"Avatar" - MZ's epic musings...

[MinionZombie]

It's quite a long old blog post, so I split it up into segments ... enjoy. http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2009/12/avatar-in-3d.html Straight into my Top Ten of 2009, and most likely my favourite film of the year, comes Avatar - in freakin' 3D as well. The triumphant return of James Cameron has happened, and in 3D to boot with the biggest budget ever attached to a feature film - territory that isn't unfamiliar to JC, as he was both the first to break the $100 and $200 million barriers. To kick off, I'm going to address some of the up-front issues that have been incessantly talked about by the mass media (the extent of which is unfair and needlessly focusses on only a select few eye-catching things).

[Tricky]

Nice blog MZ! Im still looking forward to seeing this over Xmas & will hopefully come away from it appreciating it in the same way as you have. Everyone has different expectations about things, just as we all have different tastes in music etc, whats utter shite to one man is gold dust to another & thats been the same with many films ive watched!

[MinionZombie]

Well I hope my thoughts put you in the right frame of mind as to what to expect and how best to view it etc. I hope you enjoy it. I'll soon be posting my Top Ten of 2009, as well as a run down of the flicks I saw at the cinema this year too.

[Tricky]

Well, ive just come back from Avatar & I absolutely loved it, I disengaged my brain from all the "this story has been done before" & "pocahontas in space" shit thats flying around, took the movie for what it was & thought that it was great! Pandora is amazing & the 3D was quality, so much so that watching films on a 2D screen at home or the cinema in future is going to be a pretty second rate experience. I let myself get caught up in the story & emotion of it, I would easily rate this as my best movie experience since the dark knight.

[EvilNed]

You know, since DJ called it Ferngully 3, I can't help but thinking of it as Ferngully. It's the exact same film.

[MinionZombie]

Well, ive just come back from Avatar & I absolutely loved it, I disengaged my brain from all the "this story has been done before" & "pocahontas in space" shit thats flying around, took the movie for what it was & thought that it was great! Pandora is amazing & the 3D was quality, so much so that watching films on a 2D screen at home or the cinema in future is going to be a pretty second rate experience. I let myself get caught up in the story & emotion of it, I would easily rate this as my best movie experience since the dark knight. Glad you enjoyed it Trickster. Aye, I too swatted away all that snide 'Pocohontas in Space' stuff too. There's always going to be an amount of people who are violently opposed to a big beast like Avatar regardless of the content. It was the same thing with Modern Warfare 2. Anyway, the B.O. numbers are looking good for Avatar with a strong second week showing, and estimates that it's well on its way to raking in $1 billion world wide. While it won't beat Avatar, I always said it would never be a slouch.

[Tricky]

There were plenty of scenes where I got lumps in my throat which not many films do to me, some of it was just the sheer beauty of Pandora (and the frankly awesome effect the 3D had) and then scenes like the one where Jake first gets into his avatar body after being paralyzed for however long & is ecstatic that he can walk again, it struck me how amazing that would feel to somebody in real life if it happened! Loved the 3D effects at the parts inside the cockpits of those cool mechs or the helicopters too, the way it was done made me feel almost like I was in there with them! massively cool! or scenes in the forests felt like I could almost touch the leaves and those little squid type things I'd love to see some older films converted over to this format if they could, such as the Lord of the rings trilogy or Saving private Ryan, they would be absolutely amazing in 3D, just imagine the battle for helms deep or the Normandy landing scene done in this way, i'd jizz all over!

[MinionZombie]

Aye, Avatar did tug at me old heart strings a few times too. Jake's first outing was one such point, as well as:   Neytiri weeping over the destruction of her people's home, and her dead father. The CGI "emotion capture" was pitch perfect in that scene, plus it was a powerful moment from Saldana. Also, the bit where Neytiri rescues the real Jake and they hold each other I thought was really sweet, and has stuck with me as an image. And the bit where they get a bit jiggy under that tree with all the white dangly stuff hanging off it ... that sounds ruder than it should. Just a couple of examples. Really looking forward to seeing it again, even in 2D, because with the 3D specs apparently dropping the colour depth by 30% (so I heard somewhere recently), the lack of a 3D image will be more than made up for by the deeper and richer colours (which were lovely as it was in the 3D version). Aye, those seeds ('squid thingies' you mentioned) were great in 3D - I loved the bit where they all gather around Jake.