Director James Cameron, the name summons images of futuristic techno-gore: aliens and marines, cyborg assassins versus humanity, fire, explosions, and mayhem. Amid the theatrical din of hell on earth (or space) are always stories driven by humanity. After a twelve year break from directing, in which his last work was "Titanic," Cameron, at 55, returns to the innovation and action that made him famous with "Avatar."
Set on a distant world in the future where mankind plays the invading aliens on the planet Pandora against the Na'vi, blue skinned humanoids lacking technological development but who are physically superior to man. Since the air on Pandora is unbreathable the Avatar project is brought in, where a person is telepathically linked to an clone of the Na'vi to infiltrate their society. Enter Sam Worthington as Jake Scully (ironic since he starred as a terminator in "Terminator Salvation" a franchise started by Cameron and a revolution in film) a crippled Marine who is given a chance to walking again through his avatar.
The idea for the story's premise is taken from a little known science fiction author, Poul Anderson, who wrote "Call Me Joe" publishing in Astounding magazine in 1957. The story follows the exploration of Jupiter's surface by a clone creature who can survive the surface and that is telepathically linked to a paraplegic human controller in orbit. It is unknown whether Cameron directly obtained the premise from this story or came up with the same idea independently.
"Avatar" is set to employ some unique methods of film making using stereoscopic digital cameras promising a more realistic 3D viewing- humans perceive the world stereoscopically- and the motion capture, used for the computer generated Na'vi, uses a more precise method of filming with a stage six times larger and camera's sensitive enough to gather information on human facial expressions. Not to worry though, the film can be viewed in the normal two dimensional format.
Of interest to Cameron's fans is the movie also stars Sigourney Weaver, known for her role as Ripley in the "Alien" series, the second which was directed by James Cameron pits Giger's Alien creatures against a team of futuristic Marines. For her role Weaver plays Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist and counselor to Worthington's Jake Scully.
According to James Cameron during an interview with the Telegraph UK, “We’re telling the story of what happens when a technologically superior culture comes into a place with a technologically inferior indigenous culture and there are resources there that they want, it never ends well." “It’s also a love story about an awakening of perception through the other person. That person must teach him something and there has to be a greater reason for him to be in love with her other than she’s a hot blue alien chick.”
It can be noted that most of Cameron's work does center around technologyless natives besting an industrial super power from Skynet in "The Terminator" to earth men in "Avatar" the underdog is either puny humans fighting cyborgs, Giger's Aliens fighting the firepower of the Colonial Marines, or forest dwelling natives fighting human space invaders. The consistent theme is that organically formed bonds trump those instilled by artificial discipline, a lesson well learned from history repeatedly. They can also be seen in the light of the industrial versus the natural order.
"Avatar" is being released to theaters on December 18th in the U.S. and should provide a nice alternative to the usually holiday movie fare.
See Avatar trailer here.
Written by Seamus Esparza
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