Mendelson's Memos: Avatar trailer touches down.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Avatar trailer touches down.

By any rational standard, the footage looks absolutely gorgeous. But, to be fair, it does not look that much more photo-real than anything else of this nature that we've seen, but the imagry is dazzling regardless. The action montage in the finale is surprisingly exciting, with the seemingly standard 'action music' proving quite effective. But since the movie's biggest trump card is supposed to be its immersive 3D effects, I'll hold off any serious judgment until tomorrow's preview. Again, by any normal standard, this looks like a visually dazzling and dramatically compelling science-fiction adventure film. I'm still a bit concerned about the plot similarities with The Battle For Terra, but that's my problem since I'm one of twenty people on Earth who saw that movie. So far, so good.

Scott Mendelson

6 comments:

R.L. Shaffer said...: I'm also detecting minor shades of District 9...perhaps the lower budgeted sci-fi film will end up being the better of the two stories?

Also, I'd suggest that Battle for Terra was likely a rip of this film as Cameron's been sitting on Avatar since before Titanic. It's bound to have been read, and copied, by Hollywood players. But, we'll see. Hope it's at least a a good sci-fi picture. If not, hopefully Asylum can drum up a good knock-off. What will it be called though? Blue People? Emotocon?; August 20, 2009 at 1:53 PM
Scott said...: I am going to call this first and say this is going to be a massive flop. I do not see it being dramatically compelling enough for people to drop $10 to see over and over. I bet it will be like KING KONG. Have a huge opening weekend, but everyone will be disappointed and it will be forgotten; August 20, 2009 at 3:34 PM
Olivier said...: I was at Comic-con and saw the 20 minutes of footage they showed. The live action scenes are great. The 3-D (with glasses) is STUNNING and by far the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately the CG looks like a video game. Gorgeous design. Vibrant colors but the lack of photo-realism (especially in the lighting department) is a huge let down and doesn't integrate with the rest of the movie. In my opinion it will kill the whole experience. Unless the story makes up for it. But that has yet to be seen since none of the footage gives you a sense of how strong the drama is. You're probably right about the huge opening and massive crash the weekend after that. Sad...; August 20, 2009 at 9:16 PM
The Kid In The Front Row said...: Scott, you're certainly not the first person to call that.

But that said, I don't disagree - it could well be a flop. I'm certainly not excited by it.; August 22, 2009 at 3:25 PM
Scott said...: I am going to call this first and say this is going to be a massive flop. I do not see it being dramatically compelling enough for people to drop $10 to see over and over. I bet it will be like KING KONG. Have a huge opening weekend, but everyone will be disappointed and it will be forgotten; May 13, 2011 at 10:37 AM
R.L. Shaffer said...: I'm also detecting minor shades of District 9...perhaps the lower budgeted sci-fi film will end up being the better of the two stories?

Also, I'd suggest that Battle for Terra was likely a rip of this film as Cameron's been sitting on Avatar since before Titanic. It's bound to have been read, and copied, by Hollywood players. But, we'll see. Hope it's at least a a good sci-fi picture. If not, hopefully Asylum can drum up a good knock-off. What will it be called though? Blue People? Emotocon?; May 13, 2011 at 10:37 AM