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okay, Cameron is definately an arrogant jerk....but so what, he makes good movies. titanic is not the type of movie that i would normally go see but I thought it was a great movie....Avatar although a predictable story is a "must see" movie...on the big screen, and in 3d or IMAX if possible. Effects are amazing and it is a fun movie to watch with cool alien landscapes and creatures. My wife had not interest in seeing the movie whatsover, I made her go see it with me and you know what...she liked it so much she wants to go see it again
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I guess I should eventually see Titanic
I'm like some of the folks here, it just hasn't wowed me enough to want to run out and see it. I have no animosity towards anyone who has made the movie or viewers who go see the movie. My wife doesn't want to see it, I wouldn't take the kids and I've just not had the urge to see it on my own.
It's all good!Comment
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Had Avatar been made by an amateur filmmaker for $20,000...then posted it on youtube...I guarantee...every hater in here would've gone gaga over this flick...and praising the heck out of it...lol...
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Okay. Here we go Hector. . .
You know how they used to always show those previews on movies that tried to make folks stop pirating videos because it took jobs away from the little guy?
I am that little guy.
I didnt expect to be back in Grad school at my age studying Special ed because it has job security.
I invested a lot of time and money in my first chosen carrer. I wanted to be a SFX artist. 7 years of part time undergrad for a a fine arts sculpture degree, two years at the Tom Savini make up school for an associates in Make Up, and an insanely expensive correspondence course with Dick Smith to make one last attempt at understanding cable control puppetry.
Now if I wnat to move up out of doing "beauty make up" on local commercials and Independent gore movies I need to go back to school again for digital animation. All that time of learning to work with my hands is like having a certificate in steam engine repair.
As for effects and realism the complaint is often heard that younger directors today WANT effects to look computer generated. Realism is what we are used to. And most younger folks have grown up in front of video game and computer screens so that IS what reality looks like .
If we had CGI when Raiders was made Indy would not have shot the Cario swordsman. Exorcist would not have been a creepy refrigerated room. Whats her name wouldnt have pulled down the shower curtian in Psycho. the Chestburster in Alien would not have totally freaked out the actors.
I didnt see a single alien "actor' in Avatar that made me believe I was looking at an alien life form . Not like Lewis Gosset Junior did in Enemy Mine.
Someone commented to me about a thing as simple as walking down a corridor compared between Star Wars and the prequels. Harrison Ford was actualluy interacting with his enviroment. Whereas Ewan McGreggor had no idea where he was or what he was looking at most of the time.( and I heard no clone suits were actually made for the films, not even when the clones took off thier helmets)
Special effects is no longer an illusion. it's just fake.
And as for the sky falling, we on this site who are so enamoured with Nostalgia should be the first to see that what it means to be human has changed. Science fiction began as a warning . As horror. Thanks to the industrial age we had killed off all our supernatural boogiemen. We should take heed from all the dehumanizing things we have read and watched growing up. My Landlord is a brainiac and went to colege for Artifical Intelligence. I asked him if he had ever read Frankenstien. I thought it was irresponsible that he never had.
Sermon over
To quote the Emerald Archer " Time for the democratic response."
Stay Groovy!
Dave!Last edited by TrueDave; Jan 28, '10, 12:37 AM.Comment
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Good stuff Dave...I respect your opinion.
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>I guarantee...every hater in here would've gone gaga over this flick
Not EVERY one. It’d still have the trait that, for me, is the biggest problem: it’s the same story I’ve seen a zillion times. But that’s me. I really don’t care about effects. I want to see some weird, new ideas. (Hence my love for 50's monster movies. Cruddy effects, unbelievably bizarre monsters.)
>all hell is gonna brake loose because of Avatar
Nah; it’s a symptom, not a cause. A symptom of something that’s been percolating since the invention of movies: the balancing of idea and image. Films have been an eyeball massage for a long time. Case in point: I was discussing “This Island Earth” with a friend last week. The movie is considered a sci-fi classic, and seemed like a weird choice for “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.” My buddy Chad was the first of us to see this, and he said he went in wondering “why THIS film?” and left thinking “why hasn’t anyone done this before?!!?”
“This Island Earth” ISN’T a good film. Story-wise it’s every second flying saucer B-movie ever. (See MST3K:The Movie and you’ll understand. “I’m not an alien....”) But at the time it was a pinnacle of SFX technology and budget. And if you read any review THAT’S what sold it. Like Avatar. Like Terminator 2. Like Independence Day. Like a LOT of movies over the years. (If you REALLY want to see spectacle, check out some of the bigger films from the silent film era; like the original Ten Commandments. Or durned near ANYTHING by Kurosawa.)
So.... I guess even Avatar “changing the way movies are made” has been done before....
>Special effects is no longer an illusion. it's just fake.
Hmmmm.... I think this is another tricky one. For me, fake is fake. Something isn’t less not-real than something else. (Hence my apathy for the whole “hard sci-fi/science fantasy” debate, and my love of cartoons.) My problem with CGI isn’t CGI; it’s how producers use it. CGI makes it easy to recycle ideas without them looking blatantly recycled. New skins, same vectors; voila! It also makes it easy to cram a lot of detail into a limited amount of visual arc; which is the current thing to do, which bothers me ‘cos there isn’t a lot of composition to the shots. It’s just stuff happening. But again; that’s not CGI itself, that’s what people do with it.
>Thanks to the industrial age we had killed off all our supernatural boogiemen.
They’re still there, but they’re DIFFERENT from ours. We’re old. Our time is almost done. Things change. That’s how it works.
Don C.Comment
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I never admitted it, but I always thought I was the only person who thought This Island Earth wasn't very good -- certainly not in the same league as Forbidden Planet, The Thing and Earth vs The Flying Saucers.
BTW, am I the only person who thinks the main alien guy from This Island Earth is a dead ringer for Robin Williams ?
Last edited by Mikey; Jan 28, '10, 10:27 AM.Comment
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>I always thought I was the only person who thought This Island Earth wasn't very good
Have you seen "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie?" I always thought the Mutant rocked; but the film is pretty blah.
>am I the only person who thinks the main alien guy from This Island Earth is a dead ringer for Robin Williams
....not any more....
Don C.Comment
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Here is a wikipedia article about the Jesus Tomb documentary that Cameron produced.
I'm not condemning or condoning the work he completed on the project. Only commenting that it is a very touchy subject with many people and might be one of the reasons why some find him dispicable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Tomb_of_Jesus
One thing interesting about Titanic and Avatar. Both have seemed to have staying power at theaters as opposed to most blockbuster movies which usually have a good 3 or 4 week run then fizzle out. I personally enjoyed Titanic even though I never saw it in the theater and most of my friends never saw it in the theater either. Aside from those on this site, I don't know of one friend, colleague, neighbor, co-worker, etc. say they have watched this film even though the subject of films comes up all the time. I wonder how much of the box office take were from people watching it multiple times."The farther we go, the more the ultimate explanation recedes from us, and all we have left is faith."
~Vaclav HlavatyComment
.lol
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