I got round to watching Avatar in 3D over the weekend, and probably unsurprisingly, I found it rather enjoyable. I’d somehow managed to stay on media blackout in the build up to its release, so I came in with a relatively clean slate. I did manage to hear it was effectively Pocahontas/Fern Gully in space, which is true to an extent. But to surmise it in such a manner does it a disservice – it also features a some Smurfs. I jest, but in the same way that Titanic was just a version of Romeo and Juliet on a boat, and Terminator 2 was just a story about a boy who thinks his mum is a crazy but meets a robot from the future who gives him a newfound respect for a mother, (deep breath) whilst simultaneously teaching this unfeeling robot to feel – Cameron’s films are never going to have a lot of depth and layers, but that’s not what he’s famed for. Instead, in Avatar, as in much of his previous work, he puts together a well made package which is entertainment in its purest form.
The technology behind Avatar was getting a lot of mentions prior to release, with Avatar supposedly the film to finally justify 3D as an artistic medium for film. But honestly, it still falls short in conveying 3D as anything but a gimmick or a means to try and combat piracy. All in my opinion of course. The lush locales of the alien planet of Pandora makes the shortcomings of 3D tech all the more apparent, as what your brain knows should be vibrant greens is nothing more than desaturated and washed out due to the 3D image rendering. At least 3D is used sparingly and not to pointlessly throw objects through the screen at you, something that has proved too tempting for far too many other 3D films. Instead scenes have some depth of field, but everything still appears somewhat like a pop-up story book, as flat, 2D planes are layered over each other to create an illusion of depth.
I also wasn’t particularly fond of the character models and designs for the Na’vi and the other indigenous creatures. This of course is incredibly subjective, so I won’t dwell too much. It just all felt too reminiscent of the sort of bad art you’d find in a medium budget video game, not a major budget motion picture that has been anticipated and hyped to high heavens. The Na’vi also feature a unique way of ‘connecting’ to other creatures and plants of their homeplanet; the ends of their ponytails literally daisychain creating a link between the two. Why this couldn’t have been achieved just through touch or a telepathic link is beyond me. The Na’vi have to tame and break in other animals, be they alien horses (that conveniently resemble human horses) or flying beasts, so the image of the protagonist wrestling a resisting animal and then his ponytail connector thing on it has some rather disturbing connotations.
This all sounds like a lot of negatives, yet I still enjoyed the film immensely. It’s just less time consuming and easier to list the shortcomings. Cameron successfully weaves a tale allegorising colonialism and war for resources that alludes to the current climate, whilst also creating interesting characters – even the CG ones are endowed with emotion and a believability that borders on uncanny vally. The plot, whilst predictable and lacking depth, does the job, though the crux and namesake of it, the need for Avatars, felt a little tacked on just to give the film more of a Sci-Fi edge. But all in all, Avatar is definitely worth a watch this festive season.
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