Sam Worthington in Avatar
The story follows the experiences of paraplegic soldier, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), and a band of human explorers on the planet of Pandora. To help them survive in an atmosphere that would kill them, they have their minds transferred into artificially created bodies, called Avatars, that are made in the image of the Na’vi, the humanoid population of the planet. They are 9 foot tall, well built, blue humanoids with tails, large ears and eyes and very dishy in an alien type way!
It’s taken 14 years of waiting, from Cameron’s original conception of the film, before the technology was available to make it and you can see that it’s worth the wait. The special effects, computer generation and general feel of the film can be explained in one word: beautiful. The 3D nature of the film makes the alien landscape and the creatures of the world, if you’ll pardon the pun, stand out in a way that you would lose in a 2D format. A scene we were shown takes place on a cliff face above a gorge that looks thousands of feet high and the 3D gives you the feeling of that height and when Jake finds himself riding a flying creature as he plummets off this cliff face it gave me goosebumps. James Cameron is notorious for his perfectionism and you can see this in the quality in the CGI of the Avatars. There is so much expression in their faces, the look of wonder and surprise is clearly seen in every scene, where someone else might use a long shot, dramatic music and sound bytes of the actors whooping with joy or yelps of surprise, the camera angles are on the faces as they experience these emotions and its infectious.
If the rest of the film is as exciting as the 15 minute montage of clips we saw then its going to be amazing. I hope it is as I know I’ve been let down in the past but you’ve got to be optimistic about these things.
Avatar looks rad I can’t wait to see it.