comment #1

hiviper says ...

I'm on board. Cameron hasn't let me down yet.

comment #2

DarthCorleone says ...

Oh, man. There's only one Carter Burke.

I remember when Paul Reiser was doing the promotional tour for Aliens on one of the late-night shows, and he was talking about how his parents went to see the movie. He was worried it was going to be too violent and intense for them. So during the screening he looks over at them during the scene when the alien finally gets Burke, and his parents were cheering.

comment #3

ZayTonday says ...

Ribisi needs to lay off on the body thetans, damn.

His delivery of those lines was EASILY the most cringe-worthy part of that otherwise COMPLETELY awesome trailer.

comment #4

Pynchon8 says ...

Kinda getting excited for this but that part where Saldana's alien did some signing with her talking made me gag.

comment #5

Eloi Manning says ...

I want to smash the Saldana alien. She's the hottest cartoon since Nala.

comment #6

Nick Rogers says ...

I'm king of hoping Topher Grace elicits the Carter Burke vibe in next summer's "Predators." I think he can. Yes, he sucked in "Spider-Man 3," but in his brief "Traffic" role, he gave good scumbag.

comment #7

Skullebrity says ...

As always, Cameron is recycling his material ... and the material of others.

http://www.celebrityfreakshow.com/james-cameron-vow-i-will-only-steal-unpublished-stories/

comment #8

Stringer Bell says ...

Looks great except for the fake looking blue people.

comment #9

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Let me guess....Cameron is to Skullebrity as Tarantino is to DeeZee?

comment #10

DeeZee says ...

Looks like Jimmy's shittier at political allegory than even Lucas, it seems. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7Ha3VDbzE

Kane: I actually asked Harlan Ellison if he was going to be partying when the movie bombed. And then that History of Violence writer stepped in, said he saw half an hour of footage of Avatar, and furthermore claimed that it wasn't going to bomb. But if I have anything nice to say about Cameron vs QT, it's that Cameron knows how to shoot action sequences.

comment #11

QualityGibberish says ...

Shiny surfaces, looks to be a bit busy design-wise, and the story is nothing but playing out the same old primitive human emotions. I think, if we haven't progressed in that sense by the time we actually have such technologies, we'll have blown ourselves to smithereens many times over.

comment #12

Ponderer says ...

"Looks like Jimmy's shittier at political allegory than even Lucas, it seems."

I thought Lucas was pretty great at political allegory - I thought he established a fairly interesting concept of how people are happy to hand over power to dictators until it's too late to do anything about it. I just thought his storytelling skills blew wild chunks.

comment #13

BadHatHarry says ...

Great, so Cameron hates Israel too ...

Same old libel, same old lie. And with crappy CG to boot.

comment #14

lazarus says ...

Thanks, Ponderer. If you're going to criticize Lucas, at least do it for the right reasons. And that man knows how to shoot an action sequence as well.

So does Tarantino, but D.Z.'s too blinded by bias to see that.

comment #15

DeeZee says ...

lazarus: "So does Tarantino, but D.Z.'s too blinded by bias to see that."

I'm blindsided by the up-close camera shots and over-use of squibs in the place of genuine action.

comment #16

Rothchild says ...

The worst geeks in the world are the geeks who raise their hands and ask stupid and obnoxious questions like, "Mr. Ellison, will you be partying when Avatar bombs?" I shouldn't be surprised that the dumbest person on the internet is also one of those guys.

comment #17

DeeZee says ...

Rothchild: Ellison was in a joking mood that evening, and since he referred to Emmerich as "that nazi", I figured Cameron was fair game.

comment #18

Rothchild says ...

"Look up 'idiot' in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?"
"A picture of me?"
"No! The definition of the word idiot, which you fucking are!"

comment #19

Gordon27 says ...

"http://www.celebrityfreakshow.com/james-cameron-vow-i-will-only-steal-unpublished-stories/"

I have a suspicion that some of those quotes aren't real.

Also, I don't know what Poul Anderson is claiming Cameron stole from him; there's not a single idea in that trailer that doesn't pre-date 1957.

comment #20

bachelorcool says ...

No mention of 3D in the trailer? Hmmm...

comment #21

Telemachos says ...

"I don't know what Poul Anderson is claiming Cameron stole from him; there's not a single idea in that trailer that doesn't pre-date 1957."

Poul Anderson isn't claiming anything (and neither is his estate). The whole ruckus is being kicked up by a bevy of blogs and geek sites.

comment #22

Fortunesfool says ...

The celebrityfreakshow thing is satire, folks. You really think Cameron would say that on the brink of releasing one of the biggest, riskiest film in movie history. This thing looks incredible. The trailer alone has more heart, intelligence, wit and spectacle than a dozen JJ Abrams Star Treks. I can't believe people are complaining about the story (at least it has one) and 'the same old primitive human emotions' - Dude, that's what's kept us returning to the movies for 100 years.

comment #23

TheGK says ...

While the plot does seem a bit recycled, Cameron does seem to have a flair for taking mundane or cliched plotlines and making them into something interesting.
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and presume that this will be kickass until proven otherwise.

Plus, based on the trailer, I reckon this is going to look mint in 3D.

comment #24

drbob says ...

C'mon, who's gonna believe that we would destroy a whole society just to gain access to a precious commodity. What's that you say about the Iraq war, I don't understand.

comment #25

ZayTonday says ...

Oh come on DeeZee, the car chase in Death Proof was VERY well done.

comment #26

bluefugue says ...

>While the plot does seem a bit recycled, Cameron does seem to have a flair for taking mundane or cliched plotlines and making them into something interesting.

Yup. Cameron's films aren't strikingly original, nor ever have been. Striking originality is rare and not always that entertaining. Cameron is brilliant at obeying the logistical rules of the worlds he creates & at servicing the emotional substructures of his stories. The drowning/resuscitation sequence in The Abyss is hardly original, but it is absolutely riveting.

comment #27

Travis Crabtree says ...

Looks like a cartoon. Really.

And the money-grubbing evil yuppie guy vs. the seat-of-the-pants, hair-down, rock 'n roller rebel-types. It's 1986 all over again!

comment #28

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Yeah, Lucas is generally pretty good at establishing themes and laying the groundwork for films (see also: Willow, the Indy Jones films). Where he really runs into trouble is writing believable dialogue (probably because he no longer talks to adult humans who aren't at his beck & call) and establishing a decent dynamic, way of delivering verbal story information (I swear half the scenes in those prequels are just characters formally STANDING face-to-face with one another delivering long-winded monologues).

It's a bit strange because he's pretty decent at incorporating sound into his films, and he's pretty spatially aware of the visual information in the frame, but he's never been able to get excited about a scene with two people talking to each other (even in his early work), and it really does show in his movies.

And totally agreed, Zay, but you're wasting your breath there.

comment #29

Ponderer says ...

"And the money-grubbing evil yuppie guy vs. the seat-of-the-pants, hair-down, rock 'n roller rebel-types. It's 1986 all over again!"

Except the dude drinking coffee in a helicopter-thing while shit's exploding all around him appears to be one of the seat-of-the-pants, hair-down, rock'n'roller rebel-types. And he's apparently the main bad guy.

"Where he really runs into trouble is writing believable dialogue (probably because he no longer talks to adult humans who aren't at his beck & call) and establishing a decent dynamic, way of delivering verbal story information (I swear half the scenes in those prequels are just characters formally STANDING face-to-face with one another delivering long-winded monologues)."

He was NEVER good at this stuff. At heart, his gift and what's he's always been interested in was visual stuff. Other writers have always saved his ass - Hyuck & Katz, Bracket, Kasdan. When he became a film legend and people stopped saying no to him, all his dialogue and staging flaws came to the fore. And by the time SIth came around, not even Tom Stoppard could back out the damage.

I believe Lucas when he says that all he really wants to do is make little independent films - because deep down, those play to his strengths more than anything. But he's trapped in his empire.

comment #30

lazarus says ...

Well said again, Ponderer and CitizenKaned.

But I will add that I think the "boring meetings" thing dissipated somewhat with Attack of the Clones, even if the love scenes still dragged it down. The plot had a bit of mystery to it, which Lucas managed to make pretty atmospheric.

And to say that Sith didn't deliver the goods, at least in relation to its two predecessors, is a bit unfair. The film was far from boring, and even a scene with a lot of exposition like Palpatine's theatre speech to Anakin was compelling.

comment #31

Stringer Bell says ...

Cmon guys. 'Celebrity Freak Show' is a goof like 'The Onion'.

Cameron never said any of those things!

comment #32

actionman says ...

the aliens/avatars/Na'vi look like cat people.

comment #33

Ponderer says ...

"The film was far from boring, and even a scene with a lot of exposition like Palpatine's theatre speech to Anakin was compelling."

I think that (and the march on the Jedi Temple) was by far the most compelling thing in the prequels. Sith is the best of the three, if for no other reason that it manages to create a real sense of foreboding and evil in places.

comment #34

dkaye says ...

I happen to think Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars movie after the original and Empire. It's not great by any means, but it has a lot of good moments. Part of that is due to the gravity of Lucas' political theme coming to the forefront, but most of it is due to Ian McDiarmid, who really nails the calculating evil of Palpatine, especially in those early scenes. I would say he does the best acting in the entire series...too bad it's against Hayden Christiansen.

comment #35

DeeZee says ...

bob: *cough* http://www.infowars.com/oil-tycoon-our-troops-died-were-entitled-to-sweet-contracts-in-iraq/ *cough*

Zay: Maybe for a Universal Studios theme park ride, but not for a car chase scene.

comment #36

frankbooth says ...

What I learned from this screencap: even in the distant future, it will remain a bad idea to put a ballpoint pen in your pocket.