No Comments// Posted in Uncategorized by Sean on 08.22.09.

Yesterday I went to see the 15 minute preview of James Cameron’s Avatar at the White Marsh Mall theater in IMAX 3D. I have to say, despite the incredible hype and praise from people that went to Comic-Con (where this same preview was shown before) I really wasn’t blown away by this footage.






For anyone that doesn’t know, James Cameron is the famous director or writer of all of the Terminator movies and shows, the Abyss, Aliens, Titantic, and tons of other classics. Avatar is about humans in the future (or maybe just a fantasy world?) that find a way to transport peoples’ minds into alien bodies (avatars) so that they can travel to a distant planet. I think. This is all guessing from what I saw. The rest of the footage shows the people in their avatar forms on the planet called Pandora, who seem to be exploring and getting into trouble with big creatures and the local inhabitants of the planet (which look exactly like their avatars). The footage didn’t really seem to give away any key plot points, which James Cameron was quick to point out on screen before the footage was shown. It looks like 90% of the movie will be CGI and 10% live action.



Avatar looks really good; it seems to be full of action, drama, live action and CGI in 3D, and the CGI looks flawless; probably the best CGI I’ve ever seen. My main gripe though is the 3D. It may just be me, as it didn’t seem to affect Melissa, but whenever there was any action with a lot of movement my brain seemed to not be able to keep up with the 3D and it just looked kind of bleh to me. I think I’d actually prefer to see the movie in 2D. There also just doesn’t seem to be much of a story and the characters seemed to be a little bland, but I really can’t tell that from the footage seen so I’ll have to wait to actually see how that pans out.



So basically everyone seemed to be blown away by this footage as Comic-Con, especially the 3D technology, since James Cameron said that he was looking at 3D as lighting to make a movie better, not just a gimmick. But I really thought the 3D in the Pixar movies I’ve seen lately was better and the footage really didn’t ‘wow’ me like everyone else seemed to be. We’ll see!



Oh yeah, and just to let anyone know: there is no trailer for Avatar as of yet, which is why I went to see this 15 minute footage. It’s basically James Cameron’s version of a trailer, except it’s not on the internet.

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