Avatar: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the CGI

Several months ago, I read an interview with James Cameron about this movie. He said that directing such a movie is risky nowadays, because it’s not a franchise. Avatar is a totally new thing, and he didn’t know how the audience would react to it. He also said that he wanted this movie to be the next Matrix. He was right in everything.

Enter the world of Avatar, dear friend and don’t look back, because you won’t want to do so. James Cameron deserves the place he has crafted for himself among moviemakers. I don’t care if he makes a movie every 10 years or every 100, at least it’s better than what some great directors have been doing, like Spielberg whose movies have been going downhill ever since Saving Private Ryan.

Avatar is a revolution in film making. It’s the most visually impressive movie I have ever seen. Period. The CGI (or Computer Generated Images, for the not so tech-savvy readers) used in this movie wasn’t an extra or a gimmick: it’s the whole movie. It became more than just “special effects” and became an item by itself that even rivaled, and dwarfed, the plot. More on that later.

Before watching this movie, I put myself in the radio silence mode… No trailers, no reviews, no previews, no viewer comments, not even an IMDb score, and it worked! Before watching it, all I knew was that the movie was in 3D, looked spectacular, was about a planet called Pandora, and had James Cameron’s name on it. Good enough for me.

This was the first time I have ever seen a movie in 3D. The verdict (about the 3D, not the movie): it was good. I will certainly watch more and more movies in 3D when they become available, but it wasn’t quite what I expected. Also, I got a little headache, but I really can’t blame the 3D effects for that only. It’s the 3D way! I am not used to wearing glasses, and I think that was the reason. I expected a little more depth in the image. But I can’t complain. For the first time in my life, I am finally able to see a clean picture in a cinema, without the usual film artifacts from the film reels.

Pandora is a living and breathing world. Everything is detailed, from the flora to the fauna. And it’s not just the details, it’s the beauty of the details. The beauty of seeing a whole new world that is so different from ours, and knowing that it’s fake but you still believe it’s true because it’s so gorgeous to look at. Cameron forced you, through his CGI magicians, to go into suspension of disbelief mode, see the tale, and like it.

The Na’vi people are the real stars of the show. They are pure and simple, strong and proud, ancient and spiritual, and they were all done in motion-capture technology. Damn, I can’t write two words without mentioning some technical stuff that the movie did… Only 40% of the movie was live action with real actors. The rest was all motion capture and CGI. Which brings us to speak about acting… There isn’t much of it here, and there can’t be. Like I said before, Hollywood blockbusters generally don’t have good acting. They have memorable characters, sure. But not good acting. You simply remember the characters, not the actors who did them, because the characters are over the top, and the actors are just doing their best to fill the shoes of these characters. The Avatar character of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is much more alive, memorable and likeable than Jake Sully the Marine. Sam Worthington is also staring in Clash of the Titans, a remake of a movie that is one of my favourite childhood, and adulthood (Hell, yeah!) movies. I haven’t seen much acting from him, but the success of Avatar will catapult him into the world of stardom, that even made the producers of Titans decide to make the movie in 3D, increase its budget and allowed the director to re-shoot some stuff. Let’s wait and see. It’s coming next year.

Back to the Na’vi… I really liked Neytiri. Her character was so likeable, her role pivotal to the movie. The only problem is that I have seen it all before. Yup, and this is the only black eye in the beautiful face of Avatar: the story have been told before, over and over and over. You can say about Avatar anything of the following, and you won’t be wrong! Avatar: Pocahontas III, Dances with the Na’vis: Avatar, The New World: Avatar, Avatar: Tarzan the Ape Man in Space, and so on. And there is more! After walking out of the cinema, I kept trying to remember a cartoon movie that I have seen before, a lot actually, when I was a child. I didn’t quite remember the name. It was *Something*: The Last Rain Forest. So, when I went back home, I did a search on IMDb. The movie was called FernGully: The Last Rain Forest. Lots of other users saw the resemblance too and there is an active forum post there discussing that. Youtube has a lot of videos about it!   is not just similar to this movie, it’s more or less a shot for shot remake!!! Even the huge bulldozers were in the cartoon. I remember really liking FernGully. But it’s not a reason to hate Avatar. It’s just retelling the tale, in glorious style) to a newer generation.

So, is that all there is about Avatar? Special effects, 3D and a native people. Nope, there is more… There is a (drum roll, please) message behind the movie… Save the environment. Save the planet. Stop wars. RIP to every indigenous culture that was butchered at the hands of colonialism. Not bad for a Hollywood blockbuster.

Jurassic Park was perhaps the biggest movie of my childhood. Alas, I haven’t seen it at the cinema. But still, it held it’s place as one of the most spectacular thing I have seen in my mind. Note: there are other, a lot other, spectacular stuff I have seen, but I am not going to compare Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur or Lord of the Rings to Jurassic Park, it’s unfair. Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong is also in this list. And now, there is Avatar to add. These three movies represent the best of their kind in my eyes. Total immersion in an ancient and lost world. You will notice that I didn’t mention Lord of the Rings, even though it had great visuals too. But like I said, it’s unfair, because even if you remove the visual elements from LOTR, you still have a huge and beautiful story, which is not available in the other three movies. They do have stories, but it’s not the main attraction.

There are two minor things that bothered me in Avatar, and they are related to it’s presentation. The first is some, very minor animation problems. They only happen like in 0.00005% of the whole amazing ride! But they are there. CGI has come a long way, but still the human eye can differentiate between natural and synthetic animation. The other is that most of the creature sounds in the movie were taken straight from Jurassic Park.

James Cameron is a master of film making, he is the one who made Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens, The Abyss and Titanic. While Avatar won’t make as much as money as Titanic (I hope I am wrong), it will make a lot of money. Which brings us to the point of sequels… While I do want to see more of Pandora, I don’t want a cheap sequel. Cameron said that he may work on Battle Angel (his ambitious, manga-based project) or an Avatar sequel. I would like to see the first. Avatar will have a long life and it will not age badly. The attention to detail in the movie will assure years and years of compete supremacy in its category and it will be remembered in the same manner that the original 1933 King Kong or the 1993 Jurassic Park are. And when you consider that Cameron made two among the three best sequels ever! (The Godfather: Part II, Aliens and Terminator 2). I guess he can make a great Avatar sequel…

So, if you want to see something amazing, meet a new civilization, hear a new language, see some cool aircrafts and mechs, ride a pterodactyl-like bird, watch epic battles, see an effective although repeated story, see Ripley, err, I mean Sigourney Weaver, all in 3D… Then what the hell are you waiting for?!!! Go and watch this movie, NOW!

The Amorphous Snake is pleased… 5/5. A masterpiece…


[Edit 1]: I forgot to mention that I am actually glad that something will just make people forget Transformers 2's visuals. With Avatar, there is simply no comparison, at all... This is the Academy Award 2010 winner for Best Visual Effects (among a bucket load of other Academy Awards). A friend of mine sent me a comic about George Lucas commiting suicide after seeing Avatar. Well, I have to say, it's not just Lucas, but almost every director that made or dreamed about making a sci-fi movie. In the case of Michael Bay, director of Transformers 2, he should go to the real Optimus Prime and beg him to step on him and end his and our misery...