Here's the angle...I play video games. I've seen so many fantastic game movies created by amazing artists. Theatrical quality CG has been around for quite some time in the gaming community. So is Avatar something really that new? Sure the film costs somewhere north of $200 million, and I get to pay ten bucks and sit in a darkened movie theater with a 80 foot screen with funny looking glasses on my face. But will it take me someplace I've never been before? Is that the point? Do I think too much? Perhaps my lowering expectations is just a defense mechanism. I've seen the level of realism they are pushing to create an entirely new world. I can only thank God it's not a Mike Bay film.
In all my years of adoring James Cameron's feature films. It was always super cool to come out of seeing one of his films and having "that" feeling that I rarely get from Sci-Fi genre films. And yes, I even saw Titanic a few times in the theater. Terminator was awesome. Aliens was more awesome. Abyss was thoughtful and introspective, yet moving, Terminator 2 keeps Sci-Fi on it's toes. True Lies delivers on what James Bond wants to be. Titanic makes you freaking cry and experience something truly sad, yet it's incredible to be a floating spectator to observe the tragedy.
December will decide if it's worth it or not to shell out that much time and effort to make a film of this artistic magnitude. Cameron is no stranger to finding a mountain to climb and going "full bore" as he is quoted. Perhaps it's natural to have doubts about whether a film is going to be good or not. I asked a friend of mine if I really should go see Watchmen. He said it was good. I wanted my money back. I sat there thinking it had to get better, but the ten minute rule always works. If you don't like the first ten minutes, you're not going to like the rest either. Which brings me to another tangent regarding my upcoming There Will Be Blood DVD review. The first 2 minutes had me hooked, and the following 2 hrs did not disappoint.
So what's the first 10 minutes of Avatar going to be?
