If you are only as successful as your last movie, then it's no wonder James Cameron took a 12-year hiatus from filmmaking – he must have been thinking, 'how am I ever going to beat raising the Titanic?'
Enter Avatar. Now we saw the preview footage a few months ago and weren't that impressed, so how does the final movie compare? And more to the point, does all the 3D technology actually, finally deliver?
Yes, it really does. Avatar doesn't just change your perception of what cinema can do, but finally brings the concept of 3D into the 21st Century.
From its opening moments, you can understand just what Cameron has been doing while he's been away. He's been busy creating his own fully realised world – Pandora.
The planet is full of lush vegetation, primal creatures and a population of blue Na'vi warrior aliens, whose beliefs and way of life are being torn apart by an army assigned to displace them and plunder their land for fuel.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic marine, is chosen after the death of his twin brother to infiltrate the Na'vis. Due to Pandora's air being poisonous to humans, his mind is mapped to a specially created Na'vi avatar, and his mission is to understand how they live and find a way to move them from their homes humanely.
If he fails, then there's only one thing for it – an almighty ruck between the natives and the marines.
Emotion capture
Flitting between the 'real' world of the marines and the digitised world of the Na'vi's, Cameron shows in each pixel-populated scene just how much time he and his team of effects supervisors have taken to make sure that Avatar is the most accomplished SFX movie seen to date.
To create the blue, gangly, Na'vi's, the director hasn't just used motion capture, but 'emotion' capture. Utilising technology for the first time which maps an actor's eyes as well as their body, there's a stunning amount of pathos in the aliens which populate the planet of Pandora. So much so, the supporting human cast sometimes seem two-dimensional compared to their sumptuous CGI counterparts.
And while we are on the subject of dimensions, it has to be noted that Avatar is a movie that needs to be seen in the third dimension and on the big screen. Never has donning a pair of glasses meant so much to a film.
While 2009 has definitely seen some great 3D films – Monsters Vs Aliens and Up being standout – Avatar will undoubtedly become the benchmark that every 3D movie from now on will be compared.
Moving the technology on from gimmick to necessity is no easy task, considering 3D has been around for nearly as long as cinema itself, but Cameron has managed it by going back to the drawing board and creating new cameras – including virtual ones which helped him see what was taking place in his CG world in real-time – and camera rigs to integrate the tech with the filmmaking process, rather than drop it in as an afterthought.
It works, and can be seen in every so-real-you-can-touch-it drop of water, every rustle of leaves and each smoke bomb and bullet which jump from the screen.
Visually stunning
If only as much time was spent on the script as the effects, Cameron's film would be regarded as a masterpiece. Unfortunately, an in-your-face eco message, some clunky dialogue and misjudged hippy motifs – which see the Na'vis literally jacking into nature – mar what is a visually stunning piece of cinema.
Luckily the last 40 minutes more than make up for the script-writing foibles. A barrage of heartache and violence, redemption and revenge culminates in a face-off that's every bit as great as when Ripley blasted the Alien queen into space – also under Cameron's guidance – some 20 years before.
A lot has happened since Titanic hit screens in 1997. A new Star Wars trilogy has been and gone, and franchises like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have brought the concept of fantasy into the mainstream once more.
Does this mean that the stage is set for Avatar to break the box-office in the way Titanic did? No. Its story is too niche to find such a broad audience, regardless of how much marketing goes into the movie.
But not everything in cinema is about money. Sometimes it's much more than that. It's about driving moviemaking forward, transporting audiences to places they have never been before and showing other filmmakers a new way to ply their trade.
Avatar does this and more. Although not perfect, it's a film which will change movies (both watching and making them) forever, and in the process open everyone's eyes to the fact that maybe there's something to this 3D malarkey after all.
Avatar is in cinemas nationwide from 17 December, courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
geegee
December 31st 2009
5. If you have any memory of past history and present history you would realize this movie is a masterpiece and would see all the hidden messages.
It shows us of what happened with the native people here and elsewhere. It also lets us see that man is doing it again against Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan. Lets kill everyone even nature to make a buck for a few powerful hundred people, to get the oil, like the rock in the movie.
I found this movie the best I have ever seen. It touched me deeply.
Here in Canada, Quebec to be precise they dug up graves in native land to build, and when the native people protested for these are sacred grounds to them, they could not understand and made the native look bad because they retaliated against this, they even sent the army in to provoke them because they had made blockades.
I love nature and I know God gave us the Earth to take care of it, as a loan and we will all have to give account for how we took care of it.
I find this movie has a great message and even now the Earth is fighting back with tsunamis and floods and wild animals attacking people, animals that never did before like the bears in Canada and all kinds of animals starving because man screwed up the land and they have no where to go to eat etc.......
I liked the hair thing, like Samson, the power was in his hair, the tree was also symbolic like the burning bush and the tree of life in revelation.
I found it to be a truly magnificent film.
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felinah
December 23rd 2009
4. The poster above me must have fell asleep during the movie, or is just very dim witted. This movie was spectacular, I left the theater in shock after the experience, best movie I have ever seen. Go see it.....
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calcio
December 14th 2009
3. @tech89 "If only as much time was spent on the script as the effects, Cameron's film would be regarded as a masterpiece. Unfortunately, an in-your-face eco message, some clunky dialogue and misjudged hippy motifs – which see the Na'vis literally jacking into nature – mar what is a visually stunning piece of cinema."
Probably tells you all you need to know! And from this article
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tech89
December 14th 2009
2. What was the story like? Worth watching? I've come across dozens of reviews on the net, all mention the effects and the future of making movies, but none tell me whether the film's story is good enough to watch it.
Effects improve all the time. There was a surge after digital domain and weta digital were created in the early 2000s and there will be a surge of directors looking to do films in 3D in the 2010s onwards with this new system of filming.
Does it live up to the hype that many many people have created?
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ripsnorter
December 14th 2009
1. I've seen the film.
If wearing 3D glasses is an issue for you, then over 160 minutes is really going to be most taxing. If there's an interval then at least you'll get a comfort break! In technical terms, as in audience experience, the 3D is at times superb. I sat in the 'sweet spot' so cannot say what it is like from the wings or the gods.
Obviously, what I like in the cinema is an entirely subjective matter. So while, like I say, the 3D is at times spectacular, in almost all other departments (story, script, dramaturgy, characterisation) it is so woefully weak, clichéd and derivative as to hurt. If you have seen the trailer then you really have seen, or can certainly guess, the film. You will be sitting there, as I did, realising that, apart from the settings and the 3D, that there is nothing new here at all. The moment you look beyond the 3D it strikes you full on just how flat and one dimensional the film is. But this is, as I say, my subjective opinion.
Whether to make the extra effort and pay more to see it in 3D is a moot point. For me the 3D was the only saving grace. It will still work in 2D, of course, but then the film's major selling point is gone. And before you accuse me of being highbrow or a film snob, I love big budget films, eat popcorn like a hero and think 2012 is a masterpiece! I've seen it several times. One screening of Avatar is enough for me. At the end of the day it is just a film and a not very good one.
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