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[Orgun]

Saw my first trailer for this yesterday, I can't understand the interest in it. It just looks like generic sci-fi with a huge budget.

Did they seriously name that ore Unobtainium?

I'll watch it but I won't be going to the cinema for it.

[NW2013]

I'm planning on making this my first 3D AND Imax cinema-going experience. Not holding out much hope for how good it'll be mind. Users on IMDB are describing it as being the same as Ferngully. Tee hee.

[SharkSkin-Man]

Am I alone in thinking (some nice CG trees aside) that this looks rubbish?

If it didn't have Cameron's name attached to it, I'm sure we'd all be laughing at the blue cat people.

Definitely not alone, it looks like a rubbish cut-scene from a game.

And having Cameron's name on it just means as well as looking a bit silly, the final film will probably be unbearably hokey and have a running time of about 3 weeks. I can hardly wait.

[elaniel]

Just booked my tickets for the Birmingham IMax on Dec 21st. Sadly, I can't go before due to prior arrangements (and the 16th already being sold out and the only day I was free before).

First time going to an IMax showing, hopefully I'm impressed Actually worked out cheaper than going to VUE with online booking charges, so can't complain.

[MJ]

How Avatar's effects were generated:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8405089.stm

[Malc]

Am I alone in thinking (some nice CG trees aside) that this looks rubbish?

If it didn't have Cameron's name attached to it, I'm sure we'd all be laughing at the blue cat people.

You are certainly not alone, whole articles have been created to slag it off. Although most of them come from no credible movie history.

I have little interest in the film, but I don't want the film to be awful like all the internet seems to be saying. It's just that from the looks of the trailers, the story seems very obvious, the design of the Navi are not to my liking, as well as the heavy amounts of CGI used to create the movie.

[dataDave]

I hated the look of the CGI at first but now I'm proper bumming it bigtime.

Got my tickets sorted for the 18th at Manchester Imax. I'm in the unreserved section unfortunately so I'm turning up early in order to guarantee a centralised seat, sitting off to one end of an Imax is cacka.

[Baseley09]

the design of the Navi are not to my liking, as well as the heavy amounts of CGI used to create the movie.

Thats it isn't it.....the designs are horrid, they look like western fantasy RPG character designs........

And whats this about revolutionary CGI.....so much that I wont be able to tell when something isn't CG?...........what?.......like the characters, backgrounds and battleships that are obviously CGI. I dont get it, i dont like it.

Will be a bluray ripper me thinks.

[SuperBeatBoy]

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=133552

5 out of 5.

[MJ]

It's doing well on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment:

Avatar Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

[Wil]

The Empire review definitely has me more intrigued than I was before. I still don't like the design of the blue fuzzy aliens but I think I really should make the effort to see this in 3D. Millennium Point in Brum, here I come I guess.

[Dogg Thang]

How Avatar's effects were generated:

On a computer. Like Jar Jar Binks. And Jumangi. No surprise there then.

Getting great reviews. The film itself, cartoon CG aside (and, actually, I'm not quite sure I can put that aside), has got to have something.

[dataDave]

You see, any stills shots of the Na'vi look amazing and could easily be passed as really good costumes/makeup, it's when you see them in motion that it all falls to bits.

[abigsmurf]

All the advances in CG tech and we still can't convincingly animate things. There's never a sense of weight or a believe that muscles are responsible for the movement.

[Dogg Thang]

I also think lighting has a huge amount to do with it. The Avatar characters look stunning. They look structurally perfect and, to me, look much better than costumes or make-up could ever look. Looking piece by piece, everything looks right to me.

And yet it doesn't look real. Not even in a still image but much more so in motion.

I don't think they look like they are actually there, in any sort of real existence. They are closer to a painting than a photograph. And I think that's so much about the lighting. We'd notice that much more in motion too because we would see how the light hits as characters and objects turn.

We don't see blue creatures every day of our life. So there are leaps our minds will take. But we do see solid objects in real light settings every minute we have our eyes open. It's going to be that much harder to accept things as real until that's right. In a way, even though I don't think a costume or make-up could better what they've built here, the fact that they can be shot in real settings with real lights could make them much easier to accept as real.

But all that said, if the story and characters are good, it could just take several minutes before we forget we're looking at CG and just accept things for what they are in the movie.