James Cameron said in this behind the scenes, “This is not an animated film”. I think that mentality carried through the whole production crew where the animators get little credit. Im not a motion capture guy, but if the animators don’t touch it, won’t it look like plastic? Just think “Polar Express”. In the behind the scenes, its the actors taking 100% of the credit leaving no thanks for the animators. Im interested in what other people think about this.

I’m on the fence on the subject because in one of Keith Lango’s article, (http://keithlango.blogspot.com/2009/08/replace-animator-i-agree-100.html) he pointed out things that I am totally agreeing with. Realistic animation should be left done by the actors while letting animation do what they can do best that mocap cannot achieve due to time and practicality. So I can see years down the road that any human proportionate CG Characters will no longer need the animators to handle their performance and acting, only the ‘cleaning up’ on things like tails, ears, perhaps a little facial/ eye stuff here and there and that’s about it.

Avatar’s story was pretty much a Sci-Fi Ferngully also so I am not too drawn into the story, besides, I’m also tired of people making the whites so evil, they really aren’t always the bad guys and things are never always easily black and white that simple. The being oppressed parties are not always the ‘innocent’ group too.
I did enjoyed it for the pacing and visuals for Avatar, so it’s still a great movie for me.