leeallen01
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Posts posted by leeallen01
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I saw it for the 5th time today and noticed some things I didn't before. Like the incredible Family theme statement at 1:50 in 'Bad Parents' isn't in the film. At least I didn't notice it. During the fight sequence that it takes places in, that statement doesn't appear.
Also some really gorgeous piano writing throughout. E.g. a lovely moment after the final battle when Lo'ak is looking for Jake, and he and Spider dive under water on the Ilu to look for him in the wreckage of the sunken ship, and the piano descends with them. It's so colourful and full of texture for such a little riff, as the high piano notes trickle down like water. Very Horner too.
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5 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:
Yeah I’d be very interested to see deleted scenes for this. Maybe one explains why the water Na’vi disappeared during the final confrontation. Maybe one shows whether Clement’s character survived. Etc.
But actually one main reason I understood it as months was the time amongst the water Na’vi. As you already pointed out Kate Winslet’s character goes from being not visibly pregnant to very visibly pregnant. But are you forgetting that whole montage of them learning the ways of their new community? That to me conveyed a fairly substantial passage of time.
Yavar
Yeah, true. I guess it was just because I wanted more haha. I always want more with the Avatar films. It's just a world and story that I'm glad to lose myself in for as long as I can.
I'm sure the deleted scenes will show the Metkayina retreated under heavy losses or something. Perhaps they were overwhelmed and didn't want to risk more harm. After all, they blamed Jake for their daughter, Tsireya being in danger and once they saw her leave the ship, they probably got the hell out of there.
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10 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:
I always had the impression that months passed in between Spider’s capture and his eventual rescue.
Yavar
I don't know why I didn't get that impression. We see him accepting his capture and 'go with it' so to speak. After that we are shown him at the Ikran nest, on the hunter ship and then in all the villages as they hunt for Jake. Of course it's implied that they searched many villages, so that tells you that it would've taken time. I guess I would've liked maybe 1 or 2 very small, personal scenes between Quaritch and Spider. Maybe one discussing his mother. Then it could convey Spider's anger of being held for so long, and also establish a deeper personal connection. It probably exists in an extended/deleted scene, because the deleted scenes of the first film are hugely important to Grace and Neytiri's characters e.g. the incident at Grace's school and the death of Neytiri's sister.
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I assumed the theme was for loss, considering it's used for the abduction of Spider and the loss of Neteyam, but yeah, it could be something we don't know yet. I'm sure he'd just answer "yes it's a theme for loss" etc, if that were the case, unless he was just joking around.
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3 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:
It's not at all, if you pay attention to what you wrote that I bolded.
I get the impression that Payakan did that years earlier; heck it could even possibly be before the events of the first movie. There's no guarantee that Scoresby was even on Pandora at the time. But even if he was, there are a bunch of reasons why he might not know. I don't get the impression from Avatar 2 that all of the hunter ships are in close contact with each other or anything. They're competitors.
Yavar
I was just curious because when I heard him say they never fight back, but saw them literally fight back, it made me think about the contradiction. But yeah there are many reasons why he might say that.
Also another thing I've been thinking about is the timeframe that Way of Water takes place in. E.g. we see that Ronal wasn't pregnant or at least wasn't showing her pregnancy when the family arrives, but then she is clearly pregnant at the end of the film. Therefore we can assume (I don't know Na'vi pregnancy time) but they were perhaps with the Metkayina for a few months. So that must mean that Spider was with Quarritch for several months. Interesting to think about, because it feels like he's with him for a few days.
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Was anyone else confused when the Tulkun hunter Scoresby said he's never seen the Tulkun fight back? But we are shown and told that Payakan led a few Tulkun and Na'vi against a hunter ship. Either Scoresby was lying or he doesn't know that they once tried to fight back. Either way it's strange.
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2 hours ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:
Probably hearing things... but found this little melody from the first movie similar to Franglen's new theme.
Likely a coincidence, but my personal head canon says Franglen grew the family theme from that Horner moment haha. However, Franglen did reference those military drums at the beginning of the piece. He played them at the end when Jake was walking to Tonowari to tell him he's going to leave.
I love that rendition of Jake's Theme as well at 0:55 in that Horner piece. It's a shame Franglen didn't use it more in The Way of Water. He does use it at the end and also hints at it throughout, but it's such a strong, heroic and versatile theme that Horner really develops well. But I understand the Family Theme taking the spotlight for story purposes.
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Franglen spoke about how he wanted to create a more ethereal, smoother vocal for the underwater world with the Metkayina clan. He wanted to vocally distinguish the two worlds of the forest and the water, so he kept Horner's strong, harsh sounding vocals like "Kapa" etc in the choir for the forest Omaticaya, and then created a sort of siren song choir of long, seductive Na'vi singing for the Metkayina.
You can really hear the difference when Franglen uses choir for Jake and Neytiri attacking at the end. The entire 2nd act underwater is flowing and gorgeous vocally, but when Jake attacks, the choir accompanying him is the more harsh and stabbing words of the forest.
- Yavar Moradi and LSH
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5 hours ago, Mr. Who said:
I listened to the OST again and I realized that one of the best cues are missing from the OST: the cue that plays when Jake goes to face Quaritch, before Payakan shows up and the cue Na'vi Attack starts. The unreleased cue is a beautiful variation of the family theme sung by solo vocals and choir... I can't believe they didn't put it on the OST.
Yeah I noticed that. Lovely variation. Hopefully it's added to the physical score release.
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It's going to be very close. But I'll say it just falls short.
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25 minutes ago, Bayesian said:
How do WETA do it, time and again?? Used to be that ILM was the top dog in the CGI business, but that's certainly no longer the case.
I think WETA took over as the top dog with LOTR. The real jumps in CG advancement went from LOTR to King Kong to District 9 to Avatar to Apes Trilogy to Avatar 2.
I think WETA took over because of their speciality in facial CGI. ILM did do Davy Jones in POTC though, which still looks incredible.
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14 hours ago, crumbs said:I know exactly the scene you're referring to and had the exact same experience (the colourful scene at night flying around the forest, lit only by the moon and bioluminescence). RealD 3D as well.
It might be the first instance of rapid movement HFR in the film and thus stands out in your brain more?
I remember one of the early shots in the first Hobbit looked horrifically bad in HFR, one of the shots of old Bilbo walking around Bag End. It was like the film was running at double speed, because my eyes hadn't adjusted to the HFR.
I haven't seen Avatar 2 in HFR unfortunately. Nowhere near me was doing it for some reason, but I had the exact same experience with the Hobbit. It took time for my eyes to adjust, and Bilbo walking around Bag end was like someone had pressed fast forward, it was awful. So I would assume people had the same experience with HFR for Avatar, taking time to adjust. But I wouldn't know.
I thought all the CGI in The Way of Water was flawless. I didn't notice a single scene with potentially rushed effects or less than finished. Everything looked perfect. Sometimes scarily perfect. Like a "how the hell is this not real" kind of way.
I watched the first Avatar recently, and was blown away at the massive step forward that the Way of Water took. It's as big a leap as the first film was. Just the facial animation is stratospherically more advanced. And comparing the 1 or 2 water scenes in the first film with the water effects in the 2nd film... my god. This is truly what CGI artists are capable of. Any facial CG or environmental, like water effects that we got the last few years is absolute garbage in comparison, besides things like the Apes trilogy (by WETA Digital as well, of course). By far the best effects house in the world.
If only the industry gave CGI artists enough creative time and money, look what they are capable of.
I can't imagine what works of art they will create with Avatar 3.
- crumbs, Bayesian and Yavar Moradi
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2 hours ago, crocodile said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remember Franglen had a big influence on Horner's later works, at least in terms of logistics. I am thinking of him using more modern tools on scores like Avatar, The Amazing Spider-Man and Southpaw. So there isn't that much of a stylistic jump overall as Horner's score got quite "modernised" in his final years.
Karol
From what I've gathered from many Franglen interviews, his job on Titanic (his first project with Horner), was figuring out how to make synthesizer mock-ups of Horner's writings, for future recordings with an orchestra, but they sometimes didn't manage to record them, because of having "no money" as Franglen put it. So the mock-up synthesizer stuff we hear in Titanic, is actually Franglens' work with Horner's written music.
With Avatar, he was brought on to give the electronic and synthetic sounds of the Pandoran Forest. So the exotic sounds you hear accompanying Horner's orchestral sound is Franglen.
7 hours ago, crumbs said:I could envisage Horner writing quite a romantic, sweeping theme just for the whales, yeah.
I love the Kira and Leaving Home material in Franglen's score but I'm yet to pick up on his ideas for the whales (other than the big return cue).
Franglen wrote the Tulkun (whale) theme for Payakan, heard in the piece 'Payakan.' That is mostly what is used as the theme for the Tulkun overall. Used quite dramatically and tragic in the piece 'The Hunt.' But Franglen also used the Underwater theme, heard in 'The Tulkun Return' for the Tulkun themselves in several scenes.
So Payakan's theme is for him mostly, but does join along with the Underwater theme to create an overall soundscape for the Tulkun whales.
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I'll have to see it a 5th time now, just to focus on the things you mentioned. I just need more excuses to keep going to see it. 🤣
I do think Franglen really fits perfectly into Camerons way of working. Cameron seems so hands on and so dedicated to the details of scoring. Not just the act of getting a composer to write music, but the art of scoring; the fine art of matching the feel of a scene musically and the pacing of the music, and when to shine and when to disappear. Franglen seems so matched to that way of thinking.
This score and film have hit me and fixed themselves so firmly into my mind like no other has for years. I'm loving exploring them.
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Just seen it a 4th time and was listening to the score specifically. I heard a lovely choral, maybe solo voice multiplied, of the Family theme as Jake is giving himself up to Quaritch before Payakan's boss moment. It's not on the score.
Also I focused on the lovely call-backs to Horner's material. Gorgeous moments where there are beautifully long and sweeping statements of the love theme (I see you). Especially as the film opens, then with Jake's date night with Neytiri, then Tuk, Tsireya and Kiri riding the Ilu underwater, and finally Kiri bonding with the Spirit Tree.
Also a great reprisal of Jake's theme at the end, which isn't on the score, when he says "a son for a son" and he is hugging Spider. There is a nod to Jake's theme at 2:15 here - But it isn't what's in the film -
What's in the film is a Jake's theme statement that mirrors the statement from Horner as Jake sends the humans home heard at 9:50 here -
- Mr. Who and Taikomochi
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I see the RDA as a sort of Weyland-Yutani type company. Which is why the 'why are all the humans bad?' Idiotic question has always made me laugh. They are 1 company with a military protection force. Those who work for 'the company' are of course keen to strip the world of its resources as any cost, because that's what the company does. It's actually interesting how some in the company still didn't approve of the force tactics used on the Na'vi. Not just the scientists of course, but Selfridge himself was very relunctant to 'pull the trigger' as he put it.
- Yavar Moradi, Mr. Who and crumbs
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I think it's interesting that the 2nd and 3rd film started as a single script, and that Cameron knew as it 'grew in the telling' as Tolkien said, that it wouldn't fit into one film.
So the battle at the end was meant to be the mid-way low point with the tragic loss, and then they presumably enter a larger conflict with perhaps attacking the human settlement 'Bridgehead City.'
But Cameron has suggested the 3rd film opens with the 1st act being the summary of the conflict in The Way of Water, and then as the 3rd film continues, it further develops Pandora and its unexplored Na'vi clans.
I'm glad he decided to split it into more films, not just because I want more of Camerons vision, but because it was refreshing to spend time living in the underwater world and developing the kid characters more, so that the conflict and ultimate loss hits harder.
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Good and funny interview with Jon Burlingham.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simon-franglen/id1476844445?i=1000594394315
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2 minutes ago, Jay said:
Yea I legit just never noticed >shrug<
I guess these kinds of details are the things you notice more if you dive deeper into a film as a fan. Once you've watched something a few times, you start to look past the story and into the lore, biology, etc of a film, and these things become known that wouldn't be known to a normal viewer.
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2 hours ago, Jay said:
Oh yea I noticed the water navi had totally different arms and stuff, but definitely never noticed they all only had 4 fingers in the first film. It seems odd to be there wouldn't be one line of dialogue near the beginning that mentioned it
It wasn't mentioned because it was common knowledge among the characters. E.g. the Na'vi and Avatars had been interacting for many years before the events of the first film, so the Omaticaya clan had seen it and probably pointed it out to death. Whereas the Metkayina Clan in the 2nd film have never come into contact with Avatars. So they wouldn't know the differences. Cameron was just using it as a bullying tool in the script, to signify differences of 'race' if you will. Forest physiology vs water physiology.
The kids obviously took characteristics from Jake's Avatar for Neteyam, Lo'ak and Tuk, and Grace's Avatar for Kiri (The human hands and feet).
The first film does show clearly that Jake has five fingers and toes, e.g when Cameron focuses on Jake being fascinated with being able to use his legs and wiggling his toes in the sand etc. And also many close ups of Neytiri's hands and feet as she performs tasks. But not so obviously mentioned.
You could've had a line in the first film of Jake saying something about their physical differences (as he's new to all of it) but it wasn't necessary to the story. Whereas it was necessary to the story in the 2nd film, as it was used to make the kids feel like outcasts amongst a foreign society.
- Taikomochi and MaxMovieMan
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1 hour ago, TolkienSS said:
It's hard taking "all time" numbers seriously when Titanic was 25 years ago and ticket prices as well as inflation were worlds apart. Let alone other films.
Even compared to 5-10 years ago "all time" is questionable.
Of course. Today I think the first Avatar would be 3.9 billion instead of 2.9.
But considering that worldwide inflation is basically all over the place, it's difficult to truly know the real figures based on today. So the current ones are all we've got, even if it's misleading.
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1 minute ago, Mr. Who said:
I am seeing the movie again next week!
Lol, same here.
Simon Franglen's AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (2022)
in General Discussion
Posted
Yeah there's some hacking of pieces, but that's in every film and pretty expected, considering the 3 minute flow of an album piece doesn't always work in a film, as a films' sequence is never that perfect, and no doubt Franglen wrote some pieces before Cameron decided some last minute editing choices that destroy the pieces flow. But I do imagine what incredible scene that moment would score. It would've been wonderful.