There was a philosopher who once dreamed he was a butterfly, but when he awoke he wasn't sure whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
When Jake Sully awakes from the butterfly world of the Na'vi, where he spends his time jumping from treetops, walking through ultra violet forests and riding huge blue alien dragons, only to see the same old research shack in the mountains, his understanding of which side he's on starts to slip.
What follows is a three-hour film which can only be described as epic, and which follows the same vein as the scifi parable District Nine. It's no coincidence that the film centres on an American mining company wanting to bulldoze alien holy sites for the rich minerals that lie deep in the ground. A small programme is set up by Doctor Sigourney Weaver to use Avatar bodies to infiltrate and learn from the Na'vi, with the aim of finding a diplomatic solution- so the wheelchair-bound Jake Sully gets his chance to spread his wings as a butterfly, and play with his new butterfly friends.
Seeing the same actor in two different bodies has its effect on the audience, too. The realism in this scifi epic (for which upper estimates put the cost at $450million) is striking- there are moments when Sully (Sam Worthington) in his Avatar body pulls a face or moves in some way that CGI isn't supposed to, and for a split-second you're convinced there's no computer interfering with the image at all. That is, until the bit of your brain shouting PEOPLE ARE NOT BLUE breaks through the mirage.
There are other moments, too, which bring the action from somewhere in Alpha Centauri right back down to earth. The mini AT Walker which struts nonchalantly across Sully's path, the painted carnivores on the side of the Company's helicopters, and the overturned mug that Company director Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribsi) hits golfballs into and delights- "I love this putter! I love this putter!", as if he's in an office in manhattan and not on an alien moon.
The script helps us to suspend our disbelief a little further. Sully is a grunt, not a scientist, and so gives us a perspective we can relate to. He's baffled but captivated, has no idea what's going on most of the time and seems to be just going along for the ride, having taken up his twin brother's post in the Avatar programme. So when he stares down an alien tricerotops, science fiction convention dictates he should not shout "Yeah, how d'you like me now, bitch?" - but he does.
With the original script reportedly written in 1994, Avatar has been a long time coming for Titanic director James Cameron. Work on the language spoken by the native Na'vi began in 2005, as did the development of the fictional universe in which the film is set, though the planned release date for the film was originally planned for ten years ago. Then realising that the technology didn't exist yet for a three-hour film populated by twelve-foot-high CGI warriors, Cameron put it to one side and focused on other things.
So can a film sixteen years in the making really be worth all the effort? Six months spent crafting a language none of the audience will understand, millions spent on making key actors look like themselves but at the same time not... Well, the figures speak for themselves. Within three weeks of the film's release it had grossed over $1 billion. So, in short, yes.
It's interesting that the film is the first to be shot with a 3D viewing in mind. This, among other things, jacks up the ticket price, which is why I only saw it in the traditional 2 dimensions, but maybe watching it pop out from the screen would add to the experience. The illusion of something being that close up could add to the realism if it's done well, or just sap money from your pocket and make you feel a bit dizzy. So many butterflies flying so close to you could be more than you can take in at once.
Of course, Jake Sully wants to be a butterfly forever by the end, and who would blame him?
When Jake Sully awakes from the butterfly world of the Na'vi, where he spends his time jumping from treetops, walking through ultra violet forests and riding huge blue alien dragons, only to see the same old research shack in the mountains, his understanding of which side he's on starts to slip.
What follows is a three-hour film which can only be described as epic, and which follows the same vein as the scifi parable District Nine. It's no coincidence that the film centres on an American mining company wanting to bulldoze alien holy sites for the rich minerals that lie deep in the ground. A small programme is set up by Doctor Sigourney Weaver to use Avatar bodies to infiltrate and learn from the Na'vi, with the aim of finding a diplomatic solution- so the wheelchair-bound Jake Sully gets his chance to spread his wings as a butterfly, and play with his new butterfly friends.
Seeing the same actor in two different bodies has its effect on the audience, too. The realism in this scifi epic (for which upper estimates put the cost at $450million) is striking- there are moments when Sully (Sam Worthington) in his Avatar body pulls a face or moves in some way that CGI isn't supposed to, and for a split-second you're convinced there's no computer interfering with the image at all. That is, until the bit of your brain shouting PEOPLE ARE NOT BLUE breaks through the mirage.
There are other moments, too, which bring the action from somewhere in Alpha Centauri right back down to earth. The mini AT Walker which struts nonchalantly across Sully's path, the painted carnivores on the side of the Company's helicopters, and the overturned mug that Company director Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribsi) hits golfballs into and delights- "I love this putter! I love this putter!", as if he's in an office in manhattan and not on an alien moon.
The script helps us to suspend our disbelief a little further. Sully is a grunt, not a scientist, and so gives us a perspective we can relate to. He's baffled but captivated, has no idea what's going on most of the time and seems to be just going along for the ride, having taken up his twin brother's post in the Avatar programme. So when he stares down an alien tricerotops, science fiction convention dictates he should not shout "Yeah, how d'you like me now, bitch?" - but he does.
With the original script reportedly written in 1994, Avatar has been a long time coming for Titanic director James Cameron. Work on the language spoken by the native Na'vi began in 2005, as did the development of the fictional universe in which the film is set, though the planned release date for the film was originally planned for ten years ago. Then realising that the technology didn't exist yet for a three-hour film populated by twelve-foot-high CGI warriors, Cameron put it to one side and focused on other things.
So can a film sixteen years in the making really be worth all the effort? Six months spent crafting a language none of the audience will understand, millions spent on making key actors look like themselves but at the same time not... Well, the figures speak for themselves. Within three weeks of the film's release it had grossed over $1 billion. So, in short, yes.
It's interesting that the film is the first to be shot with a 3D viewing in mind. This, among other things, jacks up the ticket price, which is why I only saw it in the traditional 2 dimensions, but maybe watching it pop out from the screen would add to the experience. The illusion of something being that close up could add to the realism if it's done well, or just sap money from your pocket and make you feel a bit dizzy. So many butterflies flying so close to you could be more than you can take in at once.
Of course, Jake Sully wants to be a butterfly forever by the end, and who would blame him?
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