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Author
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Topic: Avatar 2009 (plus lots of off-topic, non-review junk)
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-18-2009 09:45 PM
I still really want to see Avatar, but my expectations of the movie have really sank further than their previous "so so" position. "Smurfcats" and "Dances with Smurfwolves" has me worrying a bit.
quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
I understand he is now working on a 3-D version of TITANIC.
Oh good God what the fuck?
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
That's worth a face-palm. I guess we'll see that one when we see those Star Wars movies in 3D.
quote: Joe Redifer
I have no clue if the 3D is "Ghost busted" or not. I don't even know what that means despite asking on this forum before. Although I don't know why they would make an inferior 3D version of it and a Ghost Busters 3D version of it. What the fuck?
Digital 3D systems, RealD in particular, apparently must be very carefully aligned. Otherwise you'll see all sorts of strange ghosting, double images, the 3D not working right, etc. The "ghost busting" filtery stuff is supposed to leave a little more room for error so that stuff doesn't appear.
quote: Joe Redifer
Also, what the hell is it with Cameron and women who smoke? Does he think smoking makes women attractive?
It's a fetish. There's porn sites dedicated to it. Just like there's porn sites fixated on panties/pantyhose, "BBW" women, MILFs, hairy women, totally shaved women, women who dress up like school girls, cheerleaders or even chicks who turn out to have dicks. I don't understand the foot fetish thing. I think Quentin Tarantino is a foot fetish guy. At least he loves Uma Thurman's feet.
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Joe Elliott
Master Film Handler
Posts: 497
From: Port Orange, Fl USA
Registered: Oct 2006
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posted 12-18-2009 10:42 PM
Hollywood Theaters Pavilion Stadium 14, Port Orange, FL
Screen #7 - 7:30pm
Sold out
Equipment:
Sony 4k w/ RealD
Presentation:
Although they have silver screens, there was an odd color pattern on the screen. Almost like when you wipe down your TV with water, and get multicolor dots all over. Also, they were playing the non-ghostbusted version. Very annoying since Avatar has white subtitles. You would think with this being their opening weekend, and all the big-wigs being there, they would have noticed, and corrected the problem, there are 3 other theaters here in the area, all with RealD, that Deluxe could have sent them to and borrow a drive. I have not heard very promising things about their managers, so I doubt they've noticed.
The Movie:
Awesome. Very good use of 3D, you stop noticing it after a while, because it helps you maintain the suspension of belief. Mr. Cameron was right, he did plan this movie with 3D in mind, not as a gimmick, but to enhance the storytelling. Didn't seem like nearly 3 hours. 5 out of 5.
![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-18-2009 10:50 PM
quote: Joe Elliott
You would think with this being their opening weekend, and all the big-wigs being there, they would have noticed, and corrected the problem, there are 3 other theaters here in the area, all with RealD, that Deluxe could have sent them to and borrow a drive. I have not heard very promising things about their managers, so I doubt they've noticed.
That may not mean anything. I live in freaking Lawton, Oklahoma and our local Carmike theater (a luckily well managed operation) has had 3 of 8 screens equipped with RealD for a couple of years already. Well before Oklahoma City theaters started getting on the ball.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 12-19-2009 07:14 AM
OK, finally finished watching this. Actually, I'm missing about 10 minutes of the film towards the middle, but I can pretty much guess what happened.
35mm (2D, of course, no choice there). Scope. The manager (in Spain) said FOX never called and, as far as he knows, only scope prints were handed out for 35mm in the country. SRD sound, DTS also available (but not in the auditorium I saw it). 11.5m wide screen. Nice print, nice colors, nice focus, nice lamp, rock steady (impressive for an old Prevost P70). Sound system is mostly JBL high end stuff. Presentation was fine. No scratches whatsoever. Didn't even noticed the splices, which is unusual.
Theatre was almost empty on the very first show (ever) in this area. This auditorium seats >600 people and is the largest in this 5-plex. There were maybe 100 patrons. There was a second screen from the same chain showing it at another nearby (15 minutes drive) location with a smaller screen (seats 300). Manager said the other location did slightly better. I stayed for the second showing since I had already seen the end of the movie but had missed part of the beginning. The second showing drew a crowd of around 200.
Just my rumbling thoughts. It is not 100% spoiler free, so be warned, although I'll try not to give away any major surprises (except to say that there are none ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ).
First thing that stroke me negatively: what the hell are native american indians doing in space painted in blue? I didn't expect the aliens to be so indian-like in so many aspects ... language, body painting, hunting, warriors, tribes, marriage, etc. I found myself going WTF too often.
The CGI: Much better than I thought it would be. Still, every 5 minutes some creature would walk "wrong" or be obviously composited against another object. We all tolerate "bad effects" if the happen spodarically, but this movie is so long and so much CGIed that once every 5 minutes becomes 30 times through the film. Still, more tolerable and better than I thought.
The story, acting, etc. I fell sleep for a couple of minutes twice during the movie. I could foresee the plot and even the dialog with no effort whatsoever. Boring, self-indulging, going-nowhere. Much (much!) worse than I expected. Even the beautiful music was obstrusive from so much over-the-top use.
The dubbing: I found funny that they made such a big deal of the actors learning the alien's language for months. I wonder if they made the dubbing (to spanish) actors do the same (answer: not). Something sounded fishy with the dubbing as soon as the native alien tongue was spoken. Overall, just confusing and not-that-cool.
I expected to give this film between a 6 and an 8 out of 10. After the incredibly good reviews, I thought maybe it could be a 9. I regret my heart tells me to give it a 6, but if I compare it with other films I consider a 6-out-of-10, which is barely a bit above passable, I guess I have to increase this to a 6.5 out of 10.
The movie was OBVIOUSLY made with lots of scenes which only intent was to place backgrounds at infinity in a 3D show. Those shots are cool. But I saw it in 2D and you can't judge a film by how many shots of full 6.5cm parallalax you can fit in a storyline. I understand people enjoying this film more in 3D as in 2D it's rather dull and in 3D at least you have the "empty space between objects" (AKA "depth") to look at (sort-of, as empty space is basically invisible ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
So I agree with those that say this film is technically correct and well made, impressive at times, but cinematically weak, boring and cliché. And I strongly disagree with those that say this film is the best thing ever-ever-ever since Egg McMuffins by a long shot.
EDIT: kudos to fox for making the 3D on the posters in Spain unobstrusive. They only have a small sign on the bottom right corner that says (in Spanish): "Also available in Digital 3D"
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