ok sitting here waiting for avatar 3D in IMAX to begin. hope its worth the $17 for tix and $3.75 for diet coke....

Hope no one with a big hat sits in front of you. Have fun!

wow, great movie. the action and the visuals are very impressive. You can have amazing visual effects and the movie still suck. ie: the first Final Fantasy.

While I agree the story is predictable and told many times over....Dancing with Wolves....I had a great time and would go see it again in the theater and probably buy it on Blu Ray.

i'm gonna go hug a tree now.

OK, well I saw it. Yes, the visuals were great and all, but in NO way was I overly impressed or amazed or felt like I was immersed or had any sort of "experience" or anything. I kinda felt like this about the computer effects: "Oh yeah, look, there are some computer effects and I am in no way blown away or feel like I'm watching the future of anything. They're top notch for sure but what I exepcted could be done in the first place." NOT knocking all the hard work anyone put into it, but I just didn't get that feeling of "OHWOW NOW I FEEL LIKE I'M ON PANDORA!" Anyway, boring overall and I wanted to fall asleep but I couldn't because I'm too cheap to sleep through a movie I only paid half for.

Oh yeah, the "story" I don't need to go there. Schumacher Batman bad is all I'm saying.

No, that's religion.

Has anyone gotten any of the kids meal toys? I heard that they have some cool LED features.

my daughter got one of the happy meal toys, it lights up when you talk or make sounds near it, kinda cool

The Avatar that almost was:

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969 ... Page1.html

I'm only through the first set of bullet points but it's pretty interesting. The original treatment for the movie spent much more time on Earth, for starters.

An interesting read but a little bit sensationalistic. It's not like the people posting on that board are going to be a representative cross-section of the people that saw Avatar. I think you'd probably find many people there who tend to spend large chunks of their lives in front of a computer. Want to experience the world of Avatar? Go to a park for a hike. Take horseback riding lessons. Take a trip to the zoo.

It's sort of ironic, if you read that CHUD article, it says that in the original script treatment the Avatar drivers experience something similar to these message board posters: at first the shock of being immersed in a wilderness environment (something they've never been exposed to, growing up on an Earth that has been almost completely deforested), and depression when they're not "plugged in."

Sully experienced this feeling as he felt his Avatar life was real and his real life was virtual.

I just want to walk around in the forest on Pandora at night with all the glowie plants (without having to eat smelly shrooms)

I'd watch it again many times as well. Even though it is a pretty long movie it doesn't feel too long cause the story keeps moving on in a pretty good pace.



I'm just glad the 3D element wasn't just a dumb gimmick, like wooah I'm throwing this ball at the audience.


And I think people are just retarded. I mean contemplating suicide just because they can't live in Pandora or to be reborn in Pandora? Even hardcore fans, like Star Wars fans never said anything remotely close to "I'm gonna kill myself to become one with the force," or "I'm gonna prove I'm an immortal Vampire like in Twilight." It's just ridiculous.

You're kidding, you've never heard of things like that? There's the Battlestar Galactica suicide, for starters:

http://www.citypages.com/2008-02-06/fea ... ay-down/3/

I stand corrected. But then again that's because something was taken away from him when his show was canceled. It's not like he did it to resurrect as a crew member or an android. Besides he was sniffing gas.

But that is a crazy story to see as well. And I don't remember hearing about it prior to this.

This is sensationalist nonsense. People thought Alec Guinness was a religious leader after Star Wars came out. And he even spoke out at how he thought they should seek professional help.

Some folks are simply ding-a-lings.

IIRC, I believe he did think he was a colonial warrior or something but this piece doesn't mention it. There's a scan of the original article from 1979 online somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.

There are always going to be people who lose themselves in fantasy and end up doing something drastic because of it.

A really good 'how it was made' movie, don't think it's already in this thread...

http://filmonic.com/how-avatar-was-made-a-222-minute-behind-the-scenes-look

Just got back from Avatar for the second time. No doubt about it, it's long, but I'd say every scene belongs there. Things I noticed the second time around:

- When Jake takes his body for a test drive, right down before the team lies down to bed, he's fiddling with his little biological USB cable. You can hear Signourney Weaver saying, "Don't play with that too much, you'll go blind."

- Immediately after this sequence, Jake meets Quaritch in the hanger and he does his little boxing routing in the powered suit. The scenes contrast how these two men choose to experience Pandora: one with a flesh and blood avatar that is part of the environment, and the other has one made out of metal that seals him off from it. Symmetry!

- There are quite a few female warriors throughout the movie, but the Na'vi are all so homogenous that it's easy to miss them. They are pretty egalitarian people.

- For those that scoffed at the waterfalls coming off of the flying mountains, it was shown to rain up there, in one of the scenes where Jake is recording his video log in the "cabin."

- McGuffin problem: so the "flux zone" interferes with electronic equipment. The avatar equipment presumably uses some sort of transmitter to communicate the operators' commands to the bodies, so how can it operate properly in the flux zone? Someone write up a Marvel No-Prize answer for this.

I recall people getting lost in sewers role playing D&D scenarios back in the day, so fanaticism comes as no surprise. As for the flick itself, when the same story is retold so well one can't complain. They're all the same stories if you want to follow that logic to it's conclusion. I can't wait to take my 8 year old nephew to see it this weekend.

Trekkie, Jed Head, and now Avatard.

The used a magic xylophone!

Had no idea this was going to be here so quickly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLzKwTcGO_0

Oh god damn I can't wait to get home and watch those!

If I want to hear a message, I'll listen to my answering machine.

Love this Avatar review.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GregMutt

Avatar is now available for pre-order. Comes out on Earth Day for USA folks.

The official Avatar 2 trailer has been released!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Q6-JikO_8