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2 Nov 2024 01:19:10 EDT (-0400)
  In the digital domain (Message 1 to 2 of 2)  
From: Invisible
Subject: In the digital domain
Date: 17 Jan 2011 11:12:56
Message: <4d346a88$1@news.povray.org>

While the film is not without merit, my general reaction was "meh". 
While it's certainly not a /bad/ film, it didn't really capture my 
attention much.

Last night, I watched Avatar. Well, after about ten minutes, I found out 
how it got its rather strange name. So what can I say about the film in 
general? Well, Pandora is very, very pretty. To me, it recalls the style 
of Roger Dean. (It's quite special when you consider buying a piece of 
music just to look at the cover art!) I have literally no idea how it is 
possible to computer generate images of this complexity. The number of 
leaves in a single tree is almost beyond computation...

The scientific accuracy of the whole thing is of course a bit 
questionable. (But so is The Matrix, and that's still a fantastic film.) 
Quite why plants would expend energy glowing is rather unclear. Nor why 
the animals would all have a pair of redundant legs. Or, come to that 
matter, why all the animals (and even plants) are able to communicate 
neurally.

But whatever. Is it an entertaining film? Well, yes it is... It's 
strange, though. It's not exactly a short film, and yet there were parts 
of it that seemed quite rushed and skipped over. The story itself is 
predictable enough, but with sufficient unknowns to make it worth 
watching. Still, the main attraction is just looking at the weird plants 
and animals, and the crazy scenery.

I wonder if there would be any visible difference in HD?


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From: nemesis
Subject: Re: In the digital domain
Date: 17 Jan 2011 13:48:43
Message: <4d348f0b@news.povray.org>
Invisible escreveu:

> While the film is not without merit, my general reaction was "meh". 
> While it's certainly not a /bad/ film, it didn't really capture my 
> attention much.

okey dokey

> Last night, I watched Avatar. Well, after about ten minutes, I found out 
> how it got its rather strange name.

one more item to the fleshy knowledge base, huh? :)

> music just to look at the cover art!) I have literally no idea how it is 
> possible to computer generate images of this complexity. The number of 
> leaves in a single tree is almost beyond computation...

boggles the mind.  NVidia created some parallel hardware to be used in 
the render farms.

> The scientific accuracy of the whole thing is of course a bit 
> questionable.

not scifi at all, just an action/adventure movie.  For instance, there 
are bio researchers in another planet, but both the avatar nature and 
the findings of the researchers are completely irrelevant to the plot. 
They could just be environmentalists and it would function the same for 
the plot.

> (But so is The Matrix, and that's still a fantastic film.) 

amazing *you* would say that! o_O

yes, a fantastic movie.

> Quite why plants would expend energy glowing is rather unclear. Nor why 
> the animals would all have a pair of redundant legs. Or, come to that 
> matter, why all the animals (and even plants) are able to communicate 
> neurally.

BTW, Pandora is one of those Jupiter moons, so the plot makes it feel 
like it was colonized by man in the very far future.  So, most likely 
it's all result of coordinated efforts of genetic engineering.

> The story itsef is 
> predictable enough, but with sufficient unknowns to make it worth 
> watching.

Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves hands down.  Plus, very watered down 
and juvenile.

watched just for the GC.  Wall-e is way ahead of that, even with all 
stereotypes...

> I wonder if there would be any visible difference in HD?

not for your damaged eyeballs. ;)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9


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