When I first heard that Avatar was coming out in 3D, I wasn’t too jazzed by it. 3D is not a catch phrase that motivates me. I have yet to see a decent 3D flick that isn’t gimmick filled. (It will be released in specific locations as 3D)
Animation is also not an eye catcher for me or my household… though admittedly when we saw a movie trailer for Avatar on TV the other day, I heard a “whoa!” come from the other room. That’s got to be a good sign when my animation critic says whoa!
This 2 1/2 minute chase scene from Avatar looks fantastic for animation and you find yourself getting caught up in this strange new world. Both on the planet and in the animation.
The movie comes from James Cameron and stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Michelle Rodriquez, Sigourney Weaver, CCH Pounder and many many more actors.
What’s amazing to me is how often James Cameron is on the leading edge of the movie entertainment field. The Abyss blew us away, Terminator became synonymous with the doom of humanity, Aliens gave us “Game over man!” and Titanic ripped our hearts out every time we watched it. Just to name a couple of flicks that delivered intense action and gripping stories of family, human nature and our course of evolution.
Now comes the $500 million Avatar. Of course this 3D is not the red and blue goggled movie but the newest technologies involving 3D. It will, or should truly be, an experience.
I think the biggest difference today with this newest Cameron project is that Cameron KNOWS that a movie has to be well received in both dimensions: 2D and 3D to do well. The trick is making the 3D scenes work in 2D. What that means is that the brain needs time to process what it’s seeing from both eyes, and hence 3D scenes are cut a bit slower for this mental absorption. The trick then is to make sure the 2D version is dragged down by this lapse of projection… or slowed view, as I call it. It’s not slow perse, just a bit slower.
That and not all movie theaters are properly equipped to handle 3D movies.
If done right, 3D can be a nice dimension added to our traditionally 2D entertainment venue. If done poorly, it adds to the image of gimmicky tricked out movies that are nothing more than a flash in the pan and make people shun away from the idea for additional years.
Right now, we’re getting dragged into the 3D era and it needs to be done right. I think James Cameron is trying to do it right. And if he does, he will herald in a new movie going era. Remember when he made the love story the central theme to Titanic and then every single other movie after that tried to model that equation into their action? Now they may have to step up to the plate if James Cameron hits it out of the park again.
We’ll see. In the meantime, I did promise a movie trailer. In fact, I have two. Both in 2D! Both amounting to about 5 minutes of your day. (Don’t get busted at work… come back when you get home if you have to!)
The first Avatar movie trailer is what I watched on television last week:
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Avatar is about humans and aliens having issues with each other… of course it’s because the humans want a resource on the alien’s planet. Well, can you guess who I might be rooting for?
Here’s the 2 1/2 minute Avatar movie trailer. Enjoy!
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Dang, I hate getting this jazzed about a movie!
references: IMDB, Daily Mail, CNN.
