Thursday, August 20, 2009
Avatar teaser and photos
UPDATE: Apple has added the teaser trailer. Check it out here.
Trying something a bit different today...pictures! A handful of stills from James Cameron’s upcoming 3D sci-fi epic Avatar have been released, and, well…it looks like this movie has quite a few scenes in which people stare intensely at the camera and each other.
I’m mostly kidding. These shots did inform me that there are a few actors in this film I didn’t know about (like Giovanni Ribisi and Michelle Rodriguez). And what geek isn’t stoked about Cameron re-teaming with Sigourney Weaver?
Details about Avatar have been closely guarded for years, with the first pic below being the first official shot released of the Na’vi, the blue-skinned alien race in the film. The plot, as I understand it, is basically a sci-fi spin on Dances With Wolves: Sam Worthington plays a crippled soldier who jacks his consciousness into a synthetic alien body (hence the title) so he can move around on the planet Pandora with the human military (I recall Cameron saying something about the planet’s atmosphere not being friendly to humans). He gets separated from the other Earthlings, falls in love with a Na’vi girl, and is eventually forced to choose sides when war breaks out between the high-tech humans and the decidedly low-tech Na’vi (though the aliens do have home-field advantage).
Personally, I’m managing my expectations for Avatar; I’m expecting a cool sci-fi action movie in kickass 3D (I’ve only seen a few movies in proper IMAX 3D, including Beowulf, and it is indeed the business), but what I’m not expecting is the fundamental paradigm shift in moviemaking that Cameron’s been promising. (I read an article by someone who saw the 24-minute Avatar preview shown at ComicCon in full 3D, and while he thought it looked pretty cool, he said the effects in District 9 were actually more impressive.)
All that said, I’m very much looking forward to Avatar. Cameron’s made some of the best action movies ever, and the geek in me loves that even after winning Oscars for Titanic, he’s gone back to making movies about aliens and robots and space wars. Talk about dancing with who brung you.
Trying something a bit different today...pictures! A handful of stills from James Cameron’s upcoming 3D sci-fi epic Avatar have been released, and, well…it looks like this movie has quite a few scenes in which people stare intensely at the camera and each other.
I’m mostly kidding. These shots did inform me that there are a few actors in this film I didn’t know about (like Giovanni Ribisi and Michelle Rodriguez). And what geek isn’t stoked about Cameron re-teaming with Sigourney Weaver?
Details about Avatar have been closely guarded for years, with the first pic below being the first official shot released of the Na’vi, the blue-skinned alien race in the film. The plot, as I understand it, is basically a sci-fi spin on Dances With Wolves: Sam Worthington plays a crippled soldier who jacks his consciousness into a synthetic alien body (hence the title) so he can move around on the planet Pandora with the human military (I recall Cameron saying something about the planet’s atmosphere not being friendly to humans). He gets separated from the other Earthlings, falls in love with a Na’vi girl, and is eventually forced to choose sides when war breaks out between the high-tech humans and the decidedly low-tech Na’vi (though the aliens do have home-field advantage).
Personally, I’m managing my expectations for Avatar; I’m expecting a cool sci-fi action movie in kickass 3D (I’ve only seen a few movies in proper IMAX 3D, including Beowulf, and it is indeed the business), but what I’m not expecting is the fundamental paradigm shift in moviemaking that Cameron’s been promising. (I read an article by someone who saw the 24-minute Avatar preview shown at ComicCon in full 3D, and while he thought it looked pretty cool, he said the effects in District 9 were actually more impressive.)
All that said, I’m very much looking forward to Avatar. Cameron’s made some of the best action movies ever, and the geek in me loves that even after winning Oscars for Titanic, he’s gone back to making movies about aliens and robots and space wars. Talk about dancing with who brung you.
Final, personal note: as cool as Avatar looks, I’m hoping Cameron sticks to his word and follows it up with another, even more ambitious 3D sci-fi action flick, his long-promised adaptation of the Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita (Cameron has said he wants to have the lead character done with CGI/motion-capture, but surrounded by human actors). I’m a fan of that comic, and prospect of Cameron doing that in 3D is sweet indeed.
Labels: Movie news
¶ 9:27 AM
