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A tale of two second-hand books →

Avatar Take II

January 26th, 2010 | Uncategorized

Let’s face it, Avatar isn’t winning any awards for best screenplay, dialogue or acting (wouldn’t that be going to the animators anyway?) and yet watching it for the second time wasn’t as big a bore as I had thought it would be.

A good deal of Pandora’s charm stays intact even on second viewing, but there are some tedious scenes – especially as the movie draws to a protracted end – during which you can take time out for certain random experiments/observations:

1. Closing one eye makes the 3D “go away”. Expected, because most theaters, including the one we went to, use stereoscopic projection – which, to put it crassly, relies on each eye seeing its own thing. After all, we’ve all got Wikipedia to do the heavy lifting.

2. The font used for the English sub-titles of Na’vi dialogues was Papyrus, which looked a little jarring. I’ll try to see the glass half-full here – it could’ve been Comic Sans.

  • govindsk
    Princess Mononoke is my benchmark for amazing animation guided by strong story, I for one will wait for DVD avatar of avatar.
  • Uhm there is not much point of watching it on a DVD! The immersive 3D experience that a huge screen enables isn't going to work on a DVD. It isn't a keeper. Watch it at a theatre or don't watch it at all :)
  • Watched it a second time? I bow to thee! The first time was boring enough for me. I just wanted to check out what the noise is about and it turned out to be too predictable, too shallow. I wasn't entertained.
  • I was quite enamored of the 3D visual effects and that is what got me there. I was also playing a parent to my parents this Republic Day and it was their first time.

    PJ alert: Yes it was too shallow for a 3D movie.
  • Well you get to think about the fon't, the3d etc only during your second time. I never noticed these, just realized all of these after reading here. BTW I've watched it only once and Luckily it IMAX 3D. I would say it was hell of an experience rather than a movie.
  • Agreed. The first time was for soaking it all in.
  • Avishek
    Not just the subtitles, the movie's title itself is in Papyrus. In fact, the font is all over the movie.

    http://tinyurl.com/yagayyj
  • Yikes, didn't realize that the title font took a beating too!
  • Gurnam Bedi
    If you close one eye, your 3D vision will disappear in real life too! Try catching a ball with one eye closed :)

    Having two eyes enables the perception of depth so no matter what technology, close one eye and nothing is really 3D. Btw, I haven't watched the movie even once yet :(
  • Oh, the reduction in 3D vision in real life is no where as drastic. Here, things that were popping out of the screen suddenly go flat.

    What about holographic projections? They'd seem 3D; in the sense that they'd still look like tangible things you could touch and hold; even with an eye closed wouldn't they?
  • Gurnam Bedi
    My original point was that no cinema technology in the world can retain true 3D-ness of an image projected on a 2D plane if you close one eye. And by 3D, I mean real 3D where your brain is pretty convinced something has depth or is sticking in your face. This can only be achieved if each eye gets a slightly different image which is just how the brain works and those 3D glasses achieve.

    There is no way around it. If you close one eye or if you are blind in one eye, nothing can help you get the True 3D™ experience :)
  • True, in real life its no way drastic because our eyes rapidly change focus depending upon the object we are looking at, that change gives a perception of depth and hence 3d. Perhaps like bokehs in photography but only real time so much that we don't notice any difference !!
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