Review and news hub for movies, music and video games

Last Friday, James Cameron and 20th Century Fox dubbed August 21st "Avatar Day." The idea was to show off the much-hyped film that was previously kept very tightly wrapped for the better part of three years, by launching an onslaught of Avatar-related stuff.

"Avatar Day" came in five stages: a teaser trailer, a lenticular one-sheet, a 16-minute 3D screening of footage, a video game trailer and a look at Avatar action figures. In addition, the official movie site also received an update. The success of these launches, however, really depends on who you ask.

Teaser Trailer

The event technically started early, when Apple released the Avatar teaser trailer Thursday morning. Despite breaking the site's viewing record (4 million streams in its first day alone!), the trailer elicited plenty of backlash from those who didn't feel that the CG quality matched the hype—not that that would've been possible. Most of the complaints were about the colorful look of the Na'Vi and Pandora's creatures, that they looked too much like an animated film.

See for yourself. I happen to find it absolutely gorgeous, but I like animated films, and I like seeing mixtures of animation and live-action, regardless of how realistic it looks. I suspect many wouldn't mind, either, if it was clearly defined as such rather than building a buzz around the amazing technology that promises the most advanced computer graphics to ever be rendered by sliced bread—or something to that effect.

To really get the full effect of its beauty, a full 1080p Quicktime HD viewing is recommended.

3D Footage

Reactions were much more positive for the footage screenings, as folks were able to truly judge the images from the film as it was meant to be seen: in 3D. Avatar was specifically designed to be a 3D experience, as Cameron pushed the technology to an ambitious new level. Maybe it's unfair to say that the visuals should only be judged in its ideal format, but the proper experience does give an impression more validity.

On Friday, the lucky few that manage to score tickets for the screenings were treated to a number of clips—sixteen minutes in total—at select Digital 3D and IMAX 3D theaters worldwide. The clips were generally the same as the ones shown last month at the San Diego Comic-Con (which you can read all about here), but trimmed down. It's missing my favorite scene from the SDCC debut, which was of jellyfish-looking sprites descending on Sam Worthington's character Jake. A brief shot of this scene appeared in the teaser.

Lenticular One-Sheet

Of course, a movie that was poised to revolutionize 3D films would settle for no less than a holographic lenticular poster. If you went to a multiplex at all this weekend, chances are you might've spotted it already. I know it was already on display Thursday night at the Century 9 in San Francisco.

It's basically just the teaser poster of Zoe Saldana's character Neytiri, but in holographic format. Not exactly anything to write home about.

Video Game Trailer

On the same day as the movie's footage debut, Ubisoft also released the first trailer for the video game tie-in on its official site. The Avatar game, honestly, doesn't look like it's in any way noteworthy, aside from the fact that its environment and character designs are pretty cool. That's one potentially crappy tie-in (as these things often go) that benefitted greatly from the film's established concept art.

What's interesting to note here, however, is that one of the more common insults used against the film's teaser trailer was that the CG look too much like video game cutscenes. It's clear just by looking at the game trailer, however, to know that there's still a big leap in-between. I know the "it looks like a video game" assessment should never be taken literally, but it's funny when the comparison is this easy to make.

I can imagine that conspiracy theorists are already at work convincing their peers that James Cameron deliberately asked Ubisoft to "crap up" the game's graphics in order to make the film look good in comparison.

Action Figures

Lastly, we have the toys from Mattel. This didn't really set any fires because, well, it's never a big secret to begin with. A lot of the toys—which include the Na'Vi characters, Pandora's animals and the human's military vehicles—already made their appearance at Comic-Con, and several official photos have trickled online since. One neat addition to the toys is an augmented reality card included with each figure. Set it up in front of a webcam, and you'll get a virtual hologram of your figure on a computer. Put several of these cards together, and you'll see them interact with each other.

None of the Mattel figures are as cool as the Sideshow Collectibles maquette of the AMP suit, of course. It's 21" tall and has a really detailed finish. Unfortunately, one of these will set you back $1,119. Yeah, not exactly a reasonable purchase.

Did the Marketing Succeed?

With the film only 3 months away—a short waiting period considering that for 3 years during production, we weren't given anything until last July—whether or not Avatar is going to meet all the expectations is hard to say. Many expressed their disappointment, so maybe in some circles it actually ruined the mystery hype surrounding it. One of the things that seem to be dividing opinions is the technology involved. The film was meant to be a showcase of 3D's capability, so ideally, one should go see it on IMAX 3D, since that's the kind of spectacle James Cameron developed all this technology for. Yet it's also perfectly fair for someone to say that a movie should play well in any type of presentation through its story, regardless of its original intent (which is not to say that Avatar won't be just that).

What "Avatar Day" definitely accomplished was getting the word out beyond the geek crowd and confused The Last Airbender fans*. The promotion left its mark online, judging from the constant buzz aboutAvatar all weekend on Facebook and Twitter.

Cameron still has time to polish the effects, so maybe we'll get a surprise or two on December 18^th—or whenever they release the second trailer.

* Apologies to anyone who came to this page expecting an article about Avatar: The Last Airbender based on the headline.