Weeksy
“And I’m supposed to be impressed by this again why?”
I haven’t been on in a while – busy times at the Weeks household, but I thought I’d drop a few lines on the “big movie” for the Christmas Holidays, or specifically the first look at it…
“Avatar” – James Cameron’s once in a blue moon big time event release – the giant leap forward in the age of special effects. The photo realistic renderings that only a few hundred million dollars can buy these days. The geek world’s equivalent to the second coming………
It was with some anticipation that I watched the first teaser trailer the other night for Cameron’s new flick – and wow, did it suck.
By suck, I mean… well, the idea of the movie itself doesn’t sound *too* awful, it’s a fairly intriguing premise that has a great crop of actors on board – but those special effects looked shitty. The kind of shitty that takes more than the 4 months it has left until it opens to fix – this promised leap forward to my eyes looks no better than the work that George Lucas first brought out with his release of “The Phantom Menace” 10 years ago (holy shit, that came out 10 years ago already……), and more importantly – it was a boring trailer. It did absolutely nothing to sell me on making this a “must see” opening day flick.
To make sure, I watched the trailer a second time in 1080 resolution – “Hi Def is the answer!” I told myself triumphantly.
I was wrong – it looked very hi-defy, but still shitty, and still failed to get my blood pumping with anticipation.
Of course, like any Cameron flick, I will watch it at some point, but it certainly doesn’t have the same level of excitement for me that his other films have had – anyone who knows anything about my film tastes knows that I consider “Titanic” to be Cameron’s greatest film, and it is in fact one of my favorite films of all time – but the thing that sold me on that originally was the teaser.
I saw that initial teaser at the Drive-In before a double feature, and all I could think about for the rest of the night was that last shot as the camera looks down at the sinking ship… I thought it was incredible, and to be honest, it’s probably the moment I got serious about my love of movies.
I’d always been an avid film goer, and I’m proud of the fact that I’ve seen some of the greatest movies of the last 30 years on the big screen, but from that night on, an obsession was born – I devoured everything I could find on it (including tracking down a nigh impossible to get 5 minute promo piece that had run at ShoWest that year for theatre owners), and I read every single article that came out on it – and when it finally opened, I was there for the first showing, and loved it as much as I thought it would – it was the perfect experience of anticipation and conclusion in my life – so believe me, I want “Avatar” to be great – but I’m not impressed so far.
Take a look at some of the other first teasers for Cameron’s film that I’ve put below, and you tell me where “Avatar” stacks up – even without nostalgia:
“True Lies”
“Aliens”
“Terminator 2”
“Titanic”
And you can view the “Avatar” Trailer Here.
Until next time……
Cheers,
Weeksy.
