Film Preview - Avatar

A Brief Glimpse at James Cameron's Latest From Worldwide Avatar Day

Aug 22, 2009

James Cameron and 20th Century Fox's public relations machine are claiming that Cameron's upcoming Avatar is a movie without precedent.

It's something the likes of which we've never seen before, created from a variation on motion capture technology using a 3D camera system Cameron basically had to invent.

So, then, with Cameron 12 years removed from his last film (Titanic), an estimated budget that could make Avatar one of the most (if not the most) expensive movies of all time and no franchise name to bank on, it makes sense that Fox would go a little bit outside of the box to try and sell this one in advance.

Hence, Fox brings us worldwide Avatar preview day (Aug. 21), a preview of 16 minutes of footage from the forthcoming 3D film which won't hit theaters until Dec. 18 (for those who couldn't attend, the teaser trailer is worth checking out). It's a pretty brilliant marketing idea, and whatever the cost, it's certainly stirred up a lot of buzz and media attention.

So, how was the footage, then? A little disclaimer first: MINOR SPOILERS will follow and anyone who wants to know absolutely nothing about Avatar before seeing the movie should stop reading right here. Also, it should be noted that this is a first impression based on snippets of scenes pulled from the first half of the film.

Revelatory? Well, Sort Of ...

Cutting through the hyperbole a bit -- Avatar looks wildly imaginative, though thematically and plot-wise the film seems to lift quite a bit form Dune and Dances With Wolves (so much for something we haven't seen before). The 3D work has its subtle differences from the REAL-D used for Up and the remastered Nightmare Before Christmas, among other things. It doesn't create that intense depth so much as it pops from the screen a more than a film normally does.

We begin with an introduction on a military compound in the future, where we meet Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a handicapped soldier who undergoes a procedure to transfer his brain into the body of a Navi alien humanoid. There's some sort of military deployment on the hostile (but lush, exotic) planet Pandora, where the Navi live amongst a hoard of absolutely crazy looking species.

Jake gets dropped into the thick of the jungle, chased around by some very menacing looking creatures and, eventually, trains to become more like the indigenous Navi. War ensues and, we can assume, an internal battle between Jake's Navi and human selves.

Overall Impression On The Footage

Was the footage mind blowing? Well, it was certainly interesting. Keep in mind that the majority of Avatar is essentially a cartoon in the vein (but not as creepy) as the Robert Zemeckis motion-capture flicks Polar Express and Beowulf. Cameron doesn't have the uncanny valley, zombie-eyed problems with his leads (to be fair, it's easier to avoid when you're characters aren't really human) and has definitely improved on the technology Zemeckis still struggles with.

When the humans cross over into Pandora (which you see more of in the teaser trailer, actually), it's a case of Alice in Cartoonland -- live action actors in a totally animated environment interacting with animated characters. That dynamic is difficult to pull off (see the recent Star Wars flicks for an example of utter failure), but Cameron's grasp of motion capture looks stronger than anything since Peter Jackson's use of the technology to create Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Pandora sequences are breathtaking, but what it all comes down to is how good of a script Cameron put together. If the writing isn't in place, then there's no point of making these claims of bringing an audience something they've never seen.

Echoes of Dune and Dances With Wolves are OK. The greatest worry here, though, is that the original script will deliver stories we're already familiar with, just transported to a new locale.

VERDICT: Based on preview day, Cameron and Avatar should get the benefit of the doubt, because there's nothing in the reel that serves as a put off. On the contrary, it's pretty damn exciting. But the footage does raise a lot of questions, and these are questions that can only be answered when we can see the film in its entirety.

Here's hoping Cameron really does have something special on his hands. Otherwise, the build up of expectations may really undercut any kind of modest success.

The copyright of the article Film Preview - Avatar in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films is owned by Zachary Herrmann. Permission to republish Film Preview - Avatar in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.