Avatar Day - IMAX 3D first impressions

[cybereality]

So I was lucky enough to get to see the Avatar preview tonight at my local IMAX 3D theater. I waited on line for close to an hour, but in the end I got good seats near the front. From where I was sitting the screen pretty much covered my whole field of view (except for at the far edges, but the peripheral vision isn't even 3D anyway). The 3D glasses at the IMAX are also a lot larger than the standard RealD glasses, so you can get a good view of the 3d. After a short introduction from James Cameron, the footage began.

Right from the first shot I could see Cameron had gone for a high-depth stereo image. He pushed it a lot further than other recent movies I've seen. It started with some live-action footage in a boot-camp type army setting. Then it showed the main character prepping to get his avatar. After that it cut to some jungle CG footage, some fight scenes, etc. Then they had more CG with the navi's and other alien creatures. Some pretty impressive graphics. All in all about 20 minutes of footage from random scenes in the movie (it wasn't edited like a trailer, it was just the raw footage). Normally this would seem like a good chunk, but I was told the movie runs 3 hours and 15 minutes, so Fox can afford to give away 20 minutes for free.

First let me say that this movie looks really good and I am certainly going to see it right when it comes out (if not opening night). The special effects look top-notch and the 3d effects were some of the best I have ever seen. But at the same time, I am not sure this movie is going to live up to the hype. Don't get me wrong, it all looked great, but I wouldn't go as far to say it was the best movie ever (and that is what they are selling it as). It certainly didn't look to be on the level of a classic like Aliens. So I have some mixed feelings. I thought the live-action parts were really compelling, but the CG seemed a bit cartoony. It still looks better than 90% of the other movies coming out this year, but I am having doubts if this is going to be the real "game-changer" everyone is making it out to be. It looks like a solid sci-fi flick for sure, maybe the best 3d movie ever made, but it still might fall short of all the hype. I guess we will know for sure come December.