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Great to read such an in depth analysis. I had read about Cameron's integration of CGI with live action at production time, but had not found anything that expl

Great to read such an in depth analysis. I had read about Cameron's integration of CGI with live action at production time, but had not found anything that explains this different kind of 3D as well as you just did. I've had this hunch for a while that there are show biz executives out there hoping against hope that Cameron's new 3D technology - which as you say can only be fully appreciated in the cinema - will magically save the industry from the evils of content piracy. Will be amusing to see how that pans out. As much as I'm looking forward to seeing Avatar, a lot of the conversations that I've had with people about the movie revolve around the concern that the movie its self will be overshadowed by the technology. E.g. when Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was released, my friends and I went to see it solely because the CGI looked so state of the art (we're geeks, what can I say), and it surely had pretty graphics. But the story (what there was of it) and just about everything else sucked pretty hard. It seems like they were really counting on the CGI to carry the movie. Either that or they were just in denial of how crap the other aspects of the movie really were. So I'm really just hoping that they've ended up putting more into Avatar than the new technology alone. A story line more original than that which has been hinted at would be good.

anigbrowl 17y ago
I'm fairly confident about this...partly as a fan of Cameron, but also because story/plot, although fundamentally important, need not be so complex or original to be good. As a quick tongue-in-cheek guide to previous work of his: The Terminator: Robot from the future menaces woman from the present to protect own existence, future career as CA governor. Aliens: return to th planet of the Aliens. Even with bigger guns, they are still dangerous. The Abyss: Undersea explorers find intelligent life at bottom of sea, panic. Terminator 2: Robot from the future menaces woman from the present to protect own existence, future governor of CA switches sides. True Lies: Future CA governor is mild-mannered computer salesman by day, fights terrorists by night (should be familiar life situation to many HN readers). Titanic: pretty heiress enjoys shipboard romance with handsome peasant until angry fiance catches her. Boat sinks, panic ensues. Seriously, the fact that you can summarize a story easily tells us little about the process of working it out on screen for an audience. So while Avatar can be summed up as 'greedy humans want space oil buried under village of fighting smurfs, conflict ensues', the real story (as with most of his work) is what happens when an individual's experience of the world places them in conflict with the status quo, perhaps one that may not even exist yet. Critics may deride this as formulaic, but Cameron's main theme is the conflict between the individual and the social, which does not yield to simple analyses of good vs. evil.
- jonny_noog 17y ago
  Don't forget the implied Dances With Wolves style, "some humans see the error of their ways and go native." :P But you're right, it doesn't need to be overly complex or totally original to be good. There's always room for a well told story, some of the best stories of modern times are retellings of archetypal themes. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of most of Cameron's work, the Terminator mythology (I even still have the old Terminator comics published by Dark Horse) and Aliens (also have the Dark Horse comics) probably more so than anything else. But at the very least, there better be some originality to the writing, even if still within the overall framework of his easily summarised story.
- mcantor 17y ago
  Maybe the potential for a simple synopsis is an indicator of a potentially excellent work, rather than the opposite. Who knew "Little fellow must dip a ring in lava to defeat an evil overlord" could last for three books?

anigbrowl 17y ago

I'm fairly confident about this...partly as a fan of Cameron, but also because story/plot, although fundamentally important, need not be so complex or original to be good. As a quick tongue-in-cheek guide to previous work of his: The Terminator: Robot from the future menaces woman from the present to protect own existence, future career as CA governor. Aliens: return to th planet of the Aliens. Even with bigger guns, they are still dangerous. The Abyss: Undersea explorers find intelligent life at bottom of sea, panic. Terminator 2: Robot from the future menaces woman from the present to protect own existence, future governor of CA switches sides. True Lies: Future CA governor is mild-mannered computer salesman by day, fights terrorists by night (should be familiar life situation to many HN readers). Titanic: pretty heiress enjoys shipboard romance with handsome peasant until angry fiance catches her. Boat sinks, panic ensues. Seriously, the fact that you can summarize a story easily tells us little about the process of working it out on screen for an audience. So while Avatar can be summed up as 'greedy humans want space oil buried under village of fighting smurfs, conflict ensues', the real story (as with most of his work) is what happens when an individual's experience of the world places them in conflict with the status quo, perhaps one that may not even exist yet. Critics may deride this as formulaic, but Cameron's main theme is the conflict between the individual and the social, which does not yield to simple analyses of good vs. evil.

jonny_noog 17y ago
Don't forget the implied Dances With Wolves style, "some humans see the error of their ways and go native." :P But you're right, it doesn't need to be overly complex or totally original to be good. There's always room for a well told story, some of the best stories of modern times are retellings of archetypal themes. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of most of Cameron's work, the Terminator mythology (I even still have the old Terminator comics published by Dark Horse) and Aliens (also have the Dark Horse comics) probably more so than anything else. But at the very least, there better be some originality to the writing, even if still within the overall framework of his easily summarised story.
mcantor 17y ago
Maybe the potential for a simple synopsis is an indicator of a potentially excellent work, rather than the opposite. Who knew "Little fellow must dip a ring in lava to defeat an evil overlord" could last for three books?