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This is fairly interesting, but I legit think Cameron is starting to lose his mind...

http://collider.com/james-cameron-avatar-2-sequels-star-wars

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I am now intrigued.

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This is fairly interesting, but I legit think Cameron is starting to lose his mind...

http://collider.com/james-cameron-avatar-2-sequels-star-wars

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That's pretty crazy, but when you think about it, what Peter Jackson did was even crazier. Filming THREE epics concurrently, on unproven material that was far from a guaranteed success, was just insane.

Especially because so much more of those movies had to be in front of the camera as opposed to being created in a computer.

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New least favorite poster found!

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Just because I don't gush over your favorite movie? And you call me immature?

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Good lord make it stop.

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"If I could do the Alien Queen today with the techniques we used on AVATAR, she'd be spectacular. She'd be much more dynamic.

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This is is just wrong

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atm: You do understand that the examples you posted are also different from Avatar, correct?

Those are marker-based performance capture, which is a different technology. Notice there are no cameras on their faces.

With Avatar, they used cameras on their faces that recorded every square inch of their face in amazing detail, and the dots painted on their faces were merely supporting this process. It wasn't just markers.

I say with with zero sarcasm or trying to show you up: If you care to research the technology, please do so. It is pretty fascinating and you'll understand why you are arguing on the wrong side here.

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I spent a good 10 years of my life in the computer graphics field, and now work in high fidelity simulation. There is NOTHING special about what Cameron did in comparison to those prior to him. Just because the cameras weren't go-pro looking things attached 8 inches from their face does not mean their faces and dots were not on camera. In Dead Man's Chest, the cameras were merely farther away, since they already had the POV and frame was defined, they didn't NEED another set of cameras 8 inches away. While having them in closer might make the movements more discernible to the computers, but it does not change the mathematics in any way. It's still dot's on camera which are processed by the same algorithms that people developed years prior. Cameron did make the colors brighter and whatnot, because he had the luxury of rendering the entire screen, so I guess there is that "innovation".

And, BTW, I'm not bashing Cameron for the hell of it. I think he did break new ground in T2.

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New least favorite poster found!

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Just because I don't gush over your favorite movie? And you call me immature?

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Good lord make it stop.

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Yeah.. please make your baseless complaining stop. Either bring something to the table, or stop posting.

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There is NOTHING special about what Cameron did in comparison to those prior to him.

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So you're saying the virtual camera I addressed earlier was not groundbreaking? It falls under your definition of groundbreaking since it was invented specifically for the movie.

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I spent a good 10 years of my life in the computer graphics field, and now work in high fidelity simulation.

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And I am a bit of a buff when it comes to behind-the-scenes documentaries. Sometimes I find the making of a movie more fascinating than the movies themselves.

Also, I took a graphics class in college, so I'd say we're on fairly equal footing on that front.

But seriously, you gotta learn to put your personal feelings on the movie aside. You say you're not bashing Cameron, but it's exactly what you're doing.

I have ZERO respect for the Transformers sequels on asbolutely every level, except for the CGI work. ILM did amazing work on those movies.

This thread is reading like a politics board "discussion".

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This thread is reading like a politics board "discussion".

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Pfft..about what I'd expect from a liberal

Yep. Tried changing the subject earlier. Now I'm just waiting for this little spat to blow over.

Lol I doubt it will. It's been going on for a few pages now right?

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This thread is reading like a politics board "discussion".

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Pfft..about what I'd expect from a liberal

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Lol and spot on for a pols board post.

It's Avatar-related. Did you expect this conversation to go well?

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This is fairly interesting, but I legit think Cameron is starting to lose his mind...

http://collider.com/james-cameron-avatar-2-sequels-star-wars

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Cameron kept getting ballsier and ballsier the further I read down that article lol. The man does not lack in confidence.

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Yep. Tried changing the subject earlier. Now I'm just waiting for this little spat to blow over.

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"My original plan was to release them a year apart, but we're opening that up. If for no other reason than that I don't want to land on the same date as one of the STAR WARS sequels. That wouldn't be fair to them. [Laughs]

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Was my favorite part.

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There is NOTHING special about what Cameron did in comparison to those prior to him.

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So you're saying the virtual camera I addressed earlier was not groundbreaking? It falls under your definition of groundbreaking since it was invented specifically for the movie.

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It's not far enough of a leap. The Star Wars guys combined technologies that nobody thought of combining before to make that movie. Cameron combined technologies that tons of people had considered, but chose not to pursue because computers weren't powerful enough yet. In fact, it's a technology that is only useful if you are going to render the entire scene with human-like people in it. So for 95% of movies, like live action, Pixar movie with toys, fish, etc., or even combined CGI and real sets, this technology is useless. It's hard to argue that that is starting some sort of revolution. Compare that to Industrial Light and Magic. That revolutionized movie making as a whole. Yeah Cameron want's to get his investment's worth to make 4 more Avatar movies, but it's not particularly useful besides that. Unless we start having a bunch of 100% rendered movies, which I don't see.

I already did, a few pages ago. Anyone with half a brain that was living through Avatar knew of its mainstream impact.

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Yep. Tried changing the subject earlier. Now I'm just waiting for this little spat to blow over.

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You and me both. Good link.

I'm convinced this ends with either him locked in the editing room peeing in jars and never releasing the footage or that he pulls it off and produces the most epic scifi saga ever made

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I spent a good 10 years of my life in the computer graphics field, and now work in high fidelity simulation.

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And I am a bit of a buff when it comes to behind-the-scenes documentaries. Sometimes I find the making of a movie more fascinating than the movies themselves.

Also, I took a graphics class in college, so I'd say we're on fairly equal footing on that front.

But seriously, you gotta learn to put your personal feelings on the movie aside. You say you're not bashing Cameron, but it's exactly what you're doing.

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I like almost every Cameron movie. T2, True Lies, and Titanic (yeah I know) are masterpieces, IMO. The story in those movies were great. The Abyss and T2 came out right in the middle of my graphics heyday and I bought everything I could about those movies. Then, after Titanic, Cameron took 10 freaking years to come out with Avatar. I read over and over again on how he was working on some technologically amazing stuff. How I would be blown away, etc. I was freaking pumped and went to see it opening weekend with my kids. By then I was used to 3D (I had seen Coroline, Up, and a few others already), so that was not special. The story was lame, and the visuals were cool. But were they cooler than Matrix, Nemo, Up, Gravity (another visually stunning movie with a meh story), etc.? Not really. The fact that I'm conservative and the story clearly had a liberal slant didn't help either, but I'm able to overcome that in other movies. I still love The Abyss despite the directors cut has a big-time liberal slant.

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I have ZERO respect for the Transformers sequels on asbolutely every level, except for the CGI work. ILM did amazing work on those movies.

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The story was so bad, I haven't seen the sequels, but I agree on the visuals. They were incredible. I am more impressed by that than I am Avatar. But to tell you the truth, I consider rendering the entire scene to be a form of "cheating". It's a lot easier to do that than to mix CGI in with real action and make them blend together so seamlessly. That's maybe graphics "inside baseball" knowledge that makes me not as impressed by Avatar as I am Dead Man's Chest or Gravity.

I'm looking forward to the next one because it's about the underwater world of the planet and nobody does underwater filming better than Cameron.

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But were they cooler than Matrix, Nemo, Up, Gravity

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I would say so, yeah.

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In fact, it's a technology that is only useful if you are going to render the entire scene with human-like people in it.

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So..... Like a lot of Avatar is?! So you're saying that Avatar IS ground breaking?

Well, no ****.

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This is fairly interesting, but I legit think Cameron is starting to lose his mind...

http://collider.com/james-cameron-avatar-2-sequels-star-wars

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My response to reading this:

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It's not back-to-back. It's really all one big production. It's more the way you would shoot a miniseries. So we'll be shooting across all [AVATAR scripts] simultaneously.

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(I'm surprised that no one beat me to that.)

Two things this thread can agree on:
1. At least the first sequel will make money hand over fist (Disney seems to agree as well).

2. The movie is polarizing. People seem to love it or hate it.

Regarding point 2, a lot folks who criticized the first movie will go see the second.

I think another notable point is that the movie was a victim of its own hype to some. You wait 10 years on a director know for innovation to finish a project, you have time to build up the project in your mind.

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I already did, a few pages ago. Anyone with half a brain that was living through Avatar knew of its mainstream impact.

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What mainstream impact? Has there been any Avatar-wannabee movies or TV shows produced in the 7 years since? Do you see mainstream TV shows referring to Avatar? Does anybody spout quotes from Avatar at the water cooler at work? Do posters on web sites like quote anything from Avatar (similar to "I'll be in my bunk", "I'm your father", "winter is coming", etc.)? I can't think of any at all. It's DVDs sales aren't in the top 20 (I can't find it in any list, so it's at best #21). The Avatar toy sales underperformed.

Compare that to Star Wars which is still referenced to this day and that movie is almost 40 years old. It spawned a ton of copy-cat movies and shows (Galactica was a copycat and it was itself was rebooted decades later). Firefly ran for 1 season 15 years ago, and it spawned a movie from the grassroots and they still have reunion shows and documentaries made about it. Hell Magnum PI stopped it's run almost 30 years ago, and it was recently referenced by Archer (which made the front page of Reddit and other web sites). Silence of the Lambs, Nemo (largest DVD sales ever), Toy Story, etc... hell I can go year by year and find 2 or 3 more impactful movies than Avatar.

Hell Avatar wasn't even the most impactful movie of 2009. I'd say that Fast and Furious, Blindside, and Inglorious Basterds all have had more maintream impact that Avatar. Hell there were plenty of TV shows in 2009 that have more impact: Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Parks and Rec, Lost, The Office, 24, Friday Nights Lights, and more.

The only reason Avatar had a lot of viewers was because everybody knew that they would not be able to get the full experience at home on TV. They went out to go see it while they could. Nobody, except Cameron, was clamoring for a 2nd Avatar movie. When this announcement came out, the collective response was, "really?" Compare that to the 2nd Iron Man, the 2nd batman movie (Dark Knight), etc. It isn't even close.

The notion that it had a "major" mainstream impact is laughable.

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In fact, it's a technology that is only useful if you are going to render the entire scene with human-like people in it.

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So..... Like a lot of Avatar is?! So you're saying that Avatar IS ground breaking?

Well, no ****.

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Avatar and only Avatar. Other people copy other good movies. Nobody had copied Avatar. There is a reason for that.

You couldn't just let it die, huh?

Mainstreamed audience acceptance of new and improved 3-D. Shouldn't be that hard to understand. It's hard to find a non 3-D IMAX nowadays.

You have a pretty biased opinion, that much is for sure.

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You couldn't just let it die, huh?

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Letting it go would be declaring the other guy the winner. Internet101, brah.

He's already moved the goalposts on his argument. First it's not groundbreaking, I show it is (using his own definition of the word), then it's "not enough of a leap".

He'll never be wrong on this. He'll concede something but modify his argument.

Best to just let him have this one for his personal records and move on. I'm already embarassed I wasted so much time on this yesterday.

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You couldn't just let it die, huh?

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Letting it go would be declaring the other guy the winner. Internet101, brah.

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We all know people who only move goalposts and are never wrong.