Jar-Jarvatar Day: Post game recap
Avatar just sashayed off the screen, lovingly tongue-massaged my eyeballs, gave me a 3-D lapdance, made me a Manhattan and then gently spooned me until I fell into a blissful, childlike slumber. When I awoke, it was waiting for me with a plate of eggs Benedict and my nearsightedness had been cured. I shit you not.
Ok, that was more than a little bit of sarcasm, but the 15 minutes of Avatar foreplay on a huge IMAX screen in 3-D was certainly visually more impressive than what we all saw yesterday online. It’s an impressive technical achievement and I’m forced to retract a measure of my cynicism from yesterday, but I have to say it still looks somewhat artificial. It looks more like top shelf animation than reality. That’s not a problem really, but so far it’s far from the game changer James Cameron has been bragging about.
We still won’t know until the movie comes out whether the story or characters are any good and those things will determine how successful the movie is more than the gee whiz technology. If the characters are interesting and the story is engrossing enough so that we forget about the technology on the screen, Avatar will definitely be something to see. If not, then it could turn out to be a whole lot of nothing.
How ever it breaks down, we’ll find out December 18th.
Interestingly, the 8pm showing I caught at Universal Citywalk (hell on earth, but the only “real” IMAX screen near me) was maybe 3/4s full and there wasn’t a huge line of people waiting to get in. I don’t know what the earlier or later screenings were like, but based on reports from the East Coast, it seems like most people didn’t care too much about this thing.
Did the crappy online trailer turn people off? It almost did me. I was planning on skipping it until I saw the trailer on the big screen before Inglourious Basterds.
Filed under: Buzz
Tags: Avatar, James Cameron
Even in 3D, I’m guessing the Na’vi character design still looks ridiculous.
at the Loews Lincoln Square in NYC, the theater was also only 3/4 full.
So glad to read this, but if Avatar is only going to f*ck my eyeballs in true IMAX 3d then I’m going to remain a retinal virgin: the only real IMAX here is hours away.
Chase. Yeah. Not a fan of any of the Na’vi business. As I’ve said elsewhere I wanted some Aliens style carnage and not some fruity looking hammerhead dinosaur.
Still this was leaps and bounds better than the online trailer.
Joel, I don’t know if the IMAX made all that much difference, maybe over the course of a whole movie it would be more immersive. I dont know.
SK, how did the audience respond? There was only maybe 1 scene that got people really jazzed…the one with the dinosaur thingy chasing him.
I saw it at the “fake” AMC IMAX on 42nd St in NYC. The Loews on 72nd being the real IMAX screen, and tickets for that were gone before I could even log on, so I figured, for free, I’d let AMC lie to me about it being IMAX.
I have to say that I was impressed. The stereoscopic 3D was well used. I was told by the Fox exec at the theatre to “lean from side to side” and I did. Being able to see around objects is something I don’t remember seeing on the big screen before. The teaser showed off the film. Did it look “photo real”?Yes, but the na’vi. But, like ANY sci-fi/fantasy film, the creatures are not real, and any protagonist that is not human will suffer for not being human. The bio-luminescent scene was a wonder to behold, and the back story and symbiosis of the pandoran species looks like it received loads of attention. I look forward to seeing the movie in entirety before judging it by a trailer. The trailer is only a photograph, a 2D representation of what we can expect to see.
Thanks for stopping by, Marc. I definitely agree the preview blew the trailer out of the water.
I was less impressed than you, but more impressed than I was expecting after seeing the trailer…if that makes any sense.
I’m ok with the Na’vi not looking photorealistic now that I know not to expect that and the expressions of the real actors were well conveyed. Impressive.
The one place the 3D didn’t work so well for me was in the opening sequence they showed with the live actors. It felt like a pop-up book where the different planes were separated, but each plane itself was flat looking…not sure that makes any sense either.