Avatar - 15-Minute PREVIEW
Director: James Cameron
15 minutes
2.39:1
James Cameron is a very talented guy because whenever he makes a movie, people take notice. And it's hard not to take notice of Avatar.
The 15-minute preview of Cameron's latest is absolutely amazing. But to an average Joe who only saw the teaser, it can come off as looking unspectacular. The reason is the seamlessness of the photorealistic CGI of the Na'vi as they appear in the teaser. But the teaser don't show complete scenes with a lot of dialogue and THAT is where the magic is!
In the preview, the interaction of the avatar and human is shown within the same shot. And while this is not exactly new, what haven't been seen in movies since Gollum is that intricate and completely believable level of facial animation. It's absolutely seamless to the dialog! What J6P may not understand/know is that the Na'vi and the avatars are not humans in makeup and suits - they are completely, head-to-toe emotion-captured CGI creature! There's a scene in the preview where Sigourney Weaver's avatar is guiding the hero in the forest; it LOOKS, ACTS and SPEAKS like it's Weaver but she is younger, taller and BLUE!
Seriously, three months is a long time to wait to watch the entire movie! Avatar may not be have a groundbreaking story - some liken it to Pocahontas in space - but the method of storytelling is definitely revolutionary. The same experience can easily be expected next year when Spielberg's finish off his TinTin movie, since both films are done using emotion-capture and both are worked on by Weta Digital.
Avatar will mark another notch in the craft of filmmaking. Just like other visual effects before - think Cameron's T1000 liquid metal or the liquid ROV in The Abyss, or Spielberg's dinosaur and aliens, or the Wachowski's bullet-time or even PJ's Gollum - movies PROCEEDING it will overuse its technology to cover under-develop ideas. But come December, you have to go to a 3D theater to witness another film history unfolding before your eyes with Avatar.
