Surely anybody that’s interested in movies has some kind of tingling over James Cameron’s AVATAR? It’s been 14 years since the movie’s conception; that delay is because we’ve been waiting for technology to finally catch up with Cameron’s vision. Just like we had to wait for technology to catch up with George Lucas’s dialogue for the STAR WARS prequels. Hopefully that’s where the similarities end and, this time, we won’t be leaving the cinema feeling like something inside has died a little.
AVATAR promises to take us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads an heroic battle to save a civilization. As others have pointed out (and Cameron himself has agreed with), it does sound somewhat like DANCES WITH WOLVES in space; but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, after all, DANCES is an epic film and epic films can surely only become more epic when big guns and blue aliens are injected into the mix?
After four years of actual production work, and nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, AVATAR is supposed to deliver a “fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind” and indeed, Cameron has been busy hyping the mother-loving crap out of AVATAR for months, kick-starting a storm of hype not seen since Heath Ledger painted his face white in THE DARK KNIGHT. Comicon 09 was full of AVATAR with Cameron showing 24 minutes of the movie to an audience comprised mainly of people with dribble on their chin. Various quotes surfaced in the aftermath, including: “The sheer scope of Cameron’s vision are absolutely awe-inspiring. If I could only see one more film for the rest of my life then, assuming they don’t make a sequel to NUNS ON THE RUN, AVATAR would be it.” and “AVATAR will change the face of cinema forever”.
Now, I’m not sure it will. I mean, it’s touted as being photorealistic. But to my eyes, every still I’ve seen involving one of the big blue things looks like a computer game. Maybe it’ll look different when it’s in 3D and on an IMAX screen. I doubt it though, especially after Devin Farachi’s report on his (excellent) website CHUD, in which Devin said “AVATAR looks like a very advanced CGI toon. When CGI Navi are interacting with CGI monsters in CGI landscapes, it all looks very CGI.” And that’s from a guy who saw the 24 minutes at Comicon with his own eyes.
For all the hype and internet spittle however, AVATAR is still the movie I’m most looking forward to seeing this year (and this year has been a pretty good one for movies) – after seeing how glorious UP looked in 3D, and after being repeatedly told that AVATAR is going to move the 3D game on to the next level, how can I not be a smidge excited?
AVATAR opens in cinemas everywhere (and it will be everywhere!) December 18, 2009.
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