"If I did Titanic today, I'd do it very differently. There wouldn't be a 750-foot-long set. There would be small set pieces integrated into a large CGI set. I wouldn't have to wait seven days to get the perfect sunset for the kiss scene. We'd shoot it in front of a green screen, and we'd choose our sunset."

At this point in his career, Cameron has pretty much of proven himself as a technician beyond all reasonable criticism. But I must admit, a little part of me dies when reading that, today, the world's most powerful filmmaker—one who operates with complete freedom under near-unlimited budgets—would sooner digitize one of nature's daily miracles than capture the real thing. [Slate]

$73m of that was from the US and Canada, and the remaining $159.2m from around the world was bulked up mostly by Russia, France and the UK. In case you're wondering, it didn't break the previous record held by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, nor Modern Warfare 2's $310m opening weekend sales. Still—that's a major breakthrough for a 3D film, with Avatar limited by compatible cinemas and inflated ticket prices. [Reuters]

The author argues that when we're presented with a limited depth of field in a movie, we're trained to focus on the blurred section of the frame. That's where directors traditionally hide details.

When we're looking at a shot that has a limited depth of field in 3D, though, we expect to be able to shift our gaze and focus on that blurred area. But instead of seeing that part of the frame clearly, it remains out-of-focus.

I can see how that could be disorienting for some people. I've never had a problem with 3D, but I know people who have. Hit the link for a full rundown of how the author managed to control his headache. [Shadow Locked, Thanks Martin]

According to the countless tweets on the subject, what may be the second most hated font of all time (because nothing is worse than Comic Sans) spends some considerable time up on the screen. According to this post, it's been the font used in all of the promotional materials up until this point.

So, is it actually Papyrus, or a custom-built font that just happens to look exactly like Papyrus? Here's a sample:

You decide. [Twitter, Thanks Michael]

With Avatar in theaters, the stakes are simply too high to risk losing a film to some pudgy frat boy film school drop out who is convinced his personal commentary is just as important as the countless hours of work that have gone into the filmmaking process.

The following are a list of rules and responses that I feel, as a society, we need to deem socially acceptable to assimilate into our communal fabric.

6-Inch Voices, Or Group Humiliation
I know I'm coming off rude already. The occasional quiet comment to the person beside you, that's totally fine by me. But If I can hear you from over two seats away, chances are, you need to shut the fuck up (throughout life, possibly, but definitely in the theater). If a person makes loud comments that a single "shhh" doesn't thwart, everyone around them should stand, point and loudly ask them to leave (with liberal use of expletives). It'll be a painful, distracting experience, but chances are, it won't be needed again.

Really, It's OK To Tell People to Shut Up
I know I just made this point, but I want to make it abundantly clear: telling talkers to shut up is OK. You are doing all of the shy, weak and first daters who want to enjoy a movie but not lose out on a potential post-film grope a huge favor. Let's just make an oath, right now, to support one another against the talkers, be they intimidatingly muscley or not. Let's acknowledge a silent brotherhood, poised to attack at the slightest breach of conduct.

If You Pull Out a Cellphone During a Movie, You Relinquish All Rights to It
I don't care if you have it's on vibrate or turned to silent. Any cellphone pulled from a pocket during a movie—most probably a Sidekick—that's glowing in the corner of the entire audience's eye is now communal property. It can and should be yanked from the offender's hand and chucked across the room to break against the nearest hard surface. The offender's head is one such potential surface.

Bathroom Exits, OK, Refills, Not OK
We've all overestimated the endurance of our bladders. And as you grow older, you realize that uncontrollable bodily functions are something we all just need to be adults about. If someone walks out during a pivotal scene because they NEED to go, well, that's alright. But if they take their empty popcorn bucket with them, proceed with skepticism. Do they look like they needed to use the bathroom while they were up? No? Then tripping them on the way back is totally Kosher.

Honor Those Who Watch Credits
In the theater, credits are part of the film. It's your option to watch them, but should you elect not to, do not disturb those around you who enjoy finishing a film by celebrating all those who made it possible. That means, no standing in front of someone seated to finish the credits (a quick, polite pass is OK). And maybe save that thing you NEED to say for the hallway or the parking lot, rather than voice it right as the film fades to black. Offenses in this realm will not elicit punishment, but you may be deemed "tacky."

Oh, But None Of This Applies to Kids Movies on a Tuesday Afternoon
Once again, I'm not an evil or malicious person (by nature). If you're watching some Shrek sequel, especially during a matinee, pretty much anything goes—for children. Adults who are offending any of the above rules in ways not directly resulting from or related to a child's actions are fair game for fair punishment.

And if you have any points or suggestions that I may have missed, please, please, please list them in the comments. Two people can easily drop $40 and and a free evening to see a movie. And the first time you watch something truly special can never be rekindled.

Let's band together and see to it that movie talkers STFU for good.

Several theaters in Germany received 3D versions of Avatar with borked encryption for preview screenings. After trying for several hours to get the 150GB of blue kitties and Sam Worthington scowling in 3D decrypted so they could play it, at least one theater gave up and went 2D.

I think I would've walked out, since I like, have to see it in 3D now. (And if it doesn't change everything, I'm going to hot-glue 3D glasses to Mark's head.) [Heise.de via TorrentFreak]

I'm not going to talk about plot (or that I thought to myself, Dances with Wolves in space more than once). I'm not going to talk about dialog or pacing (or that the limited narration was totally unnecessary). There are other reviews, more reviewy type reviews, that have all that covered. I'm not going to spoil anything, either. Heck, I'm not even going to talk about Avatar...not just yet.

I want to talk about Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park was the first movie I remember being excited to an unhealthily obsessive level. My dad, a huge Michael Crichton fan, did his best to tempt my young self into reading the full-out book. So he told me a sort of good parts version, filling my head with tales of dinosaur resurrection from amber dug up deep in the Earth, all while I would do my best to get more and more out of him without actually having to crack open a book.

So when I heard Jurassic Park was becoming a movie, not only did that dash any chance of me reading the story, but I literally could not fathom a world in which I'd be patient enough to wait to see it (not that I had any other option). I mean, dinosaurs, theme parks, and terror? Jurassic Park was biologically engineered for young boys.

All of this is nice background, but my point is simpler. When I saw those dinosaurs on screen, knowing that, in many cases, they'd been modeled purely by computers—computers!—I felt like anything was possible. Yes, it's a cliche feeling. That's actually why I'm sharing it. Because ultimately, we all have that movie—be it Star Wars or Terminator or whatever—that movie we actually felt a bit humbled, even challenged, watching because it was was an amuse-bouche of the future, even if a bit cheesy at heart.

Avatar is that movie for the new generation.

I don't expect you to believe me if you haven't seen the film yet. I, myself, was a huge skeptic until a few hours ago. Blue people? Papyrus font?? What the fuck happened to dinosaurs and light sabers and killer robots from the future? Did we use all the cool stuff up?

But about 30 minutes in to the film, you realize that the marketing has undersold the movie. In an era when every great moment of a film makes its way to a trailer, Avatar surprised me with an endless amount of unparalleled optical overload. Every single shot is just so full of detail that you literally open your eyes wider to take as much in as you can before each cut.

Gizmodo readers will love the tech, especially as that about 50% of the film's budget apparently went to rendering badass 3D curved displays and absurdly awesome cockpits. But sequences from Pandora's woods at night...let's just say they're the first luminescent visual effects I've seen that made 1982's Tron look like a 27-year-old movie.

Also, while shots of the Na'vi (the blue dudes) clearly deviate from a 50/50 balance between real footage and CGI depending on the scene, their body animation, even for motion capture, is unparalleled. While their faces and eyes especially can appear a tad cartoony at times, the overall effect is not done justice by YouTube trailers or that shot pasted above. Call the effect hyperreal or even unreal, but it's certainly doesn't look "fake." I don't know that I've ever witnessed complete humanoid models move so realistically, especially given their exposure (in both screen time and skin).

Of course, Avatar's 3D is the basis of my obnoxious zeal for the aesthetics. I viewed the film in a full-sized IMAX theater. And while I knew that a fair share of missiles would fly off the screen (and ZOMG the mechs look amazing), I couldn't have expected the sheer tangibility that 3D—what I once supposed a gimmick—added to the experience. I mean, I saw textures in this film that I've never seen in a movie before, like wet, rubbery skin on the wildcats of Pandora that made people around me gasp more than once. There's a more understated moment, too, when Sam Worthington shaves and you realize, wow, stubble is pretty remarkable in 3D. The jagged hairs bring a level of humanity to his character, adding something unexpectedly corporeal to what's really a 30-foot-tall head in closeup.

So yes, 3D is more than a gimmick. The glasses are still a pain, but 3D is here to stay.

Avatar doesn't handle this new technology perfectly, however, and I hope that other filmmakers learn from its mistakes. Especially early in the film during shots in close quarters, the direction allowed many objects to break frame (think of a person walking from one end of the screen to the other). For my untrained eyes, seeing a figure go from 2D to 3D to 2D was not only distracting, it was tiring. And the same can be said for a constantly shifting depth of field—based upon where the camera is focusing, you'll need to figure out whether to look deep into the screen or right in front of you.

An out of focus shoulder breaking the corner of the frame is pretty much the worst implementation of 3D I could imagine. Luckily, the forest sequences that make up the majority of the film seemed to have been planned with a wider depth of field—more of the shot is in focus.

After 2 1/2 hours in the theater, I am exhausted far more than the same amount of time playing an FPS would make me, but Avatar was so remarkable that it was well-worth the work of watching it.

I still can't imagine popping on a pair of glasses to watch the evening news after a long day of work, and I sympathized for the guy sitting beside me as he started rubbing his eyes about halfway through. As someone with a slight uncorrected astigmatism, my left eye was ready to fall out of its socket by the final climactic sequence.

But as viewers, we'll adapt to the new tech. And as technicians, Hollywood will learn the rules of 3D as it writes them.

So for now, I'm not quite ready to see every piece of the world's media in 3D. But Avatar? Yeah, I'll be seeing it again...and maybe again...just in hopes of absorbing a bit more of the visual splendor.

The CyberQuad, an "electric ducted quadrotor Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)," gains significant maneuverability from its fan-based technology, including a "perch and stare" function which allows it to hover in one place with increased stability and endurance. That is, until it's attacked by flying extraterrestrial fauna.

Last month, on our own planet, the CyberQuad successfully investigated an oil platform fire, beaming high-definition video back to operators stationed at a safer location. Still, its silent fans, as well as its unique "perch and stare" capabilities, suggest it could be put to use on our own battlefields in the near future. [Cyber Technologies via Wired]

We interviewed creature designers Wayne Barlowe and Neville Page, plus concept artists James Clyne, Ryan Church and Daphne Yap, about creating a whole new universe from scratch. Plus we've got some stunning concept art, from the new book The Art Of Avatar. In a year that's seen some amazing books of movie concept art, The Art Of Avatar features 106 pages of lush full-color paintings, interspersed with the industry's greatest design minds geeking out about every little aspect of Avatar's creation.

So here are a few things you didn't know about the design of James Cameron's Avatar:

Avatar Started As A Four-Month, Late-Night Jam Session At James Cameron's House

"[We'd be] working late at Jim's house, and having him come back after a three week spell of being down at the freaking Titanic, and having him tell us a story [about being on the ocean floor]." Read the rest of the story.

Pandora's creatures were partly based on cars

Early on in the process, James Cameron "mentioned the core idea" of having Pandora's creatures be "superslick and aerodynamic, and be like a race car with racing stripes," says creature designer Neville Page. Read the rest of the story.

Those crazy color schemes are from the ocean floor — and Art Nouveau

"In the real world, we didn't invent these colors. They exist on animals today. We didn't invent a whole new palette. I think the problem is — the challenge is — you don't often see large creatures with this much color on them." Read the rest of the story.

The human hardware, including those crazy battlesuits, is all based on real stuff

"One thing I worked on big interior for the mech suits, and the whole interior had to have a reason and function for why the suits were lined up the way they were, and how they could work on them like a pit-stop at an F1 race. It had to have that functionality." Read the rest of the story.

Avatar concept art from The Art Of Avatar (Abrams 2009)

And McDonald's is getting in on the action, too. It'll have special cards that bring up a controllable mechanical toy when you hold it up to your Webcam and visit an Avatar-branded site. Goofy yes, but definitely better than Best Buy's augmented reality efforts. [Variety via DVICE]

Avatar dates back to 1977, when Cameron was just a truck driver determined to "out-Lucas George Lucas" in the outer space epic genre, but it took decades to get the clout to make as outrageous a project as Avatar. When he first sat down to plan the movie, his tech people told him his vision simply was not possible—"'If we make this, we're doomed,' one of the artists told him. 'It can't be done. The technology doesn't exist.'" He had to wait until after Titanic before he could tackle the project again.

This time, he got more invested in the tech side of it. The problem: He needed an incredibly high-definition camera that could deliver both 2D and 3D, without the headaches that sometimes accompanied two hours of 3D watching. There was a camera that could handle it, made by Sony, but the giant 450-pound unit wasn't feasible for Cameron's style of directing—so in 2000, he went out to Japan and persuaded Sony to re-engineer the camera to his liking. They ended up separating the camera's huge CPU unit from its lens, connected by a cable, thus bringing the handheld weight down to only 50 pounds.

Cameron lent the camera to filmmaker buddies to spread the gospel of 3D so his eventual release of Avatar would have the distribution it needed. Spy Kids 3-D and the Lord of the Rings trilogy opened the doors for technologically astounding epic films, just what Cameron orchestrated. His camera and belief in 3D is setting the stage for the current era of blockbusters—not necessarily something you'd expect from a guy who releases a movie about once every 15 years. [Wired]

In order to be profitable, it needs to generate ticket sales of over $250 million—only Star Trek level. It's not a huge deal, you know. It's just the fate of 3D movies hanging in the balance. [NYT via io9]

But does anyone else find it a tad too absurd that technology in the world of Avatar can build a hybrid species from a cocktail of DNA but still can't fuse a sub-millimeter fracture in a spinal cord? I know, I know. The construct is no more absurd than a killer robot that can only travel through time naked. [CrunchGear]

UPDATE: Apparently this trailer is playing in other non-US locations, not just Japan.

With the over-tanned Access ET intro and all, I thought this may have been real for a half a second. Then I saw it was written and directed by Joe Swanberg, an indie-film maker known for his preoccupation with digital technology and non-simulated sex scenes. Oh, and it was on: [Funnyordie]

That Avatar's going to be shown in 3D has been one of its selling points since the beginning. The thing is, the whole 3D shtick, what with the glasses and specialized display tech, is all but impossible to advertise on traditional mediums. Panasonic Corporation in Japan, which partnered with Twentieth Century Fox for some of the movie's tech, has a wonderfully over-the-top way of dealing with this: They're sending trucks all over the US and Europe with freakin' 103-inch 3D TVs in them, just to make sure that you know that 3D is, in fact, awesome.

There's going to be a lot—probably too much—hype around this bright blue movie for the next few months, so a lot of you will probably be forcefully tuning it out by the time the December release rolls around. If you're even the slightest sci-fi nerd, and you see one of these trucks roll up in your mall parking lot, though, you should probably poke your head inside, since they'll be showing "dazzling Full HD 3D assets" (read: clips) from Avatar in a way that even your local multiplex won't be able to top. [Panasonic]

Watch the trailer in high rez (links below) and it's apparent that many of the visual effects (like the mechs in the early shots) are made to look intentionally artificial, blending the real and artificial worlds in hyperreality. And I really don't know what else to say other than, my interest is certainly piqued. What about yours? [Apple via CrunchGear and io9]

UPDATE: If the video link is dead for you, try the Apple download link.

The new, much sleeker MyXbox page offers quicker access to achievements, recently viewed friends, recently played games, and the like, through a nice highlighted menu. Basically, it's looking more and more like the Xbox's Dashboard, which we're sure is intentional. Go check it out if you're an Xbox Live user. [Thanks, Shiron!, image from Co-Optimus]

The statue/model/robot is on display at E3 outside Ubisoft's booth for the corresponding video game which will release alongside the film. Up until now, specific details and visuals from the film have been pretty scarce.

For those unfamiliar, Avatar is a 3D film set to take place in the 22nd century. The basic premise is that humans visit a distant moon full of giant blue aliens using genetically engineered "avatars" that they mentally inhabit (I'm not making this up). Cameron says the film was inspired by all the sci-fi books he read as a child.

If anything, the movie will be interesting. For now, feast on the images, and be sure to check out more over at [Collider]