Avatar Day: Kevin Carr Has Seen the Epic 3D Light!

Posted by Kevin Carr (kevin@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 21, 2009

avatar-zoe-1-header

Before I even begin talking about the filmmaking aspect of the much-hyped 16-minute tease of Avatar, dropped in theaters this afternoon in IMAX 3D, I can sum up my experience in one simple phrase:

Science fiction paperback covers.

For those of you who actually read words on real paper, you might remember browsing the science fiction section of your local bookstore or library. Whenever I have done this, I have been fascinated by the vibrant, brilliant covers on these books. You know the type I’m talking about, those epic fantasy scenes painted by the hand of someone like Boris Vallejo.

I felt the same level of fascination watching these scenes from James Cameron’s new film. It is as if one of Boris’ covers came to life and jumped on my lap in the IMAX theater tonight. The experience was a visual masterpiece. We only got a taste of the plot, which doesn’t seem that original (but then again, what James Cameron film has a solidly original plot?):

A group of soldiers are settling on a strange and wondrous planet. Their minds are implanted into indigenous beings of this planet so they can interact with their surroundings. When one of the soldiers’ avatars is separated from the group, he lives with the natives and learns their ways. You know the drill… like Cameron has said before, it’s Dances with Wolves in space.

But who cares about the story at this point in time. This 16-minute IMAX 3D tease was all about showing us the look of the film. And I can say that it looks absolutely phenomenal.

All the online griping about the look of the trailer is appropriate only if you’re going to watch the film on your computer monitor. But remember: this movie was not optimized for laptops. It was optimized for IMAX 3D. The flatness that could be seen in the trailer is gone from the projected print. Sure, there’s a bit of the uncanny valley flesh tones to the humanoid creatures, but they still look amazing.

But it’s not the humanoids that look so grand. The various alien creatures displayed were visionary, especially the final scene in the clip. See below for more on that.

Aside from the praise I have for the brilliant, photorealistic, rich and vibrant virtual world, I have to make a special note about the action sequences in the large format. IMAX projection is so huge that it doesn’t always work to shoot these scenes the same way you would with a 35mm movie. Too much movement and too many close-ups will result in double images on the screen. It’s just simply so big that your mind no longer sees the action in a smooth, continuous motion. Basically, you can’t blow up some herky-jerky shakycam with Michael Bay close-ups and have it look perfect on the IMAX screen.

In the Avatar scenes presented tonight, I saw a little bit of that aritfacting happening in the live-action scenes. Perhaps it was just my eyes getting adjusted to the glasses, but once we moved into the virtual world, things seemed so much smoother. It seems to me that the digital manipulation of the virtual scenes provide greater control of the images so even with whip-ass action, close ups and tons of shit thrown at the screen, these scenes still look fluid and awesome.

avatar-newphotosaug19-580-04

With all that said, here’s a quick break-down of what we saw.

Intro

James Cameron welcomed us to the early screening of the IMAX footage. And yes, he was in 3D.

Scene 1

The first live-action scene featured a military briefing, which we had seen before in films like Aliens. Lots of machismo, an introduction to Sam Worthington in a wheelchair and lots of badass thrown around.

Scene 2

We’re in a lab scene with Sigourney Weaver as a scientist. She’s strapping Sam Worthington into a CAT-scan machine that’s really not a CAT-scan machine. Again, we’ve seen these kind of lab set-ups in various James Cameron movies. But things become different when we learn that they’re grafting Sam Worthington’s mind into a nine-foot tall blue alien. The transfer is successful, but he kinda wigs out a bit. It’s a pretty seamless joining of live action and CGI alien in the room.

Scene 3

The cool shit begins. Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver are now aliens on the planet, and they’re fighting an alien rhino that is ready to kick some serious ass. Here’s where I began to respect the hell out of the creature design. But before we’re done with the peacocking bat-shit-crazy rhino, we’re introduced to another massive creature… one that wants to eat Sam Worthington’s avatar. Cue awesomely cool jungle chase by a massive predator that eats big-ass guns for breakfast.

Scene 4

A campfire scene where no one even thinks about singing Kumbayah. Some weird-ass little creatures are attacking Sam and his buddies, and a Sheena alien comes in to kick some tuckus. Dim the lights and let’s get ready for some alien love. Oh, and we get a taste of a message, implying that humans are going to destroy this world like they did their own.

Scene 5

The coolest fucking scene in the entire event. Sam Worthington’s avatar has apparently come to live with the natives, and he needs to tame a wild dragon by wrestling it, mounting it and getting it to fly with him on its back. Here’s where you see all the budgetary dollars on screen. Unlike the Harry Potter films, this scene populates the screen with oodles of photorealistic dragons that look like the aforementioned Boris Vallejo paintings come to life. Lots of action, tons of brilliant CG work and a depth of field so endless that you can see dragons flying miles away in the distance.

It was at this point that I became committed to seeing this movie as soon as humanly possible. Message, preaching, potentially overdone plot and undetermined characters be damned. The dragon-riding sequence makes the battle sequences in The Lord of the Rings trilogy look like the old Land of the Lost television show.

The event wrapped up with a smattering of shots from the film. Some we have seen in the trailer online (which look much better projected in IMAX 3D), and some are new. But it looks like a kick-ass movie nonetheless.

In short, Avatar is going to be the cinematic event of this holiday season. It’s opening weekend is going to smash records simply because you can only experience this film to its full degree on the IMAX screen. Interweb pirates can bit-torrent the hell out of this movie, and it’s not going to matter. The only way to experience Avatar will be to watch it through a pair of high-end 3D glasses on a screen 50 feet high.


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  • justinpgardner
    Agreed. The depth, the colors, the emotions, the detail and especially that scene where Worthington's avatar was being chased by the creature through the forest. It was ALL there. And to think that EVERYTHING was CG on the Pandora planet. There wasn't a moment I wasn't convinced.

    In fact, I went with a friend who really doesn't like 3D and he had the exact same opinion. What we talked about after is the fact that Cameron gets that technical advances really deliver on the "spectacle" of moviegoing. He did it with Titanic and I really do think he's set to do it again.

    In any event, very excited to see the whole thing. Bravo to everybody who worked on this. It's a brave new world.
  • mack41
    Is it legit IMAX like dark knights heist scene or is it a normal film projected onto an IMAX screen like the unIMAX parts of dark knight?

    Very excited for this an just want to know whether or not to bother with the trek to the IMAX
  • !_!
    IMAX 3D is the way to go trust me i came back awhile ago and my expectations went through the roof. ignore the haters thats all i got to say,
  • Matt
    I've decided. People who complain about "preaching" in films are just terrible people who are not happy that there terribleness is being pointed out to them. It's the only explanation I can think of for why people so feverishly whine whenever there's a message, even when it's an obviously good message.
  • Rohith
    I agree with the comments here. The 16 minute preview was awesome and since I wasn't satisfied with the trailer I saw for this movie, I was really looking forward for an excellent preview in IMAX 3D.

    This is the best 3D movie I have ever seen in IMAX. What surprised me is the fact that everything was so detailed and perfect. The quality was crystal clear. The quality of the picture is sooooo much better than the crappy Transformers 2 in IMAX. AVATAR is a movie that definitely needs to be watched in IMAX 3D to fully experience it. I thought the preview was a bit too short but I can't really complain about that as it was a free show anyways and I was lucky enough to get the ticket along with my friends

    I have to say that I am not too satisfied with the look of the alien's (blue creatures) ... they are just not too cool. Fox should've got help from Pixar as they would've made the aliens soo attractive and cute :p
  • unblinkingeye
    Loved it, just beautiful. Can't wait for 12/18 to roll around.
  • Thanks for the detailed review, here im in the Philippines and no screening so was waiting patiently for a review...thanks a lot
  • kcmasterpiece
    Honestly...when people started saying that they were disappointed because there wasn't much of a story I was a little excited. It meant that all of those bucks were put into CGI...or a lot of them. And there will be scifi and fantasy movies with great stories in the future, probably even the near future, but when again are we going to see a movie with this much money thrown at the CGI...not for a while.

    I certainly can't wait, but it's different from the usual feel I get when I am excited for a movie, and those are usually for the writing and the story. This is a perfect time for this movie, since there are so many well written movies coming out recently that this one is really going to be one of a kind this year.

    EDIT: I read a post in a forum that went something like this "The aliens have a face that is a mix between a cow and a cat, so I don't care that they are naked." I really think that helps the film more than it hurts it.
  • coryscalhoun
    I couldn't agree more. I plan on seeing Avatar repeatedly when it comes out, with as many friends and family members as I can.

    Rationally, I shouldn't be that upset by lukewarm or negative reaction of the Avatar Day presentation by others who also saw it, but it does get to me. Since the letdown of the Phantom Menace, I think many fanboys and fangirls in the 18-35 demographic -- who have been accustomed to CGI-heavy films for going on a decade now -- have kneejerk reactions of utter dismay to any long-in-gestation project that doesn't live up to their impossibly perfect preconceived notion of how a given film should be.

    Appreciate the film for what it looks to be: an amazingly visually realized epic tale that will completely transport you into its world. I'm glad I was lucky enough to be one of the first to take the ride.
  • StephL
    The IMAX footage was awesome. Agreed that it's pointless to whine about the trailer, unless you're planning to watch the movie on your computer screen. It's meant to see in IMAX or 3D so the 2D won't do it justice. I loved what I saw. I can't wait to see the real deal in December.
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