Avatar Dec. 18th IMAX 3D Second Trailer

If you missed the actual trailer icon at the lower right, here's a link (both can be set on full screen, but the commentary I had to let it download and back up on the stream so it would play without freezing).

http://movies.ign.com/dor/objects/800318/avatar/videos/avatar_trl2_rewind_103009.html

I hate to say it, but I'm finding the trailers for this a bit disappointing. The graphics seem too colorful and cartoon like. Maybe the 3D effect will make it all worth while, but at the moment it's reminding me of "Final Fantasy", which wasn't all that great.

In the interview with Sigourney Weaver she talked about how they put so much "science" into the story... So I expect things to "make sense" scientifically in the storyline. But in one of the scenes I could have sworn I saw chunks of mountains "floating" in the alien environment. How are they going to explain that scientifically?

Also, the story is starting to seem kind of "preachy". It basically seems like a rehash of the "nasty old europeans took over the american indians" story. I don't like being preached at, even by James Cameron hiding behind flashy graphics.

I am trying to stay optimistic about the whole thing.

I watched the trailer at www.AvatarMovie.com IGN said it was going to take 20 minutes before streaming the trailer? That's a little too long for a trailer. They must be flooded with traffic.

I'm looking forward to it. I trust Cameron, and nothing I've seen has altered that opinion.

I can agree. He makes movies for one main reason -- to entertain. If there's an underlying message, he always handles that with literary smarts. Of course, he had to draw from past sci-fi in print and there are many stories of our exploration of space not always being benevolent like "Star Trek." Star Trek: Enterprise managed to slip that in with a parallel universe storyline in a two-parter, where humans were more like Klingons.

As the aliens appear mostly motion capture CGI, it's going to relate to other films made which are totally motion capture. However, they had weak story lines and dialogue. I can't imagine Cameron even beginning a film without a good script, and, after all, he wrote this movie as he wrote most of his previous movies.

I read the article in the New Yorker about it and it piqued my interest... saw the commercial for it yesterday during the football game and it looked sucky. I think Cameron's overconfident here. Maybe 3-D makes it look better than it does in 2-D but it SO doesn't meet the hyper-reality standards he was talking about in the article. "Cartoon-like" is right.

Was it in 1080i HD on the football game, or down-scaled to 480p like many of the sports channels broadcast? That will grossly affect the quality. Even the HD online is not true 1080p HD nor the even higher definition digital image that's generated by IMAX and most of the newer theaters with the latest equipment in Panavision 2D. I haven't checked up on how it was processed. I may have been shot in 3D and digitally reduced to 2D. That's going to be a remarkable difference in quality. Even the trailers online are really HG, not full HD. I'm supposing there will be a full download version on Quicktime, if there isn't already. I am going to check that out -- the IGN page from an E mail message.

As I suspected, there is a true high definition that one has to wait to load on Quicktime:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/

If you computer can display 1080p (only a very new PC or Mac will), the 1080i is also available by clicking on the "HD" at the far right. It is a significant difference -- even the sound on headphones is greatly improved (but not comparable to the theater's full 7.1 PCM digital -- the next upgrade from Dolby Digital, and even DTS soundtracks).

Saw the trailer. Plot looks terrible. Trailer gave away too much of the plot, should have stuck to teasing more.

Modern trailers ruin movies. My (least) favorite example of this lately was Coraline; the trailer gave the entire thing away, you didn't even have to see the movie to know exactly what had gone on...

Cycloptichorn

I can believe that better quality would make it look better but there seemed to be some fundamental problems... for example it showed someone (CGI) jumping out of a spaceshippy thing and landing on the ground, it just looked fake. The movement wasn't realistic.

With the height of the aliens, I took it to mean that gravity was lighter than on Earth.

I could see that, but that's not what bothered me. There was something herky-jerky and Jar-jar-binksish about it... not gravity or lack thereof but just too CGI/ cartoony.

You're obviously not getting enough frames per second on your computer -- I detected no jerkiness to the 1080i version, although I'm sure the 1080p is even better, I can't really display it on my laptop. I don't have 64 hz, but better yet would be 128 hz. I downloaded it with RealPlayer so I should get an even better performance on playback (no streaming). I'd have to go to IMAX to get the specs on their projected and their digital projections, but it's going to be even better and no matter what went in, you ain't gonna get it out with degraded playback.

Jar Jar was his voice and syntax, not particularly the looks of the alien (although I wasn't that impressed with the design aspect either).

No, I saw it on TV, not the computer. And there were humans that looked fine.

Anyway, I might be convinced when it's on the big screen and in 3-D, but after reading that article I was rooting for the movie, and over the course of the (long) commercial I went from rooting for it to being quite unimpressed with it.

The planet Pandora seems to be filled with giant floating mountains. Can someone explain that? Does gravity not work on Pandora (even though the waterfalls all fall "down")?

http://www.avatarmovie.com

I don't think the science in the film will be totally revealed until you see it. I'm planning on seeing this one in 3-D IMAX. Perhaps there's some device that affects the gravity field or there are gravity storms on Pandora. I Cameron did his research well and come up with a unique, strange planet where the laws of physics are toyed with, it could be more fun than the story. Or -- is it a part of the story?

The Quicktime download in 1080p of the trailer was displayed on my LCD big screen and it was outstanding (although I have the processor that syncs film with the frames on the display, I don't have 120hz). There were no motion artifacts which I detected on the streaming which were almost non-evident on the Quicktime playback from the download of the 1080i. The 1080p wouldn't properly display on my laptop but I'm not buying a new one just to get a 1080p resolution display!

120 hz is the television manufacturer's standard, not 128 hz but I've not explored why. Household AC is 60hz but I don't believe that has much to do with it -- it's the number of frames you see in a second that has to do with the motion fidelity.

(I know I'm getting technical on you, but Cameron is an extreme tech-head himself when it comes to that part of the collaboration in making a film).

Yeah, I've noticed that in a lot of movies, recently. Especially with shots that are done entirely CGI. (Spiderman comes to mind, along with a lot of distance shots.) Closer stuff is usually done with motion capture, and seems a lot smoother and/or realistic.

Water is particularly tricky, too.

Amazing to me that nobody else thinks the plot simply looks weak. Lots of focus on the technical aspects, but those never carry a movie, no matter how good they are...

Cycloptichorn