I should prefix this by saying there are a few minor spoilers if you haven't seen the movie, but nothing that will completely come as a surprise or ruin a first viewing.

I held off seeing Avatar until almost a month after it's release for a few reasons.  Main one was I've become much more hype averse over the past 5 years or so, seemingly my brain has caught up to the notion that it's usually in the media's interest to go on and on and on about something even (or sometimes especially) when it's below par.  Secondly, after my original thoughts when the trailer came out I was waiting to see if it did actually fall on it's arse.

It didn't.  Guess that told me, eh?

I'm very, very glad I saw it in IMax 3D.  This is really the way the film is supposed to be seen, and I really cannot knock the design or execution of the effects at all.  It is genuinely mind-blowing at times.  I did have a problem with the 3D at the very start and in the initial sequences in the base, every object seemed to be demanding attention from my eyes and it was quite tricky to follow things at first.  This did change a lot in the forest, and the effects really come to life (excuse the pun) there.  The plant life is astonishing both in design and look, and the 3D really works perfectly.  Best examples are the anenome-like creatures floating around, and the ash falling in the aftermath of the first major battle.  Beautiful.

We are so close now to having digital actors it's untrue - many, many times during the film it seemed that Zoe Saldana's Neytiri was just her wearing prosthetics and makeup, it looked that good.  They've fixed the dead-eye problem too.  I did feel that the other Na'vi weren't quite as good but that is to be expected I suppose as even a $500m movie has to constrain somewhere.  Sigourney Weaver's avatar looked spookily like her but this meant that it looked to me like more of a caricature rather than a believable creature.

Being able to achieve all of these remarkable effects is the very reason James Cameron waited 14 years from original idea to finally being able to realise his vision.  It sure as hell can't have taken 14 years to put the story together - in fact I would love to see the original idea notes for the film from way back then as I would be surprised if it wasn't a massively different plot, certainly not the bundle of old ideas he's put together here.  It seems as if in the past decade spent filming in remote areas and underwater JC has developed a healthy respect for the Earth but also a massive loathing of humankind.  It's fair enough to produce a film dealing with environmental issues and taking a swipe at the blood-for-oil mentality, but it is another to try and pass it off as something original by wrapping it up in (admittedly astonishing) special effects.  It felt at times as if the film was just a big 3D shovel with "Humans Bad, Nature Good" written on it, hitting me in the face.

There are enough posts on the web pulling the plot apart and showing that it's just a rehash of "Pocahontas", "Dances with Wolves", "Fern Gully" and so on, so I'm not going to bother with all that.  I will say I found the story very predictable at every stage - not once did I think "wow, really didn't see that coming", everything from Jake being accepted into the tribe, to getting the girl (and how he did it), to what came thundering out of the forest to finally see off the troops at the end of the battle.  The "Noble Savage" thing has been done to death, but in this the Na'vi were just protrayed as SO GOOD it was untrue - even when it became clear to the main Big Warrior Na'vi that this fake half-breed thing was going to take his bird he didn't do anything about it!  No demands of a fight to the death or anything!  Then when all the tribes (which had only been vaguely mentioned once in passing until then) were visited there was not a hint of any bad-blood between them.  What are the chances of that?  Even if you look at untouched tribes on Earth that's not realistic, they're still animals for pete's sake.  Or is it just me being cynical?  The people who feel suicidal that they can't go and actually live on Pandora would probably disagree with me, I'm sure...

Obviously people go to see films for different reasons, some just want a firework show which they go back to see again and again because it's so pretty, but I like to think back a week, month, year later and think "That film was just great, the character of xxxx was so great", and remembering dialogue or set-pieces.  I've thought almost nothing about Avatar at all over the past week except for today when getting ready to write this.  It's mostly gone from my mind already, which is a real shame for something that is actually an important moment in cinema.

Still, I didn't actually pay for the ticket, and I can't complain about losing 3 hours of my life or anything.  I think people should go and see it, but only in the way it was intended.  I doubt I'll see it again, and definitely won't be getting the Blu-Ray.  That just won't work until we have 3D TV - I'm kind of reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer quits drinking and tries to watch a baseball game while sober, "I never realised how boring this game is...".

Anyway, I'd like to see the following things happen next:

1 - It should clean up the tech awards at the Oscars, but definitely NOT get anywhere near the Best Film award.
2 - JC makes "Battle Angel Alita" next before (or instead of) 2 more Avatar sequels as he has threatened.
3 - Give David Fincher the money and this technology for him to go and take another run at "Rendezvous with Rama".  That story actually deserves the treatment
4 - Keep Michael Bay and Roland Emerich the hell away from this tech, on pain of death.  At least Cameron knows how to direct an action scene.

8/10 in IMax 3D.  5/10 if I'd seen it in 2D or on DVD.

Tags: awesome, fincher, geek, movies, opinion, rant, reviews, robots, sci-fi, space, spoilers, weapons, tech
Categories: Geek | Movies | Opinion | rant | Reviews | Sci-Fi | spoilers | tech

As part of my birthday celebrations this past weekend I was treated by some friends to a trip to Bletchley Park.  For anyone in the computer industry or World War 2 afficianados the name should immediately be familiar, it is the place where the German Enigma codes were broken.  This is widely agreed to have shortened the war by at least 18 months, and save countless lives.

It is also the birthplace of the modern programmable computer.  Say hello to Collossus 2:

For me as a geek it was a humbling experience.  We took the guided tour and for nearly 2 hours we saw how everything you take for granted in terms of electronics and computers can be traced back to some of the astonishing work that was done at Bletchley over 60 years ago.  Standing in front of the re-created Collossus 2, you realise exactly how much work must have gone into figuring out what was required to crack the codes being picked up by radio, then having to actually build it from scratch.  It's one thing to do this in a programming language as we do today, it's completely another to have to design and build the hardware from nothing.  For the record, Colossus 1 was running in 1943, so predates ENIAC by a couple of years.  Virtually everything about the project was destroyed, and indeed kept Top Secret until the 1970's, so the fact that a fully working reconstructed version is available at Bletchley is even more amazing.

Moving into the National Computing Museum, it was a trip down memory lane for me.  It was like being in a branch of WHSmith circa 1983.  So many memories.  I came face to face with a Commodore Vic-20, which had started me down the path to my current profession almost 30 years ago.  If it hadn't been for my Dad buying me that machine, and later a ZX Spectrum I can only wonder what I'd be doing today.  It is also weird to think that I am part of the last generation who remembers such a massive upheaval in technology - the days when you could actually fix things instead of just replacing a circuit board.  I wonder how children visiting the museum would see things - so much can be taken for granted now.  Wow, I sound old...

It is made even more poignant by the campaign to give a formal apology to Alan Turing earlier this year.  Thousands signed an online petition which encouraged Downing Street to recognise the work Turing did at Bletchley, the part he played in breaking the codes and ending the war, and to apologise for how he was treated when it was discovered he was homosexual.  Turing killed himself, and the world lost a genius.  It was a shallow gesture by the Government - Turing has no surviving relatives to receive the apology on his behalf so it was just empty words  A better tribute would be for everyone who signed the petition or supported the campaign to go to Bletchley over the next year and see what was really accomplished and how astonishing this man was.  That is the difference between true support and bandwagon-jumping.

Bletchley is in need of your support.  they have only just secured Lottery funding but many parts of the museum do not have any funding at all and rely on donations and visitors and their on-site shop to keep things running.  Its all done from the love of volunteers at the moment, but that only goes so far.  I'd urge everyone with even a passing interest in computers, or history, to take a day out and go visit.  An adult ticket is £10, and it gives you unlimited access for A WHOLE YEAR!!  For a tenner!!!  You will not be disappointed.

http://www.bletchleypark.co.uk

Tags: awesome, gadgets, geek, opinion, reviews, tech
Categories: gadgets | Geek | General | Opinion | tech

There's been a flurry of interest in Google Wave this week, mainly people desperately trying to get hold of invites to the initial beta programme.  Google released 100,000 invites, and all of these people could invite 5 friends to the next test.  This, quite predictably, led to madness on eBay within minutes - but also has led to spammers jumping on the bandwagon, so be aware if you get an invite by mail from someone who probably doesn't have an invite themselves...

So anyway, what's all the fuss about?  Well, you could watch the whole amazing Developer Preview but its a bit long so here is something significantly shorter - just about 2 minutes total in fact and gets the point across nicely

So there you have it, Google Wave in a nutshell.

Anyone got a spare invite?

Tags: geek, tech, youtube, want
Categories: Geek | tech | want | Web

I've been looking to change my DAB radio for a while now, so when I spotted the new Logitech Squeezebox radio yesterday it immediately went to the top of my "want" list.

At the moment I have a Pure "Bug" which I'm pretty sure has been discontinued now.  Nice piece of kit, and yes I admit I bought it cos it looked quirky (and you can record onto SD cards) but there are a few issues with it, mainly to do with the controls which are very fiddly and not really suitable as a bedside radio.

I already have a Squeezebox Classic downstairs, connected to an amp which is basically my entire hi-fi system.  As I mentioned briefly in an earlier post, whenever I buy CDs now they immediately get ripped to FLAC and stored on a central server which is used as a hub for all my media.  This means that the Squeezebox can stream lossless music via wifi.  So having another Squeezebox in the bedroom makes perfect sense, as I'd have access to my entire music collection.  Of course there is the fact that Internet stations will be available too - be wonderful drifting off to sleep with SomaFM playing quietly...

Plugins and a great developer base make the Squeezebox a no-brainer choice, all the BBC stations plus ListenAgain are available, and anything that is on DAB usually has an internet-broadcast equivilent.

I was planning to get the Boom, but this just looks like a smaller and more practical option.  Available late September in the UK, for about £159.

Tags: gadgets, want, awesome, geek, tech
Categories: Geek | gadgets | want | tech