Avatar the Movie- A Sneak Peek

James Cameron’s Avatar which is all set for a Christmas release is already creating waves. The Titanic’s director has developed a new technology himself for shooting this visually compelling movie. Cameron devised a ‘virtual camera’, a hand held monitor that allowed him to move through a 3D terrain. This actually allowed him to direct the movie like a computer game and, as Cameron puts it, create a ‘visually immersive media.’  The film has been the point of discussion because of this technology but Cameron is keen on stressing that the movie is more about story than technology. He says, “… the technology is advanced enough to make itself go away. That’s how it should work. All of the technology should wave its own wand and make itself disappear.”

The story focuses on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former marine who is now confined to a wheelchair following a war on Earth. He is selected to take part in the Avatar programme, where his mind will be able to control a healthy body on a rainforest covered moon named Pandora, inhabited by beautiful and terrifying creatures called the Na’vi.

The Na’vi are an organic, humanlike race who are gravely misjudged by humans to be primitive and weak. Their attempt to savagely destroy the Na’vi proves to be a great mistake. Meanwhile Jakes’ Avatar falls in love with one of the Na’vi and now he has to decide his allegiances in the battle which will decide the fate of the two planets.

The film is keenly awaited by both audiences and critics, and it will be interesting to see how the experiment fares. “I think that Avatar is the film that will galvanise 3D’s impact on the industry, if only because of its technical values. This is the one that will take it to the next level,”’ Louise Tutt, deputy editor of the industry magazine Screen International, told the Guardian. But critics already seem to disagree. Some have even gone on to say that the effects in the movie can be found in even the smallest computer games these days and so it’s no big a deal. Nevertheless it does seem that Avatar will usher in a new dawn in visual technology.

It will not be the first time when a film maker’s dream will lead to a new dawn in cinema. George Lucas’s epic dreams for Star Wars led to the formation of Industrial Light and Magic, which became the forefront of special effects for decades. Whatever be the outcome, Avatar is surely gonna be in my ‘must-watch’ list this New Year.

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