by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
I knew the moment I heard that there was going to be a movie called Avatar and a movie called Avatar: The Last Airbender people were gonna get confused.
By the way they stole my nick name from school… I was know as the ‘Airbender‘ thanks to all those government provided lunches. I kid! I kid!
I’m not going to bother with the Avatar: The Last Airbender. I am going to bother with Avatar (or as it seems to be called on the interweb: James Cameron’s Avatar).
Avatar seems to be like Titanic, one of those movies that EVERYONE has seen. That’s an exaggeration but a lot of people have seen this movie. It’s almost like James Cameron sits in front of his desk and thinks: ‘I have to come up with a concept that will make people go see this movie multiple times’. I’m serious. If you notice that seems to be the thing with his movies. People see them again and again.
I have been hearing about Avatar for more than ten years now. Way back in the day when CG was really taking off there were reports of James Cameron working on some big time CG movie but that the technology wasn’t quite there yet. Apparently 2009 was the year where the impossible became possible. Avatar apparently cost less than the third Pirates of the Caribbean (probably because they didn’t have to pay for the big names). Cameron invested his own money in the different R&D projects to develop a new camera system as well as motion capture (I don’t think those costs are in that production total). Not only is the movie making money from theaters and such but the technology they created for it is being sold to other studios for a lot of money as well. When James Cameron does something, he does it right!
This movie was visually impressive. I mean that. I am one of those people who scour every frame for shoddy CG and I couldn’t find much of anything wrong with this monster of a movie. I am a real critic of motion capture and especially facial capture in movies and Avatar was spot on perfect. Even the previews for the new Tron (young Flynn effects) look crappy compared to the stuff they did in Avatar. This is only speaking of the creature and character effects. The ‘forest’ backgrounds were flawless as well. It is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen.
The story is basically Pocahontas. I won’t go any further because that is what it is. They made sure to give you some feeling for the characters to make it interesting enough, but just enough. The effects is where this movie shines.
I have to highly suggest you check out this movie. The bigger the TV screen you have the better. This movie was meant to be watched in hi def too.
Cameron has two more plots for the further adventures of the seven foot smurfs so expect to see more of this ‘Humans are cowboys and Na’vi are Indians’ story lines.
Avatar 2: Electric BLUEgaloo