Live Life Team
The hottest movie this award season is James Cameron’s “Avatar,” which was released in December in time for the holiday film going season. By the end of the year it had grossed almost $600 million and was fast eclipsing all other flicks for the year. It certainly has made back its $300 million cost. This sci-fi adventure had already won a boatload of awards before earning nine Oscar nominations.
What makes this movie so spectacular, The plot is basic. It centres on Jake Scully, a paraplegic Marine, who is sent to Pandora, a distant planet. Here he bonds with the native humanoids, eventually falling in love with one of the local beauties. Of course, there is the baddie – an all too familiar corporate nasty who has greedy plans to strip the planet of it valuable metals. Nothing new here.
What sets the movie apart is the way Scully adopts an avatar identity to do battle and the special effects and creative muses take over. Besides using 3-D to its technological strengths, Cameron uses motion capture techniques to create a new world with floating creatures and eye-popping battle scenes. The irony is not lost that a movie preaching peace and environmental harmony blows up a lot of stuff along the way.
Critics are comparing “Avatar” to George Lucas’ Star Wars films of the 70s. Each has broken ground and moved cinema into the next technological generation.
