I went to the 15-minute "AVATAR Day" preview last week Friday... I honestly thought the 2 minute trailer was great, but after seeing it in 3D, the trailer isn't even worth watching. It was truly a mind-expanding experience. I realize I'm hyping it up and I sound funny, but I'm serious. A lot of people will dismiss this because it involves blue aliens running about.
I read the same thing. Cameron is using the 3D to add depth, not to make things pop out at you. Supposedly it's something that really adds an entirely new experience to a movie. Japan had something called VHD players in the 1980s and the top end models had 3D capability. I had a full setup once and checked it out. It was strange at first, but things didn't really "pop out" of the screen, it was more like everything in the background got pushed back. So instead of the screen being the background and something conming out at me, it was more like the screen was the top layer and everything else sank into the TV. It looked like I was watching a hologram of the movie and it was being played out inside of my TV.
It's really too bad that Cameron couldn't come up with a more original name. I'm sure the film will be a SFX treat, but when the guy has to rip a title from an established franchise and then threaten legal action against said franchise if they dare use their own title for their movie, it smacks of desparation. -hl718
Am I the only one that thought the trailer look like generic CGI sci-fi shit? Good once it gets to less than a tenner on Blu-Ray sort of quality.
Yeah and Al Gore once claimed to have invented the Internet. 1) Cameron never used the name Avatar to describe the project in the past. It was always with some sort of code word. 2) 15 years ago (1994) the computer concept of an Avatar (how Cameron is using it for the film) wasn't in common use. If Cameron did claim to come up with the title 15 years ago, then he's also claiming to have defined the word for the Internet generation. Kinda hard to have done if he never published the name of the project. 3) Avatar: TLA is quite the popular animated show. Even if you're not into animation or gaming, chances are you've heard of Avatar: TLA. A movie version of Avatar: TLA is announced and then suddenly Cameron claims rights to the title. Note, Cameron never had issues with Avatar: TLA in the past. 4) Cameron is rushing to get his Avatar out before the Avatar: TLA movie. Why? Most likely he's hoping that Avatar: TLA fans will hear "the Avatar movie is out" and want to go see it. 5) Avatar: TLA doesn't even use the same definition of Avatar as Cameron's film. There's no reason for him to bitch about Avatar: TLA as a title unless he's hoping to take advantage of the similiarity of the naming. Call me a cynic, but the timing on it all is WAY too convenient. -hl718
Given the choice, I would rather watch Avatar TLA as I quite enjoyed the series once the humor kicked in and it stopped being an American Anime Wannabe.
Nope. Same hing was running through my head as well. We'll have to see the movie though before we can pass judgement.
It was published since the beginning, in the AVATAR scriptment that leaked in the 90s. It's an old word. The internet/gaming usage is newer. Didn't ULTIMA call the player "AVATAR" since the first game? That's pretty old. More likely that the creators of the Nikelodeon cartoon stole the name, since many sci fi & film geeks knew of the scriptment years before Cameron's lawyers scrubbed it from the internet. Although I don't think anyone stole a title. It only went under the codename Project 880 for a short time when it finally reached development 4 years ago. It was called AVATAR when they considered making it in the 90s with Schwarzenegger, but Cameron's FX crew told him it was impossible.
