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also caustics are still super hard to do, and it's one of those things that really makes all the difference with realistic water(-adjacent) environment the trailer does look a little videogamey in the sense that they take some very alien characters and manage to make them look incredibly impressive with amazing animation and performance capture. creating a whole new race instead of trying to make humans look 1:1 works really well or the movie, and hiding all the human faces with masks or angles helps a lot
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May 11, 2022 00:41
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teagone posted:The article makes the point of "who asked for this?" wrt the Avatar sequels after making some hamfisted political commentary. And negatively-charged anecdotes are used to suggest any knowledgeable person should feel these are probably bad movies even before they're released. Let people like and enjoy things imo. [edit] Also passive-aggressively assigning moral culpability to consumer entertainment is lame, especially for something with such milquetoast messaging as Avatar. Okay. I guess I don't really think "I have xyz political problems with the movie, and also think it looks silly" is gatekeeping. It's also not really journalism, just a commentary column, but this is just arguing semantics so whatever. I also don't think there's any assignment of blame? They says it has bad politics, not that, like, Avatar caused Trump to get elected or whatever. Gorman Thomas posted:Gita isnt wrong about the appetite for Avatar in her specific online bubble, but it's a bit silly to apply that to international theater goers at large lol. I'm curious - you've made a few comments about the international popularity of Avatar -- is that based purely on the Chinese re-release? Obviously massive success in China would be enough on its own, but is there other evidence of enduring global interest? smug n stuff fucked around with this message at 00:57 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 00:48
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smug n stuff posted:I also don't think there's any assignment of blame? She says it has bad politics, not that, like, Avatar caused Trump to get elected or whatever. They mention the film has problematic racial politics a couple times in their writeup, surrounding its noble savage motif/white savoir themes by bringing up the very rote and tired comparison to Dances with Wolves. Comes across as condescendingly backhanded to anyone who might've enjoyed the film imo. [edit] There's room for film criticism, but I don't feel that's what that column is doing. Tearing down art for the sake of what? Confirmation bias? Lame. teagone fucked around with this message at 00:58 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 00:55
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teagone posted:They mention the film has problematic racial politics a couple times in their writeup, surrounding its noble savage motif/white savoir themes by bringing up the very rote and tired comparison to Dances with Wolves. Comes across as condescendingly backhanded to anyone who might've enjoyed the film imo. To me this seems like an odd reading of the article. Like they don't say anything about, like, Avatar fans at all? It's all about the text of the movie. Surely it's permissible to say if you think a movie has bad politics, right? It's not automatically an indictment of anyone who liked the movie. I really like the book The Skin, by Curzio Malaparte - if someone pointed out some ways in which his fascism influences the novel, that wouldn't mean I was a fascist, I don't think? e: saw your edit. Yeah I mean it's a 4.5 paragraph piece about a trailer they probably dashed off in like an hour. But it certainly is, literally, film criticism. They're talking about the themes of the movie and why they don't like them. They're specifically talking about what they see as appropriation of indigenous imagery. It's not like they're just making GBS threads on the movie for the pure pleasure of it. smug n stuff fucked around with this message at 01:07 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 01:03
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I get the Dances with Wolves / Fern Gully / Pocahontas jokes, but has anyone noticed that Jim didn't end the first film with "and then, regrettably, the genocide continued?" He's not gonna let his blue aliens go out like that. The sequels are 100% going to be about a pan-species coalition permanently pushing out the colonizers on Pandora and eventually (in 4/5) overthrowing/reforming extraction capitalism on Earth and all her colonies. On the other hand, they'll be brightly colored, bombastic action films, and some aliens will have dreads. So who can say what the politics of these films really are. [edit] I think a lot of the eye-rolling about the sequels stems from this reflexive comparison to other "colonizer goes native" films - we know how all those stories really ended. So "more Avatar" seems like a dead end - either you show the complete bulldozing that followed whatever brief local victory or peace was achieved, or you ignore "reality" and continue the stories in a little bubble where the plucky natives can always win another temporary victory. Nobody's considering that the story could go the other way, the way it never really did historically. That's the story that needs four sequels to tell and is worth spending decades crafting. Prolonged Panorama fucked around with this message at 01:22 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 01:07
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smug n stuff posted:e: saw your edit. Yeah I mean it's a 4.5 paragraph piece about a trailer they probably dashed off in like an hour. But it certainly is, literally, film criticism. They're talking about the themes of the movie and why they don't like them. They're specifically talking about what they see as appropriation of indigenous imagery. It's not like they're just making GBS threads on the movie for the pure pleasure of it. The title literally reads "Unwitting Public Suffers Through Trailer" and (paraphrasing) they use language in their writeup like "the sequels threaten their release" as if the movies will be a plight to cinema with their potentially questionable politics and dated aesthetic lol. If you want to label that as film criticism, cool I guess. But it's pretty poo poo imo.
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May 11, 2022 01:13
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It's definitely mean, but, like, so was Roger Ebert e: I am not saying Gita Jackson is as good a film critic as Roger Ebert. I am saying that being mean doesn't disqualify an essay as criticism. In fact to suggest that reeks of gatekeeping, to borrow a phrase.
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May 11, 2022 01:18
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This tweet sums up my feelings rather well. I'll leave it at that. https://twitter.com/Andrew_Bol/status/1524095286070550528
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May 11, 2022 01:23
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teagone posted:The title literally reads "Unwitting Public Suffers Through Trailer" and (paraphrasing) they use language in their writeup like "the sequels threaten their release" as if the movies will be a plight to cinema with their potentially questionable politics and dated aesthetic lol. If you want to label that as film criticism, cool I guess. But it's pretty poo poo imo. I fully expect the Avatar sequels to be beautiful but extraneous, so I'm not that interested in defending them since I'm guessing they'll be at best Just Fine. But I'm also frustrated by this kind of hyperbole. Avatar isn't uniquely odious or offensive or unwanted, and isn't superlatively bad in any particular way. Lots of other poo poo comes out literally all the time that "no one asked for," so this kind of OTT language mostly reads as kind of spineless. "This is a franchise that's safe to hate, so go wild with it." The faux outrage or disgust behind this kind of writing feels more fabricated than normal, not a real emotion, just an exercise.
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May 11, 2022 01:31
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teagone posted:This tweet sums up my feelings rather well. I'll leave it at that. Maybe they edited the piece after the fact because I see no references to Iraq, Jan 6, drones, or generational racism. And it doesn't seem that crazy to reference contemporary racial politics as represented by Trump, Obama, and BLM if you're going to criticize the racial politics of the movie. Imo. But yeah, happy to leave it at that. No need to go too much deeper into the shitpost trailer review. e: Xealot posted:I fully expect the Avatar sequels to be beautiful but extraneous, so I'm not that interested in defending them since I'm guessing they'll be at best Just Fine. But I'm also frustrated by this kind of hyperbole. OP people are treating it as exceptional because billionaire James Cameron is shoving huge quantities of money into these movies. That's not the case for most unnecessary sequels
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May 11, 2022 01:33
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smug n stuff posted:I'm curious - you've made a few comments about the international popularity of Avatar -- is that based purely on the Chinese re-release? Obviously massive success in China would be enough on its own, but is there other evidence of enduring global interest? Essentially just based on the 2009 box office and 2021 remastered re-release in China, which the US is getting in September. There isn't any other evidence than (1) international audiences loved Titanic and Avatar 1 and (2) Jim Cameron always delivers. I'm pretty bullish on the success of this series because it's such a weird outlier in modern blockbusters, not because of any underlying metrics lol.
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May 11, 2022 01:34
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Xealot posted:I fully expect the Avatar sequels to be beautiful but extraneous, so I'm not that interested in defending them since I'm guessing they'll be at best Just Fine. But I'm also frustrated by this kind of hyperbole. Cilckbait for maximum CPM/engagement I guess. I'm sure the Vice twitter could use the impressions lol.
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May 11, 2022 01:35
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Okay sorry I'm back. I looked at the responses and quote tweets for the tweet promoting Gita's article and maybe I just don't understand stan culture but what in the world? There are like a hundred replies and a hundred quote tweets all theatrically upset at the shitpost article, they've, like, developed internal memes (criticism of Avatar is reddit-as-adjective, etc). I guess I'm just confused as to where they come from? Clearly there are passionate Avatar fans. Have they been this enthusiastic since 2009? Are they especially enthusiastic now because the sequels are coming? And, like, how did they all find this one article? Is there some central Avatar Standom discord where negative press gets shared? Sorry, I guess I'm just surprised at the amount of energy being dedicated to defending the honor of the movie.
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May 11, 2022 02:34
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Gorman Thomas posted:Essentially just based on the 2009 box office and 2021 remastered re-release in China, which the US is getting in September. There isn't any other evidence than (1) international audiences loved Titanic and Avatar 1 and (2) Jim Cameron always delivers. I'm pretty bullish on the success of this series because it's such a weird outlier in modern blockbusters, not because of any underlying metrics lol. If you track Avatars financial success not just in Chinese markets but even medium-small foreign markets Ive always felt thats really the reason it at the time was able to make such a huge amount of money not even counting inflation. China is a bigger slice of the pie now which is why I think itll break the record again. Theres a huge factor people often leave out of the cultural equation for why Avatar made loads and has a staying power internationally and its because for a lot of foreign markets Avatar was the first original big massive expensive IP 3D movie with all the modern theatrical bells and whistles that wasnt a contiuation or adapation of a culturally previously established Western property. IE Star Wars sequels in comparsion to Avatar didnt do as much in China and other markets compared to Avatar because they simply did not grow up with that kind of stuff the way we did in the West and did not have the theaters to make the prequels much money so for a long time outside of EU stuff, Star Wars wasnt the phenomenon it is in the west. None of this is even counting how much its plot and themes probably resonated outside of the US despite the irony. The MCU has absolutely done the same...but after Avatar. Avatar was the movie that paved the way for those movies to have the capacity to have a foothold in foreign markets. I think the international perspective on Avatar is probably a lot different than here simply because of how memorable, groundbreaking and iconic its presence in foreign markets was in 2009.
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May 11, 2022 03:06
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smug n stuff posted:Okay sorry I'm back. I looked at the responses and quote tweets for the tweet promoting Gita's article and maybe I just don't understand stan culture but what in the world? Welcome to online
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May 11, 2022 03:29
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smug n stuff posted:Okay sorry I'm back. I looked at the responses and quote tweets for the tweet promoting Gita's article and maybe I just don't understand stan culture but what in the world? I was the OP of the CineD thread for the first film back in 2009. 
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May 11, 2022 03:49
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smug n stuff posted:Okay sorry I'm back. I looked at the responses and quote tweets for the tweet promoting Gita's article and maybe I just don't understand stan culture but what in the world? I mean, I'm sure someone who disagreed with the article just shared it saying "this is stupid" and other people who saw that did the same. Same way any article makes its rounds on Twitter.
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May 11, 2022 04:00
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LesterGroans posted:I mean, I'm sure someone who disagreed with the article just shared it saying "this is stupid" and other people who saw that did the same. Same way any article makes its rounds on Twitter. Sure, but when that happens for a, like, politics article, it’s because someone is sharing it with their followers who have similar political views. I guess I am just surprised that there is a big enough Avatar fan community on twitter to create that kind of network effect. But, like, more power to them I guess.
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May 11, 2022 04:07
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https://twitter.com/THR/status/1524201122184925184?s=20&t=rg-BmxVWnKg_j93vl3-Wew
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May 11, 2022 04:08
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That's just teagone's views
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May 11, 2022 04:11
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AVATAR SWEEP
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May 11, 2022 04:16
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Is the song from the trailer out anywhere yet or what?
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May 11, 2022 04:16
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smug n stuff posted:Okay sorry I'm back. I looked at the responses and quote tweets for the tweet promoting Gita's article and maybe I just don't understand stan culture but what in the world? You're so not gonna be ready for the decade of avatar dude E: The vice article is literally straight up "my friends online don't like this and I have anecdotal evidence that people laughed in the theater." Which is hilarious considering there's a viral clip of people cheering the trailer on release day with the dr strange movie. The REAL Goobusters fucked around with this message at 04:20 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 04:17
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JIM JIM JIM JIM
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May 11, 2022 04:25
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MacheteZombie posted:That's just teagone's views Legit snorted.
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May 11, 2022 05:04
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Gorman Thomas posted:Gita isnt wrong about the appetite for Avatar in her specific online bubble 
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May 11, 2022 05:08
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Prolonged Panorama posted:The sequels are 100% going to be about a pan-species coalition permanently pushing out the colonizers on Pandora and eventually (in 4/5) overthrowing/reforming extraction capitalism on Earth and all her colonies. lol. I wish. I don’t see Disney allowing such a fundamental critique of capitalism like that. And Cameron doesn’t want to end capitalism (he’s benefited from it tremendously); he wants to end climate change. And like all liberals, they believe in the delusion that climate change can be stopped with capitalism intact.
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May 11, 2022 05:53
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I guess we'll see, but Cameron can at least single out capitalism and everything being given over to marketplace logic (and the selective empathy that implies) as the main drivers of our worsening situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txxj2E_R9Ok&t=1944s He understands what corporations are, how they dominate our lives, and how little even powerful individuals can sway them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txxj2E_R9Ok&t=2257s He stops short of giving a specific solution but he does say that we all need to come together and change the system, and that doesn't just mean nice people as CEOs. Cameron understands the world (and his own film) enough to take that swing. Is depicting some sort of revolution on Earth part of the plan for the later sequels? I think it's the only logical place for the plot to go, although maybe we'll just see the very start. Will Disney allow it? Will it land with audiences? Who knows.
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May 11, 2022 07:39
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They should have called it Avatar: The First Waterbender
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May 11, 2022 09:30
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Disney “allows” anti-capitalist messaging in its movies so long as the condemnation is vague enough not to feel personal. An Avatar film where the Earth-bound proletariat form a coalition with space cats to overthrow interstellar capitalism would probably be fine because in actuality, they’re overthrowing “The Corporation,” one particular entity run by bad actors. It’ll only look like a broad condemnation of capitalism if you’re looking for that. Disney can still sell merch. WALL*E is more specifically anti-capitalist than the first Avatar and I’m guessing Disney didn’t lose any sleep over it.
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May 11, 2022 09:30
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Prolonged Panorama posted:I guess we'll see, but Cameron can at least single out capitalism and everything being given over to marketplace logic (and the selective empathy that implies) as the main drivers of our worsening situation: On a personal note, I'll be seeing this one to satisfy my own environmental nostalgia for nature unruined and undiminished. Things have already degraded to the point where I notice how quiet the state parks are now and the sickly color on the trees suffering from drought and constant heatwaves. I went on a dive in Monterey a few years ago and the kelp forests aren't fairing much better either. There weren't as many kelp fronds or fish as I remembered from my youth. Maybe it's silly to want to see a film for beautiful images of a pristine fantasy ecosystem, but it's enough to secure my ticket.
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May 11, 2022 10:06
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Plenty of the handwringing over Jackson's piece is that people are getting increasingly tired of this 2010s Tumblr snarky worldview about everything. Personally she lost me when she talked about the effects "already looking dated".
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May 11, 2022 12:09
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I think I'm the only one that really enjoyed a lot of the 3d movies that came out. I don't want it all the time but 3 or 4 I did see I thought were very cool. Only drawback was that by the time I get baked in the parking lot, get inside, sit through the previews and ads and poo poo, my buzz would be half gone.
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May 11, 2022 14:08
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I watched Pacific Rim in 3D at the theater. It looked like rear end. Literally just like, cardboard cutouts on the screen lol. The only other movie I saw in 3D at the theater post-Avatar was Alita, and it didn't add much to be honest. I said earlier I think directing in stereo 3D is a whole other skillset, and I don't think RR has it dialed in. At least, not in the way Cameron has. I regret not seeing How To Train Your Dragon in 3D which I'm told was pretty decent. Hugo too think? Since it was shot by the Master of Cinema using the Cameron 3D camera rig/setup/thing. But I have zero interest in watching Hugo. I've watched a handful of 3D movies at home on an old 3DTV my uncle had and they were all junk. [edit] Fun little trivia: RR revealed during some press junket that From Dusk Til Dawn was supposed to be filmed in 3D. Or converted to 3D in post? Either way, if you rewatch the movie, you can pick up on certain shots that definitely feel like they were meant to emphasize the 3D effect. Couple scenes off the top of my head: Tarantino looking through the bullet hole in his hand, any time Clooney was waving around his crafted jackhammer/vampire stake weapon, and the sunlight coming through the bullet holes/vampires exploding from the disco ball reflection. [edit 2] Have yet to try watching a 3D film through a VR headset. I imagine watching Avatar on an Oculous or whatever would be pretty cool. teagone fucked around with this message at 14:35 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 14:20
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Gorman Thomas posted:Gita isnt wrong about the appetite for Avatar in her specific online bubble, but it's a bit silly to apply that to international theater goers at large lol. Also, Jim Cameron solved water, doesn't that mean anything too you???! Miyazaki “solved” water and all he needed was an army of women producing 170,000 hand drawn frames
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May 11, 2022 15:02
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I'd totally forgotten that Avatar existed at all or that w there were any sequels coming out, or that Sam Worthington was an actor. Movie looks nice though. I'm down for 4 hours of really good 3D in a cinema.
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May 11, 2022 15:05
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teagone posted:drat, ok. Sheesh. F’real though: the release of District 9 in 2009, followed by the 1-2 punch of Prometheus and Battle: Los Angeles, radicalized me towards actually-good science fiction. When Avatar was first announced, in the faraway time before that point, I still perceived J. Cameron as a “Important Filmmaker”. Look at how much money he made! Even though stuff like True Lies and The Abyss generated more bemusement than anything, the base image of a heroic forklift-driver (in space!) had that persistent “whoa, cool space marine” effect. I could watch Starship Troopers the next day and experience no cognitive dissonance because those fascists didn’t have ELLEN RIPLEY exterminating the bugs in, like, a feminist way. Obviously Verhoeven wasn’t making fun of me. Like a proto-Twitter, I was bamboozled by the notion that the blockbuster landscape was a cultural battleground where ‘my side’ (liberals, Democrats, blue states (note: I’m not even American)) could fight to dispense vital moral instruction. In Avatar, the baddies are all Republicans, the cats were kinda-vaguely queer-coded in their nonspecific rainbow minority-ness (“ur not in Kansas anymore”), and - in the aftermath of the Bush Administration - that was good enough. Or, y’know, it ‘should have’ been. It turns out that a stultifying hyperrealism does the Aliens thing no favours. How do the heroes win? Well, ultimately, they just stumble upon an unlimited supply of robot horses. Prolonged Panorama posted:He stops short of giving a specific solution but he does say that we all need to come together and change the system, and that doesn't just mean nice people as CEOs. The canonical ending of the Avatar Pentalogy was already released in the form of the Disney theme park, set after the films, diegetically run by Alpha Centauri Expeditions - an ethical, green ecotourism(!) company with a nice CEO: “Our dream is that all those who crave exciting adventures in nature can find that with ACE. We look forward to helping you discover the wondrous beauty that the world of Pandora has to offer.” SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 15:26 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 15:24
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Once avatar 2 releases even SMG will feel ashamed of his words and deeds.
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May 11, 2022 16:08
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:How do the heroes win? Well, ultimately, they just stumble upon an unlimited supply of robot horses. This isn't technically true. Jake interfaces with the planet using his USBraid and asks it for help. The planet takes a gamble and purposefully gives it to him after it realizes its gotta cut the cancerous Republicans out.
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May 11, 2022 16:15
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teagone posted:This isn't technically true. Jake interfaces with the planet using his USBraid and asks it for help. The planet takes a gamble and purposefully gives it to him after it realizes its gotta cut the cancerous Republicans out. That's the issue: the film is about Cameron's incredibly advanced (bio)technology solution that sidesteps class conflict. The cheeky references to Jurassic Park make it clear that this is about engineering a perfect world through CGI - which is expressed in the film's 'universe' through the continuous intervention of Ewya, the opaque biological computer-god that subtly manipulates the ecosphere, guiding evolution. There's a reason it all culminates in the creation of a tourist attraction / theme park. Pandora is "the internet of things", a "metaverse" - a post-singularity narrative, only a few steps shy of Kurzweil's "utility fog". Eywa doesn't actually exist on Earth, so Cameron's argument is that it's necessary to create it. In this way, Cameron isn't exactly lying: the unoriginality of the story is entirely deliberate because his focus is on the technology. However, this misses how the artifice of the ""archetypal"" narrative and the artifice of the technological spectacle are actually mutually-reinforcing. Nothing on Pandora is natural, but it absolutely naturalizes the same old Star Trek / princess-marries-a-pauper poo poo while obscuring basic questions like "what do they use for medicine?" (The Navi's veneration of elders and low numbers of children indicate low lifespans and high rates of infant mortality.) The film is deeply, deeply conservative. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:02 on May 11, 2022 |
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May 11, 2022 17:59
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