{"id":2516,"date":"2009-08-22T12:11:51","date_gmt":"2009-08-22T19:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=2516"},"modified":"2009-08-22T12:11:51","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T19:11:51","slug":"on-avatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=2516","title":{"rendered":"On Avatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3791217774_1728a7eb5b\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Let’s talk about Avatar.
\n
\nIt’s pretty amazing. I can’t remember the last 3D film I saw at a movie theater, or even if I’ve ever in my life seen a 3D movie in a theater, but it felt pretty immersive to me. I wasn’t like “Oh shit I’m on an alien planet now I thought I was in a theater what about my Milk Duds fuck” but I was definitely drawn into the action in a far different way than I think I would have been if it were just a 2D film.<\/p>\n

2D filmmaking makes the choice of what your eyes should focus on in any given shot; 3D makes the same choice, but because it more closely mimics the depth of focus in the “real world,” your eyes are constantly adjusting in ways that are unnecesary in 2D films. This made my eyes tired; I think seeing the whole movie would in some ways be an exhausting experience, even if it’s as fun and mindblowing as the preview was.<\/p>\n

Yes, it blew my mind, a little. We can all play kewler-than-thou and pretend that we hate hype and snark our asses off at what Cameron’s trying to do here. That’s because he’s out on a limb. That’s true not just for the 3D aspect, but for the design and the execution of the film as well. He’s creating these trippy vistas that alternate between looking like an old sci-fi novel cover come to life and a blacklight painting hung in a pothead’s dorm room. He’s doing it with computer-generated animation that aims for photoreality even though it’s depicting a world that could never be photographed because it doesn’t exist. If this were just a 2D movie, he’d get a certain level of snark aimed in his direction.<\/p>\n

But shit–he’s OUT THERE, DOING IT. He’s excecuted this film and the segments I saw made me feel like whatever funky territory he’s wading into, he’s still delivering a James Cameron movie with all that implies. There are still fantastic action sequences and a level of world-building that doesn’t exist in your average summer tentpole. Yet there’s also this astonishing imagery, and again, compare it to whatever else you want to, there’s nothing new under the sun so it doesn’t matter–it still looks amazing.<\/p>\n

Who else is even out there doing this? Maybe Zemeckis? But he doesn’t bring the level of audacious auteurness that Cameron manages. This is a guy who creates gigantic films every time out that still drip with his personal stamp. He corrals entire armies of FX gurus, set crews, actors, and film executives to march lock step in the direction he chooses. He’s always worked on a completely different plane…not that his work has always felt so elevated, but when he’s on his game, there’s no better popcorn moviemaker out there.<\/p>\n

I’m the kind of guy who roots for the underdog and rewards ambition with faith. I want to see the Next Big Thing, and I want to see Cameron pull this off. I’m not going to pretend this will revolutionize moviemaking, but I think if he’s able to achieve a worldwide blockbuster built around this 3D concept, it will have a ripple effect going forward and inspire more filmmakers to create 3D action and sci-fi films. I can’t imagine that’s a bad thing if you’re the kind of moviegoer who’s a fan of the fantastic.<\/p>\n

That’s the thing here–we’re geeks. We’re supposed to want movies like Avatar. We should be eager to see the envelope pushed, not skeptical of anything that falls outside our expectations. And it probably won’t change the world, and it probably will fall short of its lofty goals, but even if it gets close, that’ll still be fucking awesome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s talk about Avatar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}