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The first modern 3D film I saw, Deep Sea 3D, was so lifelike that if I was told it was a hologram, I would have believed it. Perhaps one day, we will have holographic projection systems as a mass media entertainment. But, the 'holodeck' wasn't really holograms, it had a sort of substance. I doubt we will have that anything like that, any time soon.
 
I just checked the wikipedia, and it seems that Sky TV in the UK will start with 3D TV soon, and there are already 3D broadcasts in Japan. These work for 3D ready TVs with a fast refresh rate. They use LCD shutter glasses.
 
I'm quite savvy. I'm very happy for the world and it's mother to see me generally, but I keep all the private stuff hidden. I also manage my friends into groups on FB so certain groups can't see certain albums or details or contact me in chat.

Thought I'd give the brightkite thing a go but it seems to do very little at the moment.

AND... WOW for the second time I've sent the thread off topic.
 
Just saw Avatar .. and to my great surprise, I loved it. Yeah, the story was simplistic, predictable, at times, the metaphor was getting a bit thick. Probably the most blatantly "message"-driven movie I've ever seen .. but this didn't bother me in the slightest, as it was a damned good message.

I've seen people describe it as anti-American or anti-white. I don't see it. I found it more anti-humanity, which I fully can get behind, we'd deserve getting our asses kicked by blue people some day. Considering how utterly utterly full of situations analogous to the one in the movie history has been I find it startling to see people deem the (political, not technological) setup of the movie unrealistic. And it's really not just an American thing - Russia, for example, is working very hard to buy indigenous peoples off Siberian natural gas deposits. Attempting to buy the natives' good-will with books and schools and shit, but going a lot farther if that doesn't do the trick. Non-white nations like Japan and China have also hardly been innocent in this respect.

While I knew that most Americans would be seeing Native Americans in the Na'vi .. for me, the analogy worked better with the Maris. The Maris are an indigenous nation of Russia, in whose belief system - and I'm not making this up - trees are holy, as the gods embody themselves in the trees (this is not some kind of new-age bullshit, but a relgion that goes back thousands of years). One of the driving forces behind the Maris' struggle against Russian imperialism has, for centuries, been the Russians' indifference towards their holy groves, tearing them down whenever they desire a road, school or gas station. The single most important Mari poem, that any Mari will be able to recite to you, is as follows:

A peaceful grove stands in my native land
On a large lake’s cool and verdant bank.
Among the trees is e’en the darkest shade,
The sweetest fruit grows in this sunny glade…
Amongst green leaves, the nightingale sings.
Towards the lake run cold glistening springs.
In this grove the grass is always green,
Here the fairest flowers ever seen!
I love this grove with all my heart,
And I curse those who cut it down.
... which loses a lot in translation, as the Mari word for "those that cut down trees" is virtually identical to the Mari word for "Russian" - identical, in fact, in many dialects.

In any case, I don't think it's a coincidence that I've only heard good things about the movie at the university department that I work at - which primarily dedicates itself to the preservation of indigenous cultures and languages of Russia. I very much doubt Cameron has ever heard of the Maris, but it works eerily well.

(So. That'll ensure that I stay on the FSB watchlist :D)

But yeah. The plot was pretty predictable, and the characters not very fleshed out, the narrative was simplistic, and the message was kind of sledgehammered. But I didn't mind in the slightest. It's a message that history has sledgehammered too.

I also didn't feel that it was too long - and I'm saying this as a guy that thought The Two Towers was twice as long as it had to be.

The visuals were, of course, stunning. I'm not really sure 3D technology is fleshed out enough, though, for it to make sense to make entire movies in 3D. Maybe it worked better for people with bigger screens (the local IMAX only is showing a dubbed German version - bastards) .. but for me .. the 3D worked quite well in the exterior scenes, but not so much in the interior scenes. Scenes with a bunch of people standing in a room talking didn't really gain much by 3D, and just felt .. distorted, somehow.

My sister also claims that it didn't work very well with her (regular) glasses. Unlike me, she definitely needed the break halfway through the movie.

So I was also more impressed by the CGI than with the 3D. In particular, I was impressed by the seemless melding of CGI with live action.

And Sigourney Weaver was awesome in this. Have I ever boasted about the fact here that she and my mom were flatmates in the 70s?
 
In just 20 days, Avatar has already become the second-highest grossing film in history. It still has a long way to go to catch Titanic, though.
 
I saw this movie over the holidays at an IMAX 3D theater and felt it was well worth the hype.

First off, the effects were AWESOME. And not just how realistic everything look, but the world he created was utterly breathtaking. The forest at night was simply amazing, the gravity flux cliffs, everything. The detail that was created in that world was astounding.

The details also helped me realize just how much was put into this. One thing I get sick of are movies that take place a couple hundred years in the future, and people are still using keyboards and computer monitor screens that arent much different than the LCD I'm looking at right now. In Avatar the displays appeared to be holographic and wrapped around the user and they could interact with them. It gave the appearance that this is the future and people are using things more efficiently. There were other examples of this in the show, but this one jumped out at me first.

The actors were all very solid. I thought Sigourney Weaver was great as always. She brings a toughness to just about any role she plays, and she fit the role in this movie extremely well. I also thought Sam Worthington was excellent. I liked him a lot in Terminator Salvation, so I had no doubt he would deliver in this movie as well. All the surrounding cast characters were very well done as well.

The story was....familiar, but it served its purpose. Yes, I'd heard all of the "Dances with Wolves in Space" comments well before I saw it. The truth of the matter is that the "Conqueror Goes Native" is a somewhat common literary theme anyway and has been used many times over the centuries. The main point is that this familiar concept was told WELL in this movie. So it wasnt a super new and exciting concept, but it was a solid story done very well.

So all in all, I thought it was fantastic and would see it again. I'd heard that this movie would be as big of a game-changer as Star Wars was back in the 70s....and I think it accomplished that. In fact, I think it accomplished it before it even hit the theaters, mainly because James Cameron had been campaigning for all of the theaters to add the IMAX and Digital 3D cinemas (Build it and they will come) in advance of this movie --- almost for him. He also created his own camera and filming techniques for this, so I think it did go a long way to change how movies will be made and opened up the theater experience.
 
I think Avatar may be a new Star Wars in terms of technique and cinematography, but Star Wars changed the way we tell stories. Yes, Lucas borrowed heavily from a dozen sources, but the combination (and the music) of mythic and epic qualities redefined blockbuster films because of the narrative. (Then Empire changed it again three years later by reintroducing dark elements.) I haven't seen Avatar, but from what I hear, the story can't hold a candle to the reimagination Star Wars had in '77.
 
Indeed not. But I do think that this is the first time a movie managed to get millions of people to cheer for the human race getting its ass kicked.

I'm most annoyed that the local IMAX is only showing the movie in German. My revulsion with dubbing is too strong for me to stomach it, even for a purely effect-driven movie. If the movie continues selling as it has, though, I guess there's a chance it will still be showing when I'm in the US in March.
 
The actors were all very solid. I thought Sigourney Weaver was great as always. She brings a toughness to just about any role she plays, and she fit the role in this movie extremely well. I also thought Sam Worthington was excellent. I liked him a lot in Terminator Salvation, so I had no doubt he would deliver in this movie as well. All the surrounding cast characters were very well done as well.

My problem with Worthington, especially in this film, is that he is terrible at concealing his Australian accent. He's playing an American, but for about 75% of his lines, the Ozzie is leaking out all over the place.

I would disagree about Star Wars in terms of narrative. Presentation tops narrative in that one as well. In 1977, we weren't bowled over by the story, we were bowled over by the fact that we were SEEing the story. Much like Avatar now,t he sights, sounds, and odd little details of the Star Wars universe were almost too much to take in at once (which is why we stayed and watched it twice).
 
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The actors were all very solid. I thought Sigourney Weaver was great as always. She brings a toughness to just about any role she plays, and she fit the role in this movie extremely well. I also thought Sam Worthington was excellent. I liked him a lot in Terminator Salvation, so I had no doubt he would deliver in this movie as well. All the surrounding cast characters were very well done as well.

My problem with Worthington, especially in this film, is that he is terrible at concealing his Australian accent. He's playing an American, but for about 75% of his lines, the Ozzie is leaking out all over the place.

I didn't have a problem with this. Who's to say he didn't spend extended periods of time in Australia? Loads of people "switch" between accents in real life as Jake Sully did in the movie.
 
Where was it said he was playing an American? Besides, I know plenty of Americans that still have their British or Australian or whatever accent. I thought it was a non-issue.
 
I think there might have been a throwaway line establishing him as an American, but not more.

Another factor is that accents change over time, both on their own and due to external influences. So if we're going to be picky about accents, we'd have to say that any Sci-Fi set a few hundred years in the future where Americans still sound like Americans and Brits still sound like Brits is unrealistic. Which would be .. all of it.
 
I think there might have been a throwaway line establishing him as an American, but not more.

Another factor is that accents change over time, both on their own and due to external influences. So if we're going to be picky about accents, we'd have to say that any Sci-Fi set a few hundred years in the future where Americans still sound like Americans and Brits still sound like Brits is unrealistic. Which would be .. all of it.

The fact is, there are several places in the movie where he is doing an explicitly American accent - sort of a Hell's Kitchen accent attributable to soldiers in old WW2 movies. But that changes very rapidly until it gets to the point where the only time he sounds American is when he's doing a log entry. You can use any explanation to justify it, but the fact is that Worthington can't do a consistently passable accent. It was true in Terminator:Salvation (set in both the present and the very NEAR future, where he is playing an American) and it is true in Avatar. For the record, I don't care if the character is American or Australian, I just want it to be one or the other - and as for your notion that accents will somehow go away, that's a little silly. Even after 70 years of television, followed by cable and internet, anyone can tell a Bostonian from a New Yorker - and those two cities are a few hours apart by car. An American will NEVER sound like an Australian - but Australians who grew up watching a lot of American television and movies, will always have a leg up in faking the accent, and most of them pull it off.
 
I think there might have been a throwaway line establishing him as an American, but not more.

Another factor is that accents change over time, both on their own and due to external influences. So if we're going to be picky about accents, we'd have to say that any Sci-Fi set a few hundred years in the future where Americans still sound like Americans and Brits still sound like Brits is unrealistic. Which would be .. all of it.

The fact is, there are several places in the movie where he is doing an explicitly American accent - sort of a Hell's Kitchen accent attributable to soldiers in old WW2 movies. But that changes very rapidly until it gets to the point where the only time he sounds American is when he's doing a log entry. You can use any explanation to justify it, but the fact is that Worthington can't do a consistently passable accent. It was true in Terminator:Salvation (set in both the present and the very NEAR future, where he is playing an American) and it is true in Avatar. For the record, I don't care if the character is American or Australian, I just want it to be one or the other - and as for your notion that accents will somehow go away, that's a little silly. Even after 70 years of television, followed by cable and internet, anyone can tell a Bostonian from a New Yorker - and those two cities are a few hours apart by car. An American will NEVER sound like an Australian - but Australians who grew up watching a lot of American television and movies, will always have a leg up in faking the accent, and most of them pull it off.

Yes, an American will sound like an Australian if he spends enough time among Australians. An American shouldn't sound like an Austrian either, in theory .. but having spent most of my life in Austria, I most certainly do - 100% when speaking German, but to some degree also when speaking English.

My mom is originally a Southerner, but spent most of her youth living in New York City, before marrying a guy from Colorado and leaving the States. She mostly speaks "standard" American English nowadays .. but I've observed her, for no apparent reason, suddenly speaking with a southern twang, or like a Noo Yawk Joo. And she does not notice this at all, till she notices that my father is laughing at her for talking about dollahs again.

It might be that Sam Worthington can't passibly play a "normal" American. But when he's playing a guy in a Sci-Fi movie whose ethnic background is vague at best, it really isn't an issue - especially if they're not supposed to be talking contemporary English anyway. Dialect switching of this sort happens all the time with people that live, or have lived, between cultures.
 
I would disagree about Star Wars in terms of narrative. Presentation tops narrative in that one as well. In 1977, we weren't bowled over by the story, we were bowled over by the fact that we were SEEing the story. Much like Avatar now,t he sights, sounds, and odd little details of the Star Wars universe were almost too much to take in at once (which is why we stayed and watched it twice).

Oh, the presentation was huge in Star Wars, but 2001 had also been visually epic. Star Wars had very strong mythic elements, which of course are ancient, but they were put in a fresh light, revitalized so to speak... I guess what I'm really trying to say is that before Star Wars, SF had done allegory, but Star Wars reintroduced the heroic cycle. What the Lord of the Rings did for literature, I guess.
 
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