Thursday, August 27, 2009

"Avatar" Teaser is Up


The trailer for "Avatar," Jim Cameron's long overdue follow-up to the blockbuster-against-which-all-others-are measured "Titanic", went up online not too long ago. The result is, um, unexpected. This first glimpse of footage isn't yawn-inducing, but for me it is kind of "Huh?"-inducing. Some of that is definitely on-purpose, but there are enough flying dragons ridden by blue archers to raise an eyebrow or two.

While it's nice to see some new non-documentary footage from the mind of Jim Cameron, it's a little dismaying to see that it appears to be cut from a film that's a weird hybrid of "Halo", "Phantom Menace", "Apocalypto" and "Ferngully" (the font for the film is definitely either from "Ferngully" or from the "Yanni: Live at Red Rocks" album). It is a teaser, so it's hard to take a whole lot from it other than the overall setting, the look of some of the alien environments, and a sense of the scope, but that's about it.

What is clear is that we've got Sam Worthington in what looks like a starring role. That's promising. He was the best thing about "T4" so I like the odds that he'll do an excellent job in this film, provided, that is, Cameron gives him some room to act as himself, and not in the form of one of the small-headed, spotted blue man-things that seem to be the focus of the movie.

From what I've heard, this film is one of those projects that directors sometimes pull from out of the back of a closet when they realize they can literally make any damn movie they want. "Fifth Element" was like that. I think the Star Wars prequels were basically like that. So that's cause for worry, but this is Little Jimmy Cameron we're talking about, the guy who made "Aliens" and "Terminator 2" and "The Abyss". It's difficult to imagine we'll see a bad movie from him.

But this teaser does make it slightly less difficult.

3 comments:

Harwell said...

Let's make a bet!

I'm going to go ahead and guess that Sam Worthington ends up as one of those blue mosquito-horse-elves pretty early on and stays that way for most of the film. I think he falls in love with another blue mosquito-horse-elf and then probably gets separated from her somewhere around the end of act 2. Then he turns back into his human self by the end of the film but still manages to save the blue mosquito-horse-elf he fell in love with from some perilous fate. Or maybe he dies for her? Could go either way with Cameron. I'll say he dies. It'll be more emotional.

I'll definitely see this movie but even disregarding the uninspiring design of those creatures I'm mostly just disappointed by the sheer amount of CGI already on display. I don't care how photo realistic or dynamic it will be in 3D. Sparse/creative uses of CGI usually result in better films than those that show no restraint. I'll hope that this one proves to be an exception.

monolith said...

Lame

Harwell said...

Ha - you gotta watch this. And good call on Ferngully. Someone else thought the same...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAPyipuT-Jg