Critique Of The Film Avatar - Movie Review Example

 Critique Of The Film Avatar The film ‘Avatar’ (2009), directed by James Cameron, has created a new path for cinema in the 21st Century, fusing elements of traditional narrative cinema with technological developments related to video games, special effects, and 3-D animation to produce an immersive environment with depth of meaning going beyond traditional Hollywood techniques. Cameron introduced many innovations in filmmaking in ‘Avatar’ related to the use of CGI technology or computer graphics that were made possible by the total abandonment of the 35mm camera for a completely digital environment. The 3-D elements combined with IMAX technology to create a virtual reality that the audience could experience in the theatre. Yet, Cameron also employed academics to create an entirely new language for the Na'vi people of Pandora in the movie, as well as engaging top scientists in paleontology, exo-biology, and evolutionary science to create an entirely virtual and imaginary jungle environment for the setting. (Singh, 2009) These innovations in filmmaking techniques, storytelling, and technological expression make ‘Avatar’ (2009) a revolutionary film that will lead to a transformation in future cinema. The storytelling elements that Cameron employs in ‘Avatar’ point to the experience that the director has with making historical narratives as in ‘Titanic,' (1994) while the science fiction genre is also familiar to him from work in the ‘Terminator' and ‘Aliens' films. Cameron began the direction of ‘Avatar' with a reputation of the most successful movie director in Hollywood history, and his budget for the production of ‘Avatar' was reported $237 to $300 million USD. (Singh, 2009) The film has already earned over $2 billion USD in returns at the box office. In this manner, the commercial appeal, expertise, and mastery of storytelling for a popular audience are unparalleled by Cameron in the modern era. Yet, in ‘Avatar' he employs a variety of methods of telling the story that innovates from the imaginary projections of science fiction. The first of these is using the "avatar" technology of a human being mentally projecting via computer-assisted means to assume the form and identity of a genetically grown, alien life form of a Na'vi tribesman, an 18 foot tall indigenous resident of the imaginary exo-planet Pandora. Cameron creates an entire ecology with imaginary plant species, a tribal people with their own native mythology, as well as the personal relationships and political dynamic of the story, to give the science fiction film incredible depth which is rendered in 3-D by the most advanced computer CGI and IMAX technologies. In ‘Avatar’, Sam Worthington plays the character ‘Jake Sully' who is a paraplegic marine who has lost the use of his legs but is sent to the far-away planet of Pandora for an avatar experiment being conducted to communicate with the native population. The plot and conflict revolve around a corporation which wishes to exploit the mineral resources of Pandora, and the scientists led by Sigourney Weaver's character who are studying the Na'vi people and the exo-planet of Pandora from an academic perspective. The corporation is portrayed as greedy and imperialistic, having employed a private mercenary force to clear the area of the 18-foot tall natives. The teams of scientists in the avatar program entered the bodies of genetically grown Na’vi people and were able to use machines so that their consciousness transferred to the avatar bodies in a type of dream. The director Cameron filmed the actors in a digital blue-screen environment where the computers generated the characters through a very advanced, high-resolution form of animation. In this manner, the use of actors to drive the shapes and sound of computer animation through virtual characters and imaginary landscapes built through CGI in production represents the talent of expression that actors such as Zoe Saldana brought to the screen. Her body, voice, and mannerisms were used to create an 18-foot tall Na'vi female characters, yet she is never seen in her human form in the movie, unlike Worthington and Weaver whose characters are both human and Na'vi avatars. The cinematography of ‘Avatar’ is truly where the innovation in filmmaking is taking place, because this environment is entirely digitally created from CGI technology, with the human movement and characters edited into the computer environment via blue-screen filming. The technological innovations advanced by Cameron included the ability to render the Pandoran CGI environment onto live 3-D action shots while the actors were performing using special cameras. (Wrenn, 2009) In hiring academics to design "alien" life forms, plant, and animal species that could be programmed into the computer and used to build a digital or imaginary world, ‘Avatar' was produced in many ways as an animated film. Yet the merging of real actors with some of the most advanced computer environments ever created for the film in the Pandoran jungle and spaceship settings often leads to the audience forgetting that these are in fact digitally created images. The cinematography in ‘Avatar' thus consists of virtual environments generated by computer software and given depth of expression through IMAX and 3-D viewing experiences. The complexity of creating ‘scientifically correct’ virtual worlds is also related to video game production. From this technological production method, Cameron creates a Pandoran jungle with floating mountains, huge trees, alien wildlife, micro-details like unique species of ferns, flowers, grasses, and mushrooms, as well as flying dinosaur-like creatures, all from the software and blue-screen basis of digital filmmaking. The immersive environment experienced by the theatre audience leads to a new definition of cinematography based upon virtual worlds rather than real life settings and atmospheres. Cameron invented the unique IMAX camera for the filming of ‘Avatar,' but as a completely digital production, there was no real film involved. All of the video, computer graphics, and visual effects were created digitally, and this represents a vast new field for the editing of feature film productions. In the future, it is predicted that more and more filmmakers and cinemas will transition to a digital environment of production and exhibition. In editing, this means that the digital software can be used to create environments that would never be possible in traditional 35mm filmmaking, such as the jungle landscape of Pandora. The video game technology is used as a basis for cinematography in ‘Avatar', and from this, the editing of the film is much more similar to computer animation, game development, and CGI graphics than traditional filmmaking. In this technological environment, computer rendering or the time required for a system of computers to output the graphics in detailed resolution and frame-rate is more important than film editing. The rendering times and software-hardware environment determines the amount of detail included in the CGI graphics, which is very advanced in ‘Avatar' in comparison to past films. Nevertheless, the acceleration of this technology should mean that what Cameron had access to in making the film ‘Avatar', smaller and independent filmmakers will also be able to draw upon in the future as costs come down for the hardware and software required to make this type of film. At the same time, the programming expertise should be highlighted over the traditional manner of film editing. In developing the music and sound environment for ‘Avatar,’ Cameron followed a similar model as in developing the virtual eco-system for Pandora. For example, Cameron employed Wanda Bryant, a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology teaching at UCLA to develop the music that represented the spirit of the Na'vi people. Bryant discusses the means of searching world cultures for ethnic sounds that represented an "earth-centric" or natural awareness and identity as found in the ancient primitive people and religions of our planet’s history. This aboriginal spirit, Bryant states, was found in ethnomusicology and research across innumerable native indigenous traditions in the world. She stated, “Some of the examples I brought in were from a woman named Susanne Rosenberg who does these beautiful Swedish cattle herding calls that are phenomenally gorgeous. I took in South African mining songs, girls’ greeting songs from Burundi, Bolivian aerophones, singing from Comoros Islands (between Madagascar and Mozambique), Värttinä, which is a Finnish female singing group, voices from the Naga culture in Northeast India.” (Buchanan et al, 2010) In this manner, James Cameron’s directing style and influence can be seen to dominate the film, as it required a large team of experts across a wide variety of diverse fields to bring together and produce. Cameron begins with the traditional science fiction tale of an imaginary future in a planet far away in another galaxy or solar system. The imagination of the future world inevitably involves a projection of belief about contemporary culture, and this is seen in the fixation with the technological development, the use of avatars to explore an imaginary or “real” world via mental projection, and the conflict between the natural forces with the destructive elements of progress and technology. The future as imagined on Pandora thus becomes a mythical projection of the tenets that Cameron represents the global identity that binds the audience together across languages, culture, and nationality. Cameron creates a myth for the contemporary culture that can be identified within an imaginary belief system by audiences around the world, just as in ‘Titanic’ or ‘Terminator’. It is a massive corporate enterprise to produce a film such as ‘Avatar’, but that element is hidden in the suspension of disbelief that the audience engages in while entering an immersive environment or virtual world. In the tradition of hard science fiction, Cameron employs a cadre of academic experts who will fine tune the evolutionary mythology of the film’s off-world setting to be completely consistent with the academic or scientific consensus of our own contemporary civilization in disguise. From the cultural critique, the theme of anti-imperialism and spiritual identity combine in a unique manner in ‘Avatar' and the message is clearly targeted at the sensitivities of a modern, global audience. The environmental theme is made into an aspect of religious mysticism that is still consistent with scientific fact, and in this manner, Pandora is described as an interconnected "Eden" world where the humanoid species has evolved to an advanced level of spiritual awareness and civilization without leaving aboriginal or indigenous frameworks of knowledge. This can be considered as a type of alternative universe or imaginary exploration of Native American, or indigenous civilization as found around the world that is becoming almost entirely extinct in favor of the contemporary global-capitalist paradigm. That the corporations in our own time may be responsible for using the most advanced technologies in the name of environmental destruction, as in deforestation and pollution, or in humanistic annihilation, as in war, represent problems that are attacked directly in ‘Avatar' through the plot elements. The superiority of the Na'vi system to the one represented by the corporate-military fusion is a type of utopian dream, and the natural-spiritual ideal that opposes the war machine of our future selves is attractive to a freedom-seeking audience who may feel their own media environment and personal lives dominated by the hegemonic exploitation of a global military-industrial complex. In this manner, ‘Avatar' has also been criticized in some circles by painting a negative stereotype of the military, corporations, or their associated greed and violence, in building this conflict from leftist, Marxist, or environmental activist sources in revisionist histories of Western economic and political development. The science fiction genre is something that Cameron is an undisputed modern master of in Hollywood, and this variety of historical critique and mythological narrative can be seen as representative of a culture that has moved beyond traditional religious identities into a secular humanist paradigm. The evolutionary mythology of biology, physics, chemistry, and other hard sciences are represented miraculously as the technology of the future to the audience, just as they are experienced in everyday life today. The destructive elements of the technology are related to contemporary models of use, while the imaginative elements of futuristic developments in technology project the highest ideals and wishes of today’s dreaming populace of diverse individuals. By basing his film in scientific realism, Cameron created a future world and exo-planetary eco-system that is entirely believable to the audience, because it is a projection of their contemporary hopes and fears onto the unknown. In this manner, science fiction offers an inherent hidden or disguised cultural critique, as well as a means to mythologize contemporary values in historical or dreamlike environments. Overall, ‘Avatar’ succeeds in its goal of pushing the limits of filmmaking technology in the most spectacular way, creating an immersive 3-D world in IMAX theatres that can inspire the imagination of generations across innumerable cultures around the world on common themes of identity. Cameron’s film requires a corporate production team, a massive investment in technological infrastructure, and a sense of business management to produce successfully, but these are hidden elements in the final product. In many ways, ‘Avatar’ resembles a video game in that it is rendered from CGI technology rather than filmed in a traditional sense. The digital era of filmmaking may be just beginning, but it represents a huge future of innovation in creating new forms of “movies” for popular markets. As technological innovation makes these filmmaking techniques more available to small and independent filmmakers, and as an entirely new generation grows up consuming and making digital films that combine software, imagination, and computer hardware in innumerable ways, ‘Avatar' will increasingly be seen as a revolutionary film in the inauguration of an entirely new generation of media beyond film. In conclusion, the technological innovation represented in James Cameron’s production of the movie ‘Avatar’ in 3-D, IMAX format from entirely CGI graphics environments or virtual worlds, created a complex system of meaning that is represented across the characters, plots, and settings of the film itself. Cameron's focus on scientific realism makes it easy for the audience to immerse themselves in wonder at the display of imagery in the theatre. The depth of resolution enabled by the modern rendering of computer graphics was extended to become nearly inseparable from what viewers routinely accept in film-based cinematic reproduction. From this, future filmmakers can bring nearly any impossible vision or dream of reality into being through the combination of computer graphics with live actors. The attention to detail in building imaginary eco-systems, languages, myths, and music for the Na'vi people and Pandora are what really establishes ‘Avatar' as a revolutionary film and part of the long tradition of hard science fiction striving for historically exact emulation of future realities. The themes, values, and interpretation of ‘Avatar’ are characteristic of contemporary human society operating under the globalized system of multi-national corporations and the environmental destruction of our age. Appendix: Images from the film ‘Avatar’ (2009). Below, the control room scene shows an amazing amount of detail which was developed to depict an imaginary, future universe and its day to day reality. Director James Cameron created the settings for ‘Avatar’ (2009) through the use of CGI technology and digital filmmaking. (Image Source: Wrenn, 2009) Director James Cameron using an IMAX the digital camera he helped to invent on the set of ‘Avatar' (2009). (Image Source: Wrenn, 2009) The film included an imaginary experience of an alien reality through the use of mental transfer to 18 foot tall, blue alien beings fighting a war with imperialist space miners. (Image Source: Wrenn, 2009) Director James Cameron employed a set of academic experts to design a complete alien eco-system that could be recreated in CGI technology as computer graphics for the setting of the film ‘Avatar’ (2009). (Image Source: Wrenn, 2009) Sources Cited: Buchanan, Joseph; Kagaya, Mia; Michelle, Lauren and Rahmanpanah, Parviz, (Edited by Tom Grasty), (2010). LA Ethnomusicologist Brings Otherworldly Sounds to Biggest Motion Picture of All Time, Music@UCLA, February 2nd, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.music.ucla.edu/blog/2010/02/02/avatar_ethnomusicology/ Singh, Anita (2009). Avatar: 3-D technology takes viewers into another world, The Telegraph, 11 Dec 2009. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6784434/Avatar-3-D-technology-takes-viewers-into-another-world.html Wrenn, Eddie (2009). Avatar: How James Cameron's 3D film could change the face of cinema forever, The Daily Mail, 26th August 2009. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1208038/Avatar-How-James-Camerons-3D-film-change-face-cinema-forever.html Read More