Posted on 12/13/2009 6:52:26 AM PST by Borges
Watching "Avatar," I felt sort of the same as when I saw "Star Wars" in 1977. That was another movie I walked into with uncertain expectations. James Cameron's film has been the subject of relentlessly dubious advance buzz, just as his "Titanic" was. Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely.
"Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message. It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings. It invents a new language, Na'vi, as "Lord of the Rings" did, although mercifully I doubt this one can be spoken by humans, even teenage humans. It creates new movie stars. It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation.
The story, set in the year 2154, involves a mission by U. S. Armed Forces to an earth-sized moon in orbit around a massive star. This new world, Pandora, is a rich source of a mineral Earth desperately needs. Pandora represents not even a remote threat to Earth, but we nevertheless send in the military to attack and conquer them. Gung-ho Marines employ machine guns and pilot armored hover ships on bombing runs. You are free to find this an allegory about contemporary politics. Cameron obviously does.
Pandora harbors a planetary forest inhabited peacefully by the Na'vi, a blue-skinned, golden-eyed race of slender giants, each one perhaps 12 feet tall. The atmosphere is not breathable by humans, and the landscape makes us pygmies. To venture out of our landing craft, we use avatars--Na'vi lookalikes grown organically and mind-controlled by humans who remain wired up in a trance-like state on the ship. While acting as avatars, they see, fear, taste and feel like Na'vi, and have all the same physical adeptness.
This last quality is liberating for the hero, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who is a paraplegic. He's been recruited because he's a genetic match for a dead identical twin, who an expensive avatar was created for. In avatar state he can walk again, and as his payment for this duty he will be given a very expensive operation to restore movement to his legs. In theory he's in no danger, because if his avatar in destroyed, his human form remains untouched. In theory.
On Pandora, Jake begins as a good soldier and then goes native after his life is saved by the lithe and brave Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). He finds it is indeed true, as the aggressive Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) briefed them, that nearly every species of life here wants him for lunch. (Avatars are not be made of Na'vi flesh, but try explaining that to charging 30-ton rhino with a snout like a bullet head shark).
The Na'vi survive on this planet by knowing it well, living in harmony with nature, and being wise about the creatures they share with. In this and countless other ways they resemble Native Americans. Like them, they tame another species to carry them around--not horses, but graceful flying dragon-like creatures. The scene involving Jake capturing and taming one of these great beasts is one of the film's greats sequences.
Like "Star Wars" and "LOTR," "Avatar" employs a new generation of special effects. Cameron said it would, and many doubted him. It does. Pandora is bevy largely CGI. The Na'vi are embodied through motion capture techniques, convincingly. They look like specific, persuasive individuals, yet sidestep the eerie Uncanny Valley effect. And Cameron and his artists succeed at the difficult challenge of making Neytiri a blue-skinned giantess with golden eyes and a long, supple tail, and yet--I'll be damned. Sexy.
At 163 minutes, the film doesn't feel too long. It contains so much. The human stories. The Na'vi stories, for the Na'vi are also developed as individuals. The complexity of the planet, which harbors a global secret. The ultimate warfare, with Jake joining the resistance against his former comrades. Small graceful details like a floating creature that looks like a cross between a blowing dandelion seed and a drifting jellyfish, and embodies goodness. Or astonishing floating cloud-islands.
I've complained that many recent films abandon story telling in their third acts and go for wall-to-wall action. Cameron essentially does that here, but has invested well in establishing his characters so that it matters what they do in battle and how they do it. There are issues at stake greater than simply which side wins.
Cameron promised he'd unveil the next generation of 3-D in "Avatar." I'm a notorious skeptic about this process, a needless distraction from the perfect realism of movies in 2-D. Cameron's iteration is the best I've seen -- and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed. The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it, and doesn't promiscuously violate the fourth wall. He also seems quite aware of 3-D's weakness for dimming the picture, and even with a film set largely in interiors and a rain forest, there's sufficient light. I saw the film in 3-D on a good screen at the AMC River East and was impressed. I might be awesome in True IMAX. Good luck in getting a ticket before February.
It takes a hell of a lot of nerve for a man to stand up at the Oscarcast and proclaim himself King of the World. James Cameron just got re-elected.
tell that to the peanut gallery.... GL has billions in the bank cuz of those “stupid and boring” six little movies
Nothing that I can recall.
Qui Gonn Gin was kinda like a Han Solo character only he wa a Jedi
He reviewed it in the Sun Times, since it was widely distributed here. Not hollywood, though. Ebert did lump it in with run of the mill domestic crap as an example of genuinely depressing film-making, as I just did. My mistake. One and a half stars on that comment.
You wouldn’t have a movie because nobody would want to be an avatar for THAT. But Cameron would get to re-use a classic line-—
“Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”
Freegards
“Qui Gonn Gin was kinda like a Han Solo character only he was a Jedi”
I disagree. But he wasn’t a bad character. Anikin and Amadala were just awful. And they made Yoda an incompetent boob.
Freegards
To quote yoda:
“Hard to see the darkside is.”
And Qui Gon was a rogue. How many times were he and Obi Wan in front of the council cuz Qui Gon did his own thing rather than what the council wanted.
I’d say he was too resposible and caring to live down to Han’s standard. And he did’t bring the funny either.
They should have made Yoda 15 feet tall, from a race who really shrinks when they get old. And the Jedi was destroyed under Yoda’s watch pretty easily.
Did the clones have a choice in fighting? I really don’t know the answer. What’s your take on it?
Freegards
It looks like stupid in 3D.
3D Stupid!
What are you talking about?
I quit reading there.
I have no way of knowing that.
But I am sure I have no desire to see it.
Heavy-handed "green" and "antiwar" is not in my definition of entertainment.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/product/movies/theater/find-a-cinema.html
Try to find one of these, seriously. The Dolby system is supposed to be nearly unintrusive. I’m going to see it at Imax first, but a Dolby system later on too.
With your defective inferences, you would make an excellent climate researcher.
Of course I've enjoyed many of those; without, however, the burden of knowing the fat clueless one has "endorsed" them.
3D requires separate images for each eye. 3D to-date has been done by having two projectors put the images on the same screen. One is polarized one way, the other polarized at 90 degrees from the first. Viewers wear glasses in which each lens picks up one of the polarized streams of light.
I’ve heard of a scheme for the home where the television set puts up one eye’s frame, then the other eye’s frame at 30 flips per second or something like that. Viewers wear glasses that turn on and off each eye so it picks up the proper sequence of frames. I think only the DLP receiver technology can flip images fast enough to make this work. The others (LCD, etc.) have image persistance that fouls the scheme.
I’m inclined to stick to 2D for now.
The dolby system uses a color wheel with color corrected DLP to produce the image. I haven’t seen it yet, but enthusiasts have said it was fantastic.
I’ve also heard from just about everyone that seeing this in 2D is a massive mistake. I’d give the Dolby one a shot if you can.
I was responding to a ridiculous blanket statement. And as has been mentioned in this thread, Ebert is no longer fat. Mostly due to ilness.
“What about those paved streets the Aztecs had? “
All made without the benefit of metal tools.
Won't wanna watch that, then. Get enough of that on a daily basis, for free.
I think all DLP receivers (to be technical, “light engines”) have color wheels but I’m pretty ignorant of what’s going on with 3D. My favorite scheme is to have glasses where each eye has its own little monitor. That’s a no-compromises scheme.
I sure hope for the producers’ sake the 2D version looks pretty good because I think revenue from sales and rentals exceeds theatrical revenue in the long run.
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