Monday, January 4, 2010

Review Movie: Avatar

Over Christmas I took the chance to see the movie Avatar. This is a must see movie.

Click here for the official movie site.

Okay, so I did not go for all the hype. I saw a few trailers on the TV a week or 2 leading up to seeing it and found myself doublechecking what I was watching. I really thought it looked a little "cartoony" with real actors thrown in with greenscreens behind them so that while they looked 3D to the eye, the background and surrounds would not - at least not at the same angle or depth as the real human being does in some of these attempts.

I saw this movie on a large screen. A very large screen. I was impressed overall. While I felt the story was a little simple, the world that had been created was impressive. Consistent message filtered through most scenes, especially from a design point of view. I did feel there was a little too many parallels with the world we know, but then if these things can find themselves on our world without our doing, then something similar can happen on another world given the same sort of environment and conditions.

I know a lot of people came away with hidden messages about certain people groups "invading" other people groups for whatever reasons and the end game that can happen when that invading group underestimates or takes for granted the group invaded. I did not get that message. While I could see references to that assumption, my own research of the "hinted at" situations in the world we live in are a lot more complex than just 1 group invading to destroy for the almighty dollar.

The graphic work is fantastic. Although I did have trouble perceiving depth in some of the artificial scenes especially the flight scenes, they moved quickly and if you were busy admiring the work on the object actually flying, you would be hard pressed to notice the background at all.

The offical trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyDQoXEBkGw

I did not see the 3D version. Not sure why. Never even heard of the option until after I had seen the movie. I would be keen to see it again with the funny glasses, and I rarely go to the cinema to see the same movie twice.

Gaming inspiration here is more along the lines of colonial or commodity based expansionism such as the British and Zulus or the Spanish and Aztecs. Maybe Aliens Colonial Marines against American Indians or such.

My question would be, "what now?" It's well and good to get your message across and make something beneficial to you happen, but what happens now that the higher echelon find out about what happened and see the drop on the bottom line of the Proft and Loss statement? Too many unanswered questions.

But a good movie to sit back and watch again - this time with the funny glasses.

4 comments:

dutch508 said...

I saw this on Imax 3D. I wasn't sure about the whole 3D thing, but the kids 'really' wanted to see it this way. I was expecting cheesy jump out and grab you type effects. The 3D effects were very subtle and effective, Small bugs flying by, drifting leaves, etc. I was very impressed.

War Depot said...

Thats good to know. Was any of the main subject "jump out" though? Or was it all just additional "bits" in the scenes?

Game Master Rob Adams said...

OK what about a British conquest of the Navi using VSF? What if I set it in the British favor? Ala no Avatars but the British firepower overwhelms the Navi? :)

War Depot said...

I don't much about VSF but as long as you can have massive firepower then it should work. But I did get to thinking about what I would do as the Corporation Executive and I really think there is little gaming opportunity here other than skirmishes and guerilla type stuff. If I was the Exec and had just received word of what happened in the movie, I would have nuked the place by now and got the workers back on track in NBC suits.