Videos&Art to inspire SF / FANTASY ideas? Post YOURS ?!

[soulmirror]

AVATAR trailer ... This has gotta gonna be the coolest Sci Fi movie ever made!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXF2nH4Z9sc&feature=related



Couldn't find the one they played before PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES at the theatre last night (it was much more story-rich and dialoguey) but it looks absolutely amazing!

[soulmirror]

And I linked you to the PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES trailers, so I will offer this too: sorry.

Every low-budget dv filmmaker will rejoice at its success! (It will unleash a reservoir of very low-budget schlock and imitators, no doubt)

Many in the film-going audience may think: I should've waited for the dvd.

Any writer will think: I could've written that, and having written it we would have thought "nawwww ... there just isn't enough there to be a story."

[soulmirror]

I guess the point is: As feeling humans we are easily manipulated by powerful images and ideals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I&feature=related

Sometimes to our own harm,
sometimes allowing us to harm others
or our world we all live in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odI7pQFyjso&feature=related

And so I suppose as creative folks who work and dream
to have our voices heard ...

We can always take an extra minute to challenge ourselves with this:

when our voices are eventually heard ...

What message will we each speak out to the world?

[soulmirror]

More AVATAR. Avatar in the Hindu, glimpse of the divine manifestation sense, far as I'm concerned! I be stoked!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid3698508001?bctid=47065131001

Here's the far cooler trailer from the movie theatre prevues.

Looks utterly amazing. Like they've been saying in the other sf threads: death to Ewoks!

And I hear one guydid it all, working in his spare time in his garage for $11, working on an old pc ... with Poser 2.0 !!!

[soulmirror]

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ... and why it means we will lose the fight against the AI's who we will build to replace us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZclLpczKhJg


heehee ... da vinci's Last Supper. They slay me!

And while we're on the subject of Hinduism (AVATAR etc) here's the coolest theme music ever, the first time I'd ever heard the whole thing (end credits to THE PLAN)

[quote]oṃ
bhūr
bhuvaḥ
svaḥ
tát savitúr váreniyaṃ
bhárgo devásya dhīmahi
dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyÄÂ

[Prisoner]

The reason apocalypses are all over science fiction is by reason of categorization. Since it hasn't happened, the only way to credibly create fiction about it happening is to place it in the future. Fiction about the future is SF. All that pulp comes trooping in to the camp welcome or not, because it got kicked out of all the other camps.

Second reason: people love a good scare. It's stimulating. It distracts and makes everyday problems small.

Third reason: We've lost faith in the ability of science to improve the human condition. In decades past, we marveled at what immunizations, rail transport, the telegraph, flight, etc., could do for humanity. Now we have the nuclear bomb and global warming, both consequences of science.

People want optimism. America is a place of optimism. Religions attract with the promise of better things in the life to come. Bradbury says he's guilty of the crime of optimism. So, write accordingly. You might not find an immediate audience, but don't give up.

Prisoner

[M. Wimmer]

Now I get to think about the Silicon Avatar episode of Star Trek TNG every time I see an ad for this movie. That was the first episode I ever saw. Isn't there a Bruce Willis movie out that has people living in avatars too?

[administrator]

Yes, the Bruce Willis movie is called Surrogates. I actually saw it and found it very entertaining. I don't think it was a slayer at the box office but I thought it was a great movie nonetheless.

Peter

[soulmirror]

You're undoubtedly right, End Of the World must just be a human fixation.

The "why" may be disturbing.

Someone wrote once that we all know we'll die, and so there are (at least) twin human desires: We want to take the world with us, on some level ... and (perhaps a lesson valuable to writers and story-tellers?) we all crave the ultimate punctuation and completed ending to the Story: "And then the Story ended because the World ended!" *

All tied up neat with a bow!

(Or, because English is a strange language) All tied up neat with a bow!

And both Hindu cosmology and some scientific cosmology predict that even if the world dies, and eventually the Universe itself dies ... It's all only one iteration in an eternally repeating cycle of cosmic Creation and Destruction and Re-Birth. Like Cylons without the well-lit slimebath!


* Of course, the positive viewpoint would be to point to all the stories where the scrappy heroes SURVIVE even the End of the World.

Though a recent review of the movie 2012 made the point that there's something twisted about an audience who seeks the thrill of seeing millions wiped out ... yet needs to know that the good doggie survives in the end!

[soulmirror]

"Avatar" a Triumph of Technology, Storytelling"
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9308487

Okay, so what do they get up on the screen for their $390+ production and marketing?



Lots. Maybe the movie that makes 3-D the future of Movie-going, if you believe the spin.

http://www.slashfilm.com/category/box-office/

Well ... I'm still holding out for GREATEST MOVIE EVER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxt2Gwp7tx0&feature=player_embedded

Hopefully (personally) more THE ABYSS than TITANIC, though the box office suits are clearly hoping that everyone in the movie-going world will go see it three times! [/img]


"Get off my f@#%ing planet !!!"

[Alastair]

Lots. Maybe the movie that makes 3-D the future of Movie-going, if you believe the spin.

Well, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics and most of the rest of the usual suspects have been hyping the movie for its film-making technologies. We'll see if that leads to too-high expectations in the audience.

The thing is, the consumer electronics and film industries are both desperate for something to kick consumer demand up to the next level. BluRay has been disappointing, still a tiny fraction of the market, and HD TVs aren't doing much better in the soft economy. 3D TVs are coming -- but they require active electronic glasses to watch (tech that has been available for computer games for a while, but not very popular either) and the capacity of BD to hold both left- and right-eye images of the film. The simple fact is, for most people regular DVDs do just fine -- a good story and good sound are more important to movie watchers than hi-def graphics. (Think about it: would you rather watch a movie with a perfect audio track and noisy image, or with a clear image and a noisy or flaky audio track? The story is in the dialogue, mostly.)

This has happened before. Audio CDs were the pinnacle of sound quality when introduced, and their advantages over LPs and cassettes led them to take off. Audio-DVDs and other hifi digital audio formats have mostly fallen flat, and now most people get their music via lower-quality MP3s. The convenience factor outweighs the almost imperceptible difference in sound. DVDs have similar clear resolution and format advantages over VHS tape, and also took off. But BluRay hasn't, even after the HD format war is over. With video, more and more people are content to watch highly compressed low-res YouTube and other downloadable videos or watch on tiny portable screens because of the convenience factor, hi-def and 3D be damned.

I don't think Dances With Smurfs, er, Avatar is going to change that in any significant way.

[soulmirror]

Look, they spent $390 million on the freakin' 3D ... give 'em a chance to ROCK YOUR WORLD!

3D still from "James Cameron's AVATAR":

[Brad R. Torgersen]

I don't think Dances With Smurfs, er, Avatar is going to change that in any significant way.

[soulmirror]

Dammit, talk about bad timing --

Just when AVATAR showed us all how to live together in harmony with Mother Earth ...

http://www.legionmovie.com/?hs308=LGN067

... GOD has decided to wipe us all off the face of the Earth.



Predictably, the writer will probably have to screw around with the traditional views of angels to make his thing work.

I don't mind taking liberties to EXPAND on established things ... I just hate it when you realize the writer didn't bother to research his topic before screwing around with it.

After all, a story flaw is a story flaw: you can get the science wrong in Science Fiction, and you can get the established theology wrong when you're in over your head in that one, too ...

On the one hand: Paul Bettany as a Battle Angel. I'm hopeful.

On the other hand: It looks like the "people trapped in a roadside diner" thing from Project Greenlight / FEAST.
And yet again, somebody's got to scurry upsidedown across the ceiling?

You know how to fight the devil?
Put mousetraps on the ceiling.

[soulmirror]

Dubai announces "Our skyscraper looks more Sci-Fi than yours!"



"Not so freakin' fast," suggests Shanghai



"Don't make us do something crazy," murmurs Russia under it's breath.

[soulmirror]

So, with TERMINATOR SALVATION, AVATAR, and now CLASH OF THE TITANS ... Sam Worthington pretty much owns SF / FANTASY movies in the 21st Century so far ???

But TITANS looks killer, imo.

Or as someone commented on the youtube site:

I just released the Kraken in my pants...

CLASH OF THE TITANS trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpZ5D_Wc4cA&feature=related



PLUS:
Doesn't Quentin Tarantino gives INGLORIOUS BASTERDS an unexpected genre twist at the end?

[Brad R. Torgersen]

Quentin Tarantino is f---ing weird.

Just sayin', K?

Oh, and is Angelina Jolie going to play Medusa?

[AMcCarter]

News Flash! Inglorious Basterds is a REMAKE! The original was made in the 70s, very low budget. I don't even think it was filmed over here (most of the actors are dubbed). The funny thing is, they're speaking English and they're dubbed. Either they had heavy accents or their sound wasn't that great while filming.

[Brad R. Torgersen]

Wow, I had no idea. A remake, eh?

I just think Quentin should be banned from 'acting' in his own movies. For the rest of his natural life.

[phil]

I used to think Megan Fox was hot, until I noticed her toe-thumb.

[/code]

[soulmirror]

Ah well ... Sooner or later, we all end up loving an alien. Paint her blue, give her a tentacle ... she stillz mah baybee.

Now that we know she has strange parts ... There may be other parts of her which are unexpectantly but not unpleasantly prehensile, who knows?

**************

I didn't realize Inglorious B. was a remake (though Q.T. has made a career no doubt of lifting and paying homage to other films) ... but now I must see the original (the '70's poster is just too much)

I love the Alternative World History
Tarantino twist thrown in so unexpectedly and unapologetically though!

[soulmirror]

It's hard to look at anything by artist Mark Ryden and not feel both disturbed ... and feel a story inspiration coming on!

[AWSullivan]

I used to think Megan Fox was hot, until I noticed her toe-thumb.

I could get over it...

[Brad R. Torgersen]

Toe-thumb... LMAO!

[AMcCarter]

It's where she keeps all her acting talent.

[osomuerte]

Who needs talent when you look like that and constantly wear an expression like you're about to...

Nevermind. Family forum.

[AMcCarter]

And people wonder why movie quality is slipping.

[soulmirror]

The Ending is the Story is the Thing ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhB_An8fT4&feature=related

What? Singing Dogs are too SF ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9beQh1yH5uU&feature=related

[Alex Kane]

An interesting method which can be traced back to our younger days is to draw a picture of a place, machine, object, or character, and then make up a story to go along with it.

The same works for paintings, photos, etc., but this way the source material itself has come from your subconscious, so you already know that what you're elaborating on is something from within yourself--likely holding some deeper significance.

[soulmirror]

"The flight of the Antares" ( ABC's "DEFYING GRAVITY" ) ... was sadly cancelled just when the cool mysteries were starting to be revealed!

In the fiery hell of Venus ... she's following the sound of a baby crying ...

And ... push a button / launch a starship always gets me ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFAcSKhsGlk