This is sort of interesting. A couple months back, "Avatar" was being panned as being dead on arrival. I sort of stopped paying attention to it and not until today realized that not only has the critical response done a complete 180, but that it seems it did so for a valid reason: the movie is unique and appears to be at the forefront of yet another phase of 'new filmmaking'. It's intrigued me and knowing that Sigourney Weaver has two roles in it helps a lot in deciding to give the film a shot. It could be great. I hope so!
'We talk to stars Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver. And Director James Cameron says he hopes people see the emotional storyline behind the movie's effects and action sequences. Get a front row seat to the most anticipated fantasy flick of the year, AVATAR! Big Movie Guide takes you behind the scenes of the film, checking out the cutting edge technology, talking to the stars and hanging out at the premiere!'
Mr. Cameron has said that he started thinking about the alien universe that became Pandora and its galactic environs in “Avatar” back in the 1970s. He wrote a treatment in 1996, but the technologies he needed to turn his ideas into images didn’t exist until recently. New digital technologies gave him the necessary tools, including performance capture, which translates an actor’s physical movements into a computer-generated image (CGI). Until now, by far the most plausible character created in this manner has been slithery Gollum from Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” cycle. The exotic creatures in “Avatar,” which include an astonishment of undulating, flying, twitching and galloping organisms, don’t just crawl through the underbrush; they thunder and shriek, yip and hiss, pointy teeth gleaming.
The most important of these are the Na’vi, and while their movements can bring to mind old-fashioned stop-motion animation, their faces are a triumph of tech innovation, with tremors and twitches that make them immediately appealing and empathetic. By the time Neytiri ushers Jake into her world of wonders — a lush dreamscape filled with kaleidoscopic and bioluminescent flora and fauna, with pink jellyfishlike creatures that hang in the air and pleated orange flowers that snap shut like parasols — you are deep in the Na’vi-land. It’s a world that looks as if it had been created by someone who’s watched a lot of Jacques Cousteau television or, like Mr. Cameron, done a lot of diving. It’s also familiar because, like John Smith in “The New World,” Terrence Malick’s retelling of the Pocahontas story, Jake has discovered Eden.
UPDATE 01.19.10
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