"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b572913$1@news.povray.org...
> Captain Jack wrote:
>> sorts of "movie blood"
>
> And in Psycho, they used chocolate syrup, because the blood didn't look 
> bloody enough in black and white.
>

There's an amazing number of recipes as well as commercial products for it. 
Candy glass is another interesting subject for the home brewer.

A fun place to look at the (very) low end of all of that is "Backyard F/X", 
a segment of web videos at IndyMogul.com. It's all about how very young, 
very amateur people can put together physical effects for cheap. It's pretty 
silly, but the guy who runs it seems to have a lot of fun with it, and I 
enjoy going there from time to time and checking out what they do. I'm sure 
they've got some ideas for aping parts of Avatar by now. You never know... 
the next James Cameron may be ten years old at this very moment, making 
effects movies and tearing up the neighborhood with his mom's old Hi-8 video 
camera. :-D

--
Jack

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On 01/13/10 22:11, Darren New wrote:
> Pretty but cliche.

	Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.

-- 
I'm addicted to placebos. I'd give them up, but it wouldn't make any 
difference. - Steven Wright

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On 01/14/10 08:17, Captain Jack wrote:
> When the credits began to roll, I looked at my watch, and was simply stunned
> that almost three hours had passed. I never once came out of the moment in

	Not for me. I was probably wondering when the movie would end a whole 
full hour before it ended.

	Not that your points aren't valid - the pacing probably is good. But 
the story was so cliched, and the characters so unrefined and 
stereotyped, that it was a pain to stomach.

	Still, a colorful movie.


-- 
I'm addicted to placebos. I'd give them up, but it wouldn't make any 
difference. - Steven Wright

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> But the story was so cliched

  Avatar has been compared to Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Ferngully,
The Last Samurai and even Atlantis: The Lost Empire, but In Space. So yeah,
it's not like it's the most original and innovative story in existence.

  One would think that a director as talented as James Cameron would read
his own script and say "hmm, this needs a bit more of originality rather
than reusing the same ideas as already used in countless other flicks".
Just because you move the plot to Space doesn't make it original.

  (Of course there's nothing wrong in rehashing old ideas. It's not like
eg. Terminator 2 would be the most original movie ever created (being a
sequel and all), but its execution was so stunningly superb, that it doesn't
matter. Avatar was visually stunning but had little else going.)

  I have seen much worse movies in terms of scripting, though. Much, much
worse.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>         Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.

  I wouldn't say it was *completely* bereft of original ideas. Can you name
another movie where people interact with other sentient beings through
genetically engineered avatars? (The Matrix doesn't count.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 01/21/10 17:09, Warp wrote:
>    I have seen much worse movies in terms of scripting, though. Much, much
> worse.

	Sure - it wasn't a crappy movie. It's just not particularly good.

-- 
Such is life, and it is getting sucher and sucher.

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On 01/21/10 17:12, Warp wrote:
>    I wouldn't say it was *completely* bereft of original ideas. Can you name
> another movie where people interact with other sentient beings through
> genetically engineered avatars? (The Matrix doesn't count.)

	I consider those as irrelevant in terms of originality. It didn't 
really add much to the basic plot. The idea of living through an 
external body - including for handicapped folks - isn't original.

-- 
Such is life, and it is getting sucher and sucher.

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Warp wrote:
> Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>>         Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.
> 
>   I wouldn't say it was *completely* bereft of original ideas. Can you name
> another movie where people interact with other sentient beings through
> genetically engineered avatars? (The Matrix doesn't count.)

No, but there are lots of books and short stories like that. It wasn't 
original - it was just the first *movie* with that, per se.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> >>         Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.
> > 
> >   I wouldn't say it was *completely* bereft of original ideas. Can you name
> > another movie where people interact with other sentient beings through
> > genetically engineered avatars? (The Matrix doesn't count.)

> No, but there are lots of books and short stories like that. It wasn't 
> original - it was just the first *movie* with that, per se.

  Speaking of which, when was the last time you saw a movie which had
something *genuinely* original, something which hadn't been put into any
form of storytelling before (and self-pretentious incomprehensible cheap
art films don't count because that's not storytelling, it's randomness)?

  Every story is always based on what was before. There's rarely anything
truly original and innovative.

  It's the execution that counts.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message 
news:4b58ecf0@news.povray.org...
> On 01/13/10 22:11, Darren New wrote:
>> Pretty but cliche.
>
> Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.
>

I've always been a big fan of the "seven basic plots" idea. I note, for the 
record, that this is neither an absolute nor an accepted theory in all 
circles, but I think the concept has merit.

Also, a film is not just a story, although I think a compelling story is 
important. This one has the classic 
"boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-does-something-heroic-boy-gets-girl", 
which is one of my favorites. But, to each his own.

A film is, or should be, a kind of art that is a balancing act. Art is a 
communication method; it communicates emotions the way that words 
communicate ideas. The balancing act comes in unifying the emotional message 
from the hundreds (in this case, close to 3,000 according to the best 
estimates I could find) people.

To me, a compelling story is not just one that's interesting, it makes me 
wonder, "what happens next?" My favorite novels always leave me wanting to 
know more about the lives of the characters. That certainly happened for me 
with this film.

As an aside, I must say that I'm enjoying the fact that, in a space occupied 
by so many technical people as in this group, that so much of the discussion 
of this film has been focused on the story and the visual look of the film. 
There is some amazingly odd and hard to validate science going on in this 
movie. Most of the time, when that happens in a movie (Armaggedon, anyone?) 
I find the film unwatchable. I was so caught up in Avatar that it didn't 
even register with me until later, and even then, I shrugged it off with a 
"who cares, it was great" attitude. :-)

--
Jack

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