Avatar

I saw Avatar for a second time last night and am still speechless. I saw it a month ago and afterwords I couldn't describe it. I've never walked out a film with that feeling. The movie was an event. Sure, it may not have the most original story in the world, it is very much like Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas, but the story is good (Dances with Wolves won the Best Picture Academy Award for a reason) and is accented by the visual effects. And yes, the effects accent the story and not the other way around as some have speculated. There have been many movies where the effects are the picture and the story just gets you to the next action shot. And matter how good the effects are you still see them as being an "visual effect shot" (Transformers comes to mind). But in this movie, it is very easy to forget that 95% of what you see is was created by a computer. The real word and CG world blend so seamlessly, and story pulls you in so deep, that you believe Pandora exists.

Then you read all the making-of story by Weta and suddenly you realize how massive this movie was. Remember that single fern in the top right of the screen at 55 minutes into the movie? The one next to the 400 other plants in that scene? Well someone had to create that and animate it. And that set was only used once. The film is 2 hours and 45 minutes and every shot has hundred of plants, rocks, and forest items, not to mention the numerous creatures running around.


Seeing this movie in 3D is an experience. I have no doubt that when 3D TVs are launched at the end of this year (yay?) they will align with the blu-ray release of this movie. This movie will be "The Matrix" of the 3D format (ie the movie you have to own to show off its powers, much like "The Matrix" and DVDs 11 years ago).

More to discuss in the future.