Re: Latest movie you watched (1-10 scale)
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 1:58 am
Beware the Slenderman - 8.5
dad revelation...
CAT AND DANCING BURNING DUCK.
dad revelation...
CAT AND DANCING BURNING DUCK.
Move along Paulo's boss. Nothing to see here.
http://www.reeelapse.com/
The Real MPD wrote:CAT AND DANCING BURNING DUCK.
totally agreed that this was largely well-executed. the weighless CGI shit is one of my biggest pet peeves of recent action cinema, and it often intersects with another hate of mine: the teeming hordes of baddies. I think Avatar benefitted from doing a ton of motion capture, which forced the physics to be "right", and then keeping most of the all-CGI stuff totally alien or mechanical (human vehicles). I think JC just has a good critical eye for the finished product and makes sure stuff is right before it's included.spacehamster wrote:1) "Weight" vs "Cartoon Physics" - I felt Avatar got this right more often than not, though certainly not all of the time. What was your stance on this again?
I have an anecdote about this. at a party I happened to meet a dude who worked on the movie for a few months, and I was surprised to learn that all he did during that time was adjust the color timing & shading, effectively "lighting" the scene in post (sometimes blending real-world and CGI). and it was only a few scenes. I bring this up because the most memorable thing the guy had to share was that on avatar, they were not striving to recreate reality with the CGI; they were striving to recreate the look of a hollywood movie, which is inherently artificial in a magical, transporting way (happy to re-rant about how this went awry with the hobbit HFR experiment).spacehamster wrote:2) "looking real" as opposed to an intentionally stylized look - they couldn't quite pull off making the CGI stuff photo-realistic, so instead they pulled the live-action shots more towards a somewhat stylized look to make it all match. This, too, worked well for the most part. I thought facial animation was kinda hit or miss - some scenes are surprisingly good, then there are others where the characters have these floaty eyeballs that nobody seems to have figured out how to get rid of.
the movie's visuals basically suck on a 2D HDTV. it was a totally engrossing & transporting experience when I saw it in theaters (all in 3D IMAX except once in just 3D) and it hasn't been the same at home.spacehamster wrote:Overall, for a movie made in 2009, the CGI holds up pretty well for the most part. I also thought, watching it now, it's kind of interesting how much of its aesthetic has influenced other things, especially video games. I didn't realize how much the Lost Planet games borrow from Avatar, for example.
what ideas seem unfinished? I've probably head-canon'd most if it now so I have zero perspective. there's also 3 cuts and even more deleted scenes, bringing total content up to a bloated 4 hours. they even did a vision quest scene where jake gets high with the natives and finds his spirit animalspacehamster wrote:The script though, man, for something that is basically a 3-hour auteur movie (with the budget of a small country's GDP, but still), there sure are a lot of unfinished ideas and things appearing out of nowhere the way you'd usually expect in a writing by committee trainwreck.
the theatrical 3D experience lived up to every bit of the hype. it was a new high in immersion etc. and it really felt like a 2.5 hour vacation. the movie dropped when I had just completed my PhD and was basically off work at the heart of winter in dreary Ohio, so it was like experiential crack.spacehamster wrote:But really, let's not. Honest. It's a fun, pretty-looking movie and not as dumb as I thought. I think I initially just ignored it because I tend to do that when all of the talk about a movie focuses on the FX tech and how much it cost to make.
Hadn't noticed, but that's probably because I've loved that cockpit shape ever since I was a kid too. It's kind of funny, in general, how the marines in this one are really almost exactly the same as in Aliens. Down to the badass Latino chick, the weasely corporate guy in charge and Ripley calling them all idiots.Necrometer wrote: ↑Thu Feb 16, 2017 6:57 pm kind of a fun design trend that you may have already noticed: JC is in love with the shape of an apache helicopter's cockpit. it's the basis for the flying HKs in terminator world, for the dropship in Aliens, and for the head of the ikran in Avatar.
This is exactly what I wanted to avoid, but you knew I couldn't resist. Sigh. Okay then. I saw something called the "Extended Cut" which clocks in at about 3 hours. A cursory look at IMDB would seem to indicate that's the longest version? Anyway, here are my complaints, all of which I'm sure were already discussed a million times circa 2010.what ideas seem unfinished?