Avatar
What's the difference between a Mercedes Benz and a Bentley ?
Or the difference between a Creative mp3 player and an iPod ?
How about the difference between any A Class city in the world, and Singapore ?
In each case, one is as good as the other, except for the fact that the latter has pushed the proverbial envelope somewhere down the line.
It would be a similar analogy to compare any A list science fiction adventure movie with James Cameron's latest offering 'Avatar'.
To say that Avatar is a different kind of movie would be like saying that Sachin Tendulkar plays good cricket. It's groundbreaking - superlative in terms of marrying technology to the art of storytelling.
I've watched a hundred movies with aliens in their story, of which maybe less than ten are not laughable. Some, like 'Close Encounters of the third kind', 'Terminator 2' and 'The Abyss' make you gasp at moments. And then there is Avatar - which completely makes you forget these other masterpieces.
It's no coincidence that when I was thinking of the 3 best Alien movies I had seen, two of them (Terminator 2 and The Abyss) were made by James Cameron. The man is, frankly, a diety - an avatar, as it was, of some creative super being. Like Steve Jobs, Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar or Ravi Shankar, his only competition seems to be himself. It's like he just decides that he is going to prove that he is the 'king of the world' again and gets on to doing something for the next 5 years with a single minded determination to be the best there is.
Avatar is fairly straightforward in narrative style - nowhere near the complication of the script of Terminator 2. The tale here is set in the mid 22nd century where the earth has run out of energy resources, which has forced humans to travel out light years into space and colonize planets which have anything that humans could use. One such planet is Pandora, which is the source of a mineral impossibly called Unobtanium - something that sells for 'twenty million a kilo'.
Humans would mine the planet for all it's wealth except for one problem. The richest deposits of Unobtanium lie beneath a huge settlement of the indigenous humanoids, called the Na'vi - who inhabit Pandora. Tha Na'vi are brave warriors, standing well over 10 feet tall, with skin like amphibians and amazing abilities to read and connect with nature.
Research has given rise to a technology wherein scientists can blend into the local populace by controlling synthetically grown Na'vi bodies (Avatars) with their minds . The hero of our story is Jake Scully, who pilots one of these Avatars into the Na'vi village - ostensibly to help the scientists learn about the Na'vi, but also to clandestinely help the military establishment in trying to persuade the villagers to evacuate the area, so that Unobtanium mining can commence.
Predictably, Jake Scully falls in love with the beautiful Neytiri - the chief's daughter. What follows is the even more predictable 'going native' of Jake - as he sees first hand the injustice being perpetrated on the tribals, and eventually ends up leading a defensive attack on the corporate driven humans.
All this sounds pretty routine for an action movie. Except, there's James Cameron behind the camera here. He takes us through Pandora without the customary hoo-haa of medical scores. It's not the first look at the Brontosaurus moment we saw in Jurassic Park. This is more like being thrust into one of the most spectacular natural reserves of the universe (literally) where everything is spectacularly alive. You have plants which curl up from a huge bracket fungus into nothing. You come face to face with creatures the size of small houses with heads like hammerhead sharks. You fly on huge reptilian birds and ride six legged steeds, by talking to their minds with your hair tied up in theirs. The imagination behind all this is breath taking.
What stuck in my mind that here was a movie - like Terminator and the Abyss - where technology was not used for the sake of showing how big a toy the director had. The technology was part of the story. And it wasn't about using what was already there - but bigger. This is about creating a new technology just to tell this one story. See what I mean by clicking here. It's 300 million dollars well spent.
The film tries to be as contemporary as possible, in terms of theme. There's a lot of talk and emotional content to do with the need to preserve the environment. There are phrases like 'Holy Daisy Cutters!' through which Cameron obviously shows which side of the political fence he is on. And of course there is the whole theme of a powerful corporate driven machinery with no sentiments except the joy of profits, attacking an under privileged group of people who have done them no harm, simply because they can.
The animation, needless to say is the best ever seen in movies so far. Everywhere - from the time Jake Scully walks in his avatar the first time, to the time Neytiri is distraught at the destruction of her village - you have tight close ups of Na'vi faces with flawless expressions.
All said and done, 2009 is closing with a movie which will become the new benchmark for all attempts to make a science fiction film. Watching this, especially in 3D, makes you forget the outside world for a while. And when you see the fantastic floating mountains of Pandora or are following Jake flying the magnificent Duruk, for a few moments you are out there - being a Na'vi, and having a little more respect for nature.
For those who haven't watched it - delay no further. This is how movies should be made.
Or the difference between a Creative mp3 player and an iPod ?
How about the difference between any A Class city in the world, and Singapore ?
In each case, one is as good as the other, except for the fact that the latter has pushed the proverbial envelope somewhere down the line.
It would be a similar analogy to compare any A list science fiction adventure movie with James Cameron's latest offering 'Avatar'.
To say that Avatar is a different kind of movie would be like saying that Sachin Tendulkar plays good cricket. It's groundbreaking - superlative in terms of marrying technology to the art of storytelling.
I've watched a hundred movies with aliens in their story, of which maybe less than ten are not laughable. Some, like 'Close Encounters of the third kind', 'Terminator 2' and 'The Abyss' make you gasp at moments. And then there is Avatar - which completely makes you forget these other masterpieces.
It's no coincidence that when I was thinking of the 3 best Alien movies I had seen, two of them (Terminator 2 and The Abyss) were made by James Cameron. The man is, frankly, a diety - an avatar, as it was, of some creative super being. Like Steve Jobs, Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar or Ravi Shankar, his only competition seems to be himself. It's like he just decides that he is going to prove that he is the 'king of the world' again and gets on to doing something for the next 5 years with a single minded determination to be the best there is.Avatar is fairly straightforward in narrative style - nowhere near the complication of the script of Terminator 2. The tale here is set in the mid 22nd century where the earth has run out of energy resources, which has forced humans to travel out light years into space and colonize planets which have anything that humans could use. One such planet is Pandora, which is the source of a mineral impossibly called Unobtanium - something that sells for 'twenty million a kilo'.
Humans would mine the planet for all it's wealth except for one problem. The richest deposits of Unobtanium lie beneath a huge settlement of the indigenous humanoids, called the Na'vi - who inhabit Pandora. Tha Na'vi are brave warriors, standing well over 10 feet tall, with skin like amphibians and amazing abilities to read and connect with nature.
Research has given rise to a technology wherein scientists can blend into the local populace by controlling synthetically grown Na'vi bodies (Avatars) with their minds . The hero of our story is Jake Scully, who pilots one of these Avatars into the Na'vi village - ostensibly to help the scientists learn about the Na'vi, but also to clandestinely help the military establishment in trying to persuade the villagers to evacuate the area, so that Unobtanium mining can commence.Predictably, Jake Scully falls in love with the beautiful Neytiri - the chief's daughter. What follows is the even more predictable 'going native' of Jake - as he sees first hand the injustice being perpetrated on the tribals, and eventually ends up leading a defensive attack on the corporate driven humans.
All this sounds pretty routine for an action movie. Except, there's James Cameron behind the camera here. He takes us through Pandora without the customary hoo-haa of medical scores. It's not the first look at the Brontosaurus moment we saw in Jurassic Park. This is more like being thrust into one of the most spectacular natural reserves of the universe (literally) where everything is spectacularly alive. You have plants which curl up from a huge bracket fungus into nothing. You come face to face with creatures the size of small houses with heads like hammerhead sharks. You fly on huge reptilian birds and ride six legged steeds, by talking to their minds with your hair tied up in theirs. The imagination behind all this is breath taking.What stuck in my mind that here was a movie - like Terminator and the Abyss - where technology was not used for the sake of showing how big a toy the director had. The technology was part of the story. And it wasn't about using what was already there - but bigger. This is about creating a new technology just to tell this one story. See what I mean by clicking here. It's 300 million dollars well spent.
The film tries to be as contemporary as possible, in terms of theme. There's a lot of talk and emotional content to do with the need to preserve the environment. There are phrases like 'Holy Daisy Cutters!' through which Cameron obviously shows which side of the political fence he is on. And of course there is the whole theme of a powerful corporate driven machinery with no sentiments except the joy of profits, attacking an under privileged group of people who have done them no harm, simply because they can.
The animation, needless to say is the best ever seen in movies so far. Everywhere - from the time Jake Scully walks in his avatar the first time, to the time Neytiri is distraught at the destruction of her village - you have tight close ups of Na'vi faces with flawless expressions.
All said and done, 2009 is closing with a movie which will become the new benchmark for all attempts to make a science fiction film. Watching this, especially in 3D, makes you forget the outside world for a while. And when you see the fantastic floating mountains of Pandora or are following Jake flying the magnificent Duruk, for a few moments you are out there - being a Na'vi, and having a little more respect for nature.
For those who haven't watched it - delay no further. This is how movies should be made.
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