Avatar rules the imagination
Review by Daniel Dercksen

There's a new, magical, word that transforms the history of cinema and the future of entertainment on the big screen: Avatar!

Avatar is the dream project of visualist extraordinaire James Cameron, a filmmaker that had a tremendous impact on the world of film and society with his creations The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Aliens, The Abyss and Titanic.

Cameron's Avatar has been brewing since 1995 and now conquers the imagination of cinemagoers worldwide.

If there is one film guaranteed to blow your mind, it's most definitely this ultra spectacular and epical fantasy-adventure.

It is a unique film that connects to primal emotion and the human intellect; it is a life changing experience that engages you emotionally and intellectually.

It is a film you will experience and feel, and take home with you.

What is Avatar?
It is a live action film with a new generation of special effects that delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

The film was born when Cameron - who is renowned for creating milestone CG (Computer Generated) characters in The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgement Day - wanted to push the CG arts to a new level.

The techniques required to bring Cameron's brainchild to life was not available in 1995 and the project had to be shelved until 2005 when it was revived with new fervour.

Cameron has created an immersive experience in 3-D in which audiences will feel like they're alongside the characters on their adventures.

We live our lives in 3-D, so why not experience films in the same way.

Although he masterfully uses 3-D cinema to enhance the film's extraordinary immersive qualities, it can also be an immersive experience in its 2-D format.

Fortunately, Cameron does not use the 3-D format as a 'gag' or effect onto itself; objects are not thrown at the audience or objects are not arranged to come out of the screen and into the theatre.

This is the miraculous world of 3-D cinema, a window into a world where the format, instead of calling attention to itself, disappears into the narrative.

Avatar is indeed a groundbreaking film that features a mix of spectacle, compelling narratives and characters, and technical wizardry resolutely in service of story and emotion.

The world of Avatar
The story of Avatar is set on Pandora, a moon with an earthlike environment that orbits a gas-giant planet called Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri-A star system. At 4.4 light years away, Alpha Centauri is our nearest Stellar neighbor, and when it is discovered that Pandora is rich in a rare earth mineral called Unobtainium - the key to solving Earth's energy crisis in the twenty second century - the race is on to mine the new world's resources.

Pandora is a magical world with trees over one-thousand feet and floating mountains.

Its wonders include the world's neural network, through which all its plant and animal life are connected; akin to the human nervous system, this network enables all life on Pandora to function as a single harmonious system.

The centre of the network is 'the tree of souls' that is the moon's heart and brain, an epicenter that is an extension of the Na'vi's lifeblood, and a place of regeneration and knowledge.

The story takes place in 2154, three decades after a mining colony Hell's Gate was established on Pandora.

The encroachment of human activities into the territory of the indigenous Na'vi has created increasing tension between the two species and has set them down on a path of war.

The security force - complete with a mercenary army - has to defend Hell's Gate against the fierce predators of Pandora and the equally fierce Na'vi.

The Avatar program
The Avatar program is an attempt by human scientists and the Resources Development Administration (RDA) to create a 'bridge of trust' with the Na'vi by using genetically engineered avatar bodies to walk amongst these alien giants in a familiar form.

The newest 'driver' for the Avatar program is Jake Sully, a wounded former marine confined to a wheelchair, who is co-opted by the villainous head of security for the human colony to infiltrate the local Na'vi clan and control then or defeat them.

Jake becomes 'the wrong guy' to have been placed in such a volatile position and finds himself torn between the Na'vi and the RDA that are bent on destroying their ancestral home of 10, 000 years.

The people of Avatar: Flesh and blood versus computer generated creations
Australian actor Sam Worthington (who recently starred in Terminator Salvation) delivers a solid performance as Jake Sully, whose bravery and destiny help define a world he didn't even know existed. Though his avatar body, the wheelchair-bound Sully is given a new purpose. Pandora gives him the opportunity to find himself, realise his true potential, and understand that through choices, he can become a better man.

Cameron is well known for creating strong female characters. Who will ever forget Aliens' Ripley that become a template for action heroines, or The Terminator and T2's Sarah Connor, Titanic's Rose deWitt Bukater, The Abyss' Lindsey Brigman and True Lies' Helen Tasker.

Avatar is no exception.

Neytri, a fearless huntress warrior and member of the Omaticaya clan, follows in that rich tradition, opening up a rich romantic subplot when she saves Scully.

As portrayed by New Yorker Zoë Saldan (recently seen in Star Trek), the character of Neytri combines strength, grace, athleticism, beauty, sexuality, vulnerability and emotional clarity.

Sigourney Weaver re-unites with James Cameron since playing Ripley in Aliens 25 years ago. In Avatar, Weaver is perfectly cast as Grace Augustine, a scientist who runs the Avatar program and moves back and forth between her scientific world on Hell's Gate and her fieldwork as an avatar in the Pandoran rainforest.

While the character of Neytri is grounded in the solid CG reality of Pandora, the characters of Sully and Augustine are trapped between two worlds; their characters beautifully reflect the central theme of the film, amplifying the importance of breaking free from the power of those who govern and being reborn into a new spiritual realm.

Other important characters are Colonel Quarich who has content for the Avatar program because it runs counter to his mission to protect the humans. Quarich's monstrous militant beast is perfectly performed by Stephen Lang, who was last seen as an FBI Agent in Public Enemies.

Another tough human is Trudy Chacon, with Michelle Rodriguez (from Girl Fight) muscling up as the no-nonsense tilt-rotor pilot who is tasked with shuttling both humans and avatars from the base to science sites out in the wilderness.

Other key roles are played by CCH Pounder as the Na'vi's matriarch whose command and dignity holds the respect of her people; Wes Studi as Na'vi clan leader Eytukan, a stern commanding presence; Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey, the clan's most accomplished hunter; and Giovanni Ribisi as the slimy and charismatic RDA administrator whose destructive greed creates some wonderful obstacles.

A fascinating aspect of Avatar is its universal language created by noted linguist Paul Frommer, Ph.D, who worked with Cameron to devise an original language for the Na'vi's; the language brings together a fresh vocabulary of more than one thousand words, as well as a specific structure and grammar.

The performances are further brought to life under the guidance of Terry Notary, a former Cirque du Soleil performer, and choreographer Lula Washington, who respectively helped to create the N'vi's movements and the choreography for the powerful dance sequences.

The creatures of Avatar
Avatar would not be the same without the ingenious creatures living amidst on Pandora.

Masterfully designed and crafted under Neville Page, and John Rosengrant's team at Stan Winston Studios, these creatures burst to glorious life and are responsible for most of the breathtaking action sequences in Avatar.

The most fearsome creature is the Thanator, a panther from hell that could eat a T-Rex and have the Alien for dessert; the Viperwolves are hairless with shiny skin that looks like overlapped armour; Pandoras's Direhorses resemble in some way terrestrial horses and are six legged creatures with moth-like antennae; and the ferocious Hammerhead Titanothere is a rhinoceros-like herbivore with a bad attitude and a head like a sledgehammer.

The awesome winged creatures are the Banshee who play a vital role in Scully's journey; in the Na'vi's rite of passage, he must dominate and ride a banshee to assume a rightful position in the clan community.

The flying scenes will leave you clutching to your seat as they swoop through floating mountains and plunge down endless waterfalls.

Another predator of the sky is the Leonopteryx, a striped scarlet, yellow and black, with a 80-foot wingspan.

There's also the miraculous and gentler Pandoran species, the jellyfish-like Woodsprite, which waves silky tendrils to move gracefully through the air. 

The technology of Avatar: when science and fiction collide
Cameron succeeds in taking alien character creation into a new dimension. 

To ensure the complete reality of the characters, Cameron developed a new image based facial performance capture system, using a head-rig camera to accurately record the smallest nuances of the actors' performance.

Cameron and his actors spent a year in the Volume to capture unbelievable performances that will have you in tears.

Another innovation that contributes to the astounding realism of Avatar, is a Virtual Camera, which allowed Cameron to shoot scenes within a computer generated world, just as if he were filming on a Hollywood soundstage; instead of Worthington or Weaver, he would see their giant blue avatars, complete with tails and huge golden eyes.

Through his virtual camera, Cameron masterfully manipulates his actors and draws the best performance out of each character.

The revolutionary head-rigs were the key to not only capture the sublets of the characters emotions, but also the film's grandest spectacle.

The magic is created by visual effects powerhouse WETA Digital in New Zealand, who are well known for creating photo-real characters like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, the utterly real King Kong, and the aliens in District 9.

With Avatar, the FX-team went a step farther and placed photorealistic characters into a world that is also computer generated but completely real.

These revolutionary technologies are just tools in the filmmaker's toolbox and are always in the service of the story, the characters and the emotion.

The technology empowers a filmmaker like Cameron to skillfully tell story that otherwise couldn't be told.

From the breathtaking opening sequence to the powerful finale, it is clear that Avatar is all about the character - human and alien - and their journeys that will remain forever imbedded in our fertile imagination.

The technology is at such a high level that is disappears completely, leaving only the magic, the feeling that you are really there, and that the story and the characters and the emotions are real.

The music of Avatar
James Horner, who composed the music for Cameron's Titanic and Aliens, created a sumptuous score that perfectly underscore the emotional journey of the characters.

Horner re-united with 'My Heart Will Go On' collaborator Simon Franglen to create the stirring new song 'I See You', sung by Leon Lewis.  It aptly expresses the Na'vi's idea of 'seeing', when a person understands with their heart and spirit, and not just with their mind.

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