Despite the fangirl excitement for Twilight: New Moon, the most anticipated film preview of this year’s Comic Con was undoubtedly James Cameron’s Avatar. Expectations had gone through the roof and all that was left was to see the preview and weigh in with what I thought.
Like many around the web I wanted to give my opinion immediately and I even wrote on my Twitter page, “Avatar is impressive visually and shows plenty of potential. Still have to wait and see the final project before making any real judgment.” I hold to the idea of not making any real judgments because while seeing 25 minutes of this film it wasn’t 25 minutes continuous, it was seven scenes that really set up what we can expect to see and a little about the path the story is going to take, but the narrative is left up to assumptions… some good, some bad, but like I said, you can’t really judge.
As I am writing this it has been about seven hours since I walked out of the San Diego Convention Center’s Hall H at the end of the Avatar panel and the footage has still stuck with me. It has stuck with me for one reason alone, it’s the most unique bit of footage I have seen in a long time, and you could tell Cameron was excited about debuting the scenes as the Oscar-winner gave in to his excitement asking the crowd, “How many of you have ever wanted to go to another planet?” The question was met with a rousing applause and he followed it up with, “Are you ready to go to Pandora?” And that’s exactly what Avatar seems to be.
It looks as if James Cameron has spent the last 14 years coming up with a completely other world. A world were the flora and fauna glows with each step. A world where something akin to a hammerhead-rhinoceros exists and a dragon-like pterodactyl can be tamed, and the lush foliage comes to life in 3-D as seeds of an ancient and sacred tree resembling floating jellyfish with soft white tendrils float before your eyes. It’s as real as you could ask it to be, considering it’s 100% CGI, but the fact the footage shown didn’t have a natural narrative flow it wasn’t immediately approachable.
Yup, despite lavish descriptions and some truly awe-inspiring moments of footage there are some mild downsides, but most come as a result of seeing the footage out of order, in an inferior setting with sound that just didn’t cut it and the lack of a set-up, slowly preparing us for a world we aren’t quite ready for. Luckily, these are all problems instantly solved with a finished feature film in your city’s best cinema, which is where you are going to want to see this film.
The process is accomplished by laying down in a bed like the one you see to the right and their consciousness is transferred inside the mind of the Na’vi avatar allowing them to go out and explore this strange unique world.
The scenes that were shown of human interaction did very little for the presentation in terms of getting a grasp on the performances we will get out of any of the human characters, including Dr. Grace Augustine played by Sigourney Weaver, a character I assume will have a far larger role than the short turn we saw of her hear as a botanist and chief of the Avatar Program.
Scenes that followed turned to action as Jake and two other avatars (Augustine was one of them and Joel Moore playing Norm Spellman was the other) found themselves in the way of a deadly creature that gives chase. After that we are soon introduced to an actual Pandora native named Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana (Uhura in Star Trek).
Where the footage we were shown has me playing guessing games is in trying to figure out if it is an overly CG feature that will lose the attention of audiences not interested in watching computer graphics tell them stories. Or, if this film is so wildly unique the use of CG-animated protagonists in a live-action world also inhabited by humans will win over in the end.
I am leaning more toward the second choice as the most effective moments shown came later in the presentation involving back-and-forth dialogues between Jake and Neytiri where it appears a solid relationship is formed between CG characters. One that seems to be believable based on the small amount I saw. I was also happy to see Cameron pays particular attention to facial and eye movements so those of you with concerns over motion-capture animation after seeing such films as Polar Express and Beowulf can rest assured no such problem as “dead eyes” is found here as one moment concentrates solely on Neytiri’s eyes alleviating any worry.
Next, the 3-D.
Regular readers around these parts know I am not a big supporter of the 3-D format. I think it is gimmicky and have yet to see a film (outside of a few horror films) that use it to actually improve their film. Some filmmakers have even taken to making their films with the intent on trying to make sure the 3-D isn’t even noticeable, to which I say, “What’s the use?” If you are going to use 3-D, use it to improve your story… something two films I saw previewed today actually did.
The first film was Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which impressed me to no end, and the second was obviously Avatar, but in a different way. While Burton’s Wonderland just looks especially colorful, imaginative and brilliant, Cameron’s world in Avatar looks fully realized, reminding us why he’s a director worth our attention.
Although the sound at Comic Con was inappropriately loud and whoever was working the EQ turned the treble up to an eleven, I noticed a fantastic combination of sound and visuals that added depth and created a world coordinating both techniques as opposed to relying entirely on the visual presentation and thinking the fact the film was seen in three-dimensions would immediately bring the audience deeper into the story.
Summing up, I have some concerns over the use of the CGI, although I will say it is some of the best CGI I have seen to date. It isn’t comparable to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings considering the Na’vi are smooth and not as rough or scraggly as Gollum was, but the creature designs and environmental settings are simply top notch and appear to be an IMAX 3-D must see. My biggest hope, however, is the CG won’t matter and Cameron will again tell us a story worth getting involved with and characters worth caring about. It’s these two factors that have my hopes high as I saw faint indicators in just these few scenes.
It was announced 15 minutes of Avatar will be screened free on August 15 in participating IMAX 3-D cinemas around the world. So circle your calendars and check your local listings.
Avatar hits theaters on December 18 and the official site has just gone online and I have also added higher resolution copies of the images you see in this post to our gallery right here.
Finally, I left out any additional notes from the Q&A portion of the Avatar panel as Trailer Addict has made available the complete video and I have embed it directly below. Enjoy.
