Original Avatar 2 and 3 Plots Revealed!

So this is no shocking news but James Cameron announced there will be two more Avatar movies, thus creating a trilogy. Look, I love J.C. I mean the guy has had a brilliant career filled with some of my favorite movies. Who can argue against Aliens, Terminator 2, The Abyss, and I hate to admit it, but I even liked Titanic. (One of my forbidden 5.)

However, when they announced the new Avatars, I just felt…defeated. Here we go again, Hollywood milking a series to the point of bleeding the public to death. I know I wasn’t one of the many who lauded praise upon praise on Avatar. So I will say it right now, just to make it known, Avatar is visually the most amazing movie ever made. The ground breaking 3D is awesome and the graphics and colors are astounding and the action is great as well. That being said, the story sucked. It was Pocahantas or Dances with Wolves in space. So that being said, since Cameron copied those films for his first movie, I am worried he might have writers block and thought he might need help ripping off other movies for his next two films. So I compiled this list of possibilities. I tried to keep with his “native” theme.

The bear necessities of screen writing?

- The Jungle Book – Taking the story one step further, a local human child is lost in the Pandora jungle and raised by the numerous mysterious creatures that live there. You could even turn this one into a musical.

- The Alamo – The RDA Corporation returns with overwhelming force and the locals must stall for time to gather their forces. They defend a strategic position in a hopeless battle that buys the rest of the Na’vi (the blue people) the time they need to rally. This is perfect for the second movie because it would end on a low note, with the defenders being overrun in the end.

- Terminator 2 – Going so far as to copy one of his own movies (might as well) a Na’vi from the future goes back in time to stop a human assassin who has gone back in time to kill the leader of the Na’vi resistance.

- The Bridge on the River Kwai – Captured Na’vi are forced into a labor camp by the humans and are completely demoralized and abused.  A Na’vi leader rises up and inspires them to build a bridge to raise their moral. The Na’vi are whistling happy away under their brutal conditions completely unaware of the free Na’vis plans to destroy their hard work.

- The Searchers – A remake of one of  John Wayne’s most famous films. This time the natives play the bad guys, wait, we can’t do that anymore…

Tom Hanks Avatarized

- You’ve Got Mail – A big time, corporate, human Pandora bookstore owner falls for a local Na’vi female whose bookshop he is trying to put out of business.

Anyway Mr. Cameron, these are just a few examples of possible plots in case you need some inspiration for your next two movies. Let me know what you think!

AVATAR breaks historic record!

January 26th, 2010 marks a significant day in the history of cinema. The 12-year-old world-wide record previously held by Cameron’s own Titanic has officially been sunk. Experts thought it would never happen considering today’s ‘fast food’ movie era in which the average theatrical run is about 6 weeks. The 1997 Titanic domestically and internationally made $1.84 billion. Today’s reports is that Avatar has made $1.85 billion and is still growing. Which is pretty impressive considering the current economic crunch. Titanic still retains the domestic record at just over $600 million. Avatar just climbed to #2 with $554 million bumping the Dark Knight to #3 with $533 million. It is projected that Avatar will make the domestic record within the next few weeks. Looks like 3-D is here to stay. Congrats Jimmy.

Check out our posts, reviews, and exclusives on AVATAR.

Avatar = energizer bunny…

 

For a 6th straight week, Avatar has dominated the box office. Avatar’s run is reminiscent of the good ol’ days when movies like Star Wars and ET remained king of the box office for months at a time. Not only is it only 50 million short of the domestic record held by Titanic, its international sales has also been very strong. With it continually amassing profits for the next month, it looks like Cameron’s ‘Unobtainium’ of sinking his own record will become a reality. 

A smattering throw away movies didn’t stand a chance this weekend. Wolfman (Feb 10th) might be the first movie to challenge Avatar’s firstplace status anytime soon.

This Wk		Title	Dist.	Weekend Gross	Cumulative Gross	Rlse Wks
1		Avatar	20th Century Fox	$36,000,000	$552,797,000	6
2		Legion	Sony Pictures Releasing	$18,200,000	$18,200,000	1
3		The Book of Eli	Warner Bros. Pictures	$17,000,000	$62,003,000	2
4		Tooth Fairy	20th Century Fox	$14,500,000	$14,500,000	1
5		The Lovely Bones	Paramount Pictures	$8,800,000	$31,624,000	7

Yes, I dare criticize Avatar.

So the Golden Globe’s was last and left me with a sort of “meh” feeling. I can only watch about an hour of these award shows before the pomp and pretentiousness finally get to me. However a couple of thoughts do stand out to me.

Our very own Faith Peralta gave you a rave review on Crazy Heart and apparently the rest of the world agrees. Once again as reported by Scott North, Jeff Bridges won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture. However it also won Best Original Song for “The Weary Kind” another great win by the brilliant T-Bone Burnett. No small feat here folks, he beat out Bono and Paul McCartney for this award and this movie now is on my must see list.

Also reported by Scott North. Congratulations to Michael C. Hall for his win as Dexter. This has recently become one of my favorite shows as I have just finished season 1. I mean a show where the protagonist is a serial killer/blood pathologist? Brilliant. He does a great job and after having three prior nominations, this is his first win.

Oh Avatar!

Now for something a little more original. “Avatar” won best picture, and I am afraid this is an omen of things to come.  At B5 we have held this movie in pretty high praise, including myself. The visuals are simply amazing. More so then I would have ever thought possible and when I first walked out of Avatar I had this thought: Here at B5 we are normally really big on the importance of story and not relying on special FX to make up for it, but the case of Avatar is an exception, the visuals DO make up for it. Now that I have had time to soak it in and think about it. I completely disagree.

Avatar’s plot was, simply put, pretty lame. It had some very original ideas ie. The symbiotic planet, the paralyzed vet being able to experience legs etc. but the more I think about the more it annoys me. At first I thought it was merely Dances with Wolves in Space, or for you 40k fans, Dances with Space Wolves, but I disagree with that is well. Here is why.

Dances with Wolves did something that Avatar doesn’t. It moves you. You connect with the plight of the Native Americans in the movie and you realize some of the evils that were incurred on them. Avatar never really does that. In fact to me, Avatar felt forced and even old hat.

It felt more like, “Yeah Yeah, we know, the western world uses up natural resources without regards to nature or indigenous populations. Yeah we know, 150 years ago we did horrible things to natives. Blah, Blah, guns and violence are bad.”

Never mind the fact James Cameron and other Hollywood type don’t mind make making a fortune using these very guns and resources to entertain us. Sort of like all the people in Hollywood who promote feminism yet still use sex to sell everything. To me, Avatar felt whiney and a little dull. It felt like James Cameron simply came up with awesome visuals and then half assed a plot around it.

Many of you will point out that he wrote this story 15 years ago and has been working on it ever since. I think that makes things even worse because he has had 15 years to come up with a better plot or at the very least, make the plot feel real.

James Cameron staked his reputation on this film and his reputation is intact. The movie deserves every technical, special effect, visual and sound award we can throw at it. Maybe even best director for the vision he had to implement new technologies. Avatar won best picture at the Golden Globes and as far I am concerned it did not deserve it. I hope it doesn’t win an Oscar for Best Picture. I hope, as far as Hollywood is concerened, story still matters. I know it does for me.

My rating – I want to give it 4 Babbles based on the visuals and graphics but I don’t think I can. I have to ask myself? If this movie is on a DVD on a30 inch TV would I still enjoy it? Yes, but not nearly as much. I think movies that get high rating should not be dependent on a big screen. I might be being a little snobby here but I give this movie 3.5 Babbles.

Golden Globes 2010 – an incomplete summary

Not too much to say about the Golden Globes except “Oh, was that tonight?”

Honestly, I wasn’t watching them; I prefer to see all of the winners in a handy list at the end of the evening and to watch the highlights that are put online. That said, the list is in and I am delighted to see Avatar win Best Picture! Despite my love for the movie, I am a little surprised. I would have guessed Inglourious Basterds would win. Of course, I didn’t see Precious, Up in the Air, or The Hurt Locker, either. Love at the box office does not necessarily translate into love at the awards shows. So kudos to James Cameron, and may the Academy Award considerations abound!

The Dude and Mrs The Dude.

Jeff Bridges won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama)! I haven’t seen Crazy Heart yet , or Up in the Air (George Clooney), A Single Man (Colin Firth), Invictus (Morgan Freeman), or Brothers (Tobey Maguire), from which his fellow actors were nominated, but I’d give it to Jeff just because he’s The Dude. And he runs Flynn’s Arcade. Seriously, Jeff Bridges has built up decades of instant good will with me for his performances in The Big Lebowski and Tron. The Dude can do no wrong. And he abides.

Sandra Bullock won Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) for her role in The Blind Side. Hers was the only movie in her category that I had seen, but she deserved it nonetheless. Wait, drama? But you didn’t win for the Comedy category? I don’t understand! Sandra, I loved your wisecracking, sassy bad self as a Memphis super-mom! Really, she definitely deserved to be in both categories (Drama and Comedy-or-Musical), and I am glad she won in one of them.

Christoph Waltz won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. Heil, yes! His portrayal of Hans Landa was spectacular. How could you not see (Nazi?) this movie without giving him an award? Please forgive the puns.

Best Animated Feature Film went to Pixar’s Up. No surprise there, but good on ya’, Pixar, for making a great movie and getting into the 3D game right before Avatar changed the rules on you.

Michael C Hall killed his competition with his performance as Dexter in Dexter, taking home Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Drama) to, no doubt, place it inside his air conditioner. Mr Hall recently revealed that he has been fighting cancer, and that it is currently in remission. Congratulations on both victories, Michael! We wish you the best!

Glee beat 30 Rock and The Office for Best Television Series (Comedy or Musical)?!? I can’t believe it! Maybe it’s time to sit down and watch an episode.

But… Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series (Comedy Or Musical) went to Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock. Now that’s more like it. As Liz Lemon would say, “<something witty>”. Or as Tracy Jordan would say, “Liz Lemon!” And that’s why I don’t have a Golden Globe for Best Entry on a Movie Review Blog.

Anyway, there were other winners in other categories, but I don’t have any comments for them.

Quentin didn't win anything, but he did get pretty close to some golden globes.

No review equals no Babbles, so I leave you with this random quote: “Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.” – Anonymous

Avatar IMAX 3D

I have to first apologize for my late review of James Cameron’s Avatar. By now, everything about this movie has been said by one critic or another.

Alright. Since seeing approximately 30 minutes of Avatar (in 3D) at this past year’s Comic Con in July, I could not stop telling people that this was the ‘movie of the year’ and that they HAD TO GO SEE IT. I became a part of a small minority of nerds that had seen something incredible. Unfortunately, I was met with skepticism, confused looks, disinterest, and patronizing nods. People kept asking, “The Last Airbender?” Which brought on a long explanation that this was NOT M. Night Shyamalan’s terrible looking Avatar: The last Airbender but James Cameron’s Avatar.

5 innovations of Avatar

Avatar was not only an epic film but a game changer in the film industry. How did James Cameron pull off this amazing film? Lets take a look at five of the many technological innovations that James Cameron employed in his upcoming sci-fi epic 3D film Avatar.

Five Innovations in Avatar

Posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta of SlashFilm.com

1. Performance Capture Workflow: A lot of the film was captured using a performance capture technique similar to that of which Robert Zemeckis filmed Beowulf. So Cameron developed a virtual camera which will allow his to point it at his actors and see them as their computer generated characters in real time.
2. Simulcam: A camera set-up which allows them to follow or monitor a virtual character which was captured in performance capture into a live action environment in real-time. It also allows them to see what a virtual backgrounds will look like in a live-action shot. I know that Steven Spielberg had a set-up like this on A.I., but I think it only showed him wireframes of buildings, and was very glitchy. My impression from Cameron’s quotes is that the new technology renders something a lot more visual, probably akin to a video game (likely more last generation).
3. Facial Capture Head Rig: The actors in performance capture suits also wear a camera rig on their heads that takes digital shots of the actor’s face. This allows the computer generated character to have 100% facial movement, even in the real-time performance capture workflow mentioned above.
4. Facial Performance Replacement: In traditional filmmaking they use ADR (or additional Dialogue Replacement) when filmmakers need a cleaner take of the actor’s dialogue, or need to fudge in a new line. But with a traditional film, you really need to trick a shot to make it work. The lips don’t always match up, and sometimes, if you’providing an entirely new line of dialogue, filmmakers usually resort to a wide shot or a behind the head shot, so that you can’t see the lips of the actor on-screen. Since 60% of Avatar is performance capture, he has designed a way to insert a new facial scan/dialogue capture on an existing performance.
5. Fusion 3-D Camera System: The Fusion 3-D camera system was co-developed by James Cameron and Vince Pace. The rig uses two Sony HDCF950 HD cameras to create stereoscopic 3-D. Cameron first used the system on his 2003 IMAX film Ghosts of the Abyss. It has since been used by Robert Rodriguez on Spy Kids 3-D and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, and most recently on Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert and Journey to the Center of the Earth. But I’m not exactly sure what improvements Cameron made to the rig over the last five years.

Check out SlashFilm.com

James Cameron’s AVATAR is worth the wait

*no spoilers*
James Cameron’s last film set sail in 1997 and it was an unparalleled success in the box office. 12 years and $300-500 million dollars later, Cameron is back in an attempt to be ‘king of the world’. The absence of Cameron has been felt in Hollyworld and has left room for the Michael Bays to stake their claim in a new era of filmmaking. Well it may have taken a while for Avatar to come to fruition, but it was unequivocally worth the wait.

The story is a familiar one about greedy earthlings that need a precious element found abundantly on a planet called Pandora. The problem is that the tree hugging natives, called the Na’vi, stand in the way. The science branch has developed anl avatar technology that allows a marine named Jake (Sam Worthington) to inhabit a test tube Na’vi in hopes of negotiating a peaceful solution to their dilemna. As expected that doesn’t work and the military decides to do its thing and Jake must decide which world he will side with.

At this point, we can’t go any further without commenting on the visuals of this film. The graphics are almost another character in the movie with a life of it’s own. Today, special effects are so overused in most films that it’s less ‘special’ and more just effects. Cameron has created a whole new experience and has pushed the bar higher than anyone has ever gone before. The imagery is visceral, complex, and vibrant. The art direction was brilliantly conceived and this has to rank as one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Visual, Avatar gets an A++.

I am usually pretty apprehensive about 3-D films. It’s usually not necessary and the gags get old after while. However, I can now see why Cameron pushed for this new technology for this film. It’s an immersive force and immediately makes you a believer. The 3-D is less in your face and more about creating depth of field. There is finally a real sense of dimension to the 3-D experience. There were several scenes were I felt I was right in the same room with the actors!  Bravo Jimmy.

Unfortunately, there is a weak part in the Avatar machine and it’s a pretty big one. The script is terribly unoriginal. It’s a futuristic Dances with Wolves set on another planet. Everyone plays their parts from  the military fanatic, greedy scientist, brave leader, native princess, and noble chief. Its done fine but the all too  familiar story has a strange juxtaposition against the immensely original backdrop of Avatar. James, you should have spent less time in front of Photoshop and more time with pen/paper in hand. Shame on you.

Still, despite the screenplay short comings, I had an incredibly wonderful time during the meaty 2 1/2 hours. It moves well, has spectacular action, and is an inspirational escape from reality. I don’t think it matches up to the titanic pieces like Aliens and the Terminator but it can stand solidly on it’s own right. Avatar is an amalgamation of Cameron’s past works. If you are a fan, you will see familiar elements from past his favorites represented in Avatar. Overall, I would highly recommend this film. Welcome back James, you have been missed and we are all looking forward to you setting new standards in filmmaking in the future.

I would have given this a 5 Babble rating, but I had to penalize Avatar for it;s unoriginal storyline. So I give it a 4.5 out of 5.

Check out our other posts on Avatar

AVATAR midnight opening totals and celeb comments

Avatar is finally here and hordes of sci-fi nerds and James Cameron fans will be out in droves to experience the long anticipated 3-D adventure. But no screening could be as cool as one held on Wednesday night. Cameron threw a private viewing party inviting his peers and other industry professionals to critic his new work. Variety Magazine reported these comments: 

Michael Bay: “Avatar puts you in another world, and that’s the highest praise.”

Michael Mann: “There’s before this movie and after this movie.”

Steven Spielberg: “The most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since ‘Star Wars.’

“Simpsons” creator Matt Groening: “I feel like this is a landmark in the history of cinema: it’s great storytelling using completely artificial means.”

Wow, I bet that was some party.

Avatar’s Thursday midnight totals were 3.5 million dollars in 2000 theaters (most in 3-D). Twilight: New Moon holds the current record at 26.3 million. We also have to remember the mega-hit Titanic (opening same weekend in ’97) opening day was less than 9 million. It went on to be the highest grossing film of all time at 600 million domestically.

First reviews of Avatar coming soon. Check out our other posts on Avatar.

Behind the scenes of AVATAR

We are on the eve of the highly anticipated James Cameron film, Avatar. BabbleOn will be attending the midnight show tonight as well as Friday morning. Reviews to be posted soon. If you are not sure about seeing this, check out this ‘behind the scenes’ featurette about the making of Avatar.

Check out our other posts on Avatar.

My top 5 James Cameron movies of all time

As we approach the release of the highly anticipated and long waited AVATAR on December 18th, I thought it would be great to be reminded of some of James Cameron’s other achievements over his lifetime. AVATAR marks the grand return of Cameron to the big screen after 12 years. If you are a younger, you might not appreciate the genius of Cameron and how he shaped an entire generation of film goers. His creations became not only are some of the most profitable films in history, but some of the most iconic films in the sci-fi genre. So in honor of Cameron, here are the original trailers from my top 5 films that made him a legend.

#5 The Abyss (1989)

#4 Titanic (1997)

#3 Terminator (1984)

#2 Aliens (1986)

#1 Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

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