Justin Thorn

Last night Lauren and I attended the opening night of Avatar in 3D with our friends Johnny and Heather. I must admit, both our wives were hesitant to agree to watch this movie with us since it is an action/sc-fi movie. At least on the surface, going by just the previews on TV that is how they felt. After spending 30 minutes Thursday night showing Lauren the behind the scenes creation of the movie as well as several fantastic reviews she was convinced to come with me. I was so confident she would enjoy the movie I made a deal. If she did not enjoy Avatar she had a free pass to drag me along to see two movies of her choice. A bold proclamation in ordinary circumstances but I knew Avatar was going to be anything but ordinary.

Last night Lauren and I attended the opening night of Avatar in 3D with our friends Johnny and Heather. I must admit, both our wives were hesitant to agree to watch this movie with us since it is an action/sc-fi movie. At least on the surface, going by just the previews on TV that is how they felt. After spending 30 minutes Thursday night showing Lauren the behind the scenes creation of the movie as well as several fantastic reviews she was convinced to come with me. I was so confident she would enjoy the movie I made a deal. If she did not enjoy Avatar she had a free pass to drag me along to see two movies of her choice. A bold proclamation in ordinary circumstances but I knew Avatar was going to be anything but ordinary.

I will admit that the storyline is not anything special by itself. However the way the story is told and the lush imaginary world it is told in clearly makes up for any other shortcomings. Let me clarify. The story is certainly not terrible or boring by an means. Its a simple formula of good vs evil set in a distant, futuristic world. The entire movie takes place on the alien moon called Pandora. The whole surface of which is similar to a rain forest. It is inhabited by the blue 10 foot tall natives called Navi’. These Navi’ characters are a peaceful race who have learned to live in harmony with the natural environments and animals that completely surround them. They are also a very spiritually oriented group. Of course their world and way of life is being threatened by a small group of humans. The humans are stationed on the moon for the sole purpose of mining it for an extremely valuable ore. Working with this mining company are two factions. The military composed of giant mech.-like robotic soldiers and a fleet of gunships who provide security to the mining group. The other faction are scientists who are constantly running experiments to better understand the world of Pandora and the Navi’ who inhabit it. The scientists have developed a technology that allows them to remotely control Navi’ characters of their own, which were synthetically created in their labs. These characters are appropriately called Avatars.

All of this information is explained in detail in the first few minutes of the movie. The plan is to allow the scientists to gain the trust of the Navi people through these Avatars interactions with them. They hope this will allow them to peacefully mine their world as much as possible. If this plan fails then the military will initiate plan B. This is obviously a less peaceful approach involving a shock and awe approach. (see previously mentioned mech-warriors and gunships). Now its time to sit back and see how everything plays out on both sides.

This is where the 3D technology James Cameron developed takes the spotlight. From the time the movie begins by flying over the jungles of Pandora to the closing credits, my eyes were treated to some of the greatest 3D seen to date. There is not a single frame in this movie that does not involve 3D elements everywhere. What makes Avatar’s 3D approach different than any past 3D films is the lack of gimmicks. Most 3D movies constantly have things popping out of the screen at you which is cool for the first few minutes but quickly grows old. Especially when there is no real reason for it otherwise in the story. In Avatar the 3D technology creates the illusion that you are watching another world through a window by creating a very deep perspective. The characters in the foreground look like they are standing right in front of you while the world of Pandora seems to extend for miles into the screen. You literally feel like you could get out of your seat and walk right into the picture and just keep walking until you reach one of those countless trees on the horizon. Everything in this movie is filled with extremely rich, vivid, crisp graphics that offer a level of detail that even puts the best HDTV to shame. Every single spec of dust, every leaf on the trees, every drop of water on the waterfalls has its own layer of 3D space. There was never a point during this movie where I ever grew tired or bored of the 3D.

This technology extends beyond the lush environment of Pandora to the race of Navi’ and even many scenes involving human actors. Thanks to the facial performance capture techniques that James Cameron developed for this film the CGI characters exhibit just as much detail and emotion as the humans. In fact it is nearly impossible to tell what humans and environments are real and what are computer generated. I call this hyperrealistic graphics. Its beyond photorealistic. This really helped draw me into the characters and the story. I found myself feeling laughter and happiness when the Navi and Avatars expressed these emotions. I also felt their anger, pain, and sorrow just like I did for the human actors.

Avatar combines bleeding edge technology with a broad reaching story, great acting, explosive action, thought provoking sic-fi mixed with a spiritual message and wraps it all in a truly immersive 3D experience. This movie lives up to all they hype and justifies its nearly limitless budget. Its epic. I recommend everyone go see this movie while its in theaters in 3D. In fact I am already making plans to watch it again on an IMAX screen sometime soon. James Cameron clearly raised the bar for special effects movies. In fact some could argue he beat every other producer out there over the head with that bar like a club. Avatar has earned its right as a historic milestone in filmmaking along with The Wizard of Oz, 2001: Space Oddysey, Star Wars and Terminator 2 just to name a few. What are you waiting for. Get to the theater now and check out Avatar.