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AVATAR - Sci-fi epic by James Cameron @ COMIC-CON

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I believe in Cameron. But honestly, I have no clue why at least the trailer wasn't launched online at comic-con day.
 
Zeliard said:
Of course you're always going to be able to tell that sort of thing is CGI. It's demonstrating things that don't exist. You brain is automatically telling you "this isn't real" as you're watching it, no matter what the level of artistry and design behind it is.

Don't buy it. By that logic anything new you haven't seen before would look fake even if it was in real life.

I can think of lots of movies that showed fantastical things that were indistinguishable in detail from the rocks they were placed next to. "It's CGI" is triggered by subtle things like incorrect lighting, moving with no weight, etc.
 
Busty said:
Having seen the toy design on Chud it only serves to reinforce my belief that Avatar will go down in history as the worst marketed 'event film' in history.

At best bizarre. At worst just laughable.

We've seen most of the films' big designs (Pandora creatures, mech suit, now Jake's Avatar) in leaked form one way or another. I still can't believe the first official shots we got from this film were from Ubisoft's tie in game. And they weren't very flattering.

I'm sure the design of Jake's Avatar works within the confines of the film's general aesthetic but seeing the design for the first time out of context as an action figure from Mattel just look ridiculous.

.....the brown laced shoes just look ludicrous on the toy.

I've no doubt that the basic design of Jake's avatar will look like the figure in the film, but in the film it will 'fit in' instead of looking like something from World of Warcraft modelling in a GAP catalogue.

Look, I've been where you were until I found out more about the movie. CHUD is not to be followed for any reason. It's not "Oh, he disagrees with me so I hate him." No, it's the fact that he has a long history of spreading bullshit about movies that he doesn't care about. He did it famously with Star Trek earlier this year, telling how Chekov was going to die and the whole thing was going to be reset anyway. Nothing like that was even close to what happened, but he sold it as gospel.

He and his small group of followers are the worst kind of film-school failures that hate anything that could be popular and go against anything that has popular acceptance. Kind of like GAF but on a much more dickish scale.

His 'fact' that the Nav'i look just like that has been debunked in this thread just a few pages up.
 
Rindain said:
I saw the footage at Comic-Con.

The actual character looks so much better than that toy. The toy's proportions are wrong, the hair is wrong, the face in general just doesn't look right.

Wait until the trailer.


I didn't see what the toy looks like, but that small head shot is what he looked like at the con.
 
Zenith said:
Don't buy it. By that logic anything new you haven't seen before would look fake even if it was in real life.

I can think of lots of movies that showed fantastical things that were indistinguishable in detail from the rocks they were placed next to. "It's CGI" is triggered by subtle things like incorrect lighting, moving with no weight, etc.

No creature in Avatar is going to look so real that you think it is real... just think of Gollum, and how although you know he is fake, because he seems so real it doesn't matter as long as you let yourself get into the story/film
 
The problem is that Cameron always meant the truley amazing thing about Avatar is that it gets you involved emotionally with the CG characters, not that the FX will be the emphasis. In fact, he doesn't want you to focus on the FX but the story.
 
It would seem that Fox have taken legal action to bring down pictures of the Jake Avatar toy from teh Internets.

But they may as well release better quality film stills at this point as the damage 'has been done' with the awful toy design no doubt saved to hundreds of thousands of hard drives at this point.

The laughably bizarre and totally mismanaged three ring circus that is Avatar's marketing campaign continues.
 
FOX is absolutely clueless. If they think AVATAR day is going to be enough to get the hype train started, they are sadly mistaken, considering that the vast majority of the public has no clue that AVATAR day is even happening, or what the fuck AVATAR is even about.
 
the walrus said:
FOX is absolutely clueless. If they think AVATAR day is going to be enough to get the hype train started, they are sadly mistaken, considering that the vast majority of the public has no clue that AVATAR day is even happening, or what the fuck AVATAR is even about.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of marketing for Avatar Day. They just don't expect people to walk into the theater and be like "hey, I can see 15 minutes of this movie i know nothing about - for free!", do they?
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of marketing for Avatar Day. They just don't expect people to walk into the theater and be like "hey, I can see 15 minutes of this movie i know nothing about - for free!", do they?

Well, my view is that, without any sort of trailer before AVATAR day, there's no way they are going to get audiences into the theater to see this 15 minute preview. Not to mention, just think of every way FOX has already botched the marketing for this movie, wouldn't suprise me if they fucked up this stage too.

Plus, we're already in August. I mean, there's only one chance to see this preview, so they better let the general public know when and what it is before it's too late.
 
Karma Kramer said:
No creature in Avatar is going to look so real that you think it is real... just think of Gollum, and how although you know he is fake, because he seems so real it doesn't matter as long as you let yourself get into the story/film

Good CG is more than capable to fool people into believing something is real when it is not. See: Davy Jones. It does depend on how it is used though, like you said, nobody is going to think the 6 legged horses in Avatar are anything but CG. :P
 
Cheebs said:
As am I, but I am just saying Iron Man 2's footage at comic con has much more of a universally strong reaction and better buzz, which I doubt even Sculli would disagree with. There is nothing wrong with a decent amount of people not being impressed with the Avatar footage, it doesn't have to diminish your hype for it if not everyone thought it looked super impressive. But people trying to deny the critics who saw it aren't valid is just sad.
I'm not sure what you are trying to imply here by gauging fanboy reactions across two different films, different genres .. the kind of reaction of Venom (SM3) still remains to be topped and we know how the movie turned out .. :lol Fanboy reaction != success or failure, it guarantees that fanboys will either attend or not attend the midnight screening. :P
 
Karma Kramer said:
No creature in Avatar is going to look so real that you think it is real... just think of Gollum, and how although you know he is fake, because he seems so real it doesn't matter as long as you let yourself get into the story/film

but Gollum looked like he was made out of clay. i would argue the dragons looked better. Humanoids are just so dashed hard to do.
 
Zenith said:
but Gollum looked like he was made out of clay. i would argue the dragons looked better. Humanoids are just so dashed hard to do.

davyjones_l.jpg


ILM ftw. WETA cries bitter tears.
 
Yeah, he was. I didn't like the movie, though. I enjoyed the first one so much..I don't know how they did it but I couldn't sit through the second and third movie. :(
 
ILM deserves a lot of credit. Star Wars Episode 1 is 10 years old yet the cgi (the actual quality of the look, not the actual characters being good) still holds up.
 
So Aug 21 is two weeks away and there still isn't a list of screens worldwide confirmed to be carrying the 15min shit? Why do I have this feeling that Fox just thought of the idea right before Comicon, and started arranging deals then? if that's the case, I expect tons of places around the world to not bother with this since it's too soon and there were no plans made before hand.
 
duckroll said:
So Aug 21 is two weeks away and there still isn't a list of screens worldwide confirmed to be carrying the 15min shit? Why do I have this feeling that Fox just thought of the idea right before Comicon, and started arranging deals then? if that's the case, I expect tons of places around the world to not bother with this since it's too soon and there were no plans made before hand.

I'm not going to see it in cinema, since it probably won't show up in mine. I only live a few blocks away from the theater too. Not a good idea from FOX. Really not good.

Comic-con was the right time to debut. Missed chance.
 
duckroll said:
So Aug 21 is two weeks away and there still isn't a list of screens worldwide confirmed to be carrying the 15min shit? Why do I have this feeling that Fox just thought of the idea right before Comicon, and started arranging deals then? if that's the case, I expect tons of places around the world to not bother with this since it's too soon and there were no plans made before hand.
Didn't they say "every Imax theater nationwide" too?
 
Cheebs said:
ILM deserves a lot of credit. Star Wars Episode 1 is 10 years old yet the cgi (the actual quality of the look, not the actual characters being good) still holds up.

True. But, don't give it too much credit, they used actual sets for that movie. can you believe it? SETS? That said, I didn't even know JarJar was CG, I guess nobody told me, I honestly thought he was just a guy wearing a shitton of costumes on, sort of like C3PO. Not that he looked real or anything, I just tried not to look at him.
 
Slightly higher res:
6800_111536809063_82771544063_2370884_1631056_n.jpg


Though I still don't believe this is the official teaser poster. Especially when released in this res on the interwebs.
 
Scullibundo said:
Slightly higher res:
6800_111536809063_82771544063_2370884_1631056_n.jpg


Though I still don't believe this is the official teaser poster. Especially when released in this res on the interwebs.

This is the official teaser poster. Doesn't represent very well the beauty of this character in the film.
 
SketchTheArtist said:
This is the official teaser poster. Doesn't represent very well the beauty of this character in the film.

What amazed me in the preview was all the tiny eye and facial movements. Like they had rigged not only the actress body, but her entire face when performing the Mocap.
 
Scullibundo said:
Slightly higher res:
6800_111536809063_82771544063_2370884_1631056_n.jpg


Though I still don't believe this is the official teaser poster. Especially when released in this res on the interwebs.
Reminds me of this:

mgs4st_2.jpg


Don't know if it's the colours or something, but this actually looks more detailed :/
 
Cheebs said:
ILM deserves a lot of credit. Star Wars Episode 1 is 10 years old yet the cgi (the actual quality of the look, not the actual characters being good) still holds up.
ILM is one of the best special effects companies out there. But they're probably also the priciest.

Weta does good work also. I thought Gollum looked impressive, as some other effects as well. King Kong looked great, and I liked what they did with the Silver Surfer.

I'm pretty anxious to see some of Weta's work in Avatar.
 
Scullibundo said:
Slightly higher res:
6800_111536809063_82771544063_2370884_1631056_n.jpg


Though I still don't believe this is the official teaser poster. Especially when released in this res on the interwebs.

That looks awful. The proportions are REALLY weird. Makes it look like bad CG. If this is the official poster, ouch.
 
Ether_Snake said:
That looks awful. The proportions are REALLY weird. Makes it look like bad CG. If this is the official poster, ouch.

Umm, she's an alien?

Doesn't look too bad to me, but certainly not the greatest poster I've ever seen.

Still waiting on that trailer...
 
Poimandres said:
Umm, she's an alien?

Doesn't look too bad to me, but certainly not the greatest poster I've ever seen.

Still waiting on that trailer...

It's a he . It's supposed to be Sam Worthington's avatar.
 
This is seriously some of the worst marketing ever. If they didn't throw down Avatar Day, I'd be shitting all over this.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
This is seriously some of the worst marketing ever. If they didn't throw down Avatar Day, I'd be shitting all over this.

I think we can still shit on it quite a bit.
 
Honestly, I don't expect photorealistic CG in this movie. I expect some of the best, if not THE best CG that's been done, but I don't expect photorealism.

Basically, I just want the world to be convincing. I want to look at it and be able to be drawn into it without it seeming fake or overly digital looking.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
This is seriously some of the worst marketing ever. If they didn't throw down Avatar Day, I'd be shitting all over this.

It's going to be interesting to see just how much noise FOX makes about this 'Avatar day'.

Are we talking national TV and radio spots? Or are Fox going to make this a net only campaign?

There's been some speculation that Fox came up with the idea of 'Avatar Day' not long before SDCC and there were still alot of details to be ironed out.

But they don't have long left so they better move quickly. Because at the moment Avatar's marketing thus far has been nothing but a catalogue of errors.
 
I think Fox's 'strategy' is to spend all their money at the last minute with a massive assault on all marketing avenues. Chances are that this film will be totally inescapable in the last month leading up to its release.
 
That poster's official, just check the movie's Facebook page, they put it up yesterday. I think Sculli's "higher-res" is the same they got there.

edit: hey Sculli I see you're putting that Aliens gif to good use whenever you can. :lol
 
FirewalkR said:
That poster's official, just check the movie's Facebook page, they put it up yesterday. I think Sculli's "higher-res" is the same they got there.

I'm a little surprised how much 'bad buzz' the poster is generating among some people.

I wonder if people's expectations are now so high that even a teaser poster can be seen to disappoint.

The buzz created by the disasterous campaing (or lack there of) that Fox has been running thus far needs to be turned around.

The trailer had better deliver. And deliver huge.
 
Krev said:
I think Fox's 'strategy' is to spend all their money at the last minute with a massive assault on all marketing avenues. Chances are that this film will be totally inescapable in the last month leading up to its release.
Which would be suicidal. You have to build up marketing over a while. Look at the amazing marketing for Dark Knight, it built up viral stuff for nearly a year in advance.
 
The Davy Jones - Avatar CG comparison is irrelevant and wrong.
IIRC, for Davy Jones they had a real actor who filmed all the scenes involving Davy Jones and they applied CG in post-processing over that actor. Avatar on the other hand has fully CG characters, correct? It's a totally different thing.
 
The more I think about it, the more it seems totally bizarre that Fox is taking such an 'experimental' approach to marketing what is very likely the most expensive film of all time.

shuyin_ said:
The Davy Jones - Avatar CG comparison is irrelevant and wrong.
IIRC, for Davy Jones they had a real actor who filmed all the scenes involving Davy Jones and they applied CG in post-processing over that actor. Avatar on the other hand has fully CG characters, correct? It's a totally different thing.
They both use motion captured actors. For some scenes they shot actors in mo-cap suits on live-action backgrounds, which is the same thing that was done with Davy Jones.
 
Have anyone who has seen the footage commented on the difference between Avatar and Pirates in terms of CG?

The argument that 'it doesn't look real because these things don't exist' is not valid, because Davy Jones looks 100% real to me, as far as real can be without having seen the character in real life.

I thought he was done with amazing animatronics when I saw the film.
 
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