Time marched on while I was away doing other things and we've advanced another year. Another decade too, depending on how you like to group your years. Despite some time off over the Christmas/New Year period, I really don't feel rested at all. Once I'm caught up on work, I might take some random days off to do nothing except sleep.

I thought about doing a 2009 summary post as I did at the end of a year once before, but I haven't had the time. It wouldn't have been particularly interesting either. 2009 wasn't a bad year as years go though. I'm slowly finding my feet again, with the aid of a few kind and generous people. I don't know what 2010 has in store, but I choose to be optimistic.

Anyway, instead, I thought I'd do a quick round up of a few things I've watched over the past month or two.

 
Avatar

I went to see Avatar in its 3D incarnation a week or so ago. Avatar was a film that succeeded in confusing me for a good part of 2009 as I had (quite understandably, I think) confused it with M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender movie, believing them both to be the same film. Once I realised my mistake a couple of months ago, I began to investigate the production that had nothing to do with the TV series a little more.

Avatar is director James Cameron's first film since Titanic, 12 years ago. Supposedly it is a film he conceived 15 years ago but postponed because he felt that CGI technology at the time wasn't up to the job. Set 150 years in the future, Avatar tells the story of a Terran mining operation on a distant moon and the conflict that ensues between the alien miners and the indigenous population.

The story itself is not a particularly new one; many people have likened it to Dances with Wolves, a film I have not seen but, having read the synopsis, one with a story that does sound very familiar. As I was watching the film, Disney's not particularly faithful interpretation of the story of Pocahontas came to mind. The concepts within the film are all very down-to-earth and easy to follow too. Even the technology is recognisable to and understandable by a non-sci-fi/fantasy-loving audience.

This is apparently all deliberate though. In pre-release interviews that I have watched since seeing the movie, James Cameron stated that he wanted to hand people a story with which they were familiar and not confuse them with difficult concepts or technology that attempts to push the boundaries of the believable. Instead, he wanted to create a spectacle (a word that sums up the film quite well) - something that would in his words "bring people back to the cinema". It's a show you've seen before, but the tightrope is longer, the trapeze is higher and the jugglers can keep 20 sharp implements in the air at a time.

The spectacle is aided by a 3D release. Most of the 3D features to have been released in the last couple of years - since the start of this, the most recent chapter of the 3D cinema craze - have been digitally animated, a form of filmmaking that lends itself well to the creation of 3D images without significantly adding to production costs. Although Avatar is very CGI-heavy, it is also among the first of the current crop of films to use stereoscopic cameras with live actors.

Avatar is very much Cameron's pet project. He described it as a film he was making for the 14-year-old boy he once was - something that he would have loved to have watched at the time and, as someone who never really grew up, would still enjoy. The trouble with directors' pet projects is that quite often other people don't find them as fantastically amazing as the directors themselves (see: Waterworld).

So, did James Cameron succeed in his goals? I suppose he did. I found the film to be "average", but pleasing. It is very much a "popcorn" movie; you won't find anything fresh, edgy or even remotely mentally taxing in it, thanks largely to the aforementioned predictable and familiar elements. The spectacle aspect was also rather over-hyped. But the whole package was quite... satisfying. On a visual level - and it is a very visual film - I found it quite stimulating. The fantasy elements - dragons, floating islands and the vaguely feline, azure-hued natives - were lapped up eagerly.

Costing something in the region of $400m to create and promote, it certainly wasn't a cheap production to make. However, ticket sales currently stand at over $1 billion after less than three weeks, so it's fair to say that the film has been a commercial success, even if some of the critics have been less than enthusiastic about it. Cameron apparently wants to make a further two films continuing the Avatar story. While I usually have my doubts when it comes to sequels, Cameron has been involved in two of the most successful films with a "2" at the end ever created, so there is a slim chance it won't be a dire, money-grabbing mess. Maybe... Perhaps... Admittedly not very likely. >_> His other project in the works is a Gunnm trilogy.

I'm glad I got to see this film at the cinema in 3D though; the DVD will carry the same story and visuals, but it won't feel the same. The "spectacle" will be lacking, which is what this film really needs to work its magic.

One last thing - I loved James Horner's soundtrack for the film and will probably be picking it up quite soon.

 
Up

Somehow I've seen Pixar's latest offering four times since its release. >_> Once at the cinema, once with friends, and then on two more occasions over the holiday period when relatives remarked, "Oh, you have Up! Let's watch that."

I'm sure it's been established that I am a fan of Pixar films. While Disney animation tends to be very... well, Disneyfied and Dreamworks features are often crude and Americanised, Pixar is unique among Western CG animation studios in that I can sit through a Pixar film without feeling the urge to leave the room. Up was a bit of an unknown to me though. I had only seen the first trailer (which reveals absolutely nothing - something I'm quite glad about now) before seeing the film, so I had no idea what it was supposed to be about - only that it had a flying house in it. Pixar + flying house ticks enough boxes though, so that was reason enough to give it a go when it was released.

The somewhat unlikely protagonist is not a toy or a robot or an anthropomorphic animal, but a retired widower, passively angry at the world, which makes for a refreshing change. Although Pixar makes family films, and this one isn't short on sight gags to keep younger viewers entertained, Up seems to talk to its mature audience more directly than in previous Pixar titles, particularly when it comes to examining the protagonist.

The compulsory talking animals are well done in that they retain natural traits and even have a reasonable excuse for being able to speak. I liked the character of Dug. :) One of his first lines, "I have just met you, and I love you," is so very dog.

All told, it was an enjoyable film, from the unexpectedly moving opening 10 minutes to the adventure romp that followed. I did find some of the sight gags a little annoying, and the scene with the dogs in planes was just plain silly, but if you can stomach those and can suspend disbelief at the notion of a house suspended by helium balloons, I think it's worth a watch.

 
Ōban Star-Racers

My interest in Ōban Star-Racers was first piqued when the Molly, Star Racer promotional video was released, a short teaser for Ōban Star-Racers. This Franco-Japanese animated TV series was released in 2006 but went largely unnoticed - which is a pity as it's really not all that bad.

I'd actually completely forgotten about Ōban until I stumbled across it again a couple of months ago. (The large gap between announcing the series and its release was apparently down to funding issues; Savin Yeatman-Eiffel, the series' creator, supposedly had great difficulty trying to secure funding from a group that didn't insist, as part of the contract, that the protagonist be male.) I think the fact that I didn't even know the TV series had been made (I had long ago assumed the project had been dropped) highlights the lack of attention the series received. And perhaps a lack of time to dedicate to research on my part. >_> But that's a grumble for another day. Anyway, I had a quick look around to see if the series had managed to get a DVD release and was rather surprised to find it on Amazon for the ridiculously low price of £4.99. That's a 26 episode, 4 disc set for under £5. I managed to fight off the feelings of guilt at paying barely enough to cover the manufacturing cost (it just doesn't feel right paying so little for all of the effort that has gone into the series) and ordered a copy, which arrived a few days later.

For a rather low-key series, Ōban does have a few recognisable names associated with it, particularly in the music department. The opening and ending songs were composed by Yoko Kanno, while the rest of the score was written by Taku Iwasaki, whose music I have adored since the original Rurouni Kenshin OVA. Production of the series was also quite unusual with part of the series produced in France (primarily the 3D elements, I believe) and the remainder in Japan. The project was French-managed which seems to give it a slightly different feel to a purely Japanese TV series.

The UK DVDs are a little odd. I bought the "complete box" rather than the two seasons individually. The first point of note, and a rather annoying one, is that there are no audio or subtitle options. While the Japanese and French audio tracks were recorded as part of the series' production and are both considered to be quite well done, the English dub was created by Jetix to usual English dub standard. That is to say, it's not very good. I considered watching it muted with subtitles, but sadly there aren't any. Accessibility fail. I did (for the most part) grow used to the English dub and stopped cringing about halfway through the series, but not everyone may be as forgiving as I am - so be warned.

On the other hand, musically, the DVDs were a pleasant surprise. The international (English) release replaced the Kanno opening with some garage band's demo tape (which I reluctantly admit isn't as bad as some EN OPs I have heard) and combined the karaoke version of Kanno's ED with a mediocre karaoke singer to create a bastardised version of the original ending theme, presumably because the TV networks didn't want to infect innocent children with anything foreign. Supposedly (I've never seen it on TV) some networks then started mixing things around to create strange hybrid versions of songs, confusing the situation even more. But the UK DVD release appears to have shipped with the original Japanese OP/EDs on each episode. It all seems a little odd, but I'm certainly not going to complain.

The series itself is best described as "just okay". After a little bit of scene setting, Ōban gets into a short enemy-of-the-day routine before becoming a bit more advanced. It's aimed squarely at children around 8-12, so it's about as deep as a puddle (there seems to be a worrying trend emerging in the things I have been watching lately). Even so, there was enough of a story to keep me wanting to watch the next episode to see where it went. It was certainly more than worth what I paid for it.