Avatar reassesed

Unleashed upon the world in December of last year Avatar was hailed as a bold new step forward in cinema, as the greatest thing you will ever see. It was James Cameron's new monster following Titanic and almost one year later it has indeed gone on to be one of the biggest ever box office hits, taking over $760m in the USA alone.

People like it, people liked it a lot. People went to see it in 3D at the Cinema multiple times, some even complained that they felt depressed that they didn't live on the fictional world of Pandora. At the time I thought, well, I thought it was alright. A little overlong with a simplistic set of characters and story with a 3D element I found technically impressive but I felt didn't really add that much to proceedings.

I recently picked up the Blu-ray however (it was a quiet week and disc appeared good value with three cuts of the film and two discs worth of extras) and have rewatched the film in a longer cut plus a good deal of the supporting production material and I feel it's time to look at the film again.

First of all I'll start by saying I enjoyed the film much more the second time round probably due to a different level of expectation of what I was going to get from it and it is still worth talking about what works and doesn't work.

The version I put on was the latest cut released which clocks in at about two hours fifty minutes or so and one of the key differences is right at the start. Here we open up the film on Earth and witness the dead end existence Jake (Sam Worthington) is in until executives approach him with an offer and the news of his brother's demise.



This helps gives a little more colour to where Jake is coming from and is interesting in it's depiction of what has become of Earth, but is far from essential and as Cameron himself observes it does slow down the start of the film delaying the arrival to Pandora. The other major piece of material re included brings more depth to Sigourney Weaver's Grave as she recalls past days in the school and gives you more of sense of the friendship she shared with Neytiri's sister.

Elsewhere it's mainly extension of already existing scenes with a few seconds added here and few more over there and whilst the extra material gives a bit more breathing space to a couple of characters the truth is the cast of players is still very much a set by the numbers.

Jake is fairly strong as a lead character and whilst is never quite comes across that he has truly taken to the heart the ways of the Nav'i he does convince as someone who could a leader of people with Worthington giving a strong authoritative air when required.

The one moment when the film really puts across a strong sense of what Jake is feeling is during his first session in his avatar body, in particular the joy as he breaks out into a run for the first time since being crippled.

Zoe Saldana's Neytiri is probably the strongest character in the film, whilst she does start of as something of a cliche woman of the wild as the film runs we get a better sense of the pride in and duty to her people she feels. And it is interesting to obverse the differing take of Yunjin Kim in some test footage seen in the behind the scenes material when test sequences were put together.

In fact having seen the making of material a word of praise must go to all the Nav'i performers who went through a lot of work from classes in Archery to movement workshops to develop an 'alien' way of moving and it is true that if watch all the Nav'i move and walk in a way that is both different to the human cast and consistent as a group.

Character wise everyone else is there to move the story along pretty much. Grace is on hand to provide exposition when required, Michelle Rodriguez's Turdy flies people about, Stephen Lang's Colonel is evil (upto the point of almost having a black moustache to twirl) and Laz Alonso's Tsu'tey there to provide the required initial distrust and acceptance of Jake.

But most wasted I feel is Giovanni Ribisi's company man who seems to have had a character arc sent to the cutting room floor at some stage entirely. We're given just enough to think he isn't a bad guy and that he might feel what he is doing wrong at some level but by the end his only contribution seems to be to cheer on the Colonel. I not sure if this is what was intended but it does seems strange to make such little use of the character.

Whilst the characters are a little shallow the cast all put in decent to strong performances with Stephen Lang probably taking the right route of being ever so lightly pantomime in his role. But it is Zoe Salanda who stands out, which is a remarkable achievement given her performance is completely behind the technological CGI wizardry.

Now, there is where I shall divert onto the production side of things for awhile. Back when it was released I wasn't convince why Avatar was a "game changer" but now I start to see.

All the performances beneath the CGI are genuine performances you see, just ones that happen to look like blue cat people. The system used basically allows the actors to perform as they would normally but wearing special suits that are tracked by a number of cameras, footage for which is then captured and used to render the final images.

The facial performances are captured by cameras rigged to helmets fitted to the actors which gives close up footage of the all important element, the face. Which is then used to ensure the captured performance is translated as well as possible when it comes to be turned into the CGI image. Some minimal animation is applied by essentially what you see on screen is what the actor did.

Taking things to really the next level is the fact that Cameron can watch all of this virtually, instantly. That is to say that looking at a monitor connected to a collection of sensors and a no doubt very expensive computer rig he can view the actors and action in front of him pretty much as it will finally appear, from any angle.

That is to say the system is applying the CGI and animation on the fly, instantly and it is very impressive indeed. It is this and the effectiveness of translating the actors performance that is potentially a changer of the game. As Weaver observes now she can play anything; a blue cat-person, a small girl, a younger version of herself, a blading middle age midget and it will still be her performance we see rather than a cruder mash of her and a bunch of animators.

And it is this technological leap that helps the film in it's most successful aspect, it's overall production design. Whatever you may say about everything else the world of Pandora is glorious to look at (botanists and biologists were consulted alongside a team of some of the best fantasy/science fiction artists out there) from the bio-luminance of the foliage to the impressive array of creatures that populate the forest.



If I was ten the visuals and imagination would blow my mind completely, as it is I am quite impressed. The sight of Pandoran horses running through a burning forest is as striking an image as you'll find anywhere. Though I admit I still have some doubts on the design of the human technology, as much as I like the Shuttlecraft I don't like the cumbersome looking giant helicopter thingy.

James Horner's score is perhaps not that distinctive but is effective in doing it's job, contrasting the tribal rhythms and sounds of the Nav'i's world with more traditional orchestral bombastic scoring when called for, i.e when things are fighting.

Yes it's simple, it's a little over earnest and it's all about the spectacle but then so was Star Wars. So whilst I wouldn't say I think the film is a great one, I will happily sit and watch again when in the mood for something that looks glorious but isn't too taxing on the brain it will fit the bill perfectly.

On a small note I will say that for all the hoopla the 3D version I saw at the cinema was spoilt slightly by the 3D as it seems rather than proving more immersive it had the opposite effects and pulled me out of the film a little. Thus I was prevented from allowing myself to be swept along by it and left to admire it on a technical basis.

The Academy still called it right though, Hurt Locker gave me heart attacks.