Am I the only person who seems to think that this movie looks like a load of garbage? It seems to me everyone is being blinded by the fact that it's James Cameron. This movie looks like a CGI shit fest, and I don't think I will every watch it. People are saying “He had to wait for the technology to make this movie” like its a good thing. Movies shouldn't be just special effects, that is what is ruining cinema today. I feel that CGI is something that has lowered the standard of films. Special Effects used to be creative and hard. That difficulty is what made films great. Today, people don't go see movies and say “how did they do that?” because we all know that it's computers. It doesn't take any discipline to make films any more, just a few idiots and some computer programs. For example, let's look at “An American Werewolf in London”. This film has one of the most amazing effects sequences in film history, and no computers were involved. Practical effects always have an element of surprise which usually can't be duplicated, but can be repeated to some degree. CGI allows filmmakers to do whatever they want, and that is a bad thing.

As Cameron had a background in visual effects I'm more than happy to give him the benefit of the doubt in using CGI. I can also appreciate him wanting to do the Na'vi in CG because sometimes practical effects can only achieve so much.

I also hear that it's recommended to watch it in 3D rather than 2D.

Now, you're right that there is a overabundence of CGI in Hollywood these days, but the director you should be hounding is George Lucas. He went CGI mad and probably helped to create the over-reliance of it.


But there are some times where it's just neccesary.

George Lucas? That name no longer has any meaning to me. But seriously, I do see times where CGI is neccesary, but most of the time is is just eye candy clutter added just for the filmmakers to say “Look what we can do”.

I personally think that the movie is going to be great…but not because of the CG gimmickry. I remember some of the statements he was saying while Avatar was in development, about how it was going to be such an impact on the industry that it would become a cornerstone to the point you could see a clear difference between movies made before Avatar and After Avatar. Having seen the SDCC footage…all I have to say is looks like Transformers…I mean in CG quality. Nothing revolutionary about the CG in the movie beside the virtual camera…which all in all isn't THAT revolutionary