Cameron's Avatar a 3D Drug Trip? 215
bowman9991 writes "James Cameron's first movie since Titanic, his upcoming science fiction epic Avatar, has a budget pushing US$200 million and enough hype to power a mission to Mars. Now it appears the 3D technology he created to turn his vision into a reality, the key to Avatar's success or failure, may be habit forming. Dr. Mario Mendez, a behavioral neurologist at the University of California, said it is entirely possible Cameron's 3D technology could tap brain systems that are undisturbed by conventional 2D movies. Cameron himself believes 3D viewing 'is so close to a real experience that it actually triggers memory creation in a way that 2D viewing doesn't' and that stereoscopic (3D) viewing uses more neurons, which would further heighten its impact."
Astroturfing is habit forming (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, a purveyor of some media claims it's the best thing evar!!11!! You'll have to pay 10$ to see for yourself, but do not miss it!
I think the only important word in the article is $200M. This means hype, and lots of it. Don't be fooled kids, they need you to help pay for this cartoon.
Movies are so last century (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who has regularly played the current crop of First Person Shooter [bluesnews.com] games experience the cinema as a bit of a lot down. It's not the act of viewing in 3D but interacting with the characters and moving about the landscape, so we are already familiar with the Cameron effect. Now if only they could get the AIs [stanford.edu] to behave as if they had some real intelligence. It does also get a bit boring blowing away aliens in the underground tunnels of the Black Mesa Research Facility.
Seems ridiculous, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider Ramachandran's mirror box, a means of using illusion to "cure" the pain of phantom limbs. From the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]:
If such a low-tech visual illusion can rewire neurons, what can a high-fidelity, 3-dimensional illusion accomplish? (I'm not saying that Cameron's movie is going to have such effects, but how far will the technology go?)
Oh please. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The article is Slashdotted.
2) Anyone who viewed "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" (With BRAND NEW 3D technology!!) knows that a crap film is a crap film no matter how many god damn dimensions it is viewed in.
Re:Drug Trip? Great Idea! (Score:0, Insightful)
more like retarded mods...
sheesh... they mod up garbage and mod down truth.
Re:Astroturfing is habit forming (Score:3, Insightful)
If I choose to pay them for doing so, does that make me a sheep of some sort?
Of course. IF you watch or listen to anything made by the "mainstream" movie and music industries you clearly aren't as hip and cool as the non-conformists who only watch/listen to indy garbage.
Re:So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, though, the Polar Express sequence when the kid's trudging along the top of the train in the dark with snow and howling winds takes on a whole new level of terror that's not there in the 2D version. No longer is it just a "flat" thing to walk along.
In fact, it was such a powerful sequence, I'm surprised it's taking this long to get here as a mass market thing. It's only been 2 years since the local Showcase installed a 3D-capable IMAX theater, and then it's only used for Pixar releases and the like, and even then it's only 1 of 4 theater rooms showing the film, the other 3 being normal, non-3D, non-IMAX screens.
Nah, this'll be a bigger change, the kind you say "I can't believe we didn't have that!", like you do about the Internet, or a TiVo, or the frictionless, free-spinning mouse wheel from the big Logitech Revolution. Not a small change like B&W -> Color TV, or Color TV -> HDTV.
3D is awesome, but it also sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
3d films are great when they just use the 3d to provide texture.
Unfortunately, 3D filmmakers seem to think that they should ring all the bells and whistles and show off the 3Dness, so you end up with a mostly 2D film the 1D plot of which is designed primarily as an excuse to put in lots and lots of pointy things coming straight out of the screen at you, which is extra stupid, because pointy things coming right out at you is one of the things that current 3D technology is really bad at.
It was so bad, that in the TV-movie, "Beowulf," in the first five minutes you could tell it was supposed to be a 3D film, and in the rest of the film, every time you saw an axe, sword, scyth, or teeth, the first thing that goes through your head is "Sigh. That's going to come zooming out at me. For the love of [something] Please let them avoi..Oh, there it is."
Presuming Cameron does not make this mistake, his film could be quite interesting to look at.
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the point is, that you would not look at a boring desk, but at something that you would normally never see in reality, but start confusing it with reality, thereby shocking you into insanity. ^^
I don't know if it it, but it sounds much like the arguments some people make against games. You know, the "I think people are too stupid to know that this is not reality, and will go on the streets, killing everyone, *because of it*." kind.
I feel very confident that I can distinguish that stuff. And I really hope it triggers some memory creation. I wouldn't want to pay for it, and remember nothing.
I am also the kind of person, who really *really* loves getting sucked into a movie or game.
You know. The moments when you come out of the cinema... and somehow, the whole world looks different.
You may have experienced it with Matrix. And with Fight Club. I certainly did.
And I totally love it.
Because no matter what horrors and just plain weird events you might remember very realistically afterwards, in the end you get some beautiful new views, grow a bit wiser, and will always know that it was just a movie.
Except of course, if you were a retard in the first place. ^^ (= the exception)
Re:Crazy story.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, this is one student's transcription as best as he could. The story changes a lot with each telling, but it's always hilarious. The best part of it, of course, is that the professor either totally believes it or is the best troll ever.
Troll? Hardly. That precise format is how all the best ghost stories get told. It sounds to me like most of the audience simply wasn't used to oral storytelling as an art form.
Re:Crazy story.... (Score:4, Insightful)
One can madlib this story and get almost any era of human history. I believe the compulsion to creating/passing on these stories a little attention whoring, combined at the core with more than a little wishing it could be true and increased survivability/happiness because of the information within. But in reality, nothing has changed because of any detail of any of them, no matter who knows or doesn't.
Go ahead, mix and match however you want...
avatar...angel...alien..illumanati..hero...
layers...levels...factions...armies...classes...
heaven...promised land...golden city...shangri-la...utopia...planet..
war...struggle...sin...plague...madness...vampires...
god...devil...king...oracle...eternal life...
phone...fountain...statue...beggar...wise man...shaman...prophet...spaceship
Whatever. Even a mild study of mythology shows the recurring concepts.
Re:Crazy story.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow. This is one of the most fascinating things I have read on /. in a while. True or not, it's quite a good yarn. My hat's off to you and your professor.
Re:yeah, no really... (Score:3, Insightful)