The Avatar trailer is really visually stunning. I'm not really feeling much beyond that, though. To the extent that effects enhance a great narrative, I'm all in. To the extent that it becomes a show in and of itself, I'm all out.
Story-telling is actually one of my long-standing beefs with MMOs. WoW did a good job of pushing story-telling forward, but it's hard to go as deep as some of the great single player games. I'd like to see the next big MMO go a little further in terms of story-telling. There has to be a way to do something more than kill xx number of orcs, a better way to hide the architecture. Should they not tell you about XP and levels? Should the process of "leveling up" be a little more mystical? I don't know...
Anyway, here's the trailer. I don't think I can take another "good white man save the natives" story. When do the natives save themselves? When the natives start investing in cameras.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
"When do the natives save themselves? When the natives start investing in cameras."
That's funny.
I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, so take my opinion for what it's worth. But man, this movie looks stupid. I would rather go see 'The Blindside.' This looks like a video game. I'm sure I'm probably wrong, and it's probably awesome. But I can't get over how cartoon-like these characters look.
lol.
I can't get over how cartoon-like the plot looks. I've seen Hollywood eco-plots before, and I've seen white man saves the natives before--that's one boring looking plot. And lovely cgi is useless on top of a boring plot.
Definite Ferngully vibe on this one ...
You get that too? It looks like a cross between that and the Final Fantasy movie that bombed early in the decade. What do you want to bet this thing ends up being way too long to boot?
Or enormous rendering farms.
I saw a trailer for this in the theater and it doesn't scale well to the big screen. Looks much better in a tiny square of my browser. And I have a hard time imagining this film being anywhere near as important as any of Cameron's psat films cited in the trailer, especially five years out. It just looks like Daikatana to me.
Hate to disagree TNC, but my whole family (God bless their geeky hearts) have been getting more and more excited about this movie the more we see. Probably make it our first trip to an IMAX. I don't really care that Cameron artfully "steals" from previous sci-fi material (like the human tech looking like that in Aliens or Halo). And we can't tell from the trailer if the natives only rise up because of the influence of the outsider. Sounds like they've been fighting back since the beginning of contact with humans, with the human avatar more comparable to a contemporary "military advisor" like our spec ops in Afghanistan.
Three more random notes:
- In sci fi/fantasy, the aliens often "save themselves" because humanity is portrayed as the underdog. From ancient elven weaponry in LOTR to alien weapon systems in Stargate, aliens (or "natives") do get portrayed as the advanced ones very often.
- It wasn't until this trailer that I realized that the Avatar plot looks like a sci-fi Dances With Wolves. I'll have to stew over that comparison more, but I don't think it bothers me.
- No, WOW's plot (I just reached level 60 for the first time) can't hold up with the great single player games, which is why I'm eagerly awaiting Bioware's next offering, Dragon Age.
Letting my geek flag fly free. All the best.
Disagree in full, I can understand why you'd be excited.
That said, there's an important difference between "natives" and "aliens," which is why I used the former.
Good point about the distinction between native and alien, as we see in all the "invasion of earth" movies all humanity is the native. (Sometimes with the twist that native humanity needs to be saved by an outside influence.)
But in a sci-fi action movie the plot must come down to the use of technology. Looks like they're setting up the natives to be the underdogs, with seemingly primitive tech. But you know this is all set up to see gunships vs. dragonriders. Who knows which is victorious in the end of the movie, or what role the hero plays. The Na'vi seem pretty able to take care of themselves, downright scary on their own turf. It's not like you see the hero teaching them all how to use human weaponry and tactics.
Perhaps you're too attuned to the possibility that the film is about, as you put it, the "white man saving the natives"? Or perhaps not. I'd say you're reading a lot in to the trailer that isn't there, but hey that's the beauty of debating such things. All the best.
as we see in all the "invasion of earth" movies all humanity is the native
And yet humanity is usually represented by nice white Americans.
MMO Plotting: The problem is that in a real fantasy world, only one intrepid party of adventurers would be allowed to kill the big evil overlord and from that point on the overlord is dead and those adventurers are heroes to the realm. That wouldn't be fair to the vast majority of players, and good luck on getting them to shell out the 15 dollars a month. But the way to do plotting, I think, is to allow the world to be affected by players. If you introduce elements of a world that can be changed by individual players and allow other players to see the changes those individuals have made, plotting comes naturally. In other words, let the players make the plot. WoW has taken some preliminary steps towards this with phasing content in LK, but creating a dynamic world is still a ways off, just in terms of technology, I think.
I don't think I can take another "good white man save the natives" story.
I don't know. I can easily picture Will Smith playing this part, but I'm sure his salary demands would be unrealistic given the budget of this film.
Even if Will Smith played the lead, it would still be a "good white man saves the natives" story, just with (male, military) humans providing the metaphorical function of the historical version.
A nice inversion of that formula was District 9, in which all of human South Africa played out the function of the white population during apartheid.
Thanks Lemmy.
Meh. The CGI doesn't look as flat and cartoonish as it does in the later Star Wars films. Some bits of the trailer look quite impressive. But the seams still show between the live action and the CGI.
From the trailer I'm kind of getting that it's Dances With Wolves meets Return of the Jedi, with tall blue Ewoks.
After spending two hours with the Ewoks in ROTJ, I was starting to root for the Empire. I'll probably see this movie, but I suspect it's up to no good.
Yeah, I've heard and seen so much about this and I still can't get that excited. The 3-D is supposed to be truly revolutionary, by all accounts, but how do you sell that on TV or even with a trailer on the big screen? It just seems strange to me that Cameron would hype this supposedly photo-real CGI but then over-use color as he seems to be doing here, producing a somewhat cartoonish result.
I should say that I do intend to see it, if only to see how well the 3-D and the FX play on the huge screen. I expect I'll be going alone, though. None of my friends seem to give a shit, and my girlfriend is certainly not interested.
How many people are that into an "even more realistic" 3-D as a reason to see a movie? I sounded off on this over in Business when they asked about 3-D tv...the kids and I seek out non-3-D versions of movies. I like the straight up visual artistry aspect of some movies (Hero, Crouching Tiger, and even Lost manages to get quite cinematic at times) but I've never seen anything in 3-D that excited me.
I've seen two movies in 3-D somewhat recently, and they both gave me a headache. In Beowulf, it was just gimmicky, things sticking out at you and whatnot. It would have ruined Up for me, too, if it weren't for that movie's storytelling and character charms. The 3-D dulled the colors and made the edges of the frame very murky. My girlfriend and I didn't intend to see it that way, especially after Ebert warned against it, but the couple we went with were adamant.
Avatar, though, is supposed to be immersive. That's what's keeping me somewhat interested, especially since I plan to smoke a bowl beforehand, but I doubt it'll lure the masses.
Sigh...Sail away to a far off deserted island with me now... : D
This movie looks great to me. Personally, I miss the days of Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies: True Lies, Terminator, T2. Anything that remotely looks like Starship Troopers, I embrace:
Did you see the New Yorker profile on Cameron? Good stuff.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_goodyear
P.S. I recently saw "Wolverine: Origins" on a plane. Ming gah! I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was "Crossroads"-level bad. That said, I watched it repeatedly. Slim pickin's.
Besides, James Cameron sucks. Terminator is great. Aliens is awesome. Abyss had serious third act issues (made only worse by the directors cut). T2 was innovative, but formulaic (with a terrible directors cut). I guess True Lies was amusing. Titanic was, well really bad, but incredibly successful. He's done essentially nothing since. But he has spent a large part of the last six years talking this thing up. So far, there's nothing that makes me think this is going to be worth much of anything.
Hey TNC,
Would you mind explaining a bit more about which games you thought had really good stories? I am curious. I've never been a huge video game person, and have barely played at all in the past five years or so, so I'm curious if there's been big developments there or not.
It always seemed to me like there was a fundamental problem with narrative in games, as the essence of good gameplay seems to be a sense of possibility, of having different ways to approach a problem and tackle it which produce different effects, whereas the essence of good story-telling is a constantly renewed sense of inevitablity, that in a good story when you find out what happens it seems at once like the only thing that could have happened. The games I've played it's been more like, finish a level, get a cut scene. A chunk of narrative as reward for completing a task, not anything the player's really influencing or participating in, except inasmuch as forgetting to talk to shopkeeper X back at the beginning may prevent you from picking up Item Y which is necessary to complete task Z in the next chapter. They're pretty, but they never have the emotional engagement of a real story. The emotions generated by games are more like the ones generated by sports, tensions and frustrations relieved or increased by the actions of the moment.
Be interested in TNC's comments on this too. Bioware has really ruled plot-driven gaming for awhile. (Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect...) Some great story writing and voice acting (a really glaring problem with WOW), with the possibility of death for key companions or romantic plot lines, go a long way towards moving the medium forward.
Dittos on the Bioware titles.
Thirded on Bioware. I think Obsidian is also worth mentioning. Started up by the people behind Planescape: Torment and the first two Fallout games. They made Knights of the Old Republic 2 which might have been even better than the first one if not for Lucasarts cutting development time by six months.
KOTOR was fantastic. And to pull it off so well in essentially a very static fictional universe is even more impressive
I think game narratives have come a loooong way. About the only thing from the past that holds up for me are some of the point and click adventures and the Final Fantasy series. Oh and Earthbound. Maybe some Phantasy Star.
Anyway, one thing that's been bugging me is the overuse of narrative in games, aka Metal Gear Solid 2 onward. Where the game literally is all narrative, and no gameplay, and the goal of the player is to move from one long cut scene to the other. Like Xenogears. Eek.
The best games (and most recent) I've seen use storyline weaved well into gameplay have been:
Shadow of the Colossus
Bioshock
Fallout 3
My husband and I played all the MGS games together last year (because I'd been a PC-only gamer rather than a console gamer from the mid-80s up through 2005, so I missed them on their first pass). They work great for the MST3K treatment, and they really are fun as hell and well made, but at the end of MGS4, you put Snake in a microwave and then watch a movie. Then you trigger the end credits and watch another movie. From the "end" of the game to the ACTUAL END of the game was, what, four hours? And an ex-boyfriend and I couldn't even get started playing Kingdom Hearts 2 because after several hours of cut-scenes, neither one of us gave a damn about the gameplay.
I will echo the recommendations for those games, though. Fallout 3 completely ensnared me -- the husband said, "hey, come play this intro, I think you'll like it," and for the next 3 months he had to fight to get his PC back from me, because I was determined to explore every pixel of that map. (Although I also live in DC now, so part of it was the, "Hey, that's my street!" factor.) And Bioshock is so highly acclaimed for a reason.
A game doesn't have to be an epic graphic masterpiece to be narratively compelling, though. See also: "Braid," "World of Goo," and, everyone's favorite, "Portal."
At this point, game studies and film studies have this huge overlap and it becomes really interesting to examine narrative choices.
Bioware's next sequel to Knights of the old Republic is going to be an MMORPG. It's called The Old Republic and is set to launch some time next year.
KOTOR, IMO, is the greatest example of storytelling ever in an RPG. When I completed it for the first time, I felt like I was immersed in a totally new and unfamiliar Star Wars movie for about 3 months. If you stripped all gaming elements out of it and made it a novel or film, i think it would be a huge success. Bioware has always let story drive its RPG titles and this MMO promises more of the same, offering choices that have lasting consequences, etc. So there is good reason to hope that there is an MMO with powerful narrative elements on the way.
Agree on Bioshock, and haven't played Fallout, but Shadow of the Colossus?!? Had a storyline? Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic game (I'm on the 16th colossus right now, first time through) but there's no narrative, barely a plot, which is really just a premise to get you into these super boss-fights. Maybe there's a ton of story piled on after the last foe is defeated, but I just don't see a legitimate story here.
This deserves a longer post and I'll offer one. I'm mostly a CRPG guy, so it will be bias. I do love Bioware--the two Baldur's Gate titles, as well as Icewind Dale, even though IWD was less plotting. I'll offer some more tomorrow.
Re: Your point about sports. Football grabs me as much as any narrative. I saw Emmitt Smith play with a separated shoulder. It was opera.
Yeah, I should clarify that sport related comment. I don't mean to suggest that the emotions evoked by sports are false or lesser; indeed, sports can provoke some of the most intense emotional engagement we're capable of. But when I think of watching a really good game --- or playing one --- it's that's sort of in-the-moment intensity that I think of, almost physical, a feeling that makes you jump off the couch when your guys score or half-heave your body to the left when your guy is trying to jump from cliff top to cliff top. Some books and films can have this --- pager-turners, suspense, thrillers. But usually, when I think of a book that rocked my world, I think of something that made me reflect, of a passages I want to savor, of mood that lingers even when you put it down. A flavor almost; personally speaking, lately I've been feeling a kind of desire for fall coziness that makes me reach for Jane Austen. Games can sometimes create a mood that lingers in your brain, if you play for a long time. But even then it seems connected to the body, to action, in the way that a book hangover doesn't. Peep this metafilter thread to see what I mean.
Darn, I momentarily thought you were talking about the movie-currently-known-as The Last Airbender.
Which I am sincerely hoping M. Night Shyamalan hasn't f-ed up, beyond the fact there should have been more, you know, actual Asians cast in it.
My kids and I are amped (pun intended) for TLAB but I cringe that M. Night has the reigns on it.
If you haven't seen this series go and rent it or catch it on Nick in rerun, but watch start to finish. The writing actually gets better as they find their groove with the characters and the animation is better than average.
I loved how it challenged my kids with the notion that there is no such thing as all good or all bad and their reactions to characters "evolving".
And the attention to detail is amazing-- martial arts based on different existing martial arts styles, traditional Native hairstyles and clothes, plot and character developments carried through seasons.
Oh yes. They went to so much trouble to carefully appropriate the culture, but when it came to time to represent the people who created it, it was the same-old same-old. What a rip-off.
I loved how it challenged my kids with the notion that there is no such thing as all good or all bad and their reactions to characters "evolving".
The subtleties of the characters was great. I suspected from pretty early on that Prince Zuko would switch sides, so it was deeply satisfying when that actually happened near the end, and in a way that made sense.
I'll see how it's reviewed before I decide whether to watch. If I go to the theater, I'll buy one of those "aang ain't white" shirts for the occasion.
I also called Zuko, though a little later in the series and I think it was obvious at that point...however, the little ones thought I was genius for doing so, so let's keep that our secret.
Zuko reminded me so much of Miss Parker from The Pretender -- tormented but unreasonably loyal to her [his] horrible family, on a quest to capture Jarod [Avatar] solely in order to remain in good standing.
And if that series hadn't been cancelled before they wrapped up the story, I would have put money on Miss Parker switching sides too.
The lack of Asians in leading role has completely f-ed up the movie for me. It's just an outrageous whitewash.
Same here.
Same old story, same results. Bleh.
So much for the natives getting to save themselves, eh?
Your comment just now made me realize that Avatar =/= The Last Airbender. I've been so baffled by the previews. I was just about to point people to what Racialicious and Angry Asian Men have been saying about the casting surrounding The Last Airbender.
I know it was mentioned earlier, TNC, but you really should check out Dragon Age, which comes out today. I know you tend to stick to WoW/mmo's, but this is a massive fantasy game that is really heavy on story and the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate/the old D&D games. Like another great recent rpg, it deals a lot with themes of racism.
The game is also the best one Bioware has made in years (better than Mass Effect, Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic etc.).
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/dragonageorigins
The other great recent rpg I ommitted the name of was The Witcher.
Yeah, I'm up on DA. I'm away at the moment. Will cop when I get back in town.
Better than Mass Effect and KOTOR? For storytelling? If that's true, then Dragon Age is one serious accomplishment but I'm very skeptical. We'll see. Dragon Age's RPG elements probably are superior to Mass Effect's, which is RPG-lite for hardcore types, but Mass Effect's storytelling would be extremely difficult to beat, IMO.
I'm excited about Dragon Age but, at the same time, I have some nagging doubts. Its graphics engine looks a bit dated and the gameplay in the samples released so far looks a lot like the stilted exchanges in neverwinter nights 2. NWN2 is great as a video version of dungeons and dragons but the gameplay/melee mechanics aren't that good.
On the other hand, the elements of choice and consequence in Dragon Age look to be extensive. And none of the visual/mechanics stuff I'm worried about would necessarily preclude a great narrative.
I'll be getting Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 no matter what the reviews say for either, though, so Bioware will make plenty on me in 2010.
Conversation is more fluid in ME, mainly due to the fact that you can select the response before the other person has finished talking. DA has a more fleshed out backstory and I've personally been enjoying the party characters more than ME, mainly due to some terrific voice work (Alistair, Morrigan and the Dog are excellent).
Basically, don't pay attention to the awful trailers and marketing. This game is the real deal. The world and plot are great (though it does use familiar fantasy tropes).
I had a lot of fun in LOTRO (Lords of the Ring Online) precisely because of the story line. Although you know what the final outcome is going to be; how Turbine wove your story into Tolkien's is fun.
I'll probably see it in 3D. If anyone can do 3D well it'll be James Cameron. He has the golden touch and he's pretty good with mixing great special effects (i.e. computer graphics) with films that have decent plots and characters.
On another note, I thought Star Craft had a good storyline in addition to fantastic gameplay.
Story-telling is actually one of my long-standing beefs with MMOs.
Lord of the Rings Online, dude. Come and join us on the Brandywine server... Turbine does an amazing job of integrating characters into a larger narrative (though, granted, not one that is user-generated). The gameplay is fun, easy to pick up, and the quests are engrossing. They really do an excellent job of making you feel like a hero in a larger world.
This is apparently the driving force behind the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO as well. I second recommendations of Bioware and Bethesda games. Elder Scrolls: Morrowind and ES: Oblivion are two of the most enthralling games I've ever played. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remains one of my favorites to this day. I'm rolling out of work a tad early to pick up Dragon Age: Origins. All in all, there's some good stuff out there for the discerning RPG player.
My husband is 100% a story-based gamer (I'm probably a heavier gamer than he is, but different driving motivations) and he's been nearly wetting himself over Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-release materials. (And KOTOR is one of his all-time favorites, too.) I'm intrigued to see how they make it work.
Me, I'm a social gamer and a fun-things gamer and a take-it-apart-and-see-how-it-works gamer, so I tend to play in MMO beta releases but not linger long in the games. Except that I've been on EQ2's Test Server for 5 years this coming spring.
"good white man saves the natives" - man that killed me.
How about white men and natives sit down to discuss the proper net present value of that little rock that goes for '20 million dollars an ounce' (or whatever). And the natives bargain and compromise as business people every bit as serious about getting paid and hopefully seeing some benefits flow to their communities while at the same time preserving and sustaining their resource as the white men would be in the 21st century. (Or so we would certainly like to think about ourselves. And when are we wrong? No nihilism and mindless 'profit above all' short term thinking here) Right - no drama in that, nor simplistic moralizing. Just prosaic economics where everybody gets a little bit dirty. And I'm sure in this movie their special planet gives the natives whatever they need and they don't want for anything.
Not to mention that this scenario I've outlined is probably just as fantastical anyway- what given the resource curse and all.
What I find most infuriating is that this preview - like most Hollywood previews - basically gives away the whole movie except for the results of that big third act shoot-em up and then whatever trite, sanctimonious messaging comes after. Its this formulaic plotting that I just can't stand, and I don't think I'm alone.
And no, I haven't seen District 9 yet.
Nice critique. Well, if you want a bit less fantastical, you can always cut a deal with whichever power brokers are willing to sell the thing. Both easier and cheaper than sending in avatars, although as you say with the resource curse example it tends to end up with the power brokers handling the oppression.
The worst of the trailers I've seen of late is Surrogate. Oddly enough, I've also seen a subtle trailer for Avatar, it even played down the protagonist being in a wheel chair aspect.
Regardless, movie that most angered me for failing to understand basic economics: Robots. Evil corporation stops selling spare parts for poor robots. Obviously the only solution is to take over the corporation to make it benign again. One couldn't, say, start producing those parts and take over the market, that would be crazy.
I think they've been pushing the story telling a little with WoW, re: cinematics in Icecrown sort of thing. But I think it would be a very bad idea to make the levels and experience thing more invisible. It frustrates many players not to see how far they have to go. (Imagine a boss battle without a meter to let you know how far the boss is. You've been whaling on him for five minutes. Is anything you are doing having an effect? How long do you have to beat on him for?) For another thing, a lot of people enjoy little markers to let them know they've achieved something, but again, they like to see the results of their progress. By taking out the meters and HUD, you are risking cutting off a large potential audience. (I am one of those players. I also enjoy story, but I tend to RP a bit when I feel that need.)
CG is ruining a lot of films. I can't stand the CG in this movie. It looks like it belongs in a video game. I know doing the old way costs a lot of money but they need to start making that investment if they want to have a long standing franchise like Star Wars or LOTR. District 9 has some fantastic CG. It looked real. I don't know who does it but they great at it.
Dang;
I thought this movie was going to be about space or something - like spaceships and weird supernatural things; you know, kind of mystical/creepy. this looks like a rich man's 'battlefield earth' but without travolta and forest whitaker absurd acting performances. ugh.
Regarding finding storytelling in a MMORPG environment, you're unlikely to
find much quality stuff. But it can certainly can be found as an internet underground niche thing, perhaps primarily in privately run NWN 1 servers where role-playing and characterization is strictly enforced and where administrators spin elaborate plots and can easily change the world to reflect player wrought changes. Maybe the best example is Escaped from the Underdark: Archipelago, www.escapedfromunderdark.com
Certainly video games are just another potential form of story telling though, and as the genre matures there will be some interesting stuff. Difficult to imagine that a playerbase of millions can
be devoted to cooperative storytelling though as opposed to a few hundred. Or that a for profit enterprise would enforce such a thing - after all, any decent story will have some characters that die... and stay dead.