James Cameron’s Epic Creation - Avatar

Posted by Luke

Whether are you a massive fan or a jealous hater of James Cameron, it is quite clear that in each of his films Mr. Cameron expertly pushes to create a visual experience that will transport the audience to a strange alternate universe.

Mr. Cameron’s work includes such blockbuster films franchises as Terminator and Terminator 2 which caught the eye of fans around the world and enabled Mr. Cameron to cash in with huge-budget studio-backed films. Confidently, Mr. Cameron took on Ridley Scott’s Alien, creating a sequel called Aliens. He crafted a spectacular high-action thriller that fully lived up to the original masterpiece. Mr. Cameron’s last film, Titanic, the most profitable film ever, made him king of the world. Now, Mr. Cameron is back with his long-awaited IMAX 3D science fiction epic Avatar that will reach thousands of screens worldwide on December 18, 2009.

Avatar is based in the future on a distant planet called Pandora. Jack Sully, played by Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation and Clash of the Titans, set to release in March 26 in 2010), is a paraplegic war veteran brought to Pandora to embark on a new mission. The mission was assigned by Jake’s superior, Dr. Grace Augustine, portrayed by Sigourney Weaver (The Ice Storm and Infamous) who starred in Mr. Cameron’s Aliens. The world on Pandora is inhabited by the Na'vi, who are quite similar in appearance to humans, except that they are ten feet tall, and have blue skin and cat-like jade eyes.

James Cameron filming a scene with the male lead Sam Worthington who plays Jake Sully


Mr. Cameron shared Avatar clips with a packed audience at Comic-Con. In the almost twenty-five-minute-long clips, we learn that the human race wants to destroy the Na’vi to gain complete control of Pandora. The humans use avatars that look like the Na’vi; like The Matrix, in Avatar, a human lays down on a contraption (see picture below) that links the human’s brain to the avatar and lets the human control it. Using the avatars, the humans can live on Pandora, interact with the Na’vi and perhaps help the humans to obliterate their rivals.

During one of the first Avatar clips, Jake Sully connects to his own specially made Avatar. Learning to control an Avatar takes time, but Jake wants none of that. A quick battle ensues as the team scientists try to control Jake’s Avatar in a losing effort. Jake’s Avatar swiftly rushes out of the room, attempting to control his newly-adopted body and not get caught, and he succeeds. After this scene, the film takes the audience to the strange planet of Pandora to blow away anything fanboys have seen before.

James Cameron looking over the creation of an Avatar


There it was – Pandora. Quite frankly, the amazing 3D effects are simply breathtaking -- the brilliant array of colors showing the tropical trees, baby-blue water and huge mountains was dazzling. Although the brush of vast psychedelic colors was remarkable, the motion-capturing of the actors really was something to behold. Each actor playing a Na’vi had incredibly detailed facial expressions, spot-on eye movement and perfect movement of their long gangly blue bodies. Although many directors have attempted to use the motion-capture technology, most of the results lacked depth. Avatar succeeds where the others have failed. The clips featured a number of shots of Pandora including Jake’s interaction with a possible love interest, a Na’vi native named Naytiri, played by the beautiful and lovely Zoe Saldana (Star Trek and Vantage Point). Another spectacular scene is when Jake Sully’s avatar battles a dragon-like monster hand-to-hand; the results demonstrate elite control of the camera with CGI in full effect. Soon enough, the Comic-Con house lights went on and the clips were over. It was over. Done.

Avatar was filmed partly in New Zealand at Peter Jackson’s Weta Limited studio using state-of-the-art cameras specially built for the filming of this massive undertaking. Mr. Cameron is a master epic director, and he surrounds himself with the best in the business. Jon Landau, who produced Titanic, helps with the organizing and attempts to troubleshoot problems and run the huge operation as smoothly as possible. Of course, understanding Mr. Cameron’s vision is extremely important to Avatar and the director of photography, Mauro Fiore (The Kingdom and Training Day), did a masterful job shooting this ambitious creation. The hundreds of special effects wizards, artists and set designers working with the team of editors slowly began compiling each scene in post-production. After viewing 25 minutes of never-before-seen footage, the audience of 6,500 in Hall H at Comic-Con gave the Avatar creators a standing ovation.

Even though Mr. Cameron has a great record of producing profitable films, Fox Studio wanted to make sure it was investing in something worthwhile (the studio claims Avatar has a 240 million dollar budget, however, rumors are the bill will rise to about 300 million without even considering the huge marketing campaign). To satisfy the studio, Mr. Cameron and his team created a clip just under one minute long to show the studio big-shots what Avatar would look like. Although Mr. Cameron said the short clip did not nearly show how good the film will look, obviously the studio suits liked what they saw. It was green-lighted and set up for pre-production. Four years later, after great anticipation from sci-fi fanatics, thousands of Comic-Con viewers and some lucky Amsterdam folks have seen what will make the general audience feel as amazed and tripped out as those old Woodstock stoners.

It is clear and simple: this epic film needs to be seen -- on a big screen with 3D if possible. If you are like me, you’ll be there on Friday, December 18 at 12:01 a.m. I hope you are right next to me to witness the evolution of cinema together.

Poster of Avatar screening at 2009 Comic-Con