Yeah, so that headline doesn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense, so let’s decompile.

First of all you know about this thing called Avatar, a film loosely based on the story of Pocahontas (shhhhh) but set it space. It made like a billion billion dollars at the box office, or something. Anyway, for Avatar 2 (and 3 and 4 – maybe), filmmaker James Cameron is looking east, to China, to secure further financing for his 3-D opus.

According to Cameron, the Chinese market, flush and growing with cash, is a place he wants to do business, and part in parcel with that is the possibility that some Chinese actors maybe employed to play human and Na’vi roles in the films.

Here’s what Cameron told THR:

Within five years, China could easily be as big a gross-revenue market for film as North America, and there are very specific economic incentives for having both Chinese content and Chinese co-production. We are already funded on Avatar 2 and 3, but if we qualify as a co-production, there might be some incentives in the percentage of revenue we can take out of China. We are running the numbers to see if that makes sense.

For Avatar, we can certainly use Chinese actors as performance capture actors because any accent issues will hide within the Na’vi accent. So we can have Chinese Na’vi; [and in the live-action sequences] we can also have Chinese actors who speak English in the film. We are projecting a future in Avatar, and if you project that future out, it is logical that there would be a number of Chinese amongst the contingent on Pandora.

Not a new idea, the universe of Joss Whedon’s Firefly was one in which America and China founded the new solar system in a joint venture, hence the bilingual crew of Serenity. Just one question though: how can the Na’vi have different races if they’re all blue?

Think about it.

Source: Geek Tyrant

A couple of months back the X-Men: First Class sequel was given an official name. X-Men: Days of Future Past. For anyone who doesn’t know, Days of Future Past is a hugely successful and incredibly popular storyline among comic book fans and it deals with an alternative future where all mutants have been killed but for Shadowcat and Wolverine. An older Kitty Pryde transfers her mind into the younger, present-day Kitty Pryde, who brings the X-Men to prevent a fatal moment in history which triggers anti-mutant hysteria. Anyway, that’s not news. The news is that The Wolverine (sequel to the dreadful X-Men Origins: Wolverine) which was originally thought to be a stand alone film may not be as stand alone as everyone assumed. Set pictures have been released that feature a logo for the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning which would suggest that the film takes place in the future and Logan has opened up a new school for mutants in memory of Jean Grey. This could bridge the two strands of the X-Men franchises together and if done well it could be absolutely incredible and would allow for actors and characters from the two strands could both appear in the new film. Although a big factor in the success of this happening would be how it is written. Nothing has been confirmed as of now but when asked how The Wolverine would fit in to the X-Men timeline director James Mangold said on twitter “I can’t answer you now nor could I answer you before, but after everything is over I can answer, and that, in itself may be an answer”. Cryptic much?

James Cameron is currently busy preparing to make Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 which are being shot back to back, a brave move but considering how well the original film did back in 2009 you have to expect a success, especially with the time being taken on this project. However, this week Cameron has been talking about a fourth Avatar film. The director has said that after this original trilogy the fourth film and future ones would be prequels, in the same vein as Star Wars. There is obviously a long way to go before Avatar 4 even starts being written but if it does get made then hopefully it won’t be quite as bad as The Phantom Menace.

The rest of the news is pretty short, I must say that this week I have been rather excited about the X-Men news more than anything else. But anyway, the biggest other stories of the week involve future James Bond and Star Trek films. Daniel Craig has signed on to star in two more James Bond films which means he will be playing Bond probably into his 50s. And the new Star Trek sequel now has an official title: Star Trek Into Darkness. Yes, that’s really what it’s going to be called, and this is nothing but a major disappointment. I was expecting a much better title for what is one of the most highly anticipated movies of next year.

“It’s a little bit of a daunting writing task because it’s two scripts and they’ve both gotta be done at the same time. I’m writing it as separate stories that have an overall arc inclusive of the first film. I don’t want to suffer from the ‘Matrix 2′ problem, where it just ends, like, what the hell? It’s gotta end. There’s gotta be a sense of conclusion, but also a sense that the journey will continue, and that’s a fine line.”

I actually liked “The Matrix: Reloaded” and “The Matrix: Revolutions”. But, I mean, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” did the same thing. Anyways, we’ll see if Cameron can avoid this pitfall.

Lukas Eggen can be reached at eggen.lukas@gmail.com.

‘Avatar 4′ to be a prequel? Whaaaaat? Are they trying to be like Star Wars? Does that mean the series will start sucking by the time they get to 4?

James Cameron recently spoke to MTV News,

“I have an idea for a fourth,” Cameron told MTV News when we caught up with him at a press event for “Titanic.” (A new collector’s edition of the record-breaking movie hits home video on September 10.) “I haven’t really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na’vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world.”

“Because when we drop in, even in the first film in ‘Avatar 1,’ as it will be known in the future, we’re dropping into a process that’s 35 years in to a whole colonization,” Cameron continued of his interest in an “Avatar” prequel. “That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we’ll start, not imitating ‘Star Wars,’ but it’s a logical thing to do because we’ll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films. It’s a plan.”

It sounds to be a good plotline. Of course, it wouldn’t have the same actors since most of them would be kids 35 years before Avatar 1. All that really matters to make a fourth Avatar is that the 2nd and 3rd films are good. But even if they aren’t good, they’ll still keep going all the way to make 4. Since Avatar was the highest grossing movie at the box office to this day, the sequels and prequels are sure to make huge amounts of money also. Maybe not more or just as much, but definitely a crapload.

James Cameron is taking a George Lucas take on his series. George Lucas knew when starting a trilogy, whether it was the first trilogy or the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, that he was going to finish it now matter what.

“We’ve spent two years refining the whole pipeline,” said the filmmaker. “It was a hideously complex process to make that film and a lot has been said about that, but we don’t want it to be done in the same prototypical way as the first one, we want it to be a much smoother workflow just for creativity reasons.”

That “creativity” factor isn’t something to be ignored, either. Cameron said he’s still working on the story for the next two “Avatar” films, a daunting process “because I’m writing two scripts together as one big thing.”

Avatar 2 is said to be ways away and could be released around 2015. Avatar 2 and 3 are being shot simultaneosly, so it is unknown at the moment when the other sequels of Avatar are to be released. At this rate, it could span a decade till Avatar 4 comes out or even Avatar 3.

‘Avatar 4′ to be a prequel? Whaaaaat? Are they trying to be like Star Wars? Does that mean the series will start sucking by the time they get to 4?

James Cameron recently spoke to MTV News,

“I have an idea for a fourth,” Cameron told MTV News when we caught up with him at a press event for “Titanic.” (A new collector’s edition of the record-breaking movie hits home video on September 10.) “I haven’t really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na’vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world.”

“Because when we drop in, even in the first film in ‘Avatar 1,’ as it will be known in the future, we’re dropping into a process that’s 35 years in to a whole colonization,” Cameron continued of his interest in an “Avatar” prequel. “That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we’ll start, not imitating ‘Star Wars,’ but it’s a logical thing to do because we’ll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films. It’s a plan.”

It sounds to be a good plotline. Of course, it wouldn’t have the same actors since most of them would be kids 35 years before Avatar 1. All that really matters to make a fourth Avatar is that the 2nd and 3rd films are good. But even if they aren’t good, they’ll still keep going all the way to make 4. Since Avatar was the highest grossing movie at the box office to this day, the sequels and prequels are sure to make huge amounts of money also. Maybe not more or just as much, but definitely a crapload.

James Cameron is taking a George Lucas take on his series. George Lucas knew when starting a trilogy, whether it was the first trilogy or the prequel trilogy of Star Wars, that he was going to finish it now matter what.

“We’ve spent two years refining the whole pipeline,” said the filmmaker. “It was a hideously complex process to make that film and a lot has been said about that, but we don’t want it to be done in the same prototypical way as the first one, we want it to be a much smoother workflow just for creativity reasons.”

That “creativity” factor isn’t something to be ignored, either. Cameron said he’s still working on the story for the next two “Avatar” films, a daunting process “because I’m writing two scripts together as one big thing.”

Avatar 2 is said to be ways away and could be released around 2015. Avatar 2 and 3 are being shot simultaneosly, so it is unknown at the moment when the other sequels of Avatar are to be released. At this rate, it could span a decade till Avatar 4 comes out or even Avatar 3.

Lukas Eggen can be reached at eggen.lukas@gmail.com.

Yeah, don’t get me started on that whole rant against CGI  again buddy.

Initially I tried doing some stuff with the alpha layer for these ones as well, but it seems to me that with a single letter this does not work too well, since I think that the alpha effect works best with pattern type things.

So, my idea right now is that the letters should somehow fade into the skin around the edges, so that the whole thing does not end up looking like a college sweatshirt. For the same reason I also want to shift the letters slightly away from the center and keep them at slightly different levels, so that (again) we do not have something that looks like a soccer team line-up. In short, this really does have a lot of connotations with sports gear, and team apparel etc, and therefore the challenge is to get it to move away from that domain. I think that the letters can also be dark in some instances or the skin light and the letter dark in others, so that the variation in tone also helps break up the “line-up” feeling. I should also add that the sunburst pattern I am not sure about, I may delete that altogether or replace it with something else.

I am thinking that these will do the trick, however before I sit down and make almost 27 skins, I would like some feedback please.

thanks to the alpha layer.

John Landau previously predicted that audiences would not be seeing an “Avatar 2″ till a minimum of 2015, James Cameron has currently seemingly confirmed it during a recent big apple Times profile.

“The ‘Avatar’ sequels, Mr. Cameron said, can virtually definitely be shot in Mr. Jackson’s Wellington production studio, concerning quarter-hour by helicopter from Pounui,” writes the newspaper of Cameron’s plans to base the assembly in New Zealand, that “Hobbit” director Peter Jackson has virtually single-handedly reworked into a go-to destination for filmmakers. “Visual effects are going to be completed at nearby Weta Digital, owned by Mr. Jackson and his partners, though motion-capture work on the ‘Avatar’ sequels can still be done on a stage in California. ‘Avatar 2′ won’t be prepared till 2015 or later, a minimum of a year past the 2014 date Fox executives once had in mind.”

Pounui, in case you were wondering, could be a New Zealand city close to that Cameron has (controversially) spent an estimated $16 million shopping for up a pair of,500 acres of farmland which will double as Pandora within the upcoming sequels, a minimum of 2 of that Cameron can allegedly be shooting back-to-back (the potential for a 3rd sequel has been teased however not nevertheless confirmed by the filmmaker). As noted on top of, the motion-capture (often stated as “performance capture”) work thus integral to the films can still be shot on a California soundstage, because it was for the primary movie.

Nevertheless, do not expect production to ramp up anytime within the close to future, as Cameron continues to be within the scripting stages – though he will arrange on relocating to Pounui together with his family this fall to urge them acclimated to what’s going to become their new home for a minimum of a part of the year.

Peter Jackson, for his half, is simply happy to own a number of the pressure off – with Cameron around to carry down the fort, he insinuates, perhaps he will truly relax for awhile once finishing production on what he recently confirmed as his trilogy of “Hobbit” films.

“Maybe I will go wander away on a beach somewhere currently,” he told the days with a smile (we’ll assume he was joking). Indeed, is it even rational to recommend that Peter Jackson of all individuals would lie around dormant whereas his fellow director establishes his own large filmmaking operation in his home country? consistent with Cameron, he needn’t worry.

“I’m not there to compete with Peter,” he said.

Dearest Alex, I do often use dearest when thinking to myself.

Hey man, it’s me, Alex Sherman… from the future.  Right off the bat, see, I would have made some lame joke along these lines “Hey man, it’s me, well you, it’s us, or me.  It’s me Alex Sherman.”  I would have went with some confusing humor.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… where has Alan Thicke been lately?  He hasn’t done a film/tv/or late night show appearance in years. I was indeed thinking that, but who doesn’t from time to time?

But don’t you worry, in late 2013 his career reblossoms and he makes a buddy film with Patrick Swayze. Now this one is an oddity to me.  Everyone knows that Swayze is dead.  I feel a prankster wouldn’t make an easy mistake like that.  Either I’m dealing with an idiot, or some medical breakthroughs occur in the coming months.  This would also support Thicke’s career reblossoming, how else would it happen?

But let’s not get stuck on Alan Thicke’s career, we have much more important things to discuss. As if.

There is something dire I need to warn you about.  It’s your kids Alex, your kids!  Now shouldn’t he be saying our kids?  My one thought is he felt too much like we were a couple if he referred to them as our kids.  Is that incest or just masturbation?

I’m just kidding it has nothing to do with your kids, just making you think of Back to the Future 2.  It worked.

No, what happens is you die.  You get Dysentery disease and you die, a horrible and painful death that takes about 3 weeks.  Is this how I would tell myself?  Honestly, I think I’d make some kind of YouTube video with some solid production value and have a little jingle.  I don’t think I’d be this abrupt with myself.

I need to stop this, because if you die, then I die.  It doesn’t work reverse.

What happens is you are visiting Aspen and you see a school bus of orphans drive off a cliff and into a frozen lake.  You jump into action, diving into the lake to rescue the kids, fighting through the bitter cold you save all 92 two abandoned children.  Now, This is basically Simon Birch.

Within hours the vomiting and other side effects kick in.  Diarrhea.

I plead with you past Alex let the group of 6-12 year olds die.  Let them drown pleasantly in the horrifically cold water of Aspen.

Thank you for your time.

xoKISSESxo Gotta admit, future me is kinda cute.

P.S. Don’t bother with AVATAR 2.  It’s longer than the first one and has an even thinner plot.  Could have guessed this.

OK.  So I still have no idea.  I mean, I am awesome enough to save a bunch of orphans… but that is basically the ending to Simon Birch.  Whoever did write this email is obviously adorable, so that’s check one for it is me.  Then again, there are some obvious pop culture mistakes.  Even if it’s not me, I want to believe it’s someone from the future.  Mainly because I want to see a buddy film starring Alan Thicke and Patrick Swayze.

Whilst scripting work is currently being done in California by Cameron, the optimistic date of 2014 set by Fox looks to be unlikely. Cameron plans to film ‘Avatar 2′ and ‘Avatar 3′ back to back in New Zealand when he moves over there to film.

Cameron is said to have purchased 2,500 acres of land in Lake Pounui, New Zealand. This is just a fifteen minute helicopter ride to Peter Jackson’s Wellington production studio where the film is likely to be filmed. Cameron and his family will move there this Autumn whilst he continues to work on the script. He will live in New Zealand for at least half a year whilst filming work takes place for the Avatar sequels.

Whilst the sequels will be filmed on location in New Zealand the motion capture aspect of ‘Avatar 2′ will be executed in California.

If both sequels are filmed back to back it is likely that ‘Avatar 2′ will be released some time in 2015 and one would imagine that ‘Avatar 3′ will be released the following year.

The three images above show the avatar at the exact same location, standing still. What makes the change is the revolving spirals. The same thing also happens on the blue floor when the avatar stands in front of Max’s black and white sculpty hill, on which the texture moves. Since the avatars are made in such a way that they blend into their environment the effect is very cool in both places. I will also document this with video as soon as I can.

For now – my architect colleagues: Bear this in mind, while you are rezzing away! Anything that moves will look totally awesome I think… Of course, we shouldn’t overdo it either, but…

Working with the new avatars. First one is the one for the blue floor. Although I made a full skin for this, I suddenly had this idea to try out the alpha layer on the appearance palette by making a texture out of bitmap text. Initially I made one where the point size is bigger, then I made the whole thing denser by reducing the point size.  Not sure which density is better. What is seen on the image here is the smaller size.

3rd time’s the charm: Makorra ftw

Marvel Studios also has productions based out of MBS and most recently used soundstages there to film the Asgardian portions of their upcoming Thor.

Avatar 2 is planned for December 2014 with a second sequel tentatively set to follow in December 2015.

-The Hollywood Reporter

I was reading about this upcoming sci-fi movie starring Tom Cruise called Oblivion.  The IMDb synopsis says:

A court martial sends a veteran soldier to a distant planet, where he is to destroy the remains of an alien race. The arrival of an unexpected traveler causes him to question what he knows about the planet, his mission, and himself.

Hmm.  That sounds a bit like the plot of what I consider the most overrated movie of all time, Avatar.  Also like Avatar, this thing seems to share a name with another, totally unrelated franchise.

Of course, people say the idea for Avatar was itself stolen from Edgar Rice Burroughs, or some British comic book, or Dances with Wolves.  I wouldn’t say “stolen”, exactly; but it’s an age-old plot.

The plot of Avatar is:

• Guy is sent by military to deal with exotic natives to help pursue military’s interests.
• Guy becomes sympathetic to natives.
• Guy rebels against military, helping natives.

This is, in broad strokes, also the plot of one of my favorite movies, Lawrence of Arabia.  The difference is in how it’s done–compare the character of General Allenby in Lawrence with Colonel Hambone from Avatar.  (Okay, so that’s not his name.  But it should have been.)

This is so often the case with fiction.  Another example:

“A video game about someone who causes tremendous damage to a planet, and must then face the consequences of that action.”

This could be describing either Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords or Tonic Trouble.  The former I consider to be the greatest game ever made; a masterpiece of storytelling and characterization, complete with a philosophical depth more powerful than any other work of fiction I have seen.  The latter is about a purple cartoon alien who fights mutant tomatoes.  “The Devil is in the details”, as they say.

Zaphodb2002 pointed out in a comment on this post that if you just give a synopsis of the most basic points, so many great works don’t sound all that impressive.  It is, as he said, how the story is told.

James Cameron assimilates amongst the Gorgonbula tribe

Titanic director James Cameron will make a documentary on secretive African tribe, the Gorgonbulas, between the filming of Avatar 2 & 3.

While the Gorgonbulas have yet to be exposed on film, M.E. Chamberlain provides a detailed account of the tribe in his text, The Scramble for Africa:

One of the most colourful North African tribes of this time, are the Gorgonbulas, from Ethiopia.

Equipped only with face-paint and spears, the Gorgonbulas would respond to an attack by hiding, usually behind a bush, or some other sun baked vegetation.

Invariably, the rival tribe, or European imperialist armies, would spot the Gorgonbula tribe huddled behind the shrub, and give chase.

Through an unwavering reliance on hiding and running away, the Gorgonbulas flourished during the late 19th century, until, growing in confidence, they ventured too far north, only to be wiped out by Italy’s small soldiers.”

It is thought that Cameron may have drawn inspiration from the Gorgonbulas in his rendering of the peaceful Na’vi people in Avatar.

John Travolta will narrate the documentary.

John Travolta dancing with the Gorgonbulas

Something like this:

The [...] standard sizes are ridiculous. Oddly, they seem to have decided that [large are fat][small are skinny][etc]. I wonder if those who created the “standards” ever [assorted complaints]

This is because the person concerned is reading a word the way say, men use it when they shop in the real world.

Mesh clothing works a little more like a lot of T-Shirts do, and a lot of women’s cloths. Where a size small means you’re skinny, and a size large means you really don’t need to stop at Burger King on the way home tonight.

Think of it like this, using the standard sizes:

XXS: Michael Jackson would have done a concert to feed you.
XS: You look thin
S: You’re fit.
M: You shop in the plus size section.
L: You have reserved seating at the local Fried Chicken joint.

And just bump those one position for men, since male STandard sizes go from XS to XL. Male XL is basically female L.

You could still be taller than Abe Lincoln, or Shorter than Mini-Me. It just don’t matter.

Look at the standard sizes program, notice how it only seems to care about a few certain dails:

Women:
Body Fat
Torso Muscle
Breast Size
Love Handles
Belly Size
Leg Muscle
Butt Size
Saddle Bags

Men:
Body Fat
Belly Size
Torso Muscle
Love Handles
Leg Muscle
Butt Size
Saddle Bags
Package
Pectorals

Notice what’s not in there?

Height. Having T-Rex arms or legs. Your neck. Your head. Your ‘thickness’ dial.

Why? Cause mesh doesn’t care. These are scale dials, or for the head – would not be important unless you wanted to buy a mesh ski-mask to go rob the local stop-n-rob in Bay City (hey I own that shop…)

There are only two dials that matter for mesh that are -NOT- in the lists above; Breast Buoyancy and Cleavage. If you don’t know why – you’ve never touched real boobies…

So if you’re tall and thin, and you looked at Standard Sizes and thought “this is broken”… go try the XXS or XS size. That’s probably you.

Mesh fits a -LOT- more people than some think. Many who feel it doesn’t fit them are in fact within the zone of commonly used settings.

The deformer won’t help these folks. If they grab a ‘large’ mesh and deform it to their tall but thin avatar – it will be a mess of nasty triangles poking out. They need a small mesh, because they’re thin.

Some folks waiting for the deformer, will be in an EVEN WORSE MESS once it gets here, because they “never read the manual.” These folks just need to learn what mesh does effect, and then they can find existing items that are close. And the deformer will just take that close and get closer. It won’t turn a circle into a square folks – it will take a square and bevel it.

Avatar to be released in sequels, now that’s hell of an awesome piece of news!

“I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them.” – James Cameron

The director has also mentioned that there will be a shooting of a number of sequels not only the second at the same time to prevent high expenses and all the work of rebuilding and rehiring the props that will create a new buzz all over the world. So now its been confirmed that a new sequel of avatar is coming sooner than ever!

[Source]

Rumor has it the 2nd Avatar is DONE! and the 3rd Avatar is to be filmed this November!

How excited are you! & How do you think the story will turn out and what is there more to explore through the adventures of Pandora and it Na’vi. This is gonna be EPIC

If you haven’t yet watched Avatar! You should miss this!

Related articles

• James Cameron Is Going to Do Avatar 2, 3 and 4…all at once! (filmophilia.com)
• James Cameron To Shoot Three ‘Avatar’ Sequels Back To Back (screencrave.com)
• Not one, not two but three Avatar sequels??? (geeksyndicate.wordpress.com)