2/1/10

J. Cameron's Avatar: when Hollywood runs out of stories

I saw it a few weeks ago. If you're looking for some substance, don't waste your time. Cameron rips off Pocahontas with a touch from Dances with Wolves. He steals themes from Myazaki's Princess Mononoke and from Nausicaa. What's worse from stealing something is not to appreciate -or understand- the essence of what you stole: while Myazaki's stories carries a message of harmony (with the nature mostly) and non-violence, Cameron turned that into 100% Hollywood macho superhero Vs supervillain combat show.

While I never really had any good expectations from Cameron's work, I wanted to experience the new level of CGI graphics, especially on 3D. I ended up watching it in Real-D (Digital 3D), a technology that was developed by Sony, where the depth of field of the screen is remarkable. Imax 3-D, on the other side, offers a more engulfing image (concave screen) with a more pop-up feel but a significant less depth of field. A third form of 3D (the most common one), is technically the least impressive... a simple 3D (known by Imax geeks as Lie-Max).
Overall it is the most impressive level of CGI graphics I've seen, soon Hollywood will save on paying millions for "human" celebs if this wave is popularized, and the actual question would not be "what" to watch (since it's all BS) but "how" to watch it.

The "thrill" of this experience lasted 15 minutes or so, after what even the 3D thing and the exquisite graphics were not enough to cover the lack of everything else.