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Started by Alberon, August 02, 2013, 10:31:35 AM

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Kelvin


Kelvin

He kind of looks like an Oompa Loompa that died and wasn't found for three weeks.

Nuclear Optimism



Without checking, how many people remember this character's name?

Alberon

I can't remember the names of any of the smurfs in it, let alone that one.

He looks a wrong-un though.

Nuclear Optimism


Dex Sawash

hoping this one has Gungans in it.

Nuclear Optimism


greenman

Honestly Cameron seems the opposite of Lucas to me in many ways, the latter clearly lost the ability to script/direct a film after all those years as an ideas man and technical developer, the former can still direct a film well enough but seems to have lost(or traded in for a wider audience?) the imagination and subtly of his previous work.

Avatar is really a much better made film than the prequels(and action wise much better than most blockbusters) I'd say, its just hard to look past the unoriginal ham fisted politics/drama and designs out of the back of a 12 year old girls school book. Some degree of subtly in what I'd guess is going to be a story of humans returning would be welcome as would a bit more imagination in the design rather than just adding an extra pair of legs and removing the fur from existing animals. Without that I'd guess its unlikely to do anything like as well.

Nuclear Optimism

Quote from: greenman on April 15, 2016, 09:03:12 PM
Honestly Cameron seems the opposite of Lucas to me in many ways, the latter clearly lost the ability to script/direct a film after all those years as an ideas man and technical developer

Lucas could never write and direct. The idea that he somehow lost all his talent when he first sniffed a computer is the biggest myth in movies. Harrison Ford was complaining about Lucas' dialogue back in the 70s ("You can type this shit, George, but you can't say it"), and his directing consisted of giving no instructions other than "Faster and more intense" after each take. He lost his voice on the set of the original, and Carrie Fisher joked that they didn't realise for a week. He's always been an awkward introvert who isn't good with actors.

He only got away with it back in the day because he was surrounded by smarter people like producer Gary Kurtz (who was ousted by the time of Jedi for voicing dissent about how toyetic it was becoming), screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (who was notably brought back for Force Awakens), and editor Marcia Lucas (his then wife, who had worked on Taxi Driver). These people pointed him in the right direction, and often fixed his mistakes. The original film was infamously saved in editing, the first screening having been a disaster.

He would also seek the advice of friends like Coppola and DePalma (before they lost it), who would tell it like it is. Spielberg is too much of a nice guy who goes easy on George, so he doesn't count.

Eventually these helping hands drifted away (or were pushed), and then the yes men came flooding in, starting with Jedi, then culminating with all time brown-nosing world champion Rick McCallum during the prequels. But let's not blame the lackeys; the prequels are the work of a naked man alone on stage. There was no-one left to cover for him, and we we finally saw the unadulterated incompetent director that he always was.

Alberon

The more expensive a film the dumber the script.

Avatar was designed to have a slightly lower IQ than a particularly stupid coffee table.

I honestly believe that if Cameron was working with a lower budget you'd see him producing much better films again.

Hollow

Another three films i'll never watch.

Cameron created some brilliant films, The Terminator being the best, clearly better than it's reaching sequel btw.

But all that's over now, cunt made a chick flick and it sapped his powers.

1. The Terminator
2. Aliens
3. Terminator 2
4. True Lies
5. The Abyss

Hollow

Quote from: Nuclear Optimism on April 15, 2016, 09:27:32 PM
Lucas could never write and direct. The idea that he somehow lost all his talent when he first sniffed a computer is the biggest myth in movies. Harrison Ford was complaining about Lucas' dialogue back in the 70s ("You can type this shit, George, but you can't say it"), and his directing consisted of giving no instructions other than "Faster and more intense" after each take. He lost his voice on the set of the original, and Carrie Fisher joked that they didn't realise for a week. He's always been an awkward introvert who isn't good with actors.

He only got away with it back in the day because he was surrounded by smarter people like producer Gary Kurtz (who was ousted by the time of Jedi for voicing dissent about how toyetic it was becoming), screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (who was notably brought back for Force Awakens), and editor Marcia Lucas (his then wife, who had worked on Taxi Driver). These people pointed him in the right direction, and often fixed his mistakes. The original film was infamously saved in editing, the first screening having been a disaster.

He would also seek the advice of friends like Coppola and DePalma (before they lost it), who would tell it like it is. Spielberg is too much of a nice guy who goes easy on George, so he doesn't count.

Eventually these helping hands drifted away (or were pushed), and then the yes men came flooding in, starting with Jedi, then culminating with all time brown-nosing world champion Rick McCallum during the prequels. But let's not blame the lackeys; the prequels are the work of a naked man alone on stage. There was no-one left to cover for him, and we we finally saw the unadulterated incompetent director that he always was.

I'd dearly love to see the pre edit workprint.


Hollow


Nuclear Optimism

#133
Quote from: Hollow on April 16, 2016, 12:10:34 AM
I'd dearly love to see the pre edit workprint.

Check out these action-packed deleted scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00IkrWvur4

As you can see, it's not actually well-directed film. Richard Chew, Paul Hirsch and Marcia Lucas must have really worked some magic so bring it up to snuff.

Mild racism:
Spoiler alert
It's striking to hear Luke mention the sand-people are raiding the area, considering the real life sand-people (ISIS) have taken over the moisture farm location.
[close]
[Edit: Ah, according to two minutes googling, it turns out that report wasn't strictly true. Still, his line made me smirk at the apparent coincidence.]

hewantstolurkatad

My theory is that Cameron, the technology crazed guy that he is, has gotten somewhat trapped between two kinds of new tech. The more time moves on from 3D seeming at all fresh or anything, the less of a lustre it must have for him; meanwhile, VR is either far too primitive, far too daunting, or just plain unsuited to feature length narrative for him to want to sink his teeth into it.

Hollow

Quote from: Hollow on April 16, 2016, 12:08:49 AM
Another three films i'll never watch.

Cameron created some brilliant films, The Terminator being the best, clearly better than its reaching sequel btw.

But all that's over now, cunt made a chick flick and it sapped his powers.

1. The Terminator
2. Aliens
3. Terminator 2
4. True Lies
5. The Abyss

I'm sorry everyone, i keep pressing quote instead of modify, all i wanted to do was fix that 'it's'.

greenman

Quote from: Nuclear Optimism on April 15, 2016, 09:27:32 PM
Lucas could never write and direct. The idea that he somehow lost all his talent when he first sniffed a computer is the biggest myth in movies. Harrison Ford was complaining about Lucas' dialogue back in the 70s ("You can type this shit, George, but you can't say it"), and his directing consisted of giving no instructions other than "Faster and more intense" after each take. He lost his voice on the set of the original, and Carrie Fisher joked that they didn't realise for a week. He's always been an awkward introvert who isn't good with actors.

He only got away with it back in the day because he was surrounded by smarter people like producer Gary Kurtz (who was ousted by the time of Jedi for voicing dissent about how toyetic it was becoming), screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (who was notably brought back for Force Awakens), and editor Marcia Lucas (his then wife, who had worked on Taxi Driver). These people pointed him in the right direction, and often fixed his mistakes. The original film was infamously saved in editing, the first screening having been a disaster.

He would also seek the advice of friends like Coppola and DePalma (before they lost it), who would tell it like it is. Spielberg is too much of a nice guy who goes easy on George, so he doesn't count.

Eventually these helping hands drifted away (or were pushed), and then the yes men came flooding in, starting with Jedi, then culminating with all time brown-nosing world champion Rick McCallum during the prequels. But let's not blame the lackeys; the prequels are the work of a naked man alone on stage. There was no-one left to cover for him, and we we finally saw the unadulterated incompetent director that he always was.

I think the anti Lucas viewpoint has gone a little far these days, ultimately he did direct A New Hope and it did result in an excellent film with strong performances and indeed snappy dialog. His ego might well have been part of the problem with the prequels but I suspect not having directed or scripted a film for over 20 years with a bigger issue.

Equally whilst the latest film definitely improves the dialong/acting I think it rather hurts the idea that Kasadan added a lot more than the former given the lack of new ideas and generally confused story.

mothman

Quote from: Nuclear Optimism on April 16, 2016, 01:03:30 AM
Check out these action-packed deleted scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00IkrWvur4

Do you know, despite knowing about these scenes since I read Lucas' ghostwritten novelisation in 1978, this is the first time I've ever actually seen them?

phantom_power

Quote from: Nuclear Optimism on April 15, 2016, 08:20:32 PM


Without checking, how many people remember this character's name?
Major Badman?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk


Replies From View

DID YOU KNOW that the film title "Avatar" is meant to be the sound that somebody makes when they check their inventory and realise that they are holding a guitar.


Alberon

Cameron has been talking about how he's going to shoot the next four Avatars.

Quote"It's not back-to-back. It's really all one big production. It's more the way you would shoot a miniseries. So we'll be shooting across all [AVATAR scripts] simultaneously. So Monday I might be doing a scene from Movie Four, and Tuesday I'm doing a scene from Movie One. ... We're working across, essentially, eight hours of story. It's going to be a big challenge to keep it all fixed in our minds, exactly where we are, across that story arc at any given point. It's going to be probably the most challenging thing I've ever done. I'm sure the actors will be challenged by that as well. It's like, 'No, no, no, no, this person hasn't died yet, so you're still in this phase of your life.' It's a saga. It's like doing all three GODFATHER films at the same time."

"My original plan was to release them a year apart, but we're opening that up. If for no other reason than that I don't want to land on the same date as one of the STAR WARS sequels. That wouldn't be fair to them. [Laughs] No, that's just good business. I don't want to go head-to-head with STAR WARS. That would be stupid. And hopefully they won't want to go head-to-head with us."

"If I could do the Alien Queen today with the techniques we used on AVATAR, she'd be spectacular. She'd be much more dynamic. Now, where I would struggle is to make her as texturally real. But that's all doable now. ... On the new AVATAR films, I'm actually going to shoot more real-world stuff. It may only be there as an example from which we then generate CG, or we may actually integrate some of those photographic elements. But I want more photography. ... Like, if I was doing the Alien Queen, I would want photography to show the exact way that the slime drools off the curl of a lip and caught the light in a certain type of very low-key lighting. I would want to see that so that I can talk to the CG artist and say, 'All right. Do that.' ... It always usually boils down to the lighting and the conception of the shot."

It makes sense to shoot them as one production financially. Eventually though, one of these series shot all at once is going to fall on its arse and the aftermath of that will be interesting.

Comparing your unshot films to the Godfather trilogy though...

Hollow

Four now is it?

Cameron should stop being so damn presumptuous.

Four sequels to a CGI Dances with Wolves that no one wants.

greenman

A CGI The Mission? A CGI Unforgiven? A CGI Blazing Saddles?

I would guess shooting back to back probably isn't that much of an investment relative to just shooting one film, especially if so much of the budget is tied up into the post production.

spock rogers

Quote
Like, if I was doing the Alien Queen, I would want photography to show the exact way that the slime drools off the curl of a lip and caught the light in a certain type of very low-key lighting. I would want to see that so that I can talk to the CG artist and say, 'All right. Do that.'

That says it all really. He's gone full Lucas. Maybe if he spent more time on his script and less time on how to render those gangly, blue, USB-haired cunts then people might give a shit about four sequels.

Glebe

How James Cameron Feels About His Avatar Sequels Competing Against Star Wars.

QuoteMy original plan was to release them a year apart, but we're opening that up. If for no other reason than that I don't want to land on the same date as one of the STAR WARS sequels. That wouldn't be fair to them. [Laughs] No, that's just good business. I don't want to go head-to-head with STAR WARS. That would be stupid. And hopefully they won't want to go head to head with us.

Obviously both parties want to avoid release clashes, but let's face it, Star Wars has nothing to fear from Avatar. Because, it's like, Star Wars.

Custard

Read on a "blind gossip" site recently that Cameron and Sigourney have been having an affair for years, and meet up at a hotel twice a year to "get together"

Take that thought with you through the day

Glebe


Replies From View

Quote from: Alberon on April 19, 2016, 08:44:04 AM
Comparing your unshot films to the Godfather trilogy though...

He probably means that the last one is going to be heavily disappointing.

Shaky

Quote from: Shameless Custard on April 19, 2016, 10:09:58 AM
Read on a "blind gossip" site recently that Cameron and Sigourney have been having an affair for years, and meet up at a hotel twice a year to "get together"

Take that thought with you through the day

Twice a year? Does that even qualify as an affair? Cameron can't even do that properly anymore.