was pretty breathtaking. I've seen maybe 8 other 3d movies since and none of them have come close to the theme park ride feel of polar express, not even Beowulf (which i had high hopes for )

I had never heard of Avatar before this thread, or the one before it about toys, so the marketing hype meant nothing to me, because I missed all of it.

And I just think it looks like a standard sci-fi action movie. It could be fucking amazing but it doesn't look like it will be.

It's just all about that fucking hate culture.. I hate it, ironically.

People just seem to be unable to enjoy anything anymore. Like that guy who was on Conan and did that sketch, he was spot on. People hate everything and can't enjoy just a simple movie, whatever it might be. Nobody is able to see Avatar as simply a movie, in 3d, made by James Cameron. They see a simple flabby arm going a little too wide in its movement and panic. Absolutely zero imagination left in their brains. Unable to enjoy the slight artistic intent of any movie director.

I think Cameron guessed that the trailer would not get accross what is impressive about this film, which is why they have scheduled 15-min previews of 3-D footage at various Imax theaters all over the world today.

I went to see one of the previews in London.

I can confirm that the trailer does not do this film justice. When you see proper, extended scenes with the Na'Vi characters conversing with each other and interacting with the environment it is very believeable. The look in the Sigourney-Weaver-Avatar's eyes when she warns Sam Worthington's Avatar to run, the moves that Zoe Zaldana's Avatar makes when she tackles a pack of dog-like creatures, the scenes where Sam and Zoe talk to each other - they are very impressive.

And thats without going into the other flaura and fauna that crop up.

The scene where Sam(Jake) and a tribe of Na'vi come through a waterfall to a pack of dragon creatures on a cliffside is amazing. So much detail and movement.

And the 3-D was amazing as well, very crisp and precise, so clear and artifact-free that within 20 seconds you are just in the scenes, and not thinking about the 3-D aspects at all, just experiencing them.

Its not quite perfect. Perhaps 5% of the time, you can see that you are watching a CGI creature. But 95% of it is perfectly done, you believe that you're watching a 10-foot high blue alien, channelling the brain waves of Sam Worthington or Sigourney Weaver. And I think that 95% will be enough to make watching the whole film an amazing experience.

There have been fantastic levels of hype around this movie, and it wont be able to live up to all of it, but it definately does raise the CGI bar, especially in terms of expression and movement.