RHPS/Batman.
george lucas with r2-d2.
I may have posted this image before, but who cares?! Pre-flannel/waddle Lucas with proto R2.
Avatar Review
The success of Avatar at the box office is in large part due to marketing. This is an event, not a movie. It is said to be the Jazz Singer of 3D film, a blockbuster proof-of-concept for all those movie theaters that had to be convinced to install the costly systems needed to welcome the studio system’s latest wave-of-the-future. As an event, and as a financial cash cow, it has succeeded. As a movie that will stand the test of time, it fails.
Visually, Avatar is amazing. There have been other major 3D films in recent years (Coraline, The Polar Express, etc.) but none have brought out its potential the way this film does. Cameron dealt very consciously with the depth-of-field in this movie. He avoided the old monster-coming-out-of-the-screen clichés of 3d films of old, yet made each scene more rich and engrossing. It also leaps over the Uncanny Valley associated with CGI characters. Avatar offers more than one showcase CGI character like Golem in Lord of the Rings, but scores of characters who not only look good but are called upon to deliver almost all of the dramatic action next to their live action counterparts.
These are admirable feats, and thrilling to watch, but take them away and the movie underneath feels naked. The characters have all been used before. The plot has been recycled many times (Dances with Wolves, Dune, The Last Samurai). Cliches are used frequently because they often work. Good movies do use them, but they do it so well that the audience doesn’t care. If you were to take away the visual candy of this film, the cardboard characters and rehashed plot are painfully apparent. Of course, the majority of the film going public are not jaded movie critics. I can imagine that, as a 13 year old boy encountering these tropes for the first time, Avatar would be a dazzling introduction.
James Cameron is by all accounts tough to work with, and has a damn-the-torpedoes attitude when it comes to everything from spending the studio’s money to directing his actors. As he did with Titanic, and every other major movie he has made, he has overcome his self-created obstacle course of industry nay-sayers, pre-production woes, expensive cutting edge special effects, and his own ego. He has vividly realized his dream of creating a Star Wars like space epic, with little compromise. Unfortunately the finished product is mostly sound and fury. Today it is a film event, but how will it hold up in ten years when its special affects aren’t so special?
Of course, I did see it twice.
Bad Movie Night at the Dark room
Had a great time at the Dark Room with Bad Movie Night. They turn the sound down, the subtitles on, and give microphones to three snarky commentators.
I LIKE the new Star Trek, but the mix of dazzlingly specific fanboy trivia and on-point snark made for a good time. I recommend it.
However, there was one guy in the audience that kept shouting “Don’t phase me bro!” every 30 seconds…
