
2009, dir; James Cameron. Format: Reg B Blu-ray disc
James Cameron, after delivering the multi-oscar winning, box-office smashing Titanic, did a bit of a George Lucas on us (rather fitting given Star Wars was the film that encouraged Cameron to quit his truck driving job to pursue a career in movies) – instead of following up his smash with another movie, he went off to pursue various side projects, and also to investigate the future technology that would allow him to realise his dream of bringing the ambitious Avatar to the screen, including shooting documentaries in stereoscopic 3d. Avatar was the film that Cameron intended to be his next feature after Titanic, and he has been quoted as stating that he was waiting for the “technology to catch-up” in order to do justice to the project.
The film is set on an inhabited moon, Pandora, which orbits the planet Polyphemus and is rich in a valuable metal called, as something of an in-joke, “unobtanium”. It’s priceless, and this is what drags a future earth corporation to establish a mining base on Pandora, some 6 years of travel away from a decaying, war-torn earth. Unfortunately for the miners and share-holders, the biggest deposit of unobtanium is slap bang underneath the indigenous Na’vi people’s village, which is centred around a massive, ancient tree.
As a sop to the share-holders or perhaps the concerns of the financial backers of the project, the otherwise ruthlessly wealth seeking corporation (simply referred to as RDA), finances a side project led by Sigourney Weaver’s Dr Grace Augustine to develop ‘avatars’ which are literally Na’vi bodies mixed with human DNA and grown in a laboratory, bodies which, via a wireless linking technology, can be ‘driven’ by the human who provides the DNA. Their purpose is to learn from, and teach, the Na’vi in the hope that their trust can be won and they can be persuaded to move from their prime mining spot without the need for bloodshed or war – something that Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch is literally itching to deliver - with Giovanni Ribisi’s pencil pushing corporate head Parker Selfridge under pressure to deliver results at any cost. Into this mix, following 6 years of cryogenic sleep, is thrown Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) – a marine rendered paraplegic in battle, and who takes the place of his scientist and avatar driver twin brother who is killed in a mugging – Jake’s DNA being of course a perfect match with his twin. Dr Weaver, who once taught the Na’vi English before the relationship soured, fears throwing an untrained marine avatar into the mix – yet it is soon up to Sully to win over the Na’vi, starting with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who is tasked with teaching him all about their ways.
There is a clear environmental message at the heart of Cameron’s story, something that is brought to life in every frame with the most beautiful photo-realistic rendering of the fauna and flora of Pandora, with it’s luminescent plants and glowing seedlings, alien versions of terran animals and creatures too unusual to have an earth equivalent, floating mountains and magnificent trees; it really is a place that is brought to life so incredibly that some people have expressed regret that they will never ever get to visit Pandora. Yet this message has been criticized, with critics suggesting the message is just a re-tread of films like Fern Gully and that the white-man-as-messiah plot is both outdated and politically incorrect. Also, many posters on various message boards have decried the film, or it’s visual achievements, as just “pretty pictures made by a computer”.
This latter argument is one that does not hold water for me – the computer, as with optical printers, back projection, matte paintings, green screen and model work is simply a tool with which to bring a world to life; the computer does not create anything, instead it takes a team of artists many man hours to bring these visuals to the screen – and what visuals they are. One cannot but marvel at the fluidity of the animation of the Na’vi – when Pixar are still using highly stylized characitures to represent the difficult to animate human models in their movies, Avatar brings 12 foot tall blue aliens to life, giving them grace, speed and realistic movement despite their scale. I’ve seen hi-resolution screen caps of frames from Avatar and the attention to detail is astounding – the artists go so far as to render the camera imperfections you would expect from shooting with movie camera lenses – adding a tell-tale purple line of chromatic aberration to Jake’s machine gun for example. I don’t think I’ve seen an environment as realistic, as vivid and as, well beautiful as this on film previously. And, it looks phenomenal on bluray – the colours absolutely zing and pop at you as the sharp, detailed image produces a fantastic depth of colour freed from the darkening effect of cinema projection viewed via polarising 3d glasses. This is reference quality from the amazing visuals to the quality of the presentation on bluray itself and is likely to be the go-to demo disc for a long time – you will not find a more convincing advert for bluray than Avatar.
The film and story too are equally, if not more compelling, at home as one relaxes into the story – the romance feels natural and unforced, Cameron’s clear love for the people he has created and the world they live in is always there but never feels overly-sentimental or cloying, and, when the shit does hit the fan and Colonel Quaritch sends in his armada of futuristic helicopters, space shuttles and exo-skeleton equipped robotic grunts (similar to those in Aliens and Matrix:Revolutions) the action is as you would expect from Cameron, taut, pacy, thrilling, huge, with some breathtaking camera-work yet still leaving room for those moments of despair, near death escapes and of course, a couple of mano-a-mano showdowns.
Sound, too, is never short of spectacular on bluray – the DTS-HD soundtrack gave my amplifier a good workout, with some excellent spatial and surround effects. If I had a quibble I would have to admit that James Horner’s soundtrack, whilst quite memorable, does rather hammer home the connection with films like Dances with Wolves, feeling rather derivative. It also reminded me of Karl Jenkins ‘Adiemus’ classical albums, with it’s other-worldy yet ethnic-sounding chanting.
That aside, this has to be possibly the most complete cinematic experience I have had at home (I should note I have still to watch Hero, Toy Story 2 and 2001 on the blu-ray format). The format really shines here, giving a great example of just how good a well-mastered film can look, with the HD audio also contributing to the experience. It’s a technical masterpiece for sure, and whilst the story does follow the thematic lines of films like Dances With Wolves it has a layer of sci-fi and that environment to elevate it into something quite unique. Add in the sheer panache and bravura film-making that James Cameron is capable of and this IS what cinema should be about – I felt fully immersed in the world of Pandora, strapped in for the ride and experiencing the full range of emotions that the protagonists did, often feeling that tightening knot in my stomach that only special films seem to give me.
I cannot recommend it highly enough.