12.18.09 | George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz PodcastPrint this Post
James Cameron's got some big shoes to fill: his own! Having steered the mighty Titanic to box-office and Academy Award glory over a decade ago, the self-styled "king of the world" is unleashing an epic sci-fi saga that fuses his vivid imagination to mind-boggling cinema technology. Is Avatar about to change the movies? Has Cameron managed to defy (already high) expectations once again...or, are his fans about to turn on him with all the hatriolic fury of a prequel-trilogy-bashing Star Wars junkie? Let's turn to Movie Irv for his verdict:
I'm sold, I'm assuming it's on the IMAX 3D in KoP.. Now I just need to convince the wife to give it a shot as well..
Wow! 15 years and 200 million dollars and we get CG aliens that look like people, but with slightly longer necks. That’s right, slightly longer necks! What was once the sole province of Botticelli paintings is now available on the big screen, for the low price of four easy payments of the gross domestic product of Bulgaria.
Did James Cameron really wait 15 years until computer graphics technology could catch up with his vision of blue Thundercats? Or, are they just highly evolved Smurfs?
I’ve watched videos of fanboy reaction to the 3d footage shown in theaters, and most just raved about the sharp image quality. If you love sharp images might I suggest buying in a pair of glasses? You’ll be amazed for hours on end by all the detail you can see in the trees.
Another big selling point was the ability to see pores on the CG aliens’ faces. Well, if your enjoyment of a movie is derived primarily from bad skin, just watch the Wrestler.
Good special effects don’t make movies good. Good stories make movies good. And Avatar’s story, as best I can tell...
***Avatar spoiler alert!***
...centers around drab industrial humans trying to ruin the natural beauty of Unicorn planet. But through a scientific experiment, one of these drab humans becomes a blue alien so he can spy on their blue alien world. The only problem is he falls in love with a blue alien babe, learns to appreciate the wonder of their 80’s-fantasy-art world and ends up fighting against the humans to protect his new neon purple home planet.
And if that sounds familiar, it’s because that is also the plot of…Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest!
FernGully, the 1992 animated motion picture about a human named Zak who works for a logging company chopping down rainforests. That is, until he is shrunk down to fairy size by a magical fairy named Crysta who lives in the rainforest. At first he’s mad, but then discovers how beautiful the magical fairy-world-rainforest is, falls in love with Crysta, and helps the fairies fight against the evil logging company.
I don’t know what’s sadder. How disappointed I am by the uber-hype of Avatar, or that I will still see the movie in theaters. What am I saying? The saddest thing is that I remember FernGully.
Ciao!
Grendelwulf