Pretty but cliche.

The next paragraph might have tiny bits of spoiler in it...

I can pretty much guarantee to nut-jobs complaining about the main character 
  wanting his legs back didn't actually watch the movie.  For example, he 
takes the job several years before he gets offered to have his legs fixed, 
and he aggressively resists help from those around him. Indeed, I didn't 
really see anything in the movie that made the state of his legs the least 
bit important - they could have had him with working legs and there wouldn't 
have been a bit of change to the movie.

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

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> Pretty but cliche.

Yet, somehow, awesome.

 - Slime
 [ http://www.slimeland.com/ ]

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b4eb5ac$1@news.povray.org...
> Pretty but cliche.

There's no question that I loved the CG in the movie. I don't just enjoy 
watching movies, I'm interested in how they're made, and the editing, shot 
set up, and execution of the CG was incredible, but that's not what really 
got me wound up about it.

Not the story, either. I think the story had to be simple, because it would 
have competed too much with the visual imagery. The writing was good, in 
that the characters all had some dimension, they weren't flat and monotone, 
and they developed over the course of the film. Not spectacular, but good.

What really, really got me about this movie is that the pacing is darn near 
perfect. It's incredibly difficult to make even a short movie where the 
audience doesn't get disconnected from the movie at points. With thousands 
of people involved and countless piles of cash on the line, most filmmakers 
just can't quite do it. Most movies I go to, there's a point where I think, 
"Oh, the third act is starting now," or, "We're about 25 minutes into the 
film, because the disparate plot points are about to be connected." But not 
with this film.

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 
the film. Everything builds at exactly the right pace, and every moment in 
the film has me wanting to know what happens next, not what time it is or 
whether there's any popcorn left in the bag.

This is one of the few movies that I will never get tired of watching. Not 
because it's beautiful (which it is) or because it's deep (which it isn't) 
but because it's one of the most amazingly brilliant examples of the art of 
making a film that I've ever seen.

--
Jack

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Captain Jack wrote:
> Not the story, either. I think the story had to be simple,

I don't mind simple, but cliche got to me. I'm sure you can think of several 
other well-known stories with essentially identical plots. :-)

> What really, really got me about this movie is that the pacing is darn near 
> perfect. 

Agreed. I almost never see a long movie without looking at my watch, but 
I'll admit there have been a handful like that. Indeed, I think that might 
be one of the reasons Transformers2 was so enjoyable while still being 
utterly stupid at the same time. :-)

> This is one of the few movies that I will never get tired of watching. 

It's definitely a keeper. I'm hoping they actually filmed the scenes they 
cut[1] and plan to include them in the DVDs.  I also expect this will be one 
of the first 3D movies available on 3D disk players when such are invented.


[1] 
http://io9.com/5446538/everything-that-was-cut-from-avatar-sex-drugs-and-suicide

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

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*** Spoiler warning. ***


Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Pretty but cliche.

> The next paragraph might have tiny bits of spoiler in it...

> I can pretty much guarantee to nut-jobs complaining about the main character 
>   wanting his legs back didn't actually watch the movie.  For example, he 
> takes the job several years before he gets offered to have his legs fixed, 
> and he aggressively resists help from those around him. Indeed, I didn't 
> really see anything in the movie that made the state of his legs the least 
> bit important - they could have had him with working legs and there wouldn't 
> have been a bit of change to the movie.

  I haven't seen any trailer of the movie (never watch those), but I could
imagine that a certain type of trailer which cherry-picks certain events
of the movie *could* give a rather false impression of the overal story.

  Just pick certain scenes in the movie of the type "hey marine, if you go
to their village, spy on them and bring back intel which will help us defeat
them, you will get your legs back", and then choose some scenes where he is
giving the intel, one could get the impression that he is doing it just for
the legs.

  Btw, did you watch it in 3D? It was the first 3D movie (of the modern type)
I watched, and it worked surprisingly well. Better than I expected.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Btw, did you watch it in 3D? It was the first 3D movie (of the modern type)
> I watched, and it worked surprisingly well. Better than I expected.

Yes, we did.  We got to the theater at 6:30 hoping to see the 8:30 imax 
film, but it had sold out while we were asleep, so we settled for the 9:00 
regular digital 3D movie.  Pretty good 3D, yes.  They've finally mostly 
gotten over 3D-just-for-3D's-sake kind of scenes. (Every movie seems to 
still throw in one or two gratuitous such scenes, tho, like the arrows in 
this one.)

-- 
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 in message 
news:4b4f5ac8$1@news.povray.org...
> I don't mind simple, but cliche got to me. I'm sure you can think of 
> several other well-known stories with essentially identical plots. :-)

Well.. one or two, yeah. :-)

> Agreed. I almost never see a long movie without looking at my watch, but 
> I'll admit there have been a handful like that. Indeed, I think that might 
> be one of the reasons Transformers2 was so enjoyable while still being 
> utterly stupid at the same time. :-)

I really liked Transformers 2, although most of the time I couldn't tell 
whether it was the good guys or the bad guys getting blown up. The juvenile 
humor was a nice touch, too; as though they were saying, "Yes, we know 
exactly what kind of movie we are."

> It's definitely a keeper. I'm hoping they actually filmed the scenes they 
> cut[1] and plan to include them in the DVDs.  I also expect this will be 
> one of the first 3D movies available on 3D disk players when such are 
> invented.

I know a guy who is already planning to get a 3D TV as soon as he gets a 
chance, in the hopes that he'll be able to get a Blu-Ray (or some 
equivalent) of this movie whenever it becomes available.

I don't know if the current spate of 3D in cinema is going to be a fad or 
not, but I think this movie did a really good job of showing how it can add 
to the performance without being an in-your-face gimmick (well, mostly...). 
I do wish there was some way to create a screen made up of semi-transparent 
layers (or something) so that 3D films could be done without the glasses, 
though.

--
Jack

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:4b4f7553@news.povray.org...
>  Btw, did you watch it in 3D? It was the first 3D movie (of the modern 
> type)
> I watched, and it worked surprisingly well. Better than I expected.

We saw it in 3D, once on a regular screen and once on I-MAX. I think the 3D 
really added to the picture.

Gotta be careful, though... my girlfriend and I loved it, but her mom and 
sister (who went with us to the I-MAX) are both subject to motion sickness, 
and some of the aerial sequences made them have to take off the glasses. Her 
sister even got physically ill, unfortunately. To be fair, though, this was 
on January 1 and we had all partied quite a bit the night before, so that 
may have been involved.

--
Jack

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Captain Jack <Cap### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
> Gotta be careful, though... my girlfriend and I loved it, but her mom and 
> sister (who went with us to the I-MAX) are both subject to motion sickness, 
> and some of the aerial sequences made them have to take off the glasses. Her 
> sister even got physically ill, unfortunately. To be fair, though, this was 
> on January 1 and we had all partied quite a bit the night before, so that 
> may have been involved.

  I suppose having played first-person shooters for quite many years
accustomes oneself to fake 3D (even though in the movie's case it's a
lot closer to real three-dimensionality as perceived by the brain).

  I think that it's the conflict between something looking like it's
closer or farther than the screen, even though the image really is on
the screen, and thus the eyes focus closer or farther, while still
noticing at some level that the object is not *really* at that distance
because it's just an image projected onto the flat screen. Each eye
getting a different image, creating a very credible 3D effect, helps
fool the brain quite a lot, but I think that still at some level the
brain sees the conflict, which might be what causes the motion sickness
in some people.

  I didn't feel any such thing, though. At certain points it was a bit
difficult to focus properly because it wasn't immediately clear where
to focus, but for the vast majority the 3D effect looked very good and
very real.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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NO SPOILERS IN THIS MESSAGE

Captain Jack wrote:
> I don't know if the current spate of 3D in cinema is going to be a fad

Only after 3D blu-ray is available. Right now, it's big because it's the 
only way to see a 3D movie.

> I do wish there was some way to create a screen made up of semi-transparent 
> layers (or something) so that 3D films could be done without the glasses, 
> though.

There is. You just have to hold your head really still. It's more a monitor 
than a TV, in that sense.

There's also apparently work on a 3D TV using jitter-3D like
(link has a naked butt in one of the images, so NSFW maybe)
http://www.well.com/~jimg/stereo/stereo_list.html
to make for 3D you can view from wide angles. Apparently if you do it at 
just the right speed, you can't see the wiggle.

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

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