I really hated Terminator: Salvation. There. That’s out of the way.
It was awful for many, many reasons, chief among them McG’s utter lack of talent and/or respect for the first three movies. Yes, yes, the third movie wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it made an effort and fit into the overall fiction properly. Salvation ignored the first three movies, introduced sixty foot tall bipedal “harvester” machines, made Skynet really stupid and kind of insecure, and was boring.
I’m John Connor, I hate all machines and don’t believe they can form emotional connections with humans... wait, what?
Thing is, and this is why I’m dredging up these painful memories, Salvation is really more of a symptom of the overall malaise that’s going on in movieland. The suits running the show are willing to hand a proven money maker with actual cultural relevance over to a man with a proven track record of nothing but bad films and a handful of bad music videos. The obsession with 3D is starting to bypass the whole issue of a movie actually being good.
James Cameron, who kicked ass with the first two Terminator movies, is currently one of the worst offenders. He’s on the record supporting things like just fabricating natural phenomena like sunsets rather than waiting for the right shot. Now, the immediate result might be great, but doesn’t something go missing?
Linda Hamilton’s twin sister was called in for some special effects shots on T2. The lengths the crew of The Terminator had to go to just to get Arnie’s laser sight to work right on camera is amazing. Yes, I’m sure it sucked, I’m sure it was hard work, and I’m sure it was stressful. But in some instances, surely that’s where the best work comes from? Maybe CGI makes it too easy.
Not to mention the fact that CGI gets dated. Even the stuff we’re watching today. Go back and watch the first Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movie. You won’t be as impressed as you were in 2001. That’s natural. It’s technology; but James Cameron thinks we’ve perfected it.
How could we possibly be a racist analogy? We’re BLUE.
Massive arrogance aside, Avatar was just not a good movie. There’s a lot to be said for using the same heroic template to tell a story, and human societies will do that forever, but there’s still an art involved in telling the same old story well. Avatar fails in that regard. The vast majority of people I’ve met who liked the movie immediately refer to the visuals, and very few defend the story or the acting (except for Sigourney Weaver: she was awesome in that movie, a one woman show surrounded by garbage). So, in a couple of years, when the visuals are still cool but not as cool as the live action blockbuster Up 3: Return to Peru, the idea that Avatar was ever Star Wars for a new generation will seem laughable.
I don’t care how bad this movie gets, I WILL continue to be awesome
In fact, Avatar has a lot more in common with the Star Wars prequels than with the originals. An obsession with technology and an unfettered ego got in the way of making a decent story. That’s it.
So, wouldn’t the world be a better place if there were more stuntmen? More controlled explosions? More workarounds, more tricks? CGI and other computer technologies can be used to do some pretty cool and subtle stuff. I’ll take District 9 over Avatar every single time.
4 Comments
I’m still impressed with Fellowship of the Ring! But I’m rather easily impressed by the pretty. see: my Avatar review.
Oh, I love those movies!!! Love them! It’s just that these days my eye can pick out the computery bits, and they couldn’t when I first saw them.
It doesn’t stop the movies being awesome. But then Peter Jackson didn’t use the effects as a crutch. I didn’t think anyway. I feel like I could have been clearer, but then I probably didn’t want to post a two thousand word blog post!
I could not agree more.
The obsession with CGI effect is so strong that it seems to meet filmmakers only build movies around a few effects forgetting all the rest.
In Peter Jackson’s masterpieces (I dare say) special effects were a necessity, but the whole movies do not rely solely on them. I humbly believe that’s the way it should be.
And I’m with you on District 9 vs Avatar.
Hey Raoul, yeah, I think that CGI is unfortunately yet another crutch for lazy filmmakers who are inexplicably handed great projects (like McG). It’s also a weird siren song for filmmakers whose ego has taken them away from reality (like Cameron). Jackson is a good example of a talented filmmaker who used the effects effectively. See what I did there?
Rodriguez’s Predators could be interesting, he’s talking a lot about using practical effects where possible and bringing back some of the horror elements to the Predator series, both of which are good moves in my opinion.