Realistic, Superb, Mind Blowing and go to 3D theater!
Remember what James Cameroon did to Alien? He introduce new culture!
This time he sure did again!
The Review
"Avatar" is one of the most expensive movies ever made. This year's most eagerly awaited release cost $237 million to make and another $150 million to market. One of its stars, Sigourney Weaver, described "Avatar" as "like 'Gone with the Wind' in space."
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James Cameron's last opus was of course "Titanic," the highest-grossing movie of all time. Early reviews of Avatar were very positive, the film is being hailed by some as "The future of cinema."
For better or worse, Cameron has been quiet since the release of Titanic in 1997. Perhaps too quiet. Although the film went on to become the biggest box office hit in history – with a global take of $1.8 billion – it presented the director with the problem of surpassing it with something even bigger.
That something has now arrived. Avatar is a computer-effects-heavy 3-D space fantasy, set 125 years in the future, about a disabled US Marine, Jake Sully, who is sent to Pandora, a moon of the distant Centauri star system, to find supplies of "unobtainium", an energy-rich mineral. Upon arrival, Jake discovers a world of beauty and innocence, populated by 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned beings called the Na'vi, whose peaceful existence the humans proceed to rock.
Cameron first hatched the story 14 years ago, but found that the technology needed to realise it didn't exist. The new digital 3-D system solved the problem; indeed, powerful voices in Hollywood, including that of Steven Spielberg, have predicted that the results are so immersive that the film and technology represent "the future of the movies", while cinemas have been scrambling to convert to the new format.
The reviews have been generally favourable. "The most expensive and technically ambitious film ever made," reports the influential Hollywood trade magazine Variety, "James Cameron's long-gestating epic delivers unique spectacle, breathtaking sights and narrative excitement." The rival Hollywood Reporter cheers: "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, Cameron brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is Avatar.
The epic, which runs two hours and 41 minutes, premiered in London to wild applause. But some see Cameron as a vainglorious auteur and seek to puncture his perceived pretension. One anonymous critic claimed the ground-breaking 3D effects in "Avatar" are, I quote, "vomit inducing." Word quickly spread through the blogosphere.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/6797862/Is-James-Camerons-Avatar-the-future-of-movies.html
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/avatar-movie-making-viewers-nauseous/story?id=9370714
The Plot
In 2154 AD,humans are engaged in the colonization of Pandora, the lush moon of Polyphemus,
one of three gas giants that orbit Alpha Centauri A, 4.3 light years from Earth.
Pandora is filled with incredible life forms, and is home to the Na’vi, an indigenous sentient humanoid race who are considered primitive by human standards, yet are more physically capable than them.
The Na'vi are tailed, slender creatures with sparkling blue skin, standing three meters tall. They live in harmony with their unspoiled world, which the humans have found to be rich with unobtainium, a valuable mineral that is essential to remedying an economic and energy crisis that is gripping Earth.
Humans are unable to breathe the Pandoran atmosphere; in order to interact with the Na'vi, human scientists have created genetically engineered human-Na'vi hybrid bodies called Avatars, and use them to interact with the natives and gain their trust for a relocating operation.
A human who shares genetic material with the avatar can be mentally linked to it, allowing them to control its functions and experience what it experiences, while their own body sleeps.
The story's protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a former U.S. Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. His twin brother Tony was a scientist working on the Avatar program; when he is killed, Jake is extended the opportunity to take his brother's place, as he shares Tony's genetic material and is therefore compatible with his avatar.
Jake travels to Pandora, and assumes control of his avatar body, delighted at being able to walk and run once again as a whole being. Sent deep into Pandora's jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora's beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), who teaches him the ways of her people: the Omaticaya clan of the Na'vi. Despite having originally been sent to gain the trust of natives, and convince them to abandon their Hometree, which sits above a large deposit of unobtanium, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and his love for his adopted home and people. He is forced to choose sides as the humans grow increasingly violent in their mining activities, and the oppressed Na'vi rise up to protect their home, resulting in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire race.
In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough. The director planned to create photo-realistic computer-generated characters by using motion capture animation technology, on which he had been doing work for the past 14 months. Unlike previous performance capture systems, where the digital environment is added after the actors' motions have been captured, Cameron's new virtual camera allows him to observe directly on a monitor how the actors' virtual counterparts interact with the movie's digital world in real time and adjust and direct the scenes just as if shooting live action; "It’s like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale."[47] Cameron planned to continue developing the special effects for Avatar, which he hoped would be released in summer 2009. He also gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology.[48] Spielberg and George Lucas were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.[49]
The New Technology
Avatar was filmed with newly developed stereoscopic cameras that simulate human sight.
Other technological innovations include a performance-capture stage, called The Volume, which is six times larger than previously used and an improved method of capturing facial expressions.
The tool is a small individually made skull cap with a tiny camera attached to it, located in front of the actors' face which collects information about their facial expressions and eyes, which is then transmitted to the computers. This way, Cameron intends to transfer about 95% of the actors' performances to their digital counterparts. Besides a real time virtual world, the team is also experimenting with a way of letting computer generated characters interact with real actors on a real, live-action set while shooting live action.
In January 2007, Fox announced that the studio's Avatar would be filmed in 3D at 24 frames per second despite Cameron's strong opinion that a 3D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable.
Cameron described the film as a hybrid with a full live-action shoot in combination with computer-generated characters and live environments. "Ideally at the end of the day the audience has no idea which they’re looking at," Cameron said. The director indicated that he had already worked four months on nonprincipal scenes for the film. Principal photography began in April 2007,and was done around parts of Los Angeles as well as New Zealand.
The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3D Fusion Camera System, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. According to Cameron, the film will be composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional miniatures.
The performance-capture photography would last 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. In October, Cameron was scheduled to shoot live-action in New Zealand for another 31 days.
To create the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico during June 2007. They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the rig, which will be replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI. More than a thousand people worked on the production.
James Cameron sent the cast of Avatar off to the jungle for bonding boot camp exercises before he started shooting the film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)
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