Reactions to Avatar Day

Published by Jeff Leins on: August 21st, 2009

Friday evening Fox unveiled 16 minutes of video from James Cameron’s fantasy film Avatar.  Dubbed by the studio and director as “Avatar Day,” the free, unprecedented marketing campaign took over an hour of prime IMAX theater time to pack theaters for one day only.  Fans able to navigate the website issues were given a 3-D glimpse at the world of Pandora and the Na’vi alien race that inhabits the forested planet.

I wasn’t able to make it to the showing because I live in Austin where it wasn’t picked up, but I thought I would a few reactions to see what people are saying on Twitter.

ManMadeMoon (Duncan Jones, director of Moon) Just seen 16 mins of Avatar. Looks good! Still not 100% convinced 3D is anything more than a gimmick though.

firstshowing (Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net) Wow the Avatar Day footage was incredible… I really don’t know how anyone can walk out of that and not be blown away just wow!

williambgoss (William Goss of Cinematical.com) Ultimate thoughts: it really will be the coolest-looking remake of Dances with Wolves.

pajiba (Film review website Pajiba.com) Avatar was visually stunning (a little too busy) but kind of dull. And the dialogue was weak sauce. It’s Titanic Cameron; not T2 Cameron

slashfilm (Peter Sciretta of /Film) Avatar footage delivered like it did at Comic-Con, almost everyone agrees they shouldn’t have released that trailer online

shawnlevy (Shawn Levy, film critic for The Oregonian) Hours later, may I just say that the “Avatar” footage was incredible. Can’t speak for the plot, &ct., of course, but the look-and-feel: wow.

That’s just a tiny sample from a few of the people I’m following, but trust me these variations are identical to hundreds of others.  Basically I didn’t want to fill a page with “omg so cool” Tweets.  By the way, follow me on Twitter @newsinfilm.

I scanned through website comments and Twitter reactions (I’m really that bored), and the general consensus is more optimism seeing the 3-D presentation rather than a short trailer on the computer.  Some seem concerned about the story and dialogue, but they were a minority in a sea of “AWESOME” and “EPIC” reactions.

The turnout wasn’t as huge as I expected though.  Apparently “Avatar Day” wasn’t the massive hit Fox was hoping for.  CHUD is running a story about how empty the theaters were for showings around the world.

If you saw the footage today, please leave your thoughts below.