Avatar
 

Just saw a sneak preview. Spectacular! Not great, but spectacular. Think the Jetsons meet Jurassic Park, meets Doctor Doolittle, meets Rambo.
The 3-D was amazing. Very realistic, not that in-your-face 3-D.

Argh, Just had to walk out of the theater because the 3d was screwed up. (there was a double image in the right eye) I had heard so much aout how awesome the 3d was that I couldn't sit through 2.5 hours of miscalibrated so I became "that guy." The theater management thought I was insane and kept asking if it was in focus, it's not their fault the whole concept is foreign to them. After leaving the theater I called real D 3d (yeah I'm that big of a dork) and reported the problem (which I'm told was a real issue that does happen) and hopefully that theater will get fixed before the next show. The thing that killed me is my party was the only people that left, the rest of the people will sit through that movie and think that the 3d is just really bad having no idea they aren't seeing it the way it's supposed to be seen.

If you're at a theater watching 3d and you see a noticeable difference when you close one of your eyes and then the other, something is screwed up and you should complain (especially if you have to pay a surcharge of 3 bucks like I did for the glasses) this movie is supposed to be an amazingly gentle 3d movie so if you've got a headache watching it or suffer from eye strain something isn't right!

(stepping off soap box looking forward to seeing the movie in its entirity at another theater.)

Maybe someday there will be integrated layered separate screens to convey the 3D effect .
Or a liquid plasma screen layered with the 3D effect.
Imagine that.

Paul, yeah that was the worst part, I had worked with a couple of different screens all summer that did just that (if I understand the technology correctly it's pretty impressive, and makes me ready for in home 3dHD) so maybe I hold the movies to higher standards. I don't know. I can't wait to see the movie though and I hope that it will show people how non gimmicky 3d can be.

First time I ever watched a 3-D movie and forgot I had the glasses on.

Avatar 2D was great, ready for 3D now
 

I went to see the 2D version first because I've never been interested in 3D and wanted to evaluate the content. I walked away really impressed with the story and visuals details and am ready to experience the 3D version.

It really was an excellent movie and worked so well on many levels. It made me realize the true value of 3D (unlike an earlier 3D movie I saw where I felt it was used mainly as a gimmick for a quick shock or thrill), which is that it makes the whole movie experience "immersive". The thing which struck me a few hours after the movie finished was how immersed I'd been in the whole thing.

Perhaps that's where the true value of 3D filmmaking lies - immersion of the audience.

It also made me think that unless a filmmaker is really on his or her game plus fully expert in 3D (such as James Cameron), then audiences could be turned off by the use of 3D with live-action movies. It needs these two factors working together:

a) ability to immerse the audience, and
b) stand up as a really good movie in "2D", i.e. regular viewing.

If the movie can't really do a), and only uses 3D as a gimmick - such as the hand with the knife leaping out of the screen towards the audience - then audiences might quickly get sick of 3D with live action and consider it a "fad".

If the movie can't really do b), but does a) really well, this could kill off live-action 3D quicker than anything. I mean, who wants to be totally immersed in a movie which is lousy? That would make the whole experience doubly painful.

So, in my opinion, each 3D live-action filmmaker has to totally nail both a) and b) or live-action 3D could quickly go the same way as in the 1950s.

Animated 3D movies (put out by Disney, Dreamworks, etc.) should keep going from strength to strength, I reckon. (And it should probably be noted that Avatar had a very large number of purely CGI scenes in addition to the ones with live-action actors. It was a stunning technical achievement.)

As a final, technical note, viewing this movie really hurt my eyes. Every 5 or 10 minutes I found myself having to take off my RealD glasses and have a quick look around my actual surroundings, re-focus my eyes and then go back to viewing the movie. Another guy on my row complained to his companions of a mounting headache and he eventually abandoned the movie and walked out of the cinema.

I noticed during the pre-show viewing (advertisements and trailers), before the audience was asked to put on the glasses, how out-of-focus the projector was. I remember thinking, "Don't they even bother to teach the basics to these multiplex projectionists?" I was hoping that they would switch to a different projector for the 3D movie, but now I kind of doubt it. An earlier 3D movie I saw (which was well-focussed) had a look of extremely high resolution (due to the higher frame rates required for RealD 3D) but this one didn't have that. So maybe my eye soreness or eye-strain was purely due to projectionist error with the 3D material.

All of the above are purely my opinions and speculations, nothing more.

Avatar
 

Hi Guys, I have seen Avatar in 3D with my son the other night and I am still recovering from the emotions I felt. What a fantastic movie and what an experience it was to "feel" Pandora. Does anyone know what kind of cameras did Cameron used for this movie?

Stelios

I have only seen the trailer but am really exited to go to the cinema. I also noticed that there is a 3d version available, did you see it in 3D?

They used modified Sony F950, HDC-1500, F23 cameras.

Noa I saw it in 3D and I must tell you that it's the first time that I watch the new digital 3D and it's really amazing. I can tell you that you it's like when we had black and white movies ands then came colour! The same sensation! The movies will never be the same again.

Stelios

I have to agree, what an incredible experience. I've never seen anything like it. Absolutely jaw dropping.

Jeff

My first 3d experience was with jaws back in '83 and actually I don't remember much from it anymore but I can imagine that the 3d experience must have taken quite a step forward since then.

Just saw it this afternoon. The 3D was really well done--that is to say not overdone. Hopefully, this will be a new trend: to use it as an element of production rather than a gimmick.

There were a couple of 3D trailers before the show--a couple of animated flicks that looked OK but there was a live action "Piranha 3D" which was the traditional 3D explotation movie. You can be sure I'll run out and miss that!

No, Mr. Cameron was quite restrained with the 3D--to the point that a lot of the big exterior vistas were actually flat--no 3d at all. I didn't notice any eye strain at all.

Really loved it... This was the first 3D movie I have ever seen with the new digital technology.

I saw it in the Imax 3D and holy sh*t.... I was blown away... I really felt like I was there... Add some D-Box seats, and I would have forgotten where I was...

I give it a 5 star rating and a 5 star for the 3D... I thought I was right in the guy's face when he was being talked to by those 2 men... I thought he was right there.... Amazing!

I've been to the movies twice this year
 

And each time I've had to turn around and ask someone to close their noise makers. It seems that no matter what people like to comment on each scene, this after I've dropped 30 bucks on tickets and popcorn!

I'll wait to buy it and blast it in my tv room.

I was actually pretty dissapointed.
Not a bad movie, but not a very good one either.

My first movie in 3D. I still think it distracts more from the content then making it immersive. But the thing that made the movie fail for me was the very mediocre script. Some bad dialogue, no chemistry between the main actors, elements that could (should?) have been played out better,...

all in all a very mediocre movie that has some impressive technical qualities but could have been much better on all fronts.

Man, did we see the same movie?

I realize that I didn't say how I liked the movie itself, aside from the technical aspects. I loved it! The world they created was just so amazingly beautiful.

I've heard other complaints about story and dialog. Personally, I just don't get it. I totally bought into the whole world. 'Willing suspension of disbelief' switch fully engaged here.

I'm curious--did your reaction have to do with the hype before hand?

I never saw any previews and only heard a bit about how much it cost and its technical revolutionary-ness. I really didn't know anything about the story going into it.

No I didn't has superhigh expectations. I watched it with a pretty objective look, I think.
It's not a bad movie. But I didn't think it was great either. And speaking with the 2 people who joined me, we pretty much had the same opinion.

Story: okay, but not great. But Titanic had that too. And Titanic was a much better movie then this. The script is where most of the faults lie. I didn't feel much for the characters. The paralized soldier versus his freedoms as an Avatar were too unexplored. The chemistry between the soldier and the Nazi-woman wasn't there - or not enough to make a great movie.
The villain was too cliché and didn't have any depth. Sometimes that's not neccessary, but here I felt it could have made a better movie if they worked more on the 'good' side of the villain (for instance, the fact that he keeps his word about the healing of the soldiers legs and stuff, more of that).
Action scenes were okay, but I had very little real wow moments. I didn't have any moment were I felt a lot of emotions.

I think this is proof that if you don't really care about the characters in an action scene, the action scene as a whole doesn't really work.

With this type of 3D technology is there a "sweet spot" where one should try to sit?

I guess would be dead center horizontal and vertical...

'Avatar' great, 3D alright
 

No movie is flawless and can be everything to everyone. That said, 'Avatar' comes as close as anything- heaps better than Star Trek '09 if you ask me, but the box office negates my opinion there as well...

Seeing 'Avatar' a second time, I was surprised by the difference the 3D *didn't* make- while it was a cool movie for them to use the technology on, it didn't really help me enjoy the movie, and it actually made it a little harder to watch at times- especially when there was a lot of action/movement in the frame. I'm sure the technology will improve to address that, but I think I actually enjoyed it more the the first time in 2D. Look forward seeing it on blu-ray.

It's funny how everyone can come out of the movie with vastly different opinions.

I finally saw it today and thought the 3D was well done and fairly restrained. It added depth to the viewing experience, which I thought was important for showing off the grandeur of Pandora although there were a few times where it felt very much like looking into an old Viewmaster.

I thought the story was very predictable, but solid enough to be enjoyable. I would have enjoyed a little more back story as to how we discovered and settled on Pandora, but whatever, it worked well enough.

I'd give the story a C and the visuals an A.

I like it a lot. But were all the scenes in 3D? Felt like only about 25% were.
Also, I kept wiping clean my glasses during the first ten minutes, to be honest, it didn't look especially sharp. After reading this thread though, I'm thinking the projectionist may have had his head up in yinyang.

Avatar is what the movies are all about. Nobody does it better than Cameron.

Brian I am pretty sure it was the projectionist/equipment. Unfortunately the greater advances in technology lead to different elements in compatiblity, and some fine tuning. I may have noticed a couple parts where the image wasn't perfect, but not enough to be able to recall when this happened.

The thing that makes Avatar simply amazing, and perhaps the most important element of it's use of 3D, is the fact that they used it to help tell the story, NOT to "shock and awe." I can guaruntee that I will see all of James' upcoming films (5 in the works!).

JS

As I said earlier, "Avatar" is going to be the standard of reference in the forthcoming 3D films,whether you liked the movie or not.

Stelios

This was also my first 3d movie I watched in a normal cinema and not in an entertainment park in Hollywood or similar.

The first minutes I really started to get a headache but after a while my eyes got used more to watch the 3d movie.

However, for me 3d was a nice experience and I can imagine that in future they will improve 3d more an more or hopefully my brain will "learn" to watch 3d without a headache. But for my taste not every movie has to be 3d in future. This just will mean more and more cgi, and I still prefer the real world way more.

At all Avatar was not a bad movie (my friends enjoyed it a lot), but for me it was just not my taste. I've seen way better Cameron movies!

I have a 3D guru question. I sat in the third row and felt the 3d effects were mediocre. If you sit farther back are the 3d effects better?

Visually I thought the 3D version was great and worth the price - at one stage I almost felt that some of the insects were in the cinema with me.

But the story was too predictable. Halfway through I was thinking it reminded me of Pocohontas and when we came out one of my party described it as "extreme Pocohontas".

Well, I haven't seen this film yet, but everyone I talk to is saying "it's the best movie ever made." Here's my thoughts... I think these people are simply impressed.

I get the strong feeling that people are in love with the way this film looks, and if they saw it in 3D, it may even be their first 3D experience. I think we all know that visuals come second to sound and story.

Let's wait this out a year... probably the length of time that it will take for the "wow" factor to die out and then we'll get true opinions out of people. I think the same thing happened with the Dark Knight... when it first came out, a buddy of mine thought it was the best superhero movie ever made. A month later, he admitted that he was just caught up in the hype.

Saying something is the "best ever" is pretty bold.

Well
 

I did go see it, and other than the pair beside me making out the whole time, it was a good movie.

I put it up there with Iron Man; better than Transformers, but not in the same class with Lord of the Rings. That's my two cents.

Finally saw it on New Year's Day. Agree w/ Steven and with Stelios, above.

It was easily as good as Iron Man but definitely not in the same league as LOTR in my opinion.

The 3D (in RealD process, at least) was very, very well done and sets a new standard.

This will probably be the first 3D title I'll buy for our household once we have a 3D HDTV.

motion sickness
 

I was going to see Avatar in IMAX 3-D, then remembered my problems with viewing motion i.e an IMAX film of a helicopter going over a volcano, I had to leave the room! So I settled for plain old 3D. Had a few problems but nothing that made me turn away for too long. Great 3D, average story ( Matrix meets Dances w/Wolves meets District 9 meets...you get the idea.) Oh, I hate 3D glasses, they are never comfortable on my head. Until that's solved, no more 3D for me. I say it's still little more than novelty, and is never needed to tell the story better. Just my opinion, time will tell.

Saw it last night - was actually very impressed with the use of 3D - it didn't feel overplayed at all. What would take it to the next stage would to have some form of periphery fill-in, like a more complex version of the ambient lighting on some LCD sets. There were a few moments, particularly with "deep" shots where the edge of the screen was highlighted by the use of 3d. As a film, I enjoyed it a lot but felt a little cheesed out in places. I was stood waiting for my better half on the way out and I can't remember the last time I saw an audience so talkative about a film.....

Also, any other Squaxx dex Thargo in the house? I felt it had more than a passing resembleance to Firekind, a 2000AD strip from about 15 years ago - a LOT of story parallels and ideas!!!

My short review...Spectacular movie. Story is predictable but still very good. Visually...this is the next level of entertainment. Beautiful and seamless live-action and CGI. Every scene has so much detail it's ridiculous. The 3-D is subtle enough through most of the movie that I forgot the glasses were on. Some of the scenes could have done without 3D or at least toned down...like the video-logging scenes. The outdoor scenes are jawdropping! We saw it at an IMAX theater and I didn't have any issues but my wife got a little motion sick. I've heard the same from several other people and I wonder if that will impact 3D's success in the future.

Just saw it and even though the story is something I have seen before and nothing special but the visuals, wow, never saw animated characters show this accurate expression in their faces. I totally got carried away by the joy and pain that you could literally feel and I still find it unbelievable that most of what I saw was made by a computer.
usually I'm not so keen on CGI movies, the last star-wars trilogy I saw was a big disappointment and one of the worst movies I ever saw, it was just an empty shiny shell but Avatar shows what difference it makes if the cgi is applied right and they managed to give animated persons a soul and more depth then George Lucas not even could achieve with real life persons.
The 3d experience took some time to get used to though, especially the real-life scenes where there was quite some depth of field did feel like my eyes were having troubles adjusting to it. The cgi scenes were better balanced. One particular scene were Colonel Miles was giving a speech to his troops half-way the movie the "3d" experience was very real, as if I was standing inside the room, impressive.

Storyline is strong
 

Like many of you I was astounded and astonished by Avatar. I simply forgot the technology and was just living in every aspect of Pandora - Cameron should feel proud at creating it.

But the story line I notice took a panning in some quarters - I saw it with my daughter and she has been studying the conquest/elimination of the Inca's by spaniards and she totally felt she emotionally understood from Avatar what it must have felt like to be wiped away by another race. The books just don't convey that.

It is surprising how anti-colonial, anti-corporate or anti-exploitation a message it provided. Nice to think it might change the views of a generation, but not sure it will... especially when it was funded by a mega corporate ;-)

Watched it IMAX 3D diagonal polarisation glasses.
Let me first say amasing, epic, well worth the price for watching, love that 3d, enough action. 3d was well done without being overdone.

that leaves me with issues of the technology itself, Frame rate not high enough for fast action.
Polarisation is not seperation Enough, long ago Imax used shutter lcd and it was a little bit cleaner.
Out of focus stuff in background and foreground is not effective for 3d WHEN there is already a blurring going on via the glasses/brain assembly.
Let me explain:
when trying to bring to the humans eyes what they would see themselves WITH thier eyes in reality, human eyes do not have such rotten focus, human eyes can keep up with motion, and human eyes dont normally get headaches from watching life in front of them.
When the technology is trying to bring us a sureal reality in full stereo 3D , it needs to do so with as much reality as possible.
Seems to me, that Much and much Vast effort is put into the scenes and time and work and personell, and work and work and days on end, then displayed in technology that needs to Work on a few aspects of itself to bring it to us. Increase the frame rate, fix the eye seperation issue, and for the 3D stuff avoid the out of focus stuff and let the 3D do its thing of setting the "depth".

Did i say great movie, yes go watch it if you have not , you wont be dissapointed, even if your not a Sci-Fi and cheezy romance fan.

Having just seen the film in 3D in your average multiplex, I can't say I was that wild about the 3D. I say this having seen one of the Pace 3D rigs based on the F950 and a demo video at the same time at the Pace LA office & workshop. That had a slight hyper 3D effect, which seemed to get carried over into film for some shots.

The film works without the 3D, if a bit long for the story, however, the glasses etc seemed to degrade the image below what I'd expect - the highlights on faces looked odd for a start and everything has a slight video game quality.

Never mind having a slight headache at the end, which could be due to how the projection system was set up.

I finally saw it last night. In IMAX 3D.

The underlying story was a bit heavy-handed at times and maybe a bit preachy, but honestly, the movie worked for me. I thought I'd get lost in the technicals, but it was absolutely engrossing at times. I went with a friend and don't think I looked at her for the last hour of the movie.

Visually, it was a feast. Rich, nicely done, and the 3D worked for me. I have a parallax issue with my eyes that sometimes causes depth problems, but I tested things during the previews and I saw the 3D just as cleanly as I would have liked. Certain scenes used it more than others and I was ok with that.

Having watched the mo-cap stuff before I saw the film, I must say that Zoe should be up for best supporting. She was utterly amazing in that role. I thought Weaver's role was a bit weak and over the top. She didn't sell me at all. The top jarhead was just icy. As the saying goes, you can't have a great good guy without an even better villain.

I'll certainly see it again on second run, and I have a feeling it will become THE new reference BluRay when released.

I gave it my highest rating on IMDB and Flixster.

Saw it on IMAX 3D today.

The 3D was an interesting addition to the whole experience, but I'm not sure if it added overall, or if its distraction was just enough to negate what it gave.

The story was predictable, we've seen it before, but still worked for me.

Visually, it was stunning. What an imagination from the people who builit Pandora. And the CGI was the first time I've ever believed in the look and movement of computer generated animals, people, whatever. It was incredibly well done, and will change the way movies are made, I'm sure.

Worth every penny. I'd like to see it in 2D, though, to compare the experience.