

First look at James Cameron's Movie: Avatar - thrawn
http://io9.com/5302057/journalists-see-camerons-avatar-lose-their-minds

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DTrejo
I don't like to read about movies that are supposed to be good.

It raises my expectations, and then I enjoy the movie less when I see it.

I think there are some in the movie world who take note of this. I think the
previews for The Dark Knight were made with this in mind. In the first
trailers there is very little pre- _view_ and much more building of
anticipation without building expectation.

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jerryji
If it takes ten years to truly learn a programming language, it might as well
take ten years to make a true movie.

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zimbabwe
Perhaps it takes ten years to learn the language of film. In fact, it almost
certainly does. But if you're spending ten years developing every product you
launch, you're doing it wrong.

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anigbrowl
James Cameron has earned the right to take as long as he wants on his
projects; he has one of the highest signal to noise ratios in Hollywood.

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zimbabwe
What other films has he made, out of curiosity? This is the first I've heard
of his name.

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jf
Notable films from: <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/#director>

Titanic (1997) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) The Abyss (1989) Aliens
(1986) The Terminator (1984)

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zimbabwe
Ugh. Not the sort of person I'd expect to suddenly turn around and release a
good movie. This story re: the graphics was interesting, though. I might give
Avatar a shot.

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shiranaihito
> Not the sort of person I'd expect to suddenly turn around and release a good
> movie.

Well, you shouldn't dismiss his movies just because some of them fall into the
action/horror category.

In fact, you might want to consider watching them.

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zimbabwe
I've seen a few of the movies on that list. Titanic in particular stands out
as a non-action/horror film on the list that was resoundingly mediocre.

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anigbrowl
The thing about a film like Titanic (and most other films in the epic genre)
is you know the ending: the boat sinks, almost everybody dies. 'Personal
heroism overwhelmed by unfortunate circumstances' is a pathetic narrative, in
the most literal sense of the word pathetic: pathos is a literary device of
reflecting a characters problems in their environment, eg it starts raining to
show someone is sad. Normally this is terminally cheesy, but when its set in
the context of a real event it's rather different. Films like this are not
meant to leave you feeling satisfied.

You're welcome to email me if you want to vent on what you disliked about it.
I work in film/TV so I'm quite interested in people's point of view.

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DanielBMarkham
I know movies run on hype, and I know that I'm feeding the monster.

But still -- I'm really looking forward to this movie. Cameron is an excellent
director, and the new technology angle is potentially jaw-dropping.

If nothing else it should be a great flick. Maybe it will be totally
incredible. There's no downside to this.

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antidaily
The problem with CGI is that it (almost) always looks fake. Cloverfield was a
good movie until that goofy CGI monster came into frame. If Cameron figured
out how to make CGI look real and I mean really real, Avatar will truly be a
breakthrough.

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tolmasky
Jurassic Park succeeded I felt.

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amalcon
Jurassic Park didn't make CGI look real; it just used real-looking models that
happened to move.

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heed
It sounds like Cameron may have beat the uncanny valley...

