Cameron delivers a whole new film experience with ‘Avatar’
Film director and writer James Cameron doesn’t do things the
easy way. That’s clear with his newly released 3-D movie
”
Avatar.
”
Cameron not only wrote and directed the film, but also developed
a new form of 3-D technology to record the movie, according to a
profile in
”
The New Yorker.
”
Cameron delivers a whole new film experience with ‘Avatar’
Film director and writer James Cameron doesn’t do things the easy way. That’s clear with his newly released 3-D movie “Avatar.” Cameron not only wrote and directed the film, but also developed a new form of 3-D technology to record the movie, according to a profile in “The New Yorker.”
The latest film is not a new tale, though it is told in a very different way. As with most Cameron movies, the running time of 162 minutes could have easily been trimmed by 20 to 30 minutes, but this one doesn’t seem to las as much as other Cameron films.
The movie mixes live action characters with digital creations, and again Cameron used state-of-the-art technology so that the “skins” are put over the actual actors. It makes the digital characters move and act more like real humans, especially in their display of emotions. Viewers will easily be able to recognize some of the characters when they embody their avatars.
The premise of the story is that humans, who are at war back on Earth, have discovered the planet of Pandora. The planet is inhabited by crazy creatures with sharp teeth and extra sets of legs, as well as a humanoid species humans call the Na’vi. Pandora also has a valuable mineral that a corporation wants to bring back home, so the military has come in to bully and suppress the natives.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a marine who has lost the use of his legs. The technology exists to fix a human spine, but he can’t afford it on his military pension. So instead, he makes a deal to take over his late twin brother’s spot in an experiment on Pandora. There, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) has created a way to grow a human-Na’vi hybrid that can be controlled remotely by a human. That means the humans can go out into Pandora to explore and do research without putting themselves at risk.
But Jake quickly comes to the notice of the military head honcho at the military base in Pandora. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) asks Sam to be a spy on the inside so that they can find a way to wipe out the natives who live near a rich deposit of the valuable rocks.
Jake ends up with more of an inside view than he could ever have imagined on his first journey into the jungles in his avatar body.
When he is separated from Grace and another researcher, he is nearly killed by hyena-like creatures with razor-like teeth. He is saved by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a native of a Na’vi clan, who takes him home to her family when she sees a sign fromt he Na’vi god that she should help him rahter than kill him. At the request of her parents (the chief and a psychic), she begins teaching Jake all about the Na’vi culture and way of life. He soon finds himself more entranced in his Avatar’s life – where he can walk, run and fly, with the help of other creatures – than in his own life. He stops shaving, showering and barely eats when he is awake in his human body – kind of like gamers who use avatars in videogames.
Jake has to decide between following his military orders and helping the people for whom he is starting to care.
The movie has some echoes of a previous Cameron film, and the only other of his films that I really enjoyed. Like “The Abyss,” it features characters that are at odds with each other and a military presence. In “The Abyss,” Virgil “Bud” Brigman (Ed Harris) works on an oil tanker and is at odds with his scientist ex-wife Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). It reflects the way Grace and Jake interact initially. The movie featured an alien species, in this case an underwater creature. Cameron also needed cutting-edge technology to film the underwater scenes in “The Abyss,” which was released in 1989.
Most viewers who go to see “Avatar” may be aware that it is a new 3-D technology, but more than that, the technique Cameron created offers a crisper view of the film. It looks as though it is in HD, and in some scenes it feels almost like the viewers are in the room with the actors. Cameron didn’t pull out any tricks just for the 3-D, but the movie definitely had some scenes that benefitted from it. There are plenty of scenes of the Navi walking around in the high branches of the tree that is their home, or in the floating mountains. Those with a fear of heights might even have to look away at some scenes. The best part of the new technology is that the 3-D glasses are lighter weight so they are a lot less noticeable during the film.
I expected the movie to be visually-stunning and the 3-D to look great, but Cameron delivers enough of a story for “Avatar” to appeal to general audiences.
