Avatar: I See Me Through Your Eyes…

LuckyBogey's Blog ^ | December 11, 2009 | LuckyBogey

[luckybogey]

THR Film Review-Bottom Line: A titanic entertainment — movie magic is back!

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world.

As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar.” And he did it almost from scratch.

There is no underlining novel or myth to generate his story. He certainly draws deeply on Westerns, going back to “The Vanishing American” and, in particular, “Dances With Wolves.” And the American tragedy in Vietnam informs much of his story. But then all great stories build on the past ( “Avatar” premiered Thursday in London).

After writing this story many years ago, he discovered that the technology he needed to make it happen did not exist. So, he went out and created it in collaboration with the best effects minds in the business. This is motion capture brought to a new high where every detail of the actors’ performances gets preserved in the final CG character as they appear on the screen. Yes, those eyes are no longer dead holes but big and expressive, almost dominating the wide and long alien faces.

The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet. “Titanic”-level business? That level may never be reached again, but Fox will see more than enough grosses worldwide to cover its bet on Cameron.

But let’s cut to the chase: A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of “Avatar.” Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in “Avatar” serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story (watch the trailer here).

The story takes place in 2154, three decades after a multinational corporation has established a mining colony on Pandora, a planet light years from Earth. A toxic environment and hostile natives — one corporate apparatchik calls the locals “blue monkeys” — forces the conglom to engage with Pandora by proxy. Humans dwell in oxygen-drenched cocoons but move out into mines or to confront the planet’s hostile creatures in hugely fortified armor and robotics or — as avatars.

The protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a crippled former Marine who takes his late twin brother’s place in the avatar program, a sort of bone thrown to the scientific community by the corporation in hopes that the study of Pandora and its population might create a more peaceful planet.

Without any training, Jake suddenly must learn how to link his consciousness to an avatar, a remotely controlled biological body that mixes human DNA with that of the native population, the Na’vi. Since he is incautious and overly curious, he immediately rushes into the fresh air — to a native — to throw open Pandora’s many boxes.

What a glory Cameron has created for Jake to romp in, all in a crisp 3D realism. It’s every fairy tale about flying dragons, magic plants, weirdly hypnotic creepy-crawlies and feral dogs rolled up into a rain forest with a highly advanced spiritual design. It seems — although the scientists led by Sigourney Weaver’s top doc have barely scratched the surface — a flow of energy ripples through the roots of trees and the spores of the plants, which the Na’vi know how to tap into.

The center of life is a holy tree where tribal memories and the wisdom of their ancestors is theirs for the asking. This is what the humans want to strip mine.

Jake manages to get taken in by one tribe where a powerful, Amazonian named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes him under her wing to teach him how to live in the forest, speak the language and honor the traditions of nature. Yes, they fall in love but Cameron has never been a sentimentalist: He makes it tough on his love birds...

[luckybogey]

Posted in Bloggers Section. Blog Post includes: Avatar: The Movie (Extended HD Trailer) Video — Avatar — Film Review — Leona Lewis: “I See You: Lyrics Music Video — Avatar: pictures of James Cameron’s fantastic new world — Avatar Music Soundtrack Video — Sigourney Weaver: ‘Avatar will change what people want in the cinema’ — James Cameron’s Avatar Interview Video — Avatar review: ‘James Cameron just got slack’ — James Cameron’s Avatar The Game: Walkthrough Video — Avatar: The Game will follow its own path through the alien jungle

[mnehring]

Dances with Smurfs looked a little silly to me. I’ll probably go see it but it seems way over-hyped.

[OneWingedShark]

Excellent South Park ref... I was thinking the same thing.

[PzLdr]

Let me guess. Evil corporation despoiling nature, aided and abetted by the evil military. No wonder the reviewer had an orgasm...

[mnehring]

Some people are easily dazzled, it is like jingling your keys in front of a cat.

[AzSteven]

ooohh, shiny keys...

(normal post-work reaction from the cats as I walk in)

[IDontLikeToPayTaxes]

Dances with Smurfs looked a little silly to me. I’ll probably go see it but it seems way over-hyped.

Couldn't agree more.

For all the visuals and the massive budget, this movie just looks.....

dumb

[Prodigal Son]

Really looking forward to checking this one out. Comes out here in Edinburgh on Wednesday evening. If it’s really cool, might go across to Glasgow to see it in imax format.

[tx_eggman]

The center of life is a holy tree where tribal memories and the wisdom of their ancestors is theirs for the asking. This is what the humans want to strip mine.

As with everything leftie and hollywood ... humans are the cancer.

I'd rather spend the $11 on scratch off tickets.

[mnehring]

Side note, Ninja Assassin looks kind of fun.

[GunningForTheBuddha]

The basic premise from the trailers failed me. Let’s see the scientists are smart enough to clone an alien body, and put a crippled Marine’s consciousness into it - but they couldn’t just clone the crippled Marine a new “human” body so he wouldn’t be crippled anymore? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot.

[mnehring]

The basic premise from the trailers failed me. Let’s see the scientists are smart enough to clone an alien body, and put a crippled Marine’s consciousness into it - but they couldn’t just clone the crippled Marine a new “human” body so he wouldn’t be crippled anymore? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot.

Good catch. Not to mention they have the technology to travel light years across the universe, clone bodies, yet have to resort to century old mining practices.

[Alex Murphy]

There is no underlining novel or myth to generate his story.

At least that's what James' lawyers would have us believe.

Call Me Joe

Like Avatar, Call Me Joe centers on a paraplegic — Ed Anglesey — who telepathically connects with an artificially created life form in order to explore a harsh planet (in this case, Jupiter). Anglesey, like Avatar's Jake Sully, revels in the freedom and strength of his artificial created body, battles predators on the surface of Jupiter, and gradually goes native as he spends more time connected to his artificial body.

Oh, and the aliens in Call me Joe are blue, too.

[Alex Murphy]

Dances with Smurfs

ROTFL!

[junta]

Somewhere in hell Rosseu is smiling. Basically the West has stalled, we are now back to Animism, next up a buddy film about how kids build a pyramid to worship the great Obama.

[ruiner]

Good point. I guess you don’t watch TV at all then? No jewelry or makeup on the wife? Skip washing the car; afterall it drives just the same dirty?

I know my argument is somewhat specious but my point is that sometimes it’s OK to go see a whiz bang, 3-d, computer generated la-la land.

[09Patriot]

sorta similar to a Surrogates Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop (Willis) is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others’ surrogates

[jimbo123]

[Jewbacca]

Looks cool.

Too bad it has to re-hash tired liberal lies of:

Vietnam Disaster

Evil Corporations

Environmental Wack-a-doo-doo

Noble savages before evil Judeo-Christian/Western society destoys them

[Dixie Yooper]

"What's with all these blue people?"