So, how's the 3D?

Probably the only movie that’s ever been made with better 3D is “Lorenzo’s Oil”. I remember the scene when Nick Nolte was swimming naked under the oil, and you could actually see the individual lipid molecules whiz over and around his grizzled flesh. It was such a beautiful moment, and I’m happy to report that there are several scenes in the new Avatar that come close to replicating the feeling.

I loved "Avatar" until I saw it again on a non-3D TV. Then it just reminded me of "Titanic," a painfully mundane story as a framework to prop up Cameron's true passion.

For "Titanic," his passion was to faithfully reproducef the actual event, right down to the Wedgwood china patterns.

For "Avatar," his passion was to film in true 3D with his custom camera rig, blocking and framing his shots as three-dimensional spaces, not two-dimensional frames with things popping out of them.

(though I'll concede that I didn't know Michelle Rodriguez was THAT curvy before seeing her in 3D)

In my opinion, "Avatar" was the only 3D movie to "do it right," meaning to use 3D as the setting, not just a gimmick, until this sequel.

Which is a long way of saying that I think Cameron succeeded again with this film. "Way of Water" gives us a real sense of depth and reality, with shots obviously framed and staged with a sense of physical space and texture. I've no doubt those same shots will look static and boring on a flatscreen TV.

And yes, the story is just as mundane and uninspired. Where "Avatar" was just "Dances With Wolves" on Pandora, "Way of Water" was just "Free Willy" on Pandora.

In short, yeah, I think it's worth leaving the house for.

But I don't think it's worth seeing in 2D under any circumstances.


Ideally, though, someone, maybe Cameron himself, will use this technology and craftsmanship on a film that actually has a great story.

3D looked great. High Frame Rate in particular made it look incredible. shame the movie wasn't better.

I saw it in 2D, can't see 3D. The water CGI is remarkable, forgot I was watching CGI for a long time, but the story is dull for the most part.

The 3D looked much better. Everything looked normal in size unlike in other 3D movies where people tended to look tiny.

I didn't think it looked very good. Most of the time I felt like I was watching a normal flat movie. The first one had much greater depth of field and immersiveness. And the high frame rate was very distracting. I'll never like it. Looked weird just like the Hobbit movies did.

So was the original Avatar. It was filmed in 3D not converted into 3D.
The 3D is the same in both films.

Honestly it was one of the things I was somewhat disappointed in. James Cameron is well known for pushing the boundaries of what is possible in filmmaking, inventing whole new technologies for the filmmaking art. He did so with Avatar. But after 14 years between sequels... The film technology that went into Avatar: The Way of Water, is exactly the same as Avatar.
It's still great. don't get me wrong. There is nothing bad about it at all. But you'd think that waiting 14 years, he would have done something to "up the game"

It did not utilize 3D well. Honestly, it didn't add much to the experience.