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Cameron's Avatar Trailer Posted
graviplana was one of several people to submit that Avatar, James Cameron's 3D Sci-Fi epic has
released a trailer to whet your appetite. There's a lot of very cool visual elements in there but no indication of any actual story. Here's hoping there is one.
The correct word is "whet." To whet your appetite is to sharpen it, just as you would a knife with a whetstone. Wetting one's whistle refers to slaking or quenching thirst, but is entirely unrelated.
-mkb
only on?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
GET /movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_1080p.mov HTTP/1.1
Host: movies.apple.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2
HTTP/1.x 200 OK
X-Cache-TTL: 3186
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 93
Content-Type: video/quicktime
Server: Apache/2.2.8 (Unix)
Last-Modified: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:30:31 GMT
Etag: "5d-4719397fe4fc0"
X-Cached-Time: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:54:07 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=2473
Expires: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:50:38 GMT
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:09:25 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
the book version of starship troopers
otherwise the plot is a soldier goes to fight, gets some genetic modification and then figures out that the war is evil and being fought for ulterior reasons known only to a select few and he changes sides to fight for right
Watching the trailer you can get a little bit of info about whats going on.
Humans go to another planet, looks like a jungle planet.
They create "avatars" that are either clones, simulacrum, or repurposed native bodies.
One of the humans (the main character) who is brainmapped into an avatar, is a paraplegic in his human body.
The avatars are sent on an exploration or diplomacy mission.
(It obviously wasn't infiltration because they were wearing human clothes and carrying human gear.)
There's some fighting with some dino like things, possibly with the natives as well, although I didn't see any shots showing actual combat with natives, just strung together combat scenes that implied combat with the natives.
Oh, and the main character falls for a native female.
I'm sure somebody paying more attention to it can pick out other tidbits of info, but yeah, it was kinda sparse on data. It's not like the trailers/ads for 6th sense where you can identify all major plot points including the so called twist ending... (so bloody obvious he's one of the dead...)
GI Joe did just fine without any actual story.
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As far as the CGI goes, I'm disappointed.
Going back to old press releases, I saw Avatar being advertised as "the first ever film to include fully CGI actors."
My assumption was that they'd try to make photorealistic *human* actors CGed similar to what Beowulf did and that I'd be blown away as I watched the trailer, wondering for the first time "Is this animated or is this real?"
The blue aliens do not hold that sense of wonder for me. 1) Your mind discards aliens as looking fake in general. 2) The CG on them isn't mindblowing anyway. The animation of them is still unconvincing.
That said, I'm sure the movie will be enjoyable with a decent storyline. It's just not what I was hoping for.
480p, 720p, 1080p Enjoy!
The important thing is not to stop questioning --Albert Einstein.
No! If it has a story, then its a character drama with sci-fi trappings!!!! It doesn't matter if it takes place on a whole other planet, in the future, and couldn't have happened without sci-fi elements (space travel, cloning, mind transfer/remote control, etc) it's not sci-fi!
I read a review that district 9 was "not a science fiction movie." Why don't people admit to liking sci-fi?
It's not a trailer it's a teaser for which it's rare to have story content, usually just a number of images to give an idea of what the movie will look like.
So... where's Aang?
cameron even says so himself:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-the-new-trek-rocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html
avatar looks amazing though, a must see
the bit with the blue guys riding flying dragons reminded me a bit of "the dragonriders of pern" too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern
now someone should make THAT into a movie
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The storyâ(TM)s protagonist, Jake Sully, is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. In order to participate in the Avatar program, which will give him a healthy body, Jake agrees to travel to Pandora, a lush rainforest environment filled with incredible life forms â" some beautiful, many terrifying. Pandora is also the home to the Naâ(TM)vi, a humanoid race that lives at what humans would consider to be a primitive level, but are actually much more evolutionarily advanced than humans. Ten feet tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Naâ(TM)vi live harmoniously within their unspoiled world. But as humans encroach on Pandora in search of valuable minerals, the Naâ(TM)viâ(TM)s very existence is threatened â" and their warrior abilities unleashed. Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Naâ(TM)vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies in the real world, controlled by a human driver through a technology that links the driverâ(TM)s mind to the Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Moreover, he falls in love with a young Naâ(TM)vi woman, Neytiri, whose beauty is matched by her ferocity in battle. As Jake slides deeper into becoming one of her clan, he finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Naâ(TM)vi â" forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.
http://www.chaotickingdoms.com
After all, they spent all that effort to genetically engineer Maenads.
Yes, the CGI is stunning - for most of the trailer, it's hard to believe it's not live action. They have made a huge leap across the uncanny valley, and successfully.
But I have a few problems with it, just like most CGI movies these days:
The robots don't move right. It doesn't "feel" like a robot to me. James Cameron was the guy behind Aliens, and he seems to have forgotten that one of the reasons that was such a believable movie (despite taking place in the future, on an alien planet, fighting aliens with two mouths) was the use of "today" tech. So I would have expected Cameron to make Avatar's robots more like the military robots we envision today. I'm sure 1000 years from now, robots will move identically to a human (as in the movie) but I'd still prefer movie robots today to move more like real robots we have today.
Predators shouldn't announce their presence. There's a scene in the trailer where a dino-thing jumps out of the bushes, roars, and runs after people. I see this all the time in action movies where some large animal is about to attack the hero: the predator rises from the bushes (or from behind whatever), bellows, then rushes to attack. But in that split-second, our hero is able to throw himself behind cover, narrowly avoiding being eaten. Ever watch actual predator/prey wildlife - even a house cat pouncing on a mouse. Predators just don't announce their attacks - they just pounce. If you stop to roar, your prey gets away, and you go hungry.
That said, I'll probably still go see this when it comes out.
they won't deliver my calls and text messages and they won't cancel my contract.
The story's protagonist, Jake Sully, is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. In order to participate in the Avatar program, which will give him a healthy body, Jake agrees to travel to Pandora, a lush rainforest environment filled with incredible life forms - some beautiful, many terrifying. Pandora is also the home to the Na'vi, a humanoid race that lives at what humans would consider to be a primitive level, but are actually much more evolutionarily advanced than humans. Ten feet tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Na'vi live harmoniously within their unspoiled world. But as humans encroach on Pandora in search of valuable minerals, the Na'vi's very existence is threatened â" and their warrior abilities unleashed.
Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Na'vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies in the real world, controlled by a human driver through a technology that links the driver's mind to the Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Moreover, he falls in love with a young Na'vi woman, Neytiri, whose beauty is matched by her ferocity in battle.
As Jake slides deeper into becoming one of her clan, he finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Na'vi - forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.
http://www.chaotickingdoms.com
The correct word is "whet." To whet your appetite is to sharpen it....
But what if there's a trailer is intended to dampen fans' appetites?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Cartoon-like blue CGI aliens and an apparently average summer blockbuster story. Maybe it's better in 3D, but in 2D it's laughable.
Did it seem like (after years of hype) Cameron made a simultaneous remake of Ferngully and Starship toopers? I still have hope that the movie will be better than the trailer, but you never know.
Here's an annotated version of the trailer to illustrate the point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRTrWsKPKh8
This does not bode well. The CGI, which would have been impressive on an XBox or PS3, instead jars with the real-life scenes. They make no attempt to even hint at a plot, which tells me that they have essentially strung together a parade of impressive FX to hang on the bones of an irrelevant story. And you can guarantee that they will not take any time to let the story breath underneath all of those explosions.
No.
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
I've got to say I'm much more excited about the other avatar movie, due out next summer. I might end up being horribly disappointed, but the tv series rocked and left me wanting more.
Watch it again. There where pure "humans" in that video and they are 100% CG.
And to be honest, I disagree with the assertion that the trailer doesn't give away any hint of the story. We have no idea if the story will be *good* but from the trailer we learn that a wounded soldier is able to fight again, albeit by proxy, controlling an indigenous creature of an alien planet.
Yeah, that ain't much, but it's an intriguing idea, and a helluva lot more plot that we got with GI-Joe.
"They make no attempt to even hint at a plot"
Are you serious?
This is Sci-Fi, you can just make shit up as you please
And anything mysterious you need to justify, you can just attribute to Quantum Flux.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Sorry to interject an unrelated movie but I must make a comparision. This movie looks visually stunning, but I hope the writing and plot are as good as district 9 was. D9 was, by far, was one of the best sci fi films I've seen in decades and it did it on the cheap. And that's all that really needs to be said.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
There was not a single thing in that summary not clearly portrayed in the trailer. The trailer is not devoid of story - it completely gives away the entire plot. They only thing they don't show is the ending but it is very unlikely it wont end with things working out for the 'good' guys. But the paralysis - the transfer to another body - the love interest - the combat against invading earth forces - it's all there. This is a very typical anti-development, pro-nature type film that hollywood has been cranking out for some time.
I'm looking forward to seeing it - but not for the plot.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Holy smokes, does that look stupid.
I couldn't even bother to finish a 2 minute trailer. Can someone from Hollywood send me 30 million bucks, and I'll mail them my bowel movements for the next year?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
It looked a lot like Final Fantasy to me - which I thought was pretty cool but it came out a while ago. It will be interesting to see how the full film compares.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You will see the "photorealism".
Also, while you are at it, pay attention to scenes where Na'vi are being angry.
They seem far more realistic then, as they squint their eyes and look more like humans in those shots.
Oh and Beowulf...
Come on. This is several classes above Beowulf. Beowulf was barely above Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
They walked and articulated like puppets. Na'vi look real.
Alien and not quite humanly (as they are not humans) but they move like living things.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
i read somewhere james cameron said it was dances with wolves but with aliens. it's what came to my mind when i read the synopsis (dude infiltrates a foreign and somewhat hostile group, falls in love, becomes one of them, is forced to decide whether to betray his former life).
Trailer reflects a lot of different Joe Haldeman books. I see pieces of "All My Sins Remembered," "Forever Peace," and a tiny bit of "Forever War." Ridley Scott's planning to film "Forever War," and he said he was inspired to do it in 3-D after seeing what Cameron had done with Avatar. The avatar thing connects with Haldeman's "Forever Peace" very well.
Wish Taco would avoid the snide comment about the trailer lacking story. It's not like Cameron has proven himself a poor storyteller on his past films. Just because it's CGI and science fiction, doesn't mean this is going to be garbage like Transformers 2 or Terminator 4.
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They were showing a trailer for Surrogates at District Nine. The plots sound similar- intermeshed human-MMO worlds gone flakey. Cameron may have better F/X from what I've seen so far. If both are well-executed, then I may like both.
Plot (and more) has been known for some time now.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I would have to add 'Transformers 2' to the list of movies "doing well with no story".
dumber people are doing harder things everyday
So... in other words they did a *really* good job. Those humans are CGI.
Trying to ride on the coat-tails of Felicia Day's hit indie geeky music video (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar, which shot to the top of iTunes/Amazon/YouTube on Monday. How very sad.
What are you even talking about? The first trailer release for any movie is a teaser, they NEVER give you any indication of the plot. They're just trying to generate some interest. In a few weeks or months we'll get some more informative trailers. In any case, if you look closely you can see some potential interesting plot/character development bits, like how the main mech driver that you see seems to be in a wheel chair at first and then gets converted into one of the night-elf looking guys, thus regaining the use of his legs. How's that for a mind-trip? Also, did you notice there's a war on and what appears to be an inter-species love story as well? Jeez.
As for the graphics, get off your AOL dial-up connection and watch it at 1080p and then tell me it looks like an xbox. As someone who owns Beowulf in blu-ray and Final Fantasy, and whose gaming PC can play FarCry2 at 1920x1200 resolution, 2xAA with ~47 fps average framerates, I can say that this stuff looks better than any of those. I was surprised at just how little uncanny valley there is in the human characters. The aliens looked a little weird, but I reserve judgement until I've seen it. It could be that they're well aliens and we're not supposed to closely identify with their movements.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Here's to hopin there will be an iMax release
Weren't the humans in Final Fantasy the Spirits Within CGI? Wouldn't that make this film 8 years late in being the first?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I bet there is a statue of Frodo Baggins somewhere in that planet. Almost beg for a LOTR/Avatar crossover. They use bows, looks somewhat elvish, if the "ships" used to leave the Middle Earth were starships back then, could be made a whole future/past story blending both fantasy and sci-fi with somewhat little effort. Of course, the actual full movie could dispell those similarities, but was my first impression looking at the trailer.
I'm impressed that Apple's server isn't even sweating while serving hordes of slashdotters eager to take a first look. My initial thoughts after watching the trailer: Wow - very nice visual appearance.
Underholdning.info
This seems rather similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_me_joe which was originally published in 1957. All the elements are there: cripple who telepathically controls a foreign species due to hostile environment, who then loses his grip on who he is. It's a great story but I hope it gets credit as the "seed" for this movie.
Give several story points in a trailer, and people will complain you gave away the entire plot.
Keep the story elements to a minimum, and people will complain your trailer is shallow.
There is no victory for them, is there?
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Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42087
lol
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you look closely in the first scene, the creature roars and then jumps over the main character. That would be a very strange behavior for a predator indeed. I suspect the creature is something else.
In general though, you're absolutely spot on, I'll never forget that velociraptor that politely waited for the hunter to get out his witty remark, "Oh you're a clever girl" before attacking. Goofy.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Predators shouldn't announce their presence. There's a scene in the trailer where a dino-thing jumps out of the bushes, roars, and runs after people. I see this all the time in action movies where some large animal is about to attack the hero: the predator rises from the bushes (or from behind whatever), bellows, then rushes to attack. But in that split-second, our hero is able to throw himself behind cover, narrowly avoiding being eaten.
Actually... no. You are judging the scene from a handful of out of sequence and cut-off shots.
Here is how that scene actually plays.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41793
One of the first things we see on the planet is Worthington's Avatar playing with these tube-snake-like flora. He touches one and it disappears, sucking back into the ground with a FROOMPF. He's delighted, playing around in this field of tall plants, making them disappear with a touch until he does that to one and it reveals a really pissed off giant rhino lookin' thing with a hammerhead nose.
It brays at Worthington's Avatar and stamps its feet, threatening to charge. The Moore Avatar and Sigourney Weaver Avatar are with-in shouting distance and Weaver stops him from using the giant machine gun he's carrying, saying the hide is too tough and that shooting it will only piss it off.
The Worthington Avatar is unsure of what to do, even thought Weaver is telling him this rhino thing is just putting on a threat display and won't charge if Worthington stands his ground. There's a herd of rhino-aliens behind this one, which keeps braying and using his hammerhead horn nose to knock down trees. It shows its displeasure by a colorful ruff raising (like peacocks feathers but armored).
The creature doesn't seem to know it's just a territorial threat display and charges Worthington's Avatar who just charges it right back, screaming. It stops and looks confused, then scarred, turning back and running away with the heard.
Of course that means a slick-skinned panther-like creature is behind Worthington. It leaps over him and charges the bigger game, which runs off... then it turns and realizes there's another smaller, but just as tasty morsel right in front of him.
Apparently, the predator-creature WAS all sneaky and hidden, going after the "rhino-aliens" but Jake's avatar alerted one of those who started to charge at him, in turn making the predator-creature think it's cover is blown and it's under attack so it turns from a hunter into a defender, roars and attacks.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Avatar looks like it might actually be better with no story than the ham-fisted "back to nature" plot it appears to have.
Over and out.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I *did* watch in full rez - and yep, jarringly unrealistic CGI. Didn't impress, sorry.
As for teasing - I didn't feel at all teased, but I did feel like I was watching a video game, which is exactly what most of these sorts of movies have become; indeed, one could say that the very first Star Wars was the prototype for movie-as-videogame-thrillride.
Honestly it unintentionally looks like one of those movies where they combine obvious animation with real filmed characters. It just doesn't work here for me, but I'm sure those weaned on game consoles will love it (which, again, is probably the whole point - I think your response to my post was essentially saying "Waaa, the bad man criticized my XBox!")
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Here's the thing I hate about sci-fi plots. Humans have the ability to fly half way across the galaxy, can engineer biological hybrids, can link those hybrids to a humans mind, but the simple act of reconnecting a spinal cord back together in order to cure paralysis is still beyond their reach?
I couldn't even bother to finish a 2 minute trailer.
I do believe that there is a treatment for that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Na'vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies in the real world, controlled by a human driver through a technology that links the driver's mind to the Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Moreover, he falls in love with a young Na'vi woman, Neytiri, whose beauty is matched by her ferocity in battle.
Humanoid aliens. *sigh* I can buy it if the scenario is along the lines of ancient astronauts where the humanoid aliens are actually genetically modified from human stock or something like a Stargate where human life is seeded on other worlds by powerful entities in the past but it does sort of irk me when humanoid lifeforms evolve independently with no other explanation than someone handwaving and saying "Perhaps the bipedal form is the most superior one for earth-like worlds." Bah. I'll only buy it if the explanation is "They don't look like us. We look like them!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Good call. The plot sounded vaguely familiar, but it's been a while since I read that story. Thanks for the reminder.
"This thing does science so hard, you say, 'I've never seen that much science.'" -Sam
It is because people are ashamed of and/or intimidated by their ignorance of basic science and technology, so they cope by inventing excuses to devalue those endeavors.
the plot device doesn't output that ability.
I've been duped!
Cameron said he wanted to make more 'alien' aliens, but that conflicted with one of the plot points... a human consciousness in an alien body, falling in love with another alien. He had to go with the humanoid look in order to not completely repulse the audience.
...that could very well be a part of what lies behind the "every single science fiction book I read as a kid" line.
As for the story... This is but a teaser.
There is plenty of the story explained and revealed on wikipedia and elsewhere on the internet.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
1. "Hey, let's combine an SF action film with World of Warcracft!"
2. "Let's make sure to cram another ecological parable down viewer's throats, and have the human troops (which just happen to look like current American troops) be the bad guys. Sure, every anti-war film we make tanks and loses money, but this is science fiction Maybe we cans lip it by them."
3. And why are we blowing up the tall blue eleven Ewoks? For minerals! Yeah, cause we're really going to send huge space armadas via Faster Than Light travel all the way to another solar system for minerals.
It isn't sweating NOW.
After days of anticipation they have failed spectacularly.
Instead of seeing it exclusively on Apple's site the internet got the first look at the trailer from France's MSN portal.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
yeah, cause if james cameron is good at anything, it's telling a fuckin' LOVE STORY
Exactly.
1) they release movies with pretty graphics and no story.
2) then they release movies with graphics AND story.
=> profit
If you *reverse* the order, then they only make half the profit because nobody would pay to see movies of type #1 if type #2 are available!
Cameron said he wanted to make more 'alien' aliens, but that conflicted with one of the plot points... a human consciousness in an alien body, falling in love with another alien. He had to go with the humanoid look in order to not completely repulse the audience.
*imagines aliens looking like James Carville.* You're right. I withdraw my objection.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Here's the thing I hate about sci-fi plots. Humans have the ability to fly half way across the galaxy, can engineer biological hybrids, can link those hybrids to a humans mind, but the simple act of reconnecting a spinal cord back together in order to cure paralysis is still beyond their reach?
I guess Health Care Reform didn't work in this sci-fi.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
I've seen more convincing CGI in console titles. Come back Jar-Jar, all is forgiven.
Seriously anyone with kids around 15 years old should remember the craptastic film Ferngully in which a construction worker is magically altered and joins the creatures fight over "Ferngully". Seems highly reminiscent.. I'm not a fan of movies that regurgitate old ideas and sell them as their own. Oh wait, that's all anyone does anymore. My bad
What I saw in the Avatar teaser was HALO Vs World of Warcraft...Men with big guns fighting the elves...
*All* humans in the trailer are CG? If so, then 1) I am blown away. 2) Would like to ask the people that animated the human models to go back and animate the blue-skinned alien models.
I agree those would make great movies, especially the original trilogy. I would love to see the first Dragonriders of Pern trilogy made into three movies. My question is do you leave it like it is and get an R rating (maybe even NC-17 depending on how graphic you make a couple of the scenes) or do you clean it up for a PG-13. There are only a couple of scenes in the book that would put it over the top and they don't effect the plot much. On the other hand those scenes do a lot to explain the culture.
I would also love to see the Harper Hall of Pern trilogy made into a movie trilogy as well.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That's the first time I read Avatar's plot summary, and I must say I don't like it at all. The concept - Jake's consciousness in an alien's body is fine, but everything else just reeks of cliches. "Noble savages" for aliens who a have different skin tone, elvish ears and motherfucking flying dragons, greedy white man stealing the alien's natural resources, etc. Uh-oh.
Also, I hope there's a good reason why they can redirect a human's consciousness into an alien, but can't heal partial paralysis. Other than that, the trailer looks good visually... but they have James fucking Cameron directing the movie and the trailer says "From the Director of Titanic"?! If that's their target audience, I think I just might skip it unless the 3D stuff is really kickin' rad!
"no indication of any actual story. Here's hoping there is one." ? Really? There was extensive coverage of the story during SDCC, and you hope there is one? Yes, there's a story, and it's a good one.
To be more accurate:
If the humans at the 0:40 (close-up of the old man), 0:59 (two guys looking into the blue tank), and 1:06 (guy using the computer) mark of the 1080p trailer are 100% CG, then I am blown away.
I was wondering that myself. I don't know how the FF movie was made, but is it possible they used human actors to do the positioning in FF, and this was all made on computers? I don't know what it's called, but it's where an actor wears a funky spandex suit with dots all over it so a computer can follow their movements and mimic it with a CG character. It was used for Gollum in LotR.
I'm hoping for a great story, because otherwise it's just Fantasia. And while I like Fantasia very much, that's already been done.
And I want a complex story where neither side is completely good, and neither side is completely bad, and neither side is completely all powerful and neither side is completely helpless. Let the decisions to be made be hard ones, not obvious choices, but I still won't mind a HEA ending.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They make no attempt to even hint at a plot, which tells me that they have essentially strung together a parade of impressive FX to hang on the bones of an irrelevant story.
Yeah! Cameron and unimpressive, irrelevant stories... like Terminator, Titanic, Aliens, True Lies... A real nobody.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Oh, and don't make one side all wise while the other is totally stupid. Let both sides be intelligent and capable and that this is conflicting motives where both sides are both right and wrong. Then you'll really have something.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Human to alien transformation is sort of a core SF idea, which was done very well in the classic (60's) Outer Limits episode 'The Cameleon' with Robert Duval in the tile roll. Harlan didn't write this one though, credit goes to Lou Morheim and series creator Joe Stefano.
From 1940:
Here's the thing I hate about sci-fi plots. Humans have created a vast global super-high-speed data network capable of transferring entire libraries of information across the planet in under one second, have sent actual human beings to the moon, have cracked the entire human genome and are genetically engineering crops and animals, but the simple act of creating a flying car is still beyond their reach?
Yes, FF was entirely motion capture. Which maximized the "uncanny valley" effect. Though it was the best job I'd seen rendering human hair up until that point.
lolwut...? blue-skinned pointy-eared tall skinny dudes on dragons in a landscape with inexplicably floating landmasses. Uh...
That which does not kill us makes us... st
Love Cameron's work, but this trailer left me going "So what? Big deal." Has my imagination become so jaded by over-the-top CGI that it just doesn't impress me any more? These days I'd much rather see low budget live-action than mega-buck CGI. Computers have ruined movies. Now where do I sign up for that luddite dating service?
Actually, creating a flying car isn't beyond our reach. There have been several of them. What is beyond our reach is creating one that is economical and safe enough for the average joe to use.
Yes, the CGI is stunning - for most of the trailer, it's hard to believe it's not live action. They have made a huge leap across the uncanny valley, and successfully.
The CGI is far from Stunning. It is on par with most of todays CG character work, and even looks in some spots to have taken a step backwards. As for the uncanny valley, that applies to Humans, not aliens.
that doesn't inspire me with confidence.
as for the rest of it... an aliens/t2 mashup. blue things look like super soldiers, being kept by humans (a la aliens). the ships are the same things from aliens/t2. seriously... get a new idea.
"FROM THE DIRECTOR OF TITANIC"
yeah - the man who used the tragic death of like 1500 people to hang a trite love story. still gives you the hope that in 80 odd years time we can use the 9/11 as a backdrop to another trite love story. perhaps they can be on the roof leaning over like in titanic.
Best movie of the summer. And I mean it.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Word. We can even put someone in another(higher) life form, but we can't put them even in a functional human body? Anyone see G.I. Joe? How come Cobra Commander has all this cool facial technology but couldn't fix himself? Please James Cameron, please let this be a good film and not $250 million CG 3-D demo. You're one of the last film makers who hasn't disappointed me...
I'm a little stunned at the lack of faith here.
This is the guy who directed (and even more importantly, WROTE) Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and Terminator 2. The latter two in particular also pioneered groundbreaking CGI effects for the time, and the stories certainly didn't suffer as a result.
Cameron has proven himself a visionary and gifted storyteller (particularly in the sci-fi realm) many times over. Your self-assured criticism of the story (based on a TEASER, ffs) is unwarranted and premature. This isn't Michael Bay or McG we're talking about here, it's a man whose previous forays into sci-fi are widely considered classics of the genre.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I also watched the 1080p version and was terribly unimpressed.
It looked technically complicated and high-res or whatever, but it did not look "good". I think it fell flat-faced right into the uncanny valley for me (which, as a perspective thing, is of course relative to the viewer). No need to throw insults around just because someone wasn't as enamored with it as you were.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Having read the (now scrubbed from the web after having floated around for several years) full script treatment penned by Cameron, I can assure you that it's a very solid story.
It IS formula, but then so was Titanic, (and Dances with Wolves for that matter). But Cameron knows how to work a formula impeccably. And the guy has actually gone and found a New Cool technology, which if used effectively and spun right, (think Jurassic Park), can help significantly in the promotion of a film.
The buzz is that the 3D has got the techs in Hollywood really excited about going to work every day.
People are going to see this film in droves and they are going to be blown away by it. I feel safe in predicting that.
Avatar, however, isn't going to be bigger than Titanic in terms of sales. I'll go ahead and predict that as well. --Why not? Because he isn't tapping the same doomed-romance nerve which is crack-cocaine to the average 15 year-old girl.
The casting of Titanic was both cynical and brilliant: Casting the almost beautiful Kate Winslet as the female lead was a sly maneuver which allowed the female audience to fantasize over the notion that even plane-Jane girls like themselves could have their very own Leonardo Decaprio. --And that his character should conveniently die at the end of the film so that he wouldn't put his lover through years of poverty, while in the same action giving her a bitter-sweet memory to polish and secretly wax pathetic over for years and years. . , well, that's just orgasmic! The girl-buttons deep inside girl-machines are placed in some really odd ways, but Cameron found 'em all and pushed every last one he could reach.
Avatar is going to be really cool, but it's not going to press nearly so many girl-buttons. (Though, images of blue amazon elf maidens I suspect will become popular in comic book shops). And who knows? My own understanding of girl-buttons is admittedly rudimentary. Maybe Cameron's onto something that I'm not anticipating. It IS a love story, after all, and maybe that's enough to make the teen girls watch it half a dozen times as they did with Titanic. My guess, however, is that classical material riches, classic questions of marrying for love or for money, combined with the bad boy thing. . , well I suspect this will always out-rank sci-fi mojo amongst the teen girl set.
In any case, this film looks very much like I pictured it from Cameron's prose, with one exception; I thought most of the fauna of Pandora was going to be glowing like a school of lamprey fish, but I guess the screen tests of that just didn't touch the right emotional nerves in viewers. The Audience is human, after all and Cameron knows his human psychology. I'm glad he's a sci-fi film maker and not a propaganda man like Goebbels!
-FL
OMG! The trailer looks so awesome.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
Seems more like this to me: http://www.delgo.com/
Two things.
I know Dances with Wolves was not a James Cameron movie. The formula bears some similarities to Avatar, though. I'd say that Avatar is rather like Dances with Wolves, mixed with Aliens, mixed with a bit of Strange Days and all boiled in a broth of Pocahontas.
The second thing is that I spelled "Plain-Jane" incorrectly and was feeling bugged by my not being able to correct it. Perhaps I am getting befuddled by the now ubiquitous auto-correcting spelling feature which seems to have grown like a fungus across my entire OS. . . Doubt I'll turn it off, though!
Cheers!
-FL
instead jars with the real-life scenes
LOL, the whole thing is CGI... You complain about looking like an XBox while thinking there is real live action in there... Hahaha, too funny.
Hate to quibble, but at the end of GI Joe, Cobra Commander does fix himself. He no longer needs his breath mask, because he programmed his nanobots to repair his lungs. That's one way that Storm Shadow could have survived the movie as well. (because Cobra Commander has that remote control that lets him control the nanobots in every one of his soldiers. He could theoretically have sent a signal out ordering them to heal damage on any of his troops right before he was captured)
i read somewhere james cameron said it was dances with wolves but with aliens. it's what came to my mind when i read the synopsis (dude infiltrates a foreign and somewhat hostile group, falls in love, becomes one of them, is forced to decide whether to betray his former life).
What would make it even more like Dances With Wolves would be if the woman he falls in love with was herself a transplant to the alien culture who adapted, in addition to being the President of the Twelve Colonies.
(hehe sorry I recently saw Dances again and made the connection)
The enemies of Democracy are
a human consciousness in an alien body, falling in love with another alien. He had to go with the humanoid look in order to not completely repulse the audience.
Why not? It worked in Galaxy Quest!
The enemies of Democracy are
I agree, I'm not installing CrapTime player on my machine for that. VLC FTW, just need to jump through the usual BS Apple hoops to get to the content.
You must have repressed your memories of Titanic, written and directed by your friend, James Cameron, ya?
There is no victory for them, is there?
Nope, not if the plot is so trite that a few story points actually do give away the whole plot, or the story is so boring that just a few teases don't properly whet the appetite.
It's certainly not an easy thing to do, but I thought that's what some of that hundreds of millions of dollars went toward. I have often left a theater wondering why the producers don't take 1 million out of the 100+ million FX budget and put it into hiring someone with actual talent in vague concepts like storyline, continuity, plot elements, creativity, etc.
This, IMHO, is exactly what I want in a trailer. I want to see what the movie looks like, but I don't want to know much, if anything at all, about the story. District 9's trailers were good in this aspect that they didn't give away the whole storyline and they didn't show all of the coolest fx in one go, there was still a lot to discover in the movie even after watching all the trailers.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Yeah, judging from the trailer it is a bad breed between SW: episode 2 and some Disney's Pocahontas or whatever.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
Those 3 movies you mentieoned were made 20 years ago, before everything he had the most tenuous connection to was anticipated more than the second coming and hailed as genius before it went into production. Then he made a whole bunch of shit movies. No one can keep the streak going forever, especially when his driving force has seemed to change from cool stories that have cool effects to cool effects that need a story to allow him to use them in a movie.
Sorry man, I don't follow. I didn't see Cobra Commander fix his appearance or condition, he just put on another face mask.
Would you call it a bad film? I wouldn't. I think Cameron has always focused on using technology to enhance storytelling (a la T2), rather than use it as an excuse to make a movie, a la practically every big CGI mess today.
"the almost beautiful Kate Winslet"
Almost?!
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
THAT's the part that bothers you?
How about: Humans fly half way across the galaxy, and encounter aliens roughly the same shape that also have a cultural hangup about exposed boobs.
(It's not just that they are essentially humans in furry suits, they are AMERICANS in furry suits. Boobs=bad, violence=OK)
Don't put advice in your sig.
Eh, Titanic wasn't that bad. It was just a chick flick with a predictable plot and journeyman acting that you wouldn't think justify it being one of the highest grossing movies of the last century. Was it worse than some other top-grossing movies like the Star Wars movies? Not by much.
For a movie to be top-grossing, to a certain extent it's got to be mass-marketable to a broad segment of the population, accessible to at least some with an IQ of 85. Terminator 1 & 2 manage to do well in spite of an intelligent plot by including explosions and special effects to distract and satisfy the prurient interests of those on the lower end of the IQ scale. Generally though, a movie which makes people think is more likely to get niche cult status like Blade Runner than be a blockbuster. Funding is more easy to get for the former than for the latter.
In the past, due to the large cost of filming (equipment, crew, location rental, etc), let alone special effects, a movie has had to avoid being too intelligent and challenging to its audience to be able recover its costs. I actually hope that one of the effects of decreasing costs in digital filming, editing, and distribution is that we'll eventually see some really intelligent films being budgeted and produced for a niche highly-intelligent audience. You would think some advertisers would want to reach that group. Some of them might even eventually reach the mass market in a "Brief History of Time" sitting-on-your-coffee-table way.
However it's going to take the retirement of the current generation of producers and distributors before that can happen, and it certainly won't happen in this economy where everybody is risk averse. The TV channels are awash in variants of police and forensic procedurals. CBC killed a show like Intelligence, but a lowbrow show like 24 gets high ratings on Fox. Sigh.
She has pretty sharp knees.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
You do know that "A Brief History of TIme" was made into a movie, right? It even included reasonably significant CG back at a time when that was really expensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time_(film)
What an absolutely ridiculous statement, I am not sure if what you said is meant to be taken seriously. Where, outside of a childs mind, would the two be linked? Why ever would one technological advance, have anything to do with a completely unrelated advance?
I guess you are equally confused when you see that we have major advances in chip design, but are still driving around in cars essentially unchanged from 100 years ago.
But its in 3D!!!!!!!!!!
For anyone in Wellington NZ, Reading Cinemas has free 15 minute previews of Avatar today.
Enjoy.
LOL, excuse me?
He's made exactly two feature films since T2: True Lies and Titanic.
Personal tastes aside, this is your definition of "a whole bunch of shit movies"?
The simple fact is, every single feature that James Cameron has helmed (and no, I don't count Piranha 2, he "inherited" that when the original director left) has been a critical and commercial success. He simply took a big break from feature films after Titanic.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
True, and good movies all of them. But he also did titanic, the last movie he made.
Sorry? I thought the hostile group was the foreigners. You make it sound like the natives were foreign. Just a slip right?
Fuck that. We still haven't created an average joe I would trust with something as heavy as an SUV but 4 times as fast!
...and said it wants its Smurfs back.
Predators shouldn't announce their presence. There's a scene in the trailer where a dino-thing jumps out of the bushes, roars, and runs after people. I see this all the time in action movies where some large animal is about to attack the hero: the predator rises from the bushes (or from behind whatever), bellows, then rushes to attack.
Predators announce their presence before attacking quite often. I usually assume a big, showy attack is an example of a territorial defense, with the human viewed as a rival predatory species.
---
Science Fiction Movie Feed @ Feed Distiller
how the hell an inane, stupid-ass post that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the topic has been moderated to the top and marked "Informative"?
You knew what the poster meant, you pedantic wanker.
Your post (as is mine) is completely unrelated, in any way, to the actual content of the story. So, while it might be "Informative" in a completely and utterly useless sense, it doesn't contribute in the least to the actual topic of conversation.
It's an Internet forum, not an English Course and nobody voted you the grammar/spelling police. Just because you CAN post, doesn't mean you should (unless you are contributing something meaningful to the actual topic of discussion).
Next time you get ready to hit "Submit", try taking a deep breath, relaxing your sphincter just a bit and reading what you wrote. If it sounds as trite and ridiculous as what you just posted, you'd be better off not wasting your bandwidth and more importantly the time, of those of us who have to peruse through this sort of tripe to get to something which actually contributes to the actual discussion.
Yeah, what a failure that was.
Titanic was a victim of its own success, like an overplayed song on the radio.
Either way, Cameron deserves more than a scornful assumption that all he'll produce is vacuous eye candy.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
looks like hotlinking has been disabled.
and downloading didn't work...I got a 1KB file...think something got hosed
Sure, Kate's not perfect by common beauty standards. And yes, I appreciated that in a weird way, for variety alone. But let's be fair here, Leo's not all that either. So it was a movie with two (visually) non-perfect people. (Which was kinda nice.) Speaking for myself, it wasn't "Even you can get Leo." If there was an "even you" in there at all, it was, "Even girls like you could get that deep, amazing love."
Have you seen her in anything recent? No thanks, no thanks.
There was a lot of very inconsistent frame doubling.
One part went like this: (starting at 0:25)
single frame: I
doubled frame: -
I-IIII-III-III-I-I-II-I-I-I-I-II I-I---I--I--I--I---I--I-I-I-I-I-II-I-I-I-I-II-I-I-I
This scene cross fades with a scene that doubles every 9th or 10th frame.
just need to set your user-agent to a "quicktime" user-agent (which means u can do it in Firefox with one of the many user-agent extensions or using wget)
QuickTime/7.6.2 (qtver=7.6.2;os=Windows NT 5.1Service Pack 3)
or
QuickTime/7.6.2
though for me, firefox didn't work...but wget does.
Even some of the live action shots looked really bad by today's standards. Him wheeling out of the landing craft looked like a CG stunt double even though I'm sure it's live action. The CG stunt double in the Mech suit in the same scene looked straight out of a 1999 game cinematic. Matrix Revolutions' mechs looked pretty much dead on perfect--District 9's mech looked pretty much perfect. These? Look like average to below average movie CG. Terribly unimpressed so far with the VFX. Especially after seeing District 9 which nailed it across the board.
Although I've heard from people in the know that all the shots in the trailer look nothing like the final quality. I'll take their word for it, because not very many of those shots look like they should have been approved and finaled in their current state.
The lack of uncanny valley is due to the fact that they filmed it in live action as well as cg and blended that together, so the things like people's faces that are very hard to pull off will still look extremely realistic. That said, some of the characters faces were cg, especially the aliens, and they still looked pretty believable.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
GI Joe did just fine without any actual story.
For certain values of "just fine."
... and then they built the supercollider.
It's a great story but I hope it gets credit as the "seed" for this movie.
Yes I thought of that story too and I am sure it won't get credit. The Matrix was highly derivative too.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Jesus, the eyes on the aliens are fucking so obvious crap CGI. That flop last year Dalgo or whatever had more realistic CG than these ones shown.
Their target audience is "everybody." There are two types of James Cameron fans, for the most part. There are the ones who know him as "the guy who did Titanic" -- they don't know his name and don't know anything about Avatar, so there is merit in splashing those words on the screen. The nerds who worship him for Aliens and Terminator 2 know what Avatar is, don't need to be told that James Cameron is behind it, and don't need to be told that he directed those movies.
Sorry?
I'm pretty sure that the girl in Dances with Wolves is native (even in the movie which diverges from the book). Granted, it's been a while.
(And that sounds like a BSG reference, not DwW.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.
Wow. The fate of just one measly world? Not of the galaxy? And not the standard "of the entire universe"? I thought this was standard Hollywood sci-fi! What gives? How is that going to sound impressive when spoken by the voice-over guy in all the trailers? Man!
Maybe this is what Cameron means when he talks about realism.
Apparently Apple is checking for an appropriate user agent string. The following worked for me "wget -U QuickTime/7.6.2 http://movies.apple.com/movies/fox/avatar/avatar2009aug0820a-tsr_h1080p.mov".
source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1245441
I Don't Work Here
Nah, it's more of Pretentiousgeek is trying too hard to be pretentious and got called on it.
I must admit, I'm impressed; and here was I, thinking that the Tories were a bunch of rather wet whiners, who couldn't do much better than complaing about Gordon Brown, and then it turns out that David Cameron has a creative talent as well. Oh, wait, it said James Cameron; never mind.
Someone writes something maybe you got a good story maybe you've got something nobody cares about. Until you actually put it out there you can't tell for sure.
But if something blows up while stuntmen fly through the air in slow motion you can see you've got something visceral right away. And if you've been inhaling a lot of cocaine that thing kicks ass.
www.nodicerpg.com - Some RP stuff for free, some not so for free, but still cheap.
Terrans vs Night Elves.
Fuck that. We still haven't created an average joe I would trust with a pet rock.
And here I am, lost in dichotomic limbo, for I have seen Aliens and T2, yet do not know what Avatar is.
*Vanishes in a puff of logic*
Well, he healed Destro's third degree burns...
True, he covered the skin with a metal mask, but at least he healed what would otherwise be a serious illness.
Yes - he's obviously dating a supermodel when he's not posting on /.
It's ok, dude. We will imagine dating the Kate Winslets of the world. HE can imagine turning imaginary Kate Winslets down, and imagine dating women that meet his outrageously high standards, leaving many more imaginary dates free for our imaginary handsome, witty, socially adept selves.
Good point. They should pass out more cocaine at theaters.
I read the screenplay for this about 5 years ago at this point. Honestly surprised it took so long to get made. I guess Cameron wanted technology to catch up to his imagination.
The basic plot is a) humanity discovers alien world, b) populated by weird creatures, the most intelligent of which are the blue humanoid ones - you can think of them sort of as Native Americans; and c) that's pretty much the plot. Humans come to conquer this new world.
To do this they d) grow "avatars" who are biologically like the aliens but into which human consciousness can be uploaded. This is done to e) interact with the aliens and convince them to let humans take over their planet. f) The aliens are not so keen on the idea and g) fight back. h) it turns out that they're not just primitives but that they i) live in close consciousness-sharing harmony with other creatures on their planet and j) their entire planet via plants.
See, they k) have nerve bundles growing in their hair and these let them connect with other living beings, such as l) the pterodactyls which they're able to pilot by mind control. m) One particularly nasty human soldier scalps one of the main aliens and this is a very dramatic thing. n) the protagonist is a crippled Earth scientist who can't walk, but when loaded into his "avatar" he can, and so he wants to stay in his alien body. o) When an alien dies they get absobed by the foliage and become part of the planetary consciousness. p) Because the protagonist helps to chase off the nasty humans q)by wiping out the invading force and sending Earth a fake message about a lethal virus being on the planet, r) the aliens make him a permanent alien. s) there is also the obligatory love story.
There, aren't you glad I just saved you 2 hours and $20???
Sure, it'll be visually pretty but the plot is lame. Unless you're 13.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I think it's the Uncanny valley but man, those blue things jumping around just look completely strange to me. And I don't find them at all intriguing either, it looks like a college 3D project from 4 years ago.
Honestly I cannot tell why this is supposed to be so popular. Why is everyone thinking this movie is going to be the next huge hit?
Compare this to anything Pixar is done and the difference in quality is just striking.
Yes - he's obviously dating a supermodel when he's not posting on /.
Oh, settle down now. I've been with some unattractive 'beautiful' girls, and I've been with some beautiful 'unattractive' girls, and I've learned which I like more. It's definitely the soul that counts. --But that doesn't prevent me from being able to comment on Cameron's casting.
-FL
We have flying cars. They are called airplanes and helicopters.
The political and economic problems are more significant than the engineering ones. If we did have a car which worked as well on the ground and in the air, it would face so many legal restrictions as to be unfeasible anyway.
I just watched an interview with Cameron and he said the film is 35% live action - and I'm going to guess that part of that is the people.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Watched the 1080p ..... there is nothing impressive about the CGI. In fact, it looked just as unfinished as the Hulk did in the Incredible Hulk.
Sorry, but if Cameron expected something good coming out of this trailer, it fail miserably. The CGI looks cheap, more like an incomplete video game than a movie.
If the trailer is an indication of the quality of the movie, I suspect is going to flop just as bad as the Watchmen.
I have to wonder if you even watched the same trailer as I did. I certainly had no trouble cluing that the plot is basically a paraplegic "Space Marine" gets uploaded into an avatar designed to mimic the locals, then goes native and fights his original masters, and possibly there's an alien love interest, too.
Your post smacks of trolling/hating.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
I beg to differ - it was rife with story elements. Via watching the trailer and deducing things from visual components - I can conclude that it will be a story involving an alien world identified to have life and a native sentient population, albeit primitive. The person in the wheel chair represents some type of researcher who is interested in studying this race and to overcome his infirmity and provide him an access to the alien culture an "avatar" is constructed; this avatar being a physical body int he form of the alien race to be studied. The researcher is placed in an immersion tank where leads are fitted and a real time 1st person connection with the artificial body is established.
From there - something happens that brings the humans and the aliens into conflict. The poor researcher within his avatar, cannot be identified from the alien population and finds himself on the other side of the battle. World spanning visual hijinx ensue.