A2 WEEKEND THREAD | 134.1M DOM OW | Thurs 17m / Fri 36m / Sat 45m / Sun 36m

[Gkalaitza]

5 minutes ago, Mulder said:

I specified average person for a reason, I and you and other people more invested in film and VFX will see the difference. The average lay-person? I don't know if they will.

They wouldnt be able to articulate what and why exactly but im 100% sure a significantly higher percentage of the GA will come out of an A2 screening with a striking impression of "wow this looked fucking amazing" and will enthusiasticaly bring it up to someone else if the movie comes up than the ones coming out of almost any CBM screening or almost any other recent blockbuster . Among the people that at least liked all these movies anyways.

 

Even anecdotaly ,since i usualy hear quite a bit of chatter after the movie is over  on the way out of the theater and on the packed toilets after it ends, i picked up more such enthusiastic statements about the visuals than in the last 7 blockbuster movie trips i went combined. Tbf tho most were MCU movies 

[Dale Cooper]

43 minutes ago, Mulder said:

I don't think so but we'll see. 

But we won't really see, will we? Because, just as the first one, basically everyone agrees that it looks incredible. The trick is to get the people who saw Avatar and now thinks it's a good looking film with weak plot to come back and see part two. If the movie falls very far behind the first film that will be a much bigger part of the reason, not that people won't be able to see the difference between this and Aquaman in terms of effects.

[Eric is Quiet]

8 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

Is it just me or is it always impossible to disagree with anything that @Porthos says?

I’d trust him with my life tbh

[MikeQ]

9 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

Absolutely spellbinding.

 

And I say this as someone with numerous critiques of the film.

I saw it in standard 2D and also found it to be an extraordinary visual experience. Likewise, I have many criticisms, but the visual experience and CGI are exceptional, IMHO.

 

Peace,

Mike

[Gkalaitza]

11 minutes ago, Dale Cooper said:

But we won't really see, will we? Because, just as the first one, basically everyone agrees that it looks incredible. The trick is to get the people who saw Avatar and now thinks it's a good looking film with weak plot to come back and see part two. If the movie falls very far behind the first film that will be a much bigger part of the reason, not that people won't be able to see the difference between this and Aquaman in terms of effects.

The % of the people that saw the first film at the theaters and had a "Looked great, weak plot" takeaway is quite overrepresented and overrexagerated if you judge it mainly by what the discourse in online anglosphere spaces in the last few years. Which is hard not to do cause its what we are most exposed to 

 

Sure dozens of millions did and do think that and maybe it even is the correct take but you would think it half the viewers held or hold that opinion if the main source you sample opinions from are english speaking social media. It certainly isnt so

[Menor the Destroyer]

41 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

16m today

 

You kid, but it wouldn't be that shocking imo. Would probably be a sign of length (lighter weekdays) winning out over PLF skew (heavier weekdays). 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[Alexdube]

24 minutes ago, Mulder said:

I specified average person for a reason, I and you and other people more invested in film and VFX will see the difference. The average lay-person? I don't know if they will.

The point of better VFX in something like Avatar is to create a more tangible immersive experience. It's something that you feel while watching the movie, you don't need to be a discerning viewer

[Porthos]

34 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

have you watched it in IMAX 3D?

 

Nope. Don't plan on it, either.  3D ain't for me.   But it's not me who you have to convince. Well, not exactly.

 

See this is getting to a slightly related to my slightly related point.

 

The shift from SD -> HD was massive.  Culturally it was one of the biggest and most successful shifts ever in entertainment.  But the shift from HD -> 4k (or rather from 720p to 2k to 4k) has been much more gradual and in fits and starts (much to the consternation of the entertainment biz).  And a shift to 8k is gonna be even a harder sell (if it ever actually happens). 

 

It's not that people haven't seen a difference from 720p to 1080p to 2160p... it's that they didn't see enough of a difference to change rapidly.  Oh, they upgraded.  But they took their time.  4k has been around for a few years now and it's just now pushing its way into the mainstream.

 

It's not like 4k TV sets and monitors weren't available to be purchased.  But they didn't deliver enough of a WOW to make some folks upgrade immediately.  Instead it has been much more gradual.  People have eased into it, as it were.  People didn't spend their money to get that WOW fix even though it was a better experience.

 

Which swings me back to the 6(00) million dollar question regarding A2: Is the WOW enough for those people?

 

Is this really like "Used to SD entertainment seeing HD for the first time" or is it more like "used to HD seeing 4k for the first time"?

 

Again: Don't know! Gonna be fun to find out though.

 

tl;dr: Is A2 going to replay the SD->HD shift among consumers like A1 did or be more like the 720p->2k->4k shifts among consumers?

 

To me, that seems the closest possible analogy we might have out of all of the ones available (and, perhaps, the two main 'camps' when it comes to A2's legs for that matter)

Edited December 20, 2022 by Porthos
put in the wrong number - fixed

[Mulder]

Coming back to three quotes from people with nothing to really back it up beyond obvious bias sure is something lol

[ZattMurdock]

29 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

This is something I don't think is brought up nearly enough, especially in context of theatrical decline.

 

No one, well probably no one, is saying that A2 isn't better visually than A1.

 

The question is:

 

IS A2 >>>>>> Better than EVERYTHING ELSE OUT THERE IN 2022 like A1 >>>>>> EVERYTHING ELSE OUT IN 2009?

 

Here "EVERYTHING ELSE" = 4k TV shows AND video games as I sometimes think this forum sometimes cares too much about streaming and not enough about gaming.

 

The difference between AAA gaming in 2009 and AAA gaming in 2022 is... not insignificant.

 

I and others have brought up the difference between HD and SD, as back in 2009 the SD->HD transition was underway.  Many folks were still used to SD entertainment, both on TV and games.  So along comes Avatar and blows it out of the water.  People were willing to pay for something that was several levels better than what they were used to.  But are those people now willing to pay for something that, while better than what they're used to, is perhaps only a few levels better?

 

Say.. If A2 >>> Better than EVERYTHING ELSE is that enough ">>>"'s?

 

I literally don't know.  But I don't think it's something to be blithely blown off/

IS A2 >>>>>> Better than EVERYTHING ELSE OUT THERE IN 2022 like A1 >>>>>> EVERYTHING ELSE OUT IN 2009?

The cold hard truth is that no, it is not. More to that, we have top notch video effects today for all types of flavors. I still get an uncanny valley feeling from the world of Avatar, even more so the underwater scenes. They look too bright, too much unreal despite me being able to see how much money it was put into the production, my brain still tells me that this isn’t real. 
 

@MikeQ just mentioned Wakanda Forever’s underwater scenes and that was something that actually proves my point. I absolutely love the solution that Coogler went for differentiate Talokan from let’s say Aquaman’s Atlantis and Avatar 2’s underwater as well. They went for the realistic dark look, despite obviously having an obscene amount of CG, the people of Talocan actually worked for me because it was just practical blue paint and costumes. 
 

Of course that Way of Water looks great. But in an world where everything looks great and that most of us own a 4K tv, consume blockbusters, tv series and games for PS5, Xbox and PC that cost a lot of times more than blockbusters, is looking good good enough? Porthos brought an excellent point, back in 2009 I had a 720p tv and still used a DVD player. Today I watch everything in 4K on my Apple TV or with my PS5 as a Blu-ray player. The technical and technological jump that was present when Avatar 1 was released just isn’t present right now. Never mind the fact that 3D projectors didn’t evolved enough to justify how groundbreaking and trailblazing Avatar 2 should be to become a ‘must watch’ at the big screen, even if you don’t consider the competition it has today.

 

 

[Dale Cooper]

6 minutes ago, Gkalaitza said:

The % of the people that saw the first film at the theaters and had a "Looked great, weak plot" takeaway is quite overrepresented and overrexagerated if you judge it mainly by what the discourse in online anglosphere spaces in the last few years. Which is hard not to do cause its what we are most exposed to 

 

Sure dozens of millions did and do think that and maybe it even is the correct take but you would think it half the viewers held or hold that opinion if the main source you sample opinions from are english speaking social media. It certainly isnt so

Yeah, I'm not saying that a majority of people thinks that or anyhing, I'm just saying there are a lot of people who does think that.

 

Anyway, we don't really know how it's gonna play from here one out, but let's play with the idea that it also doesn't hold very well. It would then have had a dissapointing opening and dissapointing legs. Surely that would point towards that the first film just isn't as reveered as one could have thought which then lead to a cooler interest for the film? After all, Avatar 2 has similar critics score, audience score and has gotten nominated for the same awards as of yet.

[Menor the Destroyer]

It's a pretty simple thing for me and something I've thought for a while about this movie. Avatar 1 was the first movie that made 3D a huge thing. Avatar 2 doesn't have any other kind of technical advancements like that. Storywise, again the movie is being received worse than the first (in aggregate, so no I don't care that some individual critic, YouTuber, or other audience member is saying that it's better). That doesn't mean it's going to flop, but Avatar 2 is currently in a range of reception where movies don't tend to truly catch fire, though they still do pretty well for themselves. And...that's precisely what I think is gonna happen here. It can miss the lofty expectations of some while still being a clear financial success. 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[Gkalaitza]

6 minutes ago, Mulder said:

Coming back to three quotes from people with nothing to really back it up beyond obvious bias sure is something lol

How could either of us back up anything we are saying about the reception of vfx among the general audience? I can only say what i think i extrapolate from online reactions, offline reactions and general audience ratings across the globe. What would you consider "backing it up", a representative polling of 10k people worldwide being asked to grade the visuals in comparison to other blockbusters ?

[Gkalaitza]

5 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

 Storywise, again the movie is being received worse than the first

By the GA ? Based on what? The fact that we are only 3-4 days in makes stating this as a fact even more flimsy. 

[Menor the Destroyer]

3 minutes ago, Dale Cooper said:

Yeah, I'm not saying that a majority of people thinks that or anyhing, I'm just saying there are a lot of people who does think that.

 

Anyway, we don't really know how it's gonna play from here one out, but let's play with the idea that it also doesn't hold very well. It would then have had a dissapointing opening and dissapointing legs. Surely that would point towards that the first film just isn't as reveered as one could have thought which then lead to a cooler interest for the film? After all, Avatar 2 has similar critics score, audience score and has gotten nominated for the same awards as of yet.

Same Cinemascore, but if we had more granular data like PostTrak and verified audience score for Avatar 1 I'd bet it was noticeably under. Korea CGV egg shows a pretty clear difference. 

[Brainbug]

I know its been said already a lot but i also want to emphasize that we shoudnt be surprised by this OW for Avatar 2. It is incredibly hard for any movie/franchise to replicate the success of a true phenomenon, especially if said phenomenal box office was mostly based on revolutionary technical filmmaking, where the first time can only ever be a first and the second round will feel like ... well, just another round. Even more so, if it comes 13 years later in a totally different box office and cultural environment.

 

Avatar 2 may be able to have extremely good legs, but i personally doubt that it will get the kind of WOM that is necessary for the kind of absurd grosses that some here were hoping for. It looks like this is the beginning of a 500M-ish DOM run and a 1,5B - 1,7B-ish WW run, depending on international legs of course. Id predict right now that it wont be able to gross more than 1,67B. I dont really know why i chose that exact number but i just have a feeling that the movie cant be allowed to gross more.

[Menor the Destroyer]

4 minutes ago, Gkalaitza said:

By the GA ? Based on what? The fact that we are only 3-4 days in makes stating this as a fact even more flimsy. 

We can definitely say that critical reception is worse. As I said in my above post, we don't have enough granular data for US audience reception, so that's more of a gut call based on other indicators. 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[ZattMurdock]

3 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

I know its been said already a lot but i also want to emphasize that we shoudnt be surprised by this OW for Avatar 2. It is incredibly hard for any movie/franchise to replicate the success of a true phenomenon, especially if said phenomenal box office was mostly based on revolutionary technical filmmaking, where the first time can only ever be a first and the second round will feel like ... well, just another round. Even more so, if it comes 13 years later in a totally different box office and cultural environment.

 

Avatar 2 may be able to have extremely good legs, but i personally doubt that it will get the kind of WOM that is necessary for the kind of absurd grosses that some here were hoping for. It looks like this is the beginning of a 500M-ish DOM run and a 1,5B - 1,7B-ish WW run, depending on international legs of course. Id predict right now that it wont be able to gross more than 1,67B. I dont really know why i chose that exact number but i just have a feeling that the movie cant be allowed to gross more.

[thajdikt]

23M

[Menor the Destroyer]

5 minutes ago, thajdikt said:

23M

Not gonna happen.