Spoutblog has hilariously compiled a list (ok, this is where the list-ticles work, guys) “10 Movies Avatar Unfortunately Resembles,” including “Final Fantasy,” (the first thing that popped into mind this morning) “Delgo,” (ouch) “Willow,” and the throwaway, “Dungeons & Dragons ” film to name a few. Has James Cameron been toiling away in the sand for so long he actually forgot how far films have advanced and what’s considered painfully uncool in terms of effects and lame animation?
The comparison we’ve had in our head, on further retrospect, is Jar Jar Binks because the action in the “Avatar” trailer looks so Lucas, “Star Wars” prequel. Sure, the action sequences in the ‘SW’ prequels were the only remotely tolerable moments about those films, but Cameron’s latest — something that’s been touted a miracle to cinema and a major game changer — should have no relationship to those awful films whatsoever, no?
As funny as this stuff looks, we’ll be the first ones to say we hope we’re proven wrong when we see “Avatar” footage tomorrow as part of Avatar Day.
Jar Jar Binks actually looks more real than the blue cat-man. I really thought that the trailer was a joke when I first started watching it.
My favourite comparison has to be Ferngully.
That blog was trying pretty hard to come up with "resemblances" for Avatar. Come on, some of those are looking to be harsh. I'm not trying to defend Avatar's teaser (it was a little underwhelming) but the CGI looks no worse than LOTR or King Kong. Why doesn't it look better? I think it likely will on theatre screens. And we still don't really have a premise or plot for this movie by way of a trailer so let's lighten up a bit until a full trailer.
Everyone let their expectations get way too high. And for a >$200+ budget, Fox will need kids to get that back. And lots of them. So District 9-like themes won't cut it for Fox. We all knew this coming in, and still got our hopes up that this could be Aliens + Terminator + Greatest thing ever. I guess we see why they waited until "only" 4 months before the release to show just a teaser.
All that being said, the movie still looks like it could be pretty good.
Had the trailer been extraordinary, and reviews for the film greatly positive, it still would be tough for this movie to be a great financial success.
Unless a real Na'vi shows up to promote the film, we'll be debating the success of this film regardless of quality.
I honestly think the LOTR CGI was way better. The difference also is LOTR didn't rely on CGI-mo-capped lead characters the way Avatar does it was just the creatures and monsters they battled, but hell even the Wraiths were guys in costumes with CGI to help out the ghostly effects.
LOTR had real flesh and blood living actors and not even the fifth-tier characters were all CGI'd.
here' you have two leads that are CGI/3D mo-cap for what, at least half the picture?
Big, big fucking difference.
Lastly, I'm not counting it out that it could look cool on the big screen, but i dunno the CGI-'d face of Sam Worthington on that Na'vi looks hilariously dumb.
Yeah, that is a big difference. I didn't notice that Worthington was motion-captured in one of the clips. LOTR did have a great balance of CGI-flesh and blood. I'll take flesh and blood any day.
I still think Avatar will be pretty good, even if not the quality of the LOTR movies. Although I can't see it matching the LOTR success, regardless of quality. And lacking flesh-and-blood characters will probably contribute to this.
I don't like the idea of a movie being good only when putting on dumb 3D glasses. I don't think Avatar will rely on that.
Lastly, I think the Jar Jar Binks comparisons are not close. Even if the trailer looked bad, it wasn't a joke the whole way through. Jar Jar was. I don't think Cameron will go the route Lucas did with some of the characters like Jar Jar.
I honestly couldn't get a good read of what the action sequences reminded me of. Peter Jackson's King Kong came to mind during the "jungle" sequences, but other than that…
CGI has NEVER looked good in trailers. I don't think it's been since The Matrix where anyone walked away from a trailer going, Wow, did you look at those effects??
Ok, but we can all agree it can't POSSIBLY have effects worse than Wolverine and if it somehow does James Cameron should be publicly tarred and feathered, right?
I've seen home videos with better effects than Wolverine.
Cameron definitely doesn't (and won't) get a free pass. But he does instill some confidence in what the picture could be. There's just some legitimate doubts now. At least the expectations can be lowered a bit now that we know the skies won't be opening up.
The teaser is corny and so will be the film. The mistake is to actually show the beast. Kubrick once considered to show aliens in his landmark epic '2001' and worked on Giacometti-like figures but eventually decided that nothing is more fantastic than our (freewheeling) fantasy. That is the reason why Scott's 'ALIEN' is so much better than Cameron's 'ALIENS'. And we should not forget about the pussy space ship in 'THE ABYSS'…
I wonder if the new 3D hype will die as quickly as all the other 3D hypes before…
Christoph
This really does look like a big budget delgo.