Avatar (2009 film)

Avatar
File:Avatar-Teaser-Poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	James Cameron
Produced by	James Cameron Jon Landau
Starring	Sam Worthington Zoë Saldaña Stephen Lang Michelle Rodriguez Giovanni Ribisi Sigourney Weaver
Cinematography	Mauro Fiore
Edited by	James Cameron John Refoua Stephen E. Rivkin
Music by	James Horner
Production companies	Lightstorm Entertainment 20th Century Fox Dune Entertainment Ingenious Film Partners
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	London December 10, 2009 (2009-12-10) United Kingdom December 17, 2009 United States December 18, 2009
Running time	161 minutes
Countries	Template:FilmUS Template:FilmUK
Language	English
Budget	$237,000,000
Box office	$27,000,000

Avatar is a Template:Fy American 3-D science fiction epic film written and directed by James Cameron, starring Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldaña, and Stephen Lang. The film was originally set for release on May 22, 2009, but was pushed back to allow more post-production time. It premiered in London on December 10, 2009 and was released in the UK on December 17, 2009 and the US on December 18, 2009 by 20th Century Fox. The film is co-produced by Lightstorm Entertainment, and focuses on an epic conflict on Pandora, an inhabited Earth-sized moon of Polyphemus, one of three fictional gas giants orbiting Alpha Centauri A. On Pandora, human colonists and the sentient humanoid indigenous inhabitants of Pandora, the Na'vi, engage in a war over the planet's resources and the latter's continued existence. The film's title refers to the Sanskrit word Avatar, a representation of a real person in a virtual world.

Avatar was in development since 1994 by James Cameron, who wrote a 114-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to James Cameron, "technology needed to catch up" with his vision of the film. In early 2006, Cameron developed the script, the language, and the culture of Pandora. Cameron has stated that if Avatar is successful, he hopes to make two sequels to the film.

The film was released in 2D and 3D formats, along with an IMAX 3D release in selected theaters. The film is estimated to have cost over $300 million to produce, and another estimated $200 million for the distribution and other costs, thus totaling to about half a billion dollars. Avatar is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of filmmaking technology, for its development of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking with cameras that were specially designed for the film's production. Opening with critics' praise abroad, it earned an estimated $27 million its opening day.

Plot

In AD 2154, humans are engaged in the colonization of Pandora, the lush moon of Polyphemus, one of three gas giants that orbit Alpha Centauri A, 4.3 light years from Earth. Pandora is filled with incredible life forms, and is home to the Na’vi, an indigenous sentient humanoid race who are considered primitive by human standards, yet are more physically capable than them. The Na'vi are tailed, slender creatures with sparkling blue skin, standing three meters tall. They live in harmony with their unspoiled world, which the humans have found to be rich with unobtanium, a valuable mineral that is essential to remedying an economic and energy crisis that is gripping Earth.

Humans are unable to breathe the Pandoran atmosphere; in order to interact with the Na'vi, human scientists have created genetically engineered human-Na'vi hybrid bodies called Avatars, and use them to interact with the natives and gain their trust for a relocating operation. A human who shares genetic material with the avatar can be mentally linked to it, allowing them to control its functions and experience what it experiences, while their own body sleeps. The story's protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a former U.S. Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. His twin brother Tony was a scientist working on the Avatar program; when he is killed, Jake is extended the opportunity to take his brother's place, as he shares Tony's genetic material and is therefore compatible with his avatar.

Jake travels to Pandora, and assumes control of his avatar body, delighted at being able to walk and run once again as a whole being. Sent deep into Pandora's jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora's beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), who teaches him the ways of her people: the Omaticaya clan of the Na'vi. Despite having originally been sent to gain the trust of natives, and convince them to abandon their Hometree, which sits above a large deposit of unobtanium, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and his love for his adopted home and people. He is forced to choose sides as the humans grow increasingly violent in their mining activities, and the oppressed Na'vi rise up to protect their home, resulting in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire race.

Cast and characters

Main article: Characters and wildlife in Avatar

Humans

• Sam Worthington as Jake Sully. Cameron cast the Australian actor after searching the world for promising young actors, preferring relative unknowns to keep the budget down. Worthington auditioned twice early in development, and he has signed on for possible sequels. Cameron felt that because Worthington had not done a major film, he was "game for anything", giving the character "a quality that is really real. He has that quality of being a guy you'd want to have a beer with, and he ultimately becomes a leader who transforms the world".
• Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist who mentors Jake Sully. Weaver dyed her hair red for the part. Her character was named "Shipley" at one point. The character reminded Weaver of Cameron, being "very driven and very idealistic".
• Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon, a retired Marine pilot. Cameron had wanted to work with Rodriguez since seeing her in Girlfight.
• Giovanni Ribisi as SecFor administrator Parker Selfridge, a passive-aggressive character.
• Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman, a biologist who studies plant and nature life (like Weaver's character).
• Stephen Lang as SecFor's Colonel Miles Quaritch, the main antagonist. Lang had unsuccessfully auditioned for a role in Cameron's Aliens (1986); the director remembered Lang and cast him in Avatar. Michael Biehn was considered for the role of Colonel Quaritch. He met with James Cameron three times and saw some of the 3D footage, but in the end it simply came down to the fact that Cameron did not want people thinking it was Aliens all over again, as Sigourney Weaver had already been cast.
• Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel. A Scientist that works in the AVATAR Program.
• Matt Gerald as SecFor's Corporal Lyle Wainfleet, the second-most prominent villain, after Quaritch.

Na'vi

• Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri, a princess of the Na'vi tribe central to the story, who is attracted to Jake because of his bravery. The character, like all the Na'vi, is entirely computer generated. Saldaña has also signed on for potential sequels.
• C. C. H. Pounder as Mo'at, the Na'vi queen.
• Laz Alonso as Tsu'Tey, one of Pandora's finest Na'vi warriors and Neytiri's betrothed.
• Wes Studi as Eytucan, The Na'vi king of the Omaticaya Clan, the husband of Mo'at and Neytiri's father.
• Peter Mensah as Akwey, a member of the Na'vi tribe.

Pandora's wildlife

• Banshee, ikran. The pteranodon-like mountain banshee is highly adapted for flight. Specially developed muscles attached to the breastbone allow for the powerful strokes needed to achieve lift. Bonding with a banshee is a dangerous and required rite of passage for all would-be Na'vi warriors. A Banshee bonds with only one Na'vi in their lifetime.
• Direhorse, pa’li. Horse-like creature with six legs, tough skin with no fur, long necks and small head, bold stripes, flexible carbon fiber armor over shoulders and along the back of the neck and head.
• Hammerhead Titanothere, angtsìk. This massive, grazing creature travels in small herds or packs. It is moderately social, but also extremely territorial and hierarchical. When angered, a titanothere will lower its head and charge at the perceived threat. The sheer momentum and ferocity of this display is usually enough to send any Pandoran creature running for cover.
• Thanator, palulukan. The most fearsome of all Pandoran land predators, it possesses a wide, armored tail can slam prey or defend against other thanators. Cartilaginous plates around its neck that can flare, possibly as a threat display but more likely as an echolocation or other sensory pinpointing system. The speed of its neck and jaw strike is as swift as a camera shutter.
• Viperwolf, nantang. With six legs and a lean, powerful torso, the viperwolf has evolved to travel swiftly over long distances in search of prey. The ratio of brain mass to body weight of the average adult viperwolf indicates a high order of mental processing, pattern recognition and communication skills.
• The Hometree, Kelutrel. The Hometree stands over 150 meters tall, and is roughly thirty meters in diameter, large enough to house dozens of Na'vi. The tree is honeycombed with natural hollows and alcoves in which the Na'vi sleep, eat, weave, dance, and celebrate their connection to Eywa. Like many sacred sites on Pandora, Hometree sits above a large deposit of unobtanium.

Production

Development

In 1994, director James Cameron wrote a 114-page scriptment for Avatar. Cameron said his inspiration was "every single science fiction book I read as a kid", and that he was particularly striving to update the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series. In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of "synthetic", or computer-generated, actors. The project would cost $100 million and involve at least six actors in leading roles "who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world". Special effects house Digital Domain, with whom Cameron has a partnership, joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in the summer of 1997 for a 1999 release.

In June 2005, Cameron was announced to be working on a project tentatively titled "Project 880", concurrently with another project, Battle Angel. By December, Cameron said that he planned to film Battle Angel first for a summer 2007 release, and to film Project 880 for a 2009 release. In February 2006, Cameron said he had switched goals for the two film projects – Project 880 was now scheduled for 2007 and Battle Angel for 2009. He indicated that the release of Project 880 would possibly be delayed until 2008. Later that February, Cameron revealed that Project 880 was "a retooled version of Avatar", a film that he had tried to make years earlier, citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters Gollum, King Kong and Davy Jones. Cameron had chosen Avatar over Battle Angel after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year.

Cameron's early scriptment for Avatar had circulated on the Internet for years. When the project was re-announced, copies were subsequently removed from websites. In June 2006, Cameron said that if Avatar was successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film.

From January to April 2006, Cameron worked on the script. Working with Dr. Paul Frommer, linguist and Director of the Center for Management Communication at USC, he developed a Na'vi language and culture, the indigenous race on Pandora. The language has a vocabulary of about 1000 words, with some 30 having been invented by Cameron. The tongue's phonemes include ejective consonsants (such as the "kx" in "skxawng") that are found in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, and the initial "ng" that Cameron may have taken from New Zealand Māori.

In July, Cameron announced that he would film Avatar for a summer 2008 release and planned to begin principal photography with an established cast by February 2007. The following August, the visual effects studio Weta Digital signed on to help Cameron produce Avatar. Stan Winston, who had collaborated with Cameron in the past, joined Avatar to help with the film's designs. In September 2006, Cameron was announced to be using his own Reality Camera System to film in 3-D. The system would use two high-definition cameras in a single camera body to create depth perception.

The film is estimated to have cost over $300 million to produce, and another estimated $200 million for the distribution and other costs, thus totaling to about half a billion dollars, more than 50% over the total cost for the most expensive film before it.

Themes and inspiration

Avatar is centered around the themes of imperialism and biodiversity. Cameron has said that Avatar shares themes with At Play in the Fields of the Lord, and The Emerald Forest, which feature clashes between cultures and civilizations, and acknowledged the film's connection with Dances With Wolves, where a battered soldier finds himself drawn to the tribal culture he was initially fighting against.

At Comic Con 2009, Cameron told attendees that he wanted to make "something that has this spoonful of sugar of all the action and the adventure and all that, which thrills me anyway as a fan, but also wanting to do something that has a conscience, that maybe in the enjoying of it makes you think a little bit about the way you interact with nature and your fellow man." He added that "the Na'vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are," and "the humans in the film, even though there are some good ones salted in, represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future."

In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, Cameron addressed the meaning of the film's title, answering the question "What is an avatar, anyway?" with "It's an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form. In this film what that means is that the human technology in the future is capable of injecting a human's intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body. It's not an avatar in the sense of just existing as ones and zeroes in cyberspace. It's actually a physical body."

Filming and effects

It's this form of pure creation where if you want to move a tree or a mountain or the sky or change the time of day, you have complete control over the elements.

James Cameron on virtual filmmaking

In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough. The director planned to create photo-realistic computer-generated characters by using motion capture animation technology, on which he had been doing work for the past 14 months. Unlike previous performance capture systems, where the digital environment is added after the actors' motions have been captured, Cameron's new virtual camera allows him to observe directly on a monitor how the actors' virtual counterparts interact with the movie's digital world in real time and adjust and direct the scenes just as if shooting live action; "It’s like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale." Cameron planned to continue developing the special effects for Avatar, which he hoped would be released in summer 2009. He also gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology. Spielberg and George Lucas were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.

File:Jake flying Great Leonoptyrex.jpg

Avatar was filmed with newly developed stereoscopic cameras that simulate human sight. In this scene, Jake Sully flies into battle to save his newly adopted tribe.

Other technological innovations include a performance-capture stage, called The Volume, which is six times larger than previously used and an improved method of capturing facial expressions. The tool is a small individually made skull cap with a tiny camera attached to it, located in front of the actors' face which collects information about their facial expressions and eyes, which is then transmitted to the computers. This way, Cameron intends to transfer about 95% of the actors' performances to their digital counterparts. Besides a real time virtual world, the team is also experimenting with a way of letting computer generated characters interact with real actors on a real, live-action set while shooting live action.

In January 2007, Fox announced that the studio's Avatar would be filmed in 3D at 24 frames per second despite Cameron's strong opinion that a 3D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable. Cameron described the film as a hybrid with a full live-action shoot in combination with computer-generated characters and live environments. "Ideally at the end of the day the audience has no idea which they’re looking at," Cameron said. The director indicated that he had already worked four months on nonprincipal scenes for the film. Principal photography began in April 2007, and was done around parts of Los Angeles as well as New Zealand. The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3D Fusion Camera System, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. According to Cameron, the film will be composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional miniatures. The performance-capture photography would last 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. In October, Cameron was scheduled to shoot live-action in New Zealand for another 31 days.

To create the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico during June 2007. They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the rig, which will be replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI. More than a thousand people worked on the production. James Cameron sent the cast of Avatar off to the jungle for bonding boot camp exercises before he started shooting the film.

Music and soundtrack

Main article: Avatar: Music from the Motion Picture

Composer James Horner scored the film, his third collaboration with Cameron after Aliens and Titanic. Horner recorded parts of the score with a small chorus singing in the alien language Na'vi in March 2008. He is also worked with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race. The first scoring sessions were planned to take place in Spring 2009. Leona Lewis was chosen to sing the theme song for the film, called "I See You". An accompanying music video is also in production.

Release

Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was released theatrically worldwide from December 16 – 18. The film was originally set for release on May 22, 2009 during filming, but was pushed back to allow more post-production time, and to also give more time for theaters worldwide to install 3-D projectors. Cameron stated that the film's aspect ratio would be 1.78:1 for 3-D screenings and that a 2.39:1 image would be extracted for 2-D screenings. However, the 1.78:1 aspect ratio is actually exclusive to IMAX 3D screenings while all other projection methods (including digital 3-D) use the 2.39:1 extract. The first photo of the film was released on 14 August 2009, and Empire magazine released exclusive images from the film in its October issue.

IMAX Corporation and Twentieth Century Fox announced that James Cameron's Avatar would open in 178 IMAX theatres domestically on December 18, 2009, simultaneously with the motion picture's premiere in conventional theatres. The IMAX 3D release also opened in 83 IMAX theatres internationally starting on December 16, for a total of 261 theatres, making this the widest IMAX release to date. The previous IMAX theaters record was 231, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened up in 161 domestic IMAX theaters, and about 70 international. Avatar was released in a total of 3457 theaters domestically, of which 2032 theaters are running it in 3D. 90% of all advance ticket sales for Avatar are for 3D screenings.

Marketing

Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. The filmmakers and game developers collaborated heavily, and Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft's vehicle and creature designs into the film. A Mattel toy line will debut in November 2009. Each figure, creature, or vehicle will come with a 3D tag which can be scanned by a webcam, a technology also known as augmented reality, allowing consumers to unlock content about the Avatar universe on their computers.

Cameron, producer Jon Landau, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Sigourney Weaver appeared at a panel, moderated by Tom Rothman, at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con on July 23. 25 minutes of footage was screened in Dolby 3D. Weaver and Cameron appeared at additional panels to promote the film, speaking on the 23rd and 24th respectively. James Cameron announced at the Comic-Con Avatar Panel that August 21 will be 'Avatar Day'. On this day the trailer for the film was released in all theatrical formats. The official game trailer and toy line of the film were also unveiled on this day.

The 129-second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009 to mixed reviews. The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres with Amelia, Astro Boy, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant and Saw VI on October 23, 2009, and then premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews. On November 6, 2009 a third trailer was released in front of the Disney's A Christmas Carol, which is almost identical to the 210 second version but including new scenes from the film. An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelming positive reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said that audience expectations were coloured by "the [same] establishment skepticism that preceded Titanic" and suggested the showing reflected the desire for original storytelling. The teaser-trailer has reached the reputation of among the most viewed ones in the history of film marketing, reaching the 1st place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views. On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3D cinema in Vietnam, Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen exclusive 16 minutes of Avatar to a number of press.

The three-and-a-half minute trailer of the film premiered live on November 1, 2009 to audiences in Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on the Diamond Vision screen, the world's largest video display, and to TV audiences viewing Fox NFL Sunday. It is said to be largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history. Like the first two trailers, the three-and-a-half minute trailer received mixed reviews.

The film is largely promoted in an episode of the Fox Network series Bones in the episode "The Gamer In The Grease" (Season 5, Episode 9). Avatar star Joel David Moore has a recurring role on the program, and is seen in the episode anxiously awaiting the release of the film.

Reception

Critical response

The film has received generally positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports the film as holding an 82% "Fresh" approval rating based on 195 reviews. Among the site's top critics, the film has so far received a 94% "Fresh" approval rating based on 32 reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the film holds a "Universal acclaim" score of 83 based on 34 reviews.

Film critic Roger Ebert called the film "extraordinary" and gave it four stars. Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the film, stating, "The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in Avatar, and it's very much a place worth visiting." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review. "The screen is alive with more action and the soundtrack pops with more robust music than any dozen sci-fi shoot-'em-ups you care to mention," he stated. On the other hand, critic Armond White of the New York Press described the film as a "simple-minded anti-industrial critique" and also as the "corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt".

Parallels have been drawn between the premise of Avatar and that of Poul Anderson's 1957 short story Call me Joe, where a paralyzed man uses his mind to remotely control an alien body. Other reviews have compared it to the films Ferngully, and Pocahontas. Cameron himself acknowledged that the film is thematically similar to "classic 'going-native'" films such as Dances with Wolves and At Play in the Fields of the Lord.

Box office

The film earned $3,537,000 from mid-night screenings, partly due to the fact that it was limited to 2,200 3D screens. In Australia, the film earned another $3,091,839. On its opening day, it earned $27 million.

Awards and nominations

The New York Film Critics Online have honored the film with "Best Picture" award. The film also received nine nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, including those for "Best Picture" and "Best Director". St. Louis Film Critics have nominated the film for two of its annual awards - "Best Visual Effects" and "Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film". The film was a runner-up for the best "Production Design" award of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association annual awards. The film also picked up four nominations for the 67th Golden Globe Awards including "Best Motion Picture - Drama", "Best Director", "Best Film Score" and "Best Film Song". The Austin Film Critics Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association have placed the film on their top ten films of the year lists, while Chicago Film Critics Association has nominated the film for its annual "Best Cinematography" and "Best Original Score" awards. The Las Vegas Film Critics Society has awarded the film with "Best Art Direction" award.

Merchandising

Books

Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, a 224-page book in the form of a field guide to the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on November 24, 2009. It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it, written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison. HarperFestival also released Wilhelm's 48-page James Cameron's Avatar: The Reusable Scrapbook for children. The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure was released on November 30, 2009 by Abrams Books. The book features detailed production artwork from the film, including production sketches, illustrations by Lisa Fitzpatrick, and film stills. Producer John Landau wrote the foreword, Cameron wrote the epilogue, and director Peter Jackson wrote the preface.

Video games

James Cameron's Avatar: The Game was released on December 1, 2009, for most home video game consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS), Microsoft Windows and December 8 for PSP. All versions are rated T by the ESRB.

Action figures

Mattel Toys announced in December 2009, that they are creating Avatar action figures. Each action figure will be made with a 3D web tag, called an i-TAG, where consumers can scan using a web cam, revealing unique on-screen content that is special to each specific action figure. A series of toys representing six different characters from the film are also being distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals.

External links

• Official website
• Official AVTR program website
• Avatar at IMDb
• Avatar at AllMovie
• Avatar at Rotten Tomatoes