Post by JangoB on Nov 28, 2022 18:34:27 GMT
lol, so much negativity in this thread
With the release of "The Way of Water" finally approaching I decided to dive back into the world of the first one and adored it all over again, maybe even to an extent I never have before (and I always loved it). These virtual camera movies are essentially perfect showcases for directors' visions and Cameron sure lets his imagination take flight in this one while using a classical story as his takeoff point. It's now been 13 years since the movie came out and it still looks astonishing and truly spectacular even at home. Granted, I do have a pretty nice TV but I'd never watch anything like this on a laptop anyway. To me this is some of the best CGI ever put on screen and it's not just about the vistas, the digital lighting or Pandora itself although all of the above are awe-inspiring - it's often about the little details and quiet shots like Neytiri drinking water from a leaf or something. The level of detail and the resulting believability of the effects is staggering and that goes for the movie as a whole too - everything is so well-accomplished that I'm just instantly transported in the world on the screen with the suspension of disbelief never once becoming a problem. Which is kinda what movie magic is all about, right? And I love the broadness of strokes Cameron is painting with. Just thinking of that scene with all the clans coming down the mountain on their banshees and the huge wave hitting the rocks beneath them is enough to make my director-loving mouth water (this sounds wrong but whatever). To think that all of that came from a bunch of actors in leotards jumping around in an empty grey room. And as someone who's a huge fan of grandiose third-act action setpieces I have to say that the one Jimmy's cooked up here is one of the all-time greatest. Its scale, its momentum, its intensity... whew! And of course its culmination with the gigantic Na'vi beauty lovingly holding a tiny human in her hands. Not only is it magnificently emotional but it also plays as this great on-screen representation of unity between the mystical and the real, the new and the known, CGI and live action filmmaking. I love this movie.
I literally only have three nitpicks about it (and they are nitpicks that don't really affect my appreciation at all):
1. The use of dinosaur sound effects from Jurassic Park for a couple of creatures. One could generously interpet is as a wink to JP but I dunno, those sound effects are so unique that I wish Avatar's sound team would've come up with something completely new. But it's just a few brief moments in an almost three-hour film filled to the brim with astonishing soundwork.
2. James Horner repeating one of his earlier melodies during the key scene of the Hometree destruction. I don't mind that he reused his war motif because he did that a bunch of times but there's a passage from A Beautiful Mind that he recycles too and I just don't know why:
3. That end credits Leona Lewis song. I get that Cameron and Horner wanted to have another hit attached to their movie after "My Heart Will Go On" but "I See You" isn't even close. It's quite lame and also doesn't really fit the movie - "Titanic" was very much a romance so a pop ballad like that felt organic while in this case it's just weird to hear a song of that nature after you've just been watching a massive sci-fi battle for like a half-hour. They should've buried it in the depth of the credits instead of giving it the spotlight during the main ones.
Those are all the qualms I have
With the release of "The Way of Water" finally approaching I decided to dive back into the world of the first one and adored it all over again, maybe even to an extent I never have before (and I always loved it). These virtual camera movies are essentially perfect showcases for directors' visions and Cameron sure lets his imagination take flight in this one while using a classical story as his takeoff point. It's now been 13 years since the movie came out and it still looks astonishing and truly spectacular even at home. Granted, I do have a pretty nice TV but I'd never watch anything like this on a laptop anyway. To me this is some of the best CGI ever put on screen and it's not just about the vistas, the digital lighting or Pandora itself although all of the above are awe-inspiring - it's often about the little details and quiet shots like Neytiri drinking water from a leaf or something. The level of detail and the resulting believability of the effects is staggering and that goes for the movie as a whole too - everything is so well-accomplished that I'm just instantly transported in the world on the screen with the suspension of disbelief never once becoming a problem. Which is kinda what movie magic is all about, right? And I love the broadness of strokes Cameron is painting with. Just thinking of that scene with all the clans coming down the mountain on their banshees and the huge wave hitting the rocks beneath them is enough to make my director-loving mouth water (this sounds wrong but whatever). To think that all of that came from a bunch of actors in leotards jumping around in an empty grey room. And as someone who's a huge fan of grandiose third-act action setpieces I have to say that the one Jimmy's cooked up here is one of the all-time greatest. Its scale, its momentum, its intensity... whew! And of course its culmination with the gigantic Na'vi beauty lovingly holding a tiny human in her hands. Not only is it magnificently emotional but it also plays as this great on-screen representation of unity between the mystical and the real, the new and the known, CGI and live action filmmaking. I love this movie.
I literally only have three nitpicks about it (and they are nitpicks that don't really affect my appreciation at all):
1. The use of dinosaur sound effects from Jurassic Park for a couple of creatures. One could generously interpet is as a wink to JP but I dunno, those sound effects are so unique that I wish Avatar's sound team would've come up with something completely new. But it's just a few brief moments in an almost three-hour film filled to the brim with astonishing soundwork.
2. James Horner repeating one of his earlier melodies during the key scene of the Hometree destruction. I don't mind that he reused his war motif because he did that a bunch of times but there's a passage from A Beautiful Mind that he recycles too and I just don't know why:
3. That end credits Leona Lewis song. I get that Cameron and Horner wanted to have another hit attached to their movie after "My Heart Will Go On" but "I See You" isn't even close. It's quite lame and also doesn't really fit the movie - "Titanic" was very much a romance so a pop ballad like that felt organic while in this case it's just weird to hear a song of that nature after you've just been watching a massive sci-fi battle for like a half-hour. They should've buried it in the depth of the credits instead of giving it the spotlight during the main ones.
Those are all the qualms I have