Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Last Airbender

This is topic Last Airbender in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 07-01-2010, 03:53 PM:

Movie: Sucked
3-D Effect: Really, REALLY Sucked
Movie Tavern Pizza: Very, very good. Made the movie almost worthwhile.

Why do we have to end movies now with sequel bait? I truly hope this is REALLY the Last Airbender, and we don't see it's sorry likes again.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-01-2010, 06:33 PM:

They could make a prequel and call it "The Next-To-Last Airbender."

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 07-01-2010, 07:38 PM:

Movie: Sucked
3D Effect: Sucked
Light Output: Sucked
Sound: Great

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-01-2010, 08:53 PM:

..more tolerable to watch the film version than the 3D version of this tanker.

M. Night S. needs to pick up the beat some so he can get with the program to make better picts.

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 07-01-2010, 09:38 PM:

Yep, this movie is horrible. The dialogue drove me crazy and in all the close up scenes on the avatar kid he was constantly flaring his nostrils as if he could smell that this was going to be a stinker. [thumbsdown]

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 07-02-2010, 02:15 AM:

Like I said in another thread I liked the film and found it interesting. I saw it in 2-D...the way to go on this one. It was 3:00 am when I watched it so I could have been in a daze at the time. I think the visuals were well done in 2-D of course. If M. Night wants to make a film that critics will really like he needs to stop writing them. At least I thought it was better than the last 3 films he did.

**1/2 stars out of 4.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-02-2010, 12:12 PM:

Isn't this movie based on a comic book, or a cartoon, or a commercial or something? Is it that THAT story sucks, or this telling of it sucks, or both or what?

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 07-02-2010, 12:24 PM:

Its based on a comic book and had a cartoon adaptation. I've not read or watched either. The premise of the story is good, but the script and acting is bad. I found myself laughing at the lame dialogue. Oh, and there is waaaaaay too much slow motion with the fight scenes.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 07-02-2010, 01:06 PM:

The 3-D version is almost watchable without the glasses. They have done a very poor job of separating the images to generate the 3-D effect. Almost all of the action takes place with NO separation at all, looking much like the 2-D version would look. The backgrounds are only slightly out of focus. Any of you who are running the 3-D version should take a look at the screen randomly and you will see most of the image very clearly.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 07-02-2010, 02:21 PM:

I understand this is M. Night's first stint as "Director for hire." I sincerely hope this is the last movie that he has ever had anything to do with.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-02-2010, 03:16 PM:

quote: James Westbrook
I understand this is M. Night's first stint as "Director for hire."

The movie was also written by him (and him alone), assuming imdb is to be trusted. So I think he was more than just a "director for hire."

Posted by Robert Crabtree (Member # 4795) on 07-02-2010, 03:33 PM:

The only good thing I can say about his last movie, The Happening, is that it inspired the drawing by Michael Gonzalez in his review of that turd. What the killer should have looked like.

Haven't seen Airbender yet, but I can still hope it inspires another awesome picture.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 07-02-2010, 03:49 PM:

The scroll has it as Written, Produced, and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

This movie was just utter crap. He has gotten worse and worse with every movie. If he would of just come on and Directed it and left the script alone we probably would of gotten a half way decent film. But instead he had to come and put his "Stamp" of shitty dialogue on it. A 2x4 has more emotion and better delivery then these kids do.

Worst movie I've seen this year hands down.

0 out of 5 [thumbsup]

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 07-02-2010, 07:41 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
..more tolerable to watch the film version than the 3D version of this tanker.

M. Night S. needs to pick up the beat some so he can get with the program to make better picts.

I'm not sure he has a choice any longer. He's made so many bad movies at this point, that I don't know if could get financing for anything other than a "blockbuster" -- such as it is.

He has been called to pay a bill that Lucas should be sent as well.

-David

Posted by Joseph L. Kleiman (Member # 3097) on 07-02-2010, 09:02 PM:

How peer review works: I go to my local cineplex to see Last Airbender in 3D because it looks like it will be an enjoyable ride. On a whim, while waiting in line for tickets, I go online on my phone and look at the projectionist reviews on Film-Tech.com. I buy tickets to see A-Team instead. Thanks for all your input.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-02-2010, 09:16 PM:

quote: Mark Lensenmayer
They have done a very poor job of separating the images to generate the 3-D effect.

So is it even possible to do a good 3-D movie with post-production conversion or are they all going to suck like this and Titans do? (Supposedly Alice in Wonderland was at least "planned for 3-D" if not actually shot that way.)

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 07-03-2010, 01:03 AM:

It is a very tedious process to "convert to 3D" an entire film.

It can be done with satisfactory results given large amounts of time and a group of dedicated and talented individuals to "draw the depth" frame by frame.

But we all know how that goes.

The convertion job goes to the cheapest bid that employees lots of underpaid (and not necessarily talented) workers in low-wage countries and they are pushed to shoot out as many frames per day as possible, with the obvious results.

A half-decent job CAN be done. But unless it's something with years in planning and well budgeted, say for a "classic" where a lot of talent and man-hours are put into it, like i.e. a convertion of "Star Wars" or something worth it of the effort, then a half-decent job WON'T likely be done.

And that's for a half-decent job only. Anywhere near "real 3D" can only be done if the film is photographed/generated with two cameras/views, of course.

It's also a much easier job with much better results when a 2D film goes into post-production already planning for a 3D product out (i.e. Alice, G-force) and the film is thus finished in 3D during this stage integrating the FX's already in 3D, rather than a "last minute convertion" of a fully finished 2D film (i.e. Titans, Airbender), which is a pain to do it half-right by redrawing semi-manually all the shapes of each object in each single frame. This won't get done, of course, thus just a few layers will be separated, with even inferior results.

One of the reasons 3D fails is that stereoscopic 3D is NOT very "flattering" for MANY types of REALISTIC (i.e. not CGI like Avatar) shots, and thus, a lot of filmakers don't like the TONS of technical limits it imposses to their filming style.

These limitations can be ARTIFICIALLY lifted (mostly) by using a convertion process later on, BUT the results will likely be a half-cooked look anyway, so I don't know what's worse.

During the 50's etc, real-life 3D films had fewer limitations due to "technical stuff" like the screen ratios being (sometimes) not as wide as today's (i.e. 1.3 or 1.6 or 1.8 better than 2.35) and the actual restricted style of filming during that era due in part to limitations on camera sizes, focal length choices, camera movement, etc (i.e. no zooming around with cameras from any-angle on a steadycam).

But nowadays, directors/DP's want every conceivable camera movement from any angle on any focal length with any lighting conditions. It's tough to make a good looking 3D film that way with real cameras/lenses/lighting/scenery (i.e. no headaches or vomit inducing to the audience).

Cameron could get away with it on Avatar 'cos more often than not the camera was virtual (there was no camera at all) or the action was shot with almost 200 cameras in a semicircle so the best views could be extracted and the result heavily computer manipulated for every shot anyway. It was technically much more like a converted film or a CGI film than a real-life film. And Alice and Titans weren't very realistic-looking either. Once again, the proportions of some characters in Alice were unrealistic, like the 10' blue elfs in Avatar or the giant girl in Monsters vs Alien, or the 25" toys in Coraline or in Toy story/most children CGI films.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-03-2010, 11:41 AM:

quote: Julio Roberto
The convertion job goes to the cheapest bid that employees lots of underpaid (and not necessarily talented) workers in low-wage countries

Can you back up that statement with a source? Citation requested.

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 07-03-2010, 08:13 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Can you back up that statement with a source? Citation requested.

David,

If you ask ANY theater chain if they buy (near) the cheapest possible equipment (i.e. speakers/lamps/seats), they will ALL tell you that they only buy the top equipment from the top manufacturers, installed, operated and maintained by the top technicians. None of them will admit buying chinese crap and employing 16 year olds (no disrespect intended) at the lowest possible salary to operate it.

If you ask a Hollywood studio which house they chose to do a 3D conversion job they'll tell you that they employed the top house at a premium. And if you ask the top house, they'll tell you that their top supervisors and operators are of the highest (local) talent with only a "small portion of the daily basic tasks" going overseas.

Oh well. You choose to believe what you want. But if this is the best of the best 3D conversion jobs the top (and well paid) local talents can do ....

Take Titans. Google at your leisure:

Titans director underwhelmed by 3D conversion | Reuters

And then, from an interview with the designer of the Prime Focus 3D projection pipeline, the house that did that conversion:

http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/How-Prime-Focus-Built-its-3D-Conversion-Pipeline_12199.html

quote:
Was the work spread out across multiple facilities?
We spread a lot of the roto and selection stages of our pipeline across Vancouver and Winnipeg [in Canada] as well as Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Goa [in India]. A lot of the offices have very similar overall server and switch architecture. India functions slightly differently, but the principles are the same in terms of network structure, directory concepts and naming conventions. It’s easy for us to share work. Winnipeg and Vancouver are behind the same VPN, so we can do things easily like transfer data directly to machines through a VPN tunnel. Artwork and editorial work was happening entirely in L.A.

And now you choose to believe which workers got the lion share of the tedious work ...

But they'll all tell you that the depth design, scene approval etc is done by "top supervisors" but the truth is that a lot of the actual tech/artistic decissions have to be made on a minute-by-minute basis by the sofware operators, which I doubt put much interest in the results when they are rushed through 125.000 frames of film at a salary that doesn't really pay for weekends or overtime ... in India ...

Now, I'm sure workers in India can do just as good a job as workers anywhere else in the world ... if they had the right time to do it, appropiate rest, good incentives, sufficient training and tools, etc, etc. But somehow, knowing the work conditions of animators (a similar job) in the west are not that great, I doubt the conditions of this type of work in Hyderabad are all they should be for getting the job done properly ...

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-03-2010, 08:54 PM:

Well I asked you to cite your source and you did, though somewhat defensively and there's a whole lot of "maybe, kinda, could be, I bet it's like this" opinion mixed in there.

Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 07-04-2010, 01:33 AM:

Well, that 3D conversion jobs are either "very expensive and time consuming" when done in the west and thus are mostly "given to low paid workers overseas" for cheaper is indeed an opinion rather than a proven fact.

An opinion shared by most in the industry, but an opinion nonetheless.

Without access to all the postproduction houses finances it's hard to be 100% sure. All I can say is that they will all try to downplay the importance of their overseas sub-contracts and praise the high quality" of their products and the high level of automation (bullocks).

Kind of the same can be said of Nike, Apple, HP, Dell or any other manufacturer with operation in (alleged) low-salary countries with near sweatshop-like conditions. They all say their products are made in top conditions.

And then we hear how 15+ workers (16 by the last count I know of, a few of them survived) of the factory making iphones and laptops jumped from a roof in apparent protest of the work conditions. Plus those just dying apparently from exhaustion.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/04/foxconns-11th-death-by-exhaustion/

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-04-2010, 07:36 PM:

Any film that they attempt to convert to 3D should be called something like 2.9D - because no matter how hard they try, it will NEVER be quite right.

I'm just sayin.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 07-05-2010, 05:26 AM:

How about you guys start a new thread for this and not clog up the review section with "facts" and "opinions"

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 07-06-2010, 08:26 AM:

I really haven't heard a single good thing about this movie from anyone except the one positive review in this thread. Its too bad because from talking to the employees (I'd never heard of the comic/cartoon before I was told that's what the movie was based on) there is a fair bit of 'cult' following to the source material. If done properly could have been a good series of movies.

I've actually like a lot more of his movies than most people but I will agree 'The Happening' was garbage and unfortunately it looks like the trend continues.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 08-22-2010, 01:49 AM:

The film really has no ending . Some moments are passable and thought that there was no real need to make it into 3d. I really liked the uncle. Dialogue sucked big time. I will see it on dvd again because I like to rewatch most films.
Demetris

Posted by Jonathan Worthing (Member # 803) on 01-04-2011, 10:54 AM:

sorry wrong place

film was [bs]