AVATAR SCREENING RECAP

I went to the Avatar Day screening yesterday that FOX put on for Avatar. It showed roughly twenty minutes of different clips from the earlier parts of the movie. Thursday the trailer came out and many people have slammed it saying it's less than what they expected, and to an extent I agree. It looks like a mix between Delgo and Starship Troopers. The film is supposed to have the best graphics and 3D any film has ever had and from the trailer it looked good but not mind blowing.




So I entered the theatre and they gave me my 3D glasses which are new, I don't know if its a prototype, but they were yellow and not framed like the current ones in use. The screen comes on and James Cameron introduces the segment and of course is in 3D. Then the footage begins. It starts out with a drill sergeant talking then cuts to a scene with the camera following a pair of boots walking. Then it switches over to the sergeant talking to the men about their trip to Pandora. He tells them about the natives called the Na'vi and how they were a threat and that they like to use arrows dipped in toxins that will kill you in under one minute. As soon as this scene came up, I was blown away. Everything was in 3D. It was all very clean and smooth.






The next scene is Sam Worthington's character, Jake Scully, and Sigourney Weaver's character, Dr. Grace Augustine, talking about the procedure of connecting him to his Avatar. Once again, I was blown away by the effects in this scene. The digital computer screens the characters use come right out at you better than anything I have seen. The footage then changes to Jake being in his Avatar and waking up from the connect. The avatar looks good really good as far as CGI goes, probably the best I've seen, but it is not mind blowing. I think there might be only so far a CGI character can go, it will probably never look real. The avatars are about two or three feet taller than humans. But the scene was fun, Scully's character is paralyzed so he has to get use to walking again and the doctors are trying to calm him down but he insists on getting out of the room. There is another character in the room who seems like is probably Scully's best friend who has a funny line during the scene. The scene ends with Scully's avatar breaking out of the room and walking off.



Then we finally get to see Pandora. In the scene it has Scully, his friend, and Dr. Augustine's characters on the planet in avatar form. They are being threatened by a huge rhino creature and Scully is asking what to do. Dr. Augustine tells him to hold his ground, he does and the creature walks away. As the creature is leaving Scully goes on calling it names talking about how great he is while the whole time a more dangerous creature is creeping up behind him. He turns and sees it and the creature jumps over him. He then asks Dr. Scully what to do hold his ground or run and she replies, "Run! Defiantly run!" and then the creature chases them through the jungle end of scene. Let me say that this planet Cameron and his team has created is absolutely stunning. It is full of color and everything comes out right at you. When the scene opened, the camera was panning through the forest and a big vine literally comes right down in front of you from behind, you don't even see it coming on screen. Amazing.



The next scene shows Scully again in trouble with a bunch of creatures and Zoe Saldana's character, Neytiri, comes and rescues him. Neytiri is a native Na'vi and not an avatar. After she fights them off they begin to argue saying they did not deserve to die and that it was his fault.







The final scene shows Scully and Neytiri coming around a waterfall and up on a bunch of dragon creatures. He asks her how he will know which one is the right one and she replies, "It will want to fight you". So he starts walking around all these dragon creatures and eventually one tries to fight him and he wrestles with it. After a couple of go arounds with it he finally pins it and connects his hair into one of his antlar like things. I then realized that this is how he finds I guess what you would call his own personal dragon. Once the hair is placed in the antlar thing Neytiri tells him to tell the creature what he wants it to do and that is important to establish flight quickly because it's vital to help them bond. This was another beautiful scene.







After that it just shows a bunch of quick shots here and there that has already been seen in trailer. There was one part that wasn't and it looked like the sky was falling down around them, I'm not sure what it was, but it was absolutly beautiful. Overall, I was blown away. I don't think this will beat Titanic because it isn't geared toward everyone like Titanic was. You know grandma is going to go see Avatar at noon on a tuesday like she would have for Titanic so I don't see it surpassing that. The fact that Cameron and his crew have created this entire planet and put so much amazing detail is remarkable. The only problem I had with the footage was the script. There was a lot of cheesy dialouge especially with Scully's character, who sounded a little thugish. This is something you really need to experience, you can't go from the trailer but this should be a very good and very fun film.