Avatar Day

So I went to Avatar Day yesterday with The Durka. Well, we arrived in line about an hour and a half early. The theatre only ended up being about half full and the two rows for the press were pretty much empty. As the showing started we put on our 3-D glasses and watched as James Cameron came on the screen in 3-D and told us that, "If there was a hell then we might want to go there to get some R & R before we set foot on Pandora." Pandora is the Planet in the Movie Avatar. For those who Don't already know, Avatar has nothing to do with the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. That series is being made into a movie by M. Night Shyamalan called The Last Airbender.

Avatar is about a crippled war Veteran named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Terminator 4) who enlists in the Avatar program. The avatar program was created in the 22ND century when humans discovered the planet Pandora abundant with natural resources. Pandora is a very hostile planet filled with many creatures of which include Dragon-like beasts that perch in the skies on floating rock formations, Giant rhinoceros-like creatures with hammerhead shark heads, and the main creatures called the Na'vi. The Na'vi are 10-foot tall blue humanoid creatures with long tails, stripes, and pointy ears. Humans can't breath on Pandora so the avatar program was created so scientists could create Na'vi-Human hybrids that humans could place their consciousness' in them to control them and move around the planet in their bodies with the ability to breath and make contact with the Na'vi. So Jake Sully becomes one of the first to be placed in one of these avatars and soon makes contact with the Na'vi and falls for one of the female Na'vi. As the humans attempt to exploit the planet of its natural resources a war breaks out between them and the Na'vi and Sully has to choose between helping the humans or the Na'vi.

The preview of the movie was about 16 minutes long and included scenes from only the first half of the movie, so as not to release any spoilers. These scenes were of Jake Sully in his human form attending a meeting of some soldiers at the military base on Pandora. The next scene was of Sully being placed in a machine and his mind is sent into the body of his Avatar. The next scene was of Sully, Sigourney Weaver's character, and another soldier in their avatar forms encountering some of the dangerous creatures of Pandora. The next scene was of Sully (Avatar) fighting of a bunch of dog creatures while being aided by the female Na'vi. The next scene seemed to be in the same area of the previous scene and had Sully (Avatar) speaking with the female Na'vi. The final scene shown was of Sully (Avatar) along with several other Na'vi attempting to tame one of the Dragon-like creatures.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the scenes we watched and I was especially amazed by the CGI. The CGI in this movie has reached a point where it is almost realistic. I thought Sigourney Weaver looked the most real in her Avatar form for some reason. Maybe she moved her face with more emotion in the motion capture so the CGI picked up on it better, while Sam Worthington has more subtle expressions that weren't picked up as well by the motion capture. Out of all the creatures we saw I felt the Dragon-like creatures looked the most realistic. Especially when Sully (Avatar) was holding its face to the ground you could tell the detail that was put into such a beautiful creature. All the CGI was beautiful. The 3-D was blurry and took away from the scenes, but the iMax detail definitely made up for it. I am definitely going to see this movie when it is released in four month on December 18th. I recommend everybody to do the same. Definitely in iMax, not necessarily in 3-D. If any of you want to see the trailer you can find it here or if that that doesn't work try here.