Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Sci-Fi Media Movies Entertainment

Cameron's Avatar Trailer Posted 278

Posted by CmdrTaco from the costs-a-little-more-than-district-9 dept.
graviplana was one of several people to submit that Avatar, James Cameron's 3D Sci-Fi epic has released a trailer to whet your appetite. There's a lot of very cool visual elements in there but no indication of any actual story. Here's hoping there is one.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Cameron's Avatar Trailer Posted More

Cameron's Avatar Trailer Posted

Comments Filter:

  • Whet (Score:5, Informative)

    by mmkkbb ( 816035 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:05PM (#29135021) Homepage Journal

    The correct word is "whet." To whet your appetite is to sharpen it, just as you would a knife with a whetstone. Wetting one's whistle refers to slaking or quenching thirst, but is entirely unrelated.

    • Re:Whet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 ) <joham999@gmail.cTIGERom minus cat> on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:07PM (#29135045)

      Adding to that, the summary contains 45 words and three sentences, contains one typo and one misspelling. Surely the submission approval process is not so strained that three sentences is too much to proof read?

      In before "you must be new here".

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Mexifries ( 938371 )
        "you must be new here".

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Minwee ( 522556 )

        Adding to that, the summary contains 45 words and three sentences, contains one typo and one misspelling. Surely the submission approval process is not so strained that three sentences is too much to proof read?

        Comma splice.

        Spelling.

        I'd use the red pen of doom on this but that would anger the gods of markup. You'll just have to figure out where you went wrong on your own.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by nacturation ( 646836 ) *

      And to use a whetstone, it's good practice to wet it first.

      • There's an old Danish song about that (though I wouldn't be surprised if it's translated from some other language). Gist of the song is as follows:

        Jokum: "There's a hole in the bucket, dear Lisbeth."
        Lisbeth: "So mend it, dear Jokum."
        J: "Mend it with what?"
        L: "Use straw."
        J: "But the straws are too long."
        L: "So shorten them."
        J: "Shorten them with what?"
        L: "Use the knife."
        J: "But my knife is dull"
        L: "So sharpen it"
        J: "With what?"
        L: "With a whetstone"
        J: "But the whetstone is dry"
        L: "So make it wet."
        J: "How do I

    • Re: Whet (Score:5, Funny)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:20PM (#29135265)

      The correct word is "whet."

      Maybe it's a deliberately bad trailer, designed to dampen people's appetites.

    • I came here from my RSS feed purely to moan about this. Glad to see several beat me to it.
      Also, in what must be a Slashdot first, TFS has actually been corrected!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by spun ( 1352 )

        I came here from my RSS feed purely to moan about this. Glad to see several beat me to it.
        Also, in what must be a Slashdot first, TFS has actually been corrected!

        It's not a first. What would be a first would be a correction with an actual admission that a correction took place. But that would require something approaching journalistic integrity. As it is, I often see stories tagged with 'typoinsummary,' with comments about the typo, but no evidence of a typo or a correction of said typo. The Slashdot editors must think we are quite easily fooled.

    • Wet (Score:2, Redundant)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 )

      The correct word is "whet." To whet your appetite is to sharpen it....

      But what if there's a trailer is intended to dampen fans' appetites?

    • Now say Whil Wheaton.

  • only on?

  • see some Starship Troopers and Dune in there (Score:4, Insightful)

    by alen ( 225700 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:13PM (#29135147)

    the book version of starship troopers

    otherwise the plot is a soldier goes to fight, gets some genetic modification and then figures out that the war is evil and being fought for ulterior reasons known only to a select few and he changes sides to fight for right

    • cameron even says so himself:

      http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-the-new-trek-rocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html [latimes.com]

      GB: There's also maybe some heritage linking it to "Dances With Wolves," considering your story here of a battered military man who finds something pure in an endangered tribal culture.

      JC: Yes, exactly, it is very much like that. You see the same theme in "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" and also "The Emerald Forest," which maybe thematically isn't that connected but it did have that clash of civilizations or of cultures. That was another reference point for me. There was some beautiful stuff in that film. I just gathered all this stuff in and then you look at it through the lens of science fiction and it comes out looking very different but is still recognizable in a universal story way. It's almost comfortable for the audience - "I know what kind of tale this is." They're not just sitting there scratching their heads, they're enjoying it and being taken along. And we still have turns and surprises in it, too, things you don't see coming. But the idea that you feel like you are in a classic story, a story that could have been shaped by Rudyard Kipling or Edgar Rice Burroughs.

      GB: Or Joseph Conrad...?

      JC: Yes, exactly. And I think returning to classic tales is a powerful thing. Look, right now is a special time because we can basically do anything we imagine. I mean you have to work hard at it, and you've got to have the technique and you have to be willing to throw money at the problem. Sometimes you have to be a little bold and go out on a limb. But if you can imagine it, you can do it. That's why we're seeing this renaissance of visual imagination. It's just a growth. Films look better now than they've ever looked. Sometimes they get a little lost in it though. I'll go to a "Transformers" film for the fun of seeing the spectacle but, personally, my soul craves a little more story, a little more meat on the bone and characters and that sort of thing. Look, I think it's about finding a balance between story and all of this gimmickry. I think I veer toward classicism, being solidly rooted in the classic stuff. I mean really old-school science fiction. This is a movie I would have loved to have seen when I was a 14-year-old kid in 1968.

      avatar looks amazing though, a must see

      the bit with the blue guys riding flying dragons reminded me a bit of "the dragonriders of pern" too

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern [wikipedia.org]

      now someone should make THAT into a movie

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Durrok ( 912509 )
        I loved those books as a kid. I'm sure we would just get something like this [imdb.com].

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) *

          I'm a fan of the Pern books myself - I would say that Eragon was a poor film because it was based on a poor book. (Which pretty much stole every interesting facet from somewhere else.) Not that Pern couldn't be ruined, but the books are good enough that good films could be based on them. Eragon never had a chance of being really good.

      • Re:no: "dances with wolves" in space (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Propaganda13 ( 312548 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:55PM (#29135877)

        Sorry, I prefer to relate new movies to low budget action flicks with people like Van Damme, Segal, or Lundgren.

        Men of War
        Nick Gunar (Dolph Lundgren) is a burnt-out, jaded and hard-up former mercenary who is having a difficult time adjusting to civilian life. At the end of his rope, he is hired by the Nitro Mine Corporation to strong-arm the natives of a South China Sea island into giving up their rights to its valuable mineral resources. Nick loathes the thought of another mission, but this seemingly easy job will earn him enough money to get back with his estranged family. He recruits some of his former mercenary buddies to help him with the job. The island people refuse to give up their land and Nick decides to help them fight the greedy corporation that hired him. The island and its people bring Nick back to life. He finally finds something worth fighting for and a place to call home. As greed and treachery begin to unravel, Nick's band of mercenaries choose sides. Some are with him and others, still working for the corporation, will stop at nothing to destroy him.

      • I agree those would make great movies, especially the original trilogy. I would love to see the first Dragonriders of Pern trilogy made into three movies. My question is do you leave it like it is and get an R rating (maybe even NC-17 depending on how graphic you make a couple of the scenes) or do you clean it up for a PG-13. There are only a couple of scenes in the book that would put it over the top and they don't effect the plot much. On the other hand those scenes do a lot to explain the culture.
        I woul

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by VAXcat ( 674775 )
      ALso a bit of "Call Me Joe", by Poul Anderson in there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alarash ( 746254 )
      That sounds more like [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man%27s_War]Old Man's War[/url] than Starship Troopers, really.

  • Only a little (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meerling ( 1487879 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:14PM (#29135171)
    Watching the trailer you can get a little bit of info about whats going on.

    Humans go to another planet, looks like a jungle planet.
    They create "avatars" that are either clones, simulacrum, or repurposed native bodies.
    One of the humans (the main character) who is brainmapped into an avatar, is a paraplegic in his human body.
    The avatars are sent on an exploration or diplomacy mission.
    (It obviously wasn't infiltration because they were wearing human clothes and carrying human gear.)

    There's some fighting with some dino like things, possibly with the natives as well, although I didn't see any shots showing actual combat with natives, just strung together combat scenes that implied combat with the natives.

    Oh, and the main character falls for a native female.

    I'm sure somebody paying more attention to it can pick out other tidbits of info, but yeah, it was kinda sparse on data. It's not like the trailers/ads for 6th sense where you can identify all major plot points including the so called twist ending... (so bloody obvious he's one of the dead...)

  • An actual story? Why ruin it with that? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:15PM (#29135189) Journal

    GI Joe did just fine without any actual story.

    • Exactly.
      1) they release movies with pretty graphics and no story.
      2) then they release movies with graphics AND story.
      => profit

      If you *reverse* the order, then they only make half the profit because nobody would pay to see movies of type #1 if type #2 are available!

  • Direct download links (Score:5, Informative)

    by vivekg ( 795441 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:16PM (#29135197) Homepage Journal
    480p [apple.com], 720p [apple.com], 1080p [apple.com] Enjoy!

  • After all, they spent all that effort to genetically engineer Maenads [ign.com].

  • A few problems with it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jim Hall ( 2985 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:28PM (#29135419) Homepage

    Yes, the CGI is stunning - for most of the trailer, it's hard to believe it's not live action. They have made a huge leap across the uncanny valley, and successfully.

    But I have a few problems with it, just like most CGI movies these days:

    The robots don't move right. It doesn't "feel" like a robot to me. James Cameron was the guy behind Aliens, and he seems to have forgotten that one of the reasons that was such a believable movie (despite taking place in the future, on an alien planet, fighting aliens with two mouths) was the use of "today" tech. So I would have expected Cameron to make Avatar's robots more like the military robots we envision today. I'm sure 1000 years from now, robots will move identically to a human (as in the movie) but I'd still prefer movie robots today to move more like real robots we have today.

    Predators shouldn't announce their presence. There's a scene in the trailer where a dino-thing jumps out of the bushes, roars, and runs after people. I see this all the time in action movies where some large animal is about to attack the hero: the predator rises from the bushes (or from behind whatever), bellows, then rushes to attack. But in that split-second, our hero is able to throw himself behind cover, narrowly avoiding being eaten. Ever watch actual predator/prey wildlife - even a house cat pouncing on a mouse. Predators just don't announce their attacks - they just pounce. If you stop to roar, your prey gets away, and you go hungry.

    That said, I'll probably still go see this when it comes out.

    • Yes, the CGI is stunning - for most of the trailer, it's hard to believe it's not live action. They have made a huge leap across the uncanny valley, and successfully.

      Wait, are the humans CGI too? If so that's very good, otherwise it's not really relevant to the uncanny valley.

    • The same technology that provides the realistic animal/alien motion in the film will probably indeed mean robots will move smoothly in the future, so yeah, the robot motion is believable. :-)

    • Predators shouldn't announce their presence. There's a scene in the trailer where a dino-thing jumps out of the bushes, roars, and runs after people.

      If you look closely in the first scene, the creature roars and then jumps over the main character. That would be a very strange behavior for a predator indeed. I suspect the creature is something else.

      In general though, you're absolutely spot on, I'll never forget that velociraptor that politely waited for the hunter to get out his witty remark, "Oh you're

    • Predators shouldn't announce their presence. There's a scene in the trailer where a dino-thing jumps out of the bushes, roars, and runs after people. I see this all the time in action movies where some large animal is about to attack the hero: the predator rises from the bushes (or from behind whatever), bellows, then rushes to attack. But in that split-second, our hero is able to throw himself behind cover, narrowly avoiding being eaten.

      Actually... no. You are judging the scene from a handful of out of sequence and cut-off shots.

      Here is how that scene actually plays.

      http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41793 [aintitcool.com]

      One of the first things we see on the planet is Worthington's Avatar playing with these tube-snake-like flora. He touches one and it disappears, sucking back into the ground with a FROOMPF. He's delighted, playing around in this field of tall plants, making them disappear with a touch until he does that to one and it reveals a really pissed off giant rhino lookin' thing with a hammerhead nose.

      It brays at Worthington's Avatar and stamps its feet, threatening to charge. The Moore Avatar and Sigourney Weaver Avatar are with-in shouting distance and Weaver stops him from using the giant machine gun he's carrying, saying the hide is too tough and that shooting it will only piss it off.

      The Worthington Avatar is unsure of what to do, even thought Weaver is telling him this rhino thing is just putting on a threat display and won't charge if Worthington stands his ground. There's a herd of rhino-aliens behind this one, which keeps braying and using his hammerhead horn nose to knock down trees. It shows its displeasure by a colorful ruff raising (like peacocks feathers but armored).

      The creature doesn't seem to know it's just a territorial threat display and charges Worthington's Avatar who just charges it right back, screaming. It stops and looks confused, then scarred, turning back and running away with the heard.

      Of course that means a slick-skinned panther-like creature is behind Worthington. It leaps over him and charges the bigger game, which runs off... then it turns and realizes there's another smaller, but just as tasty morsel right in front of him.

      Apparently, the predator-creature WAS all sneaky and hidden, going after the "rhino-aliens" but Jake's avatar alerted one of those who started to charge at him, in turn making the predator-creature think it's cover is blown and it's under attack so it turns from a hunter into a defender, roars and attacks.

    • >The robots don't move right.

      Welcome to the uncanny valley! [wikipedia.org]

  • Did it seem like (after years of hype) Cameron made a simultaneous remake of Ferngully and Starship toopers? I still have hope that the movie will be better than the trailer, but you never know.

    Here's an annotated version of the trailer to illustrate the point:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRTrWsKPKh8

  • Cliche scenes, undercooked CGI, no apparent plot.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Elbowgeek ( 633324 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:33PM (#29135513) Journal

    This does not bode well. The CGI, which would have been impressive on an XBox or PS3, instead jars with the real-life scenes. They make no attempt to even hint at a plot, which tells me that they have essentially strung together a parade of impressive FX to hang on the bones of an irrelevant story. And you can guarantee that they will not take any time to let the story breath underneath all of those explosions.

    No.

    • Re:Cliche scenes, undercooked CGI, no apparent plo (Score:4, Insightful)

      by je ne sais quoi ( 987177 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:55PM (#29135869)
      What are you even talking about? The first trailer release for any movie is a teaser, they NEVER give you any indication of the plot. They're just trying to generate some interest. In a few weeks or months we'll get some more informative trailers. In any case, if you look closely you can see some potential interesting plot/character development bits, like how the main mech driver that you see seems to be in a wheel chair at first and then gets converted into one of the night-elf looking guys, thus regaining the use of his legs. How's that for a mind-trip? Also, did you notice there's a war on and what appears to be an inter-species love story as well? Jeez.

      As for the graphics, get off your AOL dial-up connection and watch it at 1080p and then tell me it looks like an xbox. As someone who owns Beowulf in blu-ray and Final Fantasy, and whose gaming PC can play FarCry2 at 1920x1200 resolution, 2xAA with ~47 fps average framerates, I can say that this stuff looks better than any of those. I was surprised at just how little uncanny valley [wikipedia.org] there is in the human characters. The aliens looked a little weird, but I reserve judgement until I've seen it. It could be that they're well aliens and we're not supposed to closely identify with their movements.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Sir_Lewk ( 967686 )

        I also watched the 1080p version and was terribly unimpressed.

        It looked technically complicated and high-res or whatever, but it did not look "good". I think it fell flat-faced right into the uncanny valley for me (which, as a perspective thing, is of course relative to the viewer). No need to throw insults around just because someone wasn't as enamored with it as you were.

    • Over and out.

    • They make no attempt to even hint at a plot, which tells me that they have essentially strung together a parade of impressive FX to hang on the bones of an irrelevant story.

      Yeah! Cameron and unimpressive, irrelevant stories... like Terminator, Titanic, Aliens, True Lies... A real nobody.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Wraithlyn ( 133796 )

      I'm a little stunned at the lack of faith here.

      This is the guy who directed (and even more importantly, WROTE) Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and Terminator 2. The latter two in particular also pioneered groundbreaking CGI effects for the time, and the stories certainly didn't suffer as a result.

      Cameron has proven himself a visionary and gifted storyteller (particularly in the sci-fi realm) many times over. Your self-assured criticism of the story (based on a TEASER, ffs) is unwarranted and premature. Th

  • The Last Airbender (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xebikr ( 591462 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:34PM (#29135519)
    I've got to say I'm much more excited about the other avatar movie, due out next summer. I might end up being horribly disappointed, but the tv series rocked and left me wanting more.

    • Re:The Last Airbender (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:52PM (#29135819) Homepage Journal

      I would be much more excited to see more animated episodes to continue the story. My family is pretty stoked about the live action film - but I don't really see the point. I like the animated version and am unsure how live action could do as well, let alone surpass what already has been done.

      I was able to buy all the tv episodes on dvd recently and have enjoyed watching the shows again. The story and characters are strong enough that it holds up well to multiple viewings.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gulthek ( 12570 )

      It used to be that when some IP went to the big screen we viewers got to look forward to actual special effects, a grander scope, a fully realized creative vision.

      That is no longer the case. For Avatar: The Last Airbender we've already seen the story fully realized with little to no compromises on quality. All the live action films can hope for is to:

      1. match the quality of the series, giving us nothing new
      2. captivate a new audience that hasn't seen the series

      Given the movie's choice of director, and casting dec

  • Sorry to interject an unrelated movie but I must make a comparision. This movie looks visually stunning, but I hope the writing and plot are as good as district 9 was. D9 was, by far, was one of the best sci fi films I've seen in decades and it did it on the cheap. And that's all that really needs to be said.

  • Wow... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 )

    Holy smokes, does that look stupid.

    I couldn't even bother to finish a 2 minute trailer. Can someone from Hollywood send me 30 million bucks, and I'll mail them my bowel movements for the next year?

    • I couldn't even bother to finish a 2 minute trailer.

      I do believe that there is a treatment for that. [wikipedia.org]

    • Its kind sad the people automatically mod up mindless negativity like this.

      Look, scifi movies are the low hanging fruit of Hollywood. This looks much better than GI Joe or Transformers. We should be thankful someone is trying an actual story. Cameron has some real talent and deserves a little more respect than this. I mean, you barely saw anything. Youre pretty much judging a book by its cover. I thought geeks were smarter than this.

  • Cameron has been reading Joe Haldeman (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:42PM (#29135667) Homepage Journal


    Trailer reflects a lot of different Joe Haldeman books. I see pieces of "All My Sins Remembered [amazon.com]," "Forever Peace [amazon.com]," and a tiny bit of "Forever War [amazon.com]." Ridley Scott's planning to film "Forever War," and he said he was inspired to do it in 3-D [sffmedia.com] after seeing what Cameron had done with Avatar. The avatar thing connects with Haldeman's "Forever Peace" very well.

    Wish Taco would avoid the snide comment about the trailer lacking story. It's not like Cameron has proven himself a poor storyteller on his past films. Just because it's CGI and science fiction, doesn't mean this is going to be garbage like Transformers 2 or Terminator 4.
  • They were showing a trailer for Surrogates [imdb.com] at District Nine. The plots sound similar- intermeshed human-MMO worlds gone flakey. Cameron may have better F/X from what I've seen so far. If both are well-executed, then I may like both.

  • Oh sure (Score:3, Funny)

    by Al Al Cool J ( 234559 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:50PM (#29135785)

    Trying to ride on the coat-tails of Felicia Day's hit indie geeky music video (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar, which shot to the top of iTunes/Amazon/YouTube on Monday. How very sad.

  • Here's to hopin there will be an iMax release

  • I bet there is a statue of Frodo Baggins somewhere in that planet. Almost beg for a LOTR/Avatar crossover. They use bows, looks somewhat elvish, if the "ships" used to leave the Middle Earth were starships back then, could be made a whole future/past story blending both fantasy and sci-fi with somewhat little effort. Of course, the actual full movie could dispell those similarities, but was my first impression looking at the trailer.
  • I'm impressed that Apple's server isn't even sweating while serving hordes of slashdotters eager to take a first look. My initial thoughts after watching the trailer: Wow - very nice visual appearance.

    • It isn't sweating NOW.

      After days of anticipation they have failed spectacularly. [io9.com]
      Instead of seeing it exclusively on Apple's site the internet got the first look at the trailer from France's MSN portal.

  • I'm hoping for a great story, because otherwise it's just Fantasia. And while I like Fantasia very much, that's already been done.

    And I want a complex story where neither side is completely good, and neither side is completely bad, and neither side is completely all powerful and neither side is completely helpless. Let the decisions to be made be hard ones, not obvious choices, but I still won't mind a HEA ending.
  • lolwut...? blue-skinned pointy-eared tall skinny dudes on dragons in a landscape with inexplicably floating landmasses. Uh...

  • Oh my! Cameron is going to change the world again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @03:32PM (#29138547)

    Having read the (now scrubbed from the web after having floated around for several years) full script treatment penned by Cameron, I can assure you that it's a very solid story.

    It IS formula, but then so was Titanic, (and Dances with Wolves for that matter). But Cameron knows how to work a formula impeccably. And the guy has actually gone and found a New Cool technology, which if used effectively and spun right, (think Jurassic Park), can help significantly in the promotion of a film.

    The buzz is that the 3D has got the techs in Hollywood really excited about going to work every day.

    People are going to see this film in droves and they are going to be blown away by it. I feel safe in predicting that.

    Avatar, however, isn't going to be bigger than Titanic in terms of sales. I'll go ahead and predict that as well. --Why not? Because he isn't tapping the same doomed-romance nerve which is crack-cocaine to the average 15 year-old girl.

    The casting of Titanic was both cynical and brilliant: Casting the almost beautiful Kate Winslet as the female lead was a sly maneuver which allowed the female audience to fantasize over the notion that even plane-Jane girls like themselves could have their very own Leonardo Decaprio. --And that his character should conveniently die at the end of the film so that he wouldn't put his lover through years of poverty, while in the same action giving her a bitter-sweet memory to polish and secretly wax pathetic over for years and years. . , well, that's just orgasmic! The girl-buttons deep inside girl-machines are placed in some really odd ways, but Cameron found 'em all and pushed every last one he could reach.

    Avatar is going to be really cool, but it's not going to press nearly so many girl-buttons. (Though, images of blue amazon elf maidens I suspect will become popular in comic book shops). And who knows? My own understanding of girl-buttons is admittedly rudimentary. Maybe Cameron's onto something that I'm not anticipating. It IS a love story, after all, and maybe that's enough to make the teen girls watch it half a dozen times as they did with Titanic. My guess, however, is that classical material riches, classic questions of marrying for love or for money, combined with the bad boy thing. . , well I suspect this will always out-rank sci-fi mojo amongst the teen girl set.

    In any case, this film looks very much like I pictured it from Cameron's prose, with one exception; I thought most of the fauna of Pandora was going to be glowing like a school of lamprey fish, but I guess the screen tests of that just didn't touch the right emotional nerves in viewers. The Audience is human, after all and Cameron knows his human psychology. I'm glad he's a sci-fi film maker and not a propaganda man like Goebbels!

    -FL

  • hard to watch (Score:3, Funny)

    by jensen404 ( 717086 ) on Thursday August 20, 2009 @08:33PM (#29142037)
    There was a lot of very inconsistent frame doubling.
    One part went like this:   (starting at 0:25)
    single frame:   I
    doubled frame:  -

    I-IIII-III-III-I-I-II-I-I-I-I-II I-I---I--I--I--I---I--I-I-I-I-I-II-I-I-I-I-II-I-I-I

    This scene cross fades with a scene that doubles every 9th or 10th frame.

  • I've read the screenplay (Score:3, Informative)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Friday August 21, 2009 @12:36PM (#29148533) Homepage

    I read the screenplay for this about 5 years ago at this point. Honestly surprised it took so long to get made. I guess Cameron wanted technology to catch up to his imagination.

    The basic plot is a) humanity discovers alien world, b) populated by weird creatures, the most intelligent of which are the blue humanoid ones - you can think of them sort of as Native Americans; and c) that's pretty much the plot. Humans come to conquer this new world.

    To do this they d) grow "avatars" who are biologically like the aliens but into which human consciousness can be uploaded. This is done to e) interact with the aliens and convince them to let humans take over their planet. f) The aliens are not so keen on the idea and g) fight back. h) it turns out that they're not just primitives but that they i) live in close consciousness-sharing harmony with other creatures on their planet and j) their entire planet via plants.

    See, they k) have nerve bundles growing in their hair and these let them connect with other living beings, such as l) the pterodactyls which they're able to pilot by mind control. m) One particularly nasty human soldier scalps one of the main aliens and this is a very dramatic thing. n) the protagonist is a crippled Earth scientist who can't walk, but when loaded into his "avatar" he can, and so he wants to stay in his alien body. o) When an alien dies they get absobed by the foliage and become part of the planetary consciousness. p) Because the protagonist helps to chase off the nasty humans q)by wiping out the invading force and sending Earth a fake message about a lethal virus being on the planet, r) the aliens make him a permanent alien. s) there is also the obligatory love story.

    There, aren't you glad I just saved you 2 hours and $20???

    Sure, it'll be visually pretty but the plot is lame. Unless you're 13.

Slashdot Top Deals

Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.

Close