So, will James Cameron be the next Right Wing punching bag? (Avatar)

[Lorien]

The newest Avatar trailer and website gives a synopsis of the plot; the U.S. military works on behalf of a private corporation to attempt to subdue/ exterminate indigenous peoples for their profitable resources (linked to energy, no less):
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/hd/

or will they just eat up the FX and violence and miss the dig completely?

[Richardo]

1. Why should the Right Wing have all the fun?

:(

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. No, they'll watch the movie and go "Wow - that's good Christian family values policy!"

it'll work on them like Viagra.

They'll have woodies for months thinking about using tax money to killing indigenous people to take their resources to benefit a private corporation.

[blm]

7. So true....unfortunately.

The RW faithful have never processed any serious message from a movie in any thoughtful way as long as I've been alive.

[abelenkpe]

3. the right wing

is too stupid to 'get it.' However, if they do Cameron won't care.

My problem with Avatar isn't it's plot. It's that they use motion capture that has been heavily edited and re-worked frame by frame by scores of animators working tirelessly for years yet their press releases completely deny that. I understand that they need to convince their 'actors' that what appears on screen is 'all them' to entice them into becoming an animated creation and justify their salary, but it is a lie nonetheless. Motion capture is just really really expensive reference for animators.

[Lorien]

5. I am an animator. It's not expensive at all, and most traditional

animators use rotoscope or live action reference as well. There's far too much subtlety in the expression and movements for it NOT to require huge amounts of effort by an army of animators, and I'm sure they'll get acknowledged with an Academy award nomination at the very least. The film also required quite a team of visual development artists. As someone in the industry I can only wish it well; if it brings in "Titanic" numbers than it means more work for us all in the near future, and with film production down 30% we can all use that!

[abelenkpe]

9. Me too!

You don't think motion capture is way more expensive than video reference though? It has come down in price over the past fifteen years. I prefer video reference. Much less hassle and time spent.
I do hope the film does well for all the reasons you mention. :)

[Lorien]

11. It's more expensive to set up, sure, but it save loads of money and time

motion capture provides a basic framework for the animators, but it can't capture much more than broad motion. One of our fellow DUers (and a former coworker of mine) animated Brad Pitts face for "Benjamin Buttons". The actor basically wore a "bluescreen" with points for motion capture (from what I remember him telling me) across his face, but my friend and his team still had to animate all the expressions and dialog regardless. They were rewarded with an Oscar for their work, so it didn't go unnoticed. My friends who have transitioned from 2D animation to 3D say that 3D-even with motion capture-takes 3-4 times as long to complete.Without motion capture as an aid the labor costs would put most realistic CGI films out of reach for almost any studio.

[abelenkpe]

15. My experience

is the exact opposite. For the most part I've worked on more cartoony films so maybe that is part of it? Motion capture would be no help there. But we did get nominated for our work on Narnia (Aslan) and win for the Golden Compass. No mo-cap there. Of course I'm not sure what the costs were...
Either way, animating sure is fun. :)
So hopefully there will always be lots of work no matter how we get there.

[Lorien]

17. Animal characters are far more forgiving though

people are so familiar with human motion that errors are glaring when the animation isn't top notch. I had a pet ferret for years, so I wasn't quite buying the ferret in Golden Compass-but the other animals were more believable to me because I was less familiar with how their real counterparts move. Same with 2D. I worked on Belle and Aladdin for the Disney features, and they were far more labor intensive than the mice in "the Rescuers down under." We had live action reference for the human characters and some animators chose to do a bit of rotoscoping, but most did not. Everyone works a bit differently.

[abelenkpe]

19. O nice work!

Aladdin is fantastic. Good job!

[Mike Daniels]

4. I'm pretty sure Beck and Hannity will be all over Avatar like white on rice

The trailer made it pretty obvious what the story is about so I'm sure Beck will be agitating for protests and boycotts by the time the film is released.

[Lorien]

6. They nearly burst blood vessels over "Wall-E"

but their calls for boycotts appeared to have no impact at the box office.

[abelenkpe]

10. My son loves Wall E

so take that Glenn Beck! ha ha

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Sounds like a pretty conventional, unimaginative plot we've seen many times before.

[dysfunctional press]

12. "dances with smurfs" is how south park phrased it...

dances with wolves done by the blue man group.

[Sinti]

16. Yes, every day in real life n/t

[Ganja Ninja]

13. Whatever keeps them busy. n/t

[verges]

14. So it's a western? nt

[Lorien]

18. "Dances with Aliens"

;-)