madhair60
Video games
Makes you look cool
-
Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:
- The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
- Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration
Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.
Avatar: The Way of Water - predict its success!
- Thread starter Olli
- Start date
Makes you look cool
Since the original touched on real world events and I presume the sequels did the same, I wonder how much rewriting and reshooting they had to do over the years as a result of the real world becoming a different place than the world and story of the movie was about. For example:
Two big messages from the first movie were don't depend on natural resources from foreign countries because of all the harm that causes, and don't invade other countries. It was specifically a rebuke to the War in Iraq. When Trump was president he encouraged domestic coal production and declined at the last minute to retaliate against Iran for shooting down a US drone amid high pressure inside the Beltway to escalate a war against Iran. These are the worst possible ways to act on Avatar's lessons, but they were ways of doing them. If the Avatar sequels had scenes of humans continuing to invade Pandora and attack the Navi to get natural resources, those scenes wouldn't have resonated as much after Trump made those decisions.
In the first movie a pretty common image was of humans needing to wear masks to survive in Pandora's deadly atmosphere. The Covid pandemic made masks that make breathing safer the most uncool things ever. The public won't want to see humans in the Avatar sequels wear masks even though their introduction in the first movie was a decade before the Covid pandemic.
TLDR Don't take too long to create a work of art whose public reception is at the mercy of real world events.
Two big messages from the first movie were don't depend on natural resources from foreign countries because of all the harm that causes, and don't invade other countries. It was specifically a rebuke to the War in Iraq. When Trump was president he encouraged domestic coal production and declined at the last minute to retaliate against Iran for shooting down a US drone amid high pressure inside the Beltway to escalate a war against Iran. These are the worst possible ways to act on Avatar's lessons, but they were ways of doing them. If the Avatar sequels had scenes of humans continuing to invade Pandora and attack the Navi to get natural resources, those scenes wouldn't have resonated as much after Trump made those decisions.
In the first movie a pretty common image was of humans needing to wear masks to survive in Pandora's deadly atmosphere. The Covid pandemic made masks that make breathing safer the most uncool things ever. The public won't want to see humans in the Avatar sequels wear masks even though their introduction in the first movie was a decade before the Covid pandemic.
TLDR Don't take too long to create a work of art whose public reception is at the mercy of real world events.
Last edited:
If they do make a sequel, there won’t be any need to enlarge an actress’s eyes with CGI—they can just cast Anya Taylor-Joy.
Avatar is an odd one. In nerd circles, in the minds of mavens and connoisseurs, among people who relate to pop culture in a particular way, it left "no impact." From such a viewpoint, there is no theory that can satisfactorily explain how Avatar became the biggest movie ever (up to that point). I'm in such a group. I didn't get it.
In 2009, I skipped Avatar, because I felt like I knew exactly what movie it would be based solely on the premise. In 2022, I finally watched it. It wasn't in 3D, but it was on the best screen I could manage, my home theater. And, yes, it was exactly the movie that I expected it would be in 2009. As a film it offered no surprises. Every development was as predictable as the phases of the moon.
It wasn't the most original, but I liked it. However, when I watched it, it was part of a double feature, and the second movie I watched that day was Princess Mononoke, which has a much more thoughtful and nuanced take on the theme of industrial avarice out of harmony with nature. My enthusiasm for Avatar waned due to the contrast.
But just because it cooled didn't mean I didn't still appreciate what it had done. Nothing before and little since has been animated in that same style, which, although not attention-grabbing like an Into The Spider-Verse or a, well, a Princess Mononoke, is still remarkably good-looking and technically impressive. I'm just gonna come right out and say that it's a visual marvel, just in a quiet and inconspicuous way. Outside of its looks, its strict adherence to cliché means that all of its tension and energy - which it certainly does not lack - comes from the how and not the what, bespeaking great skill in the craft of filmmaking.
If I had to choose a single thing I want most to happen when I'm watching a movie, I'd say I want to see something that I had never seen or imagined before. Avatar didn't deliver that for me, but that's because all of the things that inspired it also inspired millions of other artists, who had already long since poured their own interpretations of the same ideas into things I had already seen. And the reason for that is because a distinctive quality of the film obsessives I mentioned previously is that we relate to art creatively. We see something and we want to build on the idea, and we see others making new constructions and we build on those too. You don't have to literally write fanfic to be inclined toward this process. In that context, Avatar feels like going back to 101-level material: "nobody" has anything to say about it because "everybody" has already graduated to its corollaries.
Which brings me to The Way of Water, which is different.
Whereas I knew exactly what Avatar would be, I have no clue what Avatar 2 is going to be about. The first one didn't leave any dangling sequel hooks, and its very genericity meant that it does not suggest any particular continuation as the most natural one. In other words, Avatar 2 lacks the predictability that was the only drawback of its predecessor. You could be a snob about Avatar because it's an obvious movie, but the only way to be a snob about The Way of Water is transitive snobbery about it being the sequel to Avatar - a very weak basis, since it was neither bad nor unpopular. Meanwhile, the sequel still has the same producer, the same director, the same visual design, improved animation techniques (the water effects are legit unrivaled), a bigger budget, and more name recognition.
That's why I'm unable to maintain my detached attitude about it. I have to admit my own ignorance on matters of theory, and defer to the superior expertise of the man who's never made a flop in his life. With the caveat that individual metrics have shifted a lot since 2009 with the rise of streaming and the sufferings of the theater business during the pandemic - I'm convinced this film is going to be a huge commercial success.
In 2009, I skipped Avatar, because I felt like I knew exactly what movie it would be based solely on the premise. In 2022, I finally watched it. It wasn't in 3D, but it was on the best screen I could manage, my home theater. And, yes, it was exactly the movie that I expected it would be in 2009. As a film it offered no surprises. Every development was as predictable as the phases of the moon.
It wasn't the most original, but I liked it. However, when I watched it, it was part of a double feature, and the second movie I watched that day was Princess Mononoke, which has a much more thoughtful and nuanced take on the theme of industrial avarice out of harmony with nature. My enthusiasm for Avatar waned due to the contrast.
But just because it cooled didn't mean I didn't still appreciate what it had done. Nothing before and little since has been animated in that same style, which, although not attention-grabbing like an Into The Spider-Verse or a, well, a Princess Mononoke, is still remarkably good-looking and technically impressive. I'm just gonna come right out and say that it's a visual marvel, just in a quiet and inconspicuous way. Outside of its looks, its strict adherence to cliché means that all of its tension and energy - which it certainly does not lack - comes from the how and not the what, bespeaking great skill in the craft of filmmaking.
If I had to choose a single thing I want most to happen when I'm watching a movie, I'd say I want to see something that I had never seen or imagined before. Avatar didn't deliver that for me, but that's because all of the things that inspired it also inspired millions of other artists, who had already long since poured their own interpretations of the same ideas into things I had already seen. And the reason for that is because a distinctive quality of the film obsessives I mentioned previously is that we relate to art creatively. We see something and we want to build on the idea, and we see others making new constructions and we build on those too. You don't have to literally write fanfic to be inclined toward this process. In that context, Avatar feels like going back to 101-level material: "nobody" has anything to say about it because "everybody" has already graduated to its corollaries.
Which brings me to The Way of Water, which is different.
Whereas I knew exactly what Avatar would be, I have no clue what Avatar 2 is going to be about. The first one didn't leave any dangling sequel hooks, and its very genericity meant that it does not suggest any particular continuation as the most natural one. In other words, Avatar 2 lacks the predictability that was the only drawback of its predecessor. You could be a snob about Avatar because it's an obvious movie, but the only way to be a snob about The Way of Water is transitive snobbery about it being the sequel to Avatar - a very weak basis, since it was neither bad nor unpopular. Meanwhile, the sequel still has the same producer, the same director, the same visual design, improved animation techniques (the water effects are legit unrivaled), a bigger budget, and more name recognition.
That's why I'm unable to maintain my detached attitude about it. I have to admit my own ignorance on matters of theory, and defer to the superior expertise of the man who's never made a flop in his life. With the caveat that individual metrics have shifted a lot since 2009 with the rise of streaming and the sufferings of the theater business during the pandemic - I'm convinced this film is going to be a huge commercial success.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I'm not terribly interested in going to a theatre to see most movies anymore, sadly, let alone Avatar, which I was pretty indifferent to when it came out, but early reactions seem pretty strong at least.
www.avclub.com
That said, David Sims claim that it is a "Avatar movie" because it has an incredibly involving second act as part of its equation... I mean, that wasn't my takeaway from the first one. I don't remember being engaged emotionally with any of it.
Avatar: The Way Of Water garners positive early reactions
James Cameron is praised for the "technical mastery" of Avatar: The Way Of Water, debuting December 16, 2022
www.avclub.com
That said, David Sims claim that it is a "Avatar movie" because it has an incredibly involving second act as part of its equation... I mean, that wasn't my takeaway from the first one. I don't remember being engaged emotionally with any of it.
Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Other studios see a release date for Avatar 2 and intentionally avoid competing with it for screens.
... Are there other studios at this point? Like, Disney owns Avatar now, right? After acquiring Fox? Which may or may not have been before they made Avatar a ride at their safari theme park? And, for competition, we've got... uh... the guys that keep trying to make Harry Potter a thing again?
Disney has the largest market share but Sony and Universal are competitive with them. Paramount has this year's highest grossing movie so far and Disney only has 3 of the top 10.
I'm in the theater for it. There's only about two dozen people in this screening room.
Edit: About three dozen.
So... it's very pretty and it's all about parent-child relationships. There's a lot of underwater mocap and it was really impressive how they got the group of kids to act so seamlessly together when one was live action and the rest were mocapped. And the water CG was very believable.
This movie was an MCU crossover because the human kid's mask was made of adamantium.
Edit: About three dozen.
So... it's very pretty and it's all about parent-child relationships. There's a lot of underwater mocap and it was really impressive how they got the group of kids to act so seamlessly together when one was live action and the rest were mocapped. And the water CG was very believable.
This movie was an MCU crossover because the human kid's mask was made of adamantium.
Last edited:
About half of the movie's runtime is about the kids bonding with a whale, then humans hunt the whale, then the whale attacks the humans.
Also, it's odd for Sig Weaver to play her own teenage daughter, but it's a CG teenage daughter and not an obnoxious one, so I guess it's fine.
Also, it's odd for Sig Weaver to play her own teenage daughter, but it's a CG teenage daughter and not an obnoxious one, so I guess it's fine.
Last edited:
Beautiful movie. I had no idea it was HFR but I was very pleased when the movie started. I am of course disgusted by random motion smoothing on TVs but when it’s intentional I like it and maybe I don’t have a good reason for that. Receiving mixed signals from smart mean film twitter people.
I wish I could not understand what any of the characters were saying because unfortunately I did find the film’s moral framework annoying. Predation bad when humans do it but good when Na’vi do it. Okay, whatever. Frankly it seemed like the humans had an okay reason to kill those whales. Life or death, really! Perhaps I’m just in my Gargamel era…
I wish I could not understand what any of the characters were saying because unfortunately I did find the film’s moral framework annoying. Predation bad when humans do it but good when Na’vi do it. Okay, whatever. Frankly it seemed like the humans had an okay reason to kill those whales. Life or death, really! Perhaps I’m just in my Gargamel era…
There’s a lot of that kind of two-tiered morality in modern Western discourse. It strikes me as a kind of colonialism on the down-low: there are things in the culture of the Noble Savages that are good because they show a Spirituality and a Connection to Nature, but that our own culture is considered to have somehow outgrown. The colonized get treated as adorable children to be indulged, but whose ideas don’t actually apply in the world of adults/colonizers.
Neo Skimbleshanks, where did you see the movie in HFR? None of my local theaters had a listing for it. I would've gone to see that version if they had listed it. Maybe they're keeping this version secret? Did your theater not list it either?
As for two tiered morality, I think the secret message of this franchise is that no matter how much we sympathize with the Navi, we're still Sky People, so our job is to stay as far from aboriginals and the natural world as possible. We're supposed to squeeze ourselves into tiny skyscraper apartments, ride mass transit and eat Impossible Burgers.
If you like FF6, Gau is totally in this movie! Feral teenager with a bad dad and a diving helmet! He also does a technically demanding role of being the one live actor blending in with all the CG characters.
As for two tiered morality, I think the secret message of this franchise is that no matter how much we sympathize with the Navi, we're still Sky People, so our job is to stay as far from aboriginals and the natural world as possible. We're supposed to squeeze ourselves into tiny skyscraper apartments, ride mass transit and eat Impossible Burgers.
If you like FF6, Gau is totally in this movie! Feral teenager with a bad dad and a diving helmet! He also does a technically demanding role of being the one live actor blending in with all the CG characters.
Last edited:
I think it will just play in HFR if the theater can support it; they’re not listing the screenings like they did for… Gemini Man for example. I just got a ticket for a 3D XD screening at Cinemark. Anyway, underwater scenes particularly pretty.
I would agree that’s the message but the movie is not making its case. I wish the Sky People would stay away because I perversely support them too much when they’re on screen. Ultimately a minor flaw because is the movie is soooo beautiful and LONG that you don’t have to think about it all the time. For the record if I am ever killed for any reason it is of no concern to me if my killers use my whole body for food or medicine. If anything, I would respect less them for self-righteously justifying their act as efficient!
Sigourney Weaver was good in this.
I would agree that’s the message but the movie is not making its case. I wish the Sky People would stay away because I perversely support them too much when they’re on screen. Ultimately a minor flaw because is the movie is soooo beautiful and LONG that you don’t have to think about it all the time. For the record if I am ever killed for any reason it is of no concern to me if my killers use my whole body for food or medicine. If anything, I would respect less them for self-righteously justifying their act as efficient!
Sigourney Weaver was good in this.
I want to see it in HFR eventually, but I've heard they're also doing a lot of 24 FPS 3D showings and I don't want to have to make a crapshoot for it. If they're not listing it then they've made no promise to show it so if they're not showing it I can't bitch to them for false advertising. I could try calling the theater ahead of time, but if they're not listing it then they might also not be giving theater staff correct or full information about it.
I can accept they're stealthily showing it at a higher frame rate to test reluctant audiences so if they're receptive this time they'll make and show more of them in the future, and more openly. But video games have taught me that high frame rates aren't something I have to act ashamed of for liking or have to make a hush hush deal to get, and I'm not going to break the habit video games taught me.
What I'd really like is a 2D movie that's 120 FPS from start to finish. Apparently Ang Lee or Will Smith or somebody made a movie like that a few years ago and everybody hated it so that just made the HFR taboo even stronger. Hopefully Avatar 2 is helping to undo that.
I can accept they're stealthily showing it at a higher frame rate to test reluctant audiences so if they're receptive this time they'll make and show more of them in the future, and more openly. But video games have taught me that high frame rates aren't something I have to act ashamed of for liking or have to make a hush hush deal to get, and I'm not going to break the habit video games taught me.
What I'd really like is a 2D movie that's 120 FPS from start to finish. Apparently Ang Lee or Will Smith or somebody made a movie like that a few years ago and everybody hated it so that just made the HFR taboo even stronger. Hopefully Avatar 2 is helping to undo that.
I saw it and liked it a lot. I also liked how the film waited for about an hour before introducing the water CGI, which I think looked amazing.
I like the first Avatar more. The teenagers were fine actors, but I think the cast got bloated by their inclusion. I think the first Avatar is a bit tighter of a film.
***
Sunday night showing. A third to a quarter full theater.
I like the first Avatar more. The teenagers were fine actors, but I think the cast got bloated by their inclusion. I think the first Avatar is a bit tighter of a film.
***
Sunday night showing. A third to a quarter full theater.