Avatar Film Analysis

1. The challenges that Cameron had were that when Cameron first thought of this movie about fifteen years ago was that the technology at that time could not actualize this film up to Cameron's expectations. Cameron knew that technology at that time would not look realistic and believable in creating the world of Pandora, integrating human and CG characters in a believable fashion. It seems that Cameron wanted to have this combination of CG and humans as a main part of the film to show more emotion, and especially wanted to show believable human emotion in the CG. Back in the 1990s, the time of the original concept, only animation could create somewhat convincing imaginary characters, but that would not mesh well with live action and animation for the entire movie would cause a great loss in audience. Cameron wanted technology that could bring the digital characters to life the same visual emotion and movement that had never been done before, integrating the actors into the visuals. Cameron needed to create his own technology to show hi-resolution compostitng, showing the background images with the characters in CG forms. Also, he had to develop technology that could capture the intricacies of the human expression and movement to show how very connected humans and Navi are even though they look differently; this could not be done with older fashioned CGI. Also, an issue involved in creating all of this technology is getting the funding to create it; Cameron had to find investers who were willing to invest a lot of money on a project that could fail, despite all of the money that went into it; this movie was a risk.

2. It was created by integrating much of know science and the state of today's society into the movie's world of Pandora. They used a solar system that was relatively close to ours to make the trip seem not all that improbable, even making the characters sleep cryogenically for five years. It seems that the creators of Pandora's attributes wanted it to be very different from earth, so that the similarities in behavior was accented in making the audience sympathetic with these very different humanoids. Even, it seems that they modeled much of Pandora after a prehistoric type of Earth, with pterodactyl-type birds and lush, green landscapes. This sort of shows how this world is pure, untouched by the greed that is not a part of Pandoran life, but can be in Earth life. They seemed to make it clear that Pandorans are symbiotically connected to their planet and that they knew that hurting it would be hurting themselves, not like humans. The air that humans cannot breathe makes Pandora a dangerous place for humans, showing how humans will risk their lives at times in greed, for unobtainium. Humans are clearly not welcomed by the atmosphere itself; they are only there to get what they want, not to develop relations with the Naa' vi. Pandora's name itself seems to be particular chosen to allude to the myth that a woman named Pandora was curious about a box she was told not to open, and thus unleashed all of the bad events and feelings into the world. Humans have entered Pandora, and have unleashed many problems onto themselves and the Naa' vi.

3. Performance capture is a lot more personal than motion capture is. Motion capture shows the general movement of a character in a moment, but does not connect the dialogue and the motion very well, not showing the subtlties of the performance as a whole. Performance capture, as in this movie, basically transforms an actor's performance into a digital character, as if that digital character is actually acting the scene. The dialgue and the movements are all in one in performance capture, creating a more realistic and well-acted chracter, unlike the separation of motion capture that distances one from the character and does not catch the same minute expressions in the face and such as performance capture does.

4. $150 million were spent on advertising this movie, consider to be a collassal amount. Some of the issues that News Corp has had in funding this movie was that its a big risk due to its huge pricetag; if this movie had flopped, it would hurt the company hugely. A considerable part of the initial money coming in from the movie tickets goes to the movie theatres, but the company can still make money from the rest of the ticket, DVD sales and merchandise. Also, part of the money has to go back to the investors. Another issue with the movie involves illegal reproductions, and cheeap rentals. News Corp is already weakened by the lack of newspaper advertisements in its main publications. The cost of the movie probably has, in my opinion, influenced the story of the movie; it has a common basic story that is proven to work through other movies like Pocahantas and such. Since this movie cost so much, the producers wanted a story that was proven to work, that was proven to make money, in order to reduce the risk of this movie flopping with so much money invested in it. It could not risk a story that might not work, for then all of that money would have been for no money in return.

5. I think that saying that the movie "identifies the profound spiritual bankruptcy that underlies our financial insolvency...and reminds us (to)... make new choices for the greatest good of all" is a slight bit of an overstatment, for the movie does show us effectively how trying to exploit the world for all that it is worth will only hurt a civilization; the Na'vi know this in contrast to the humans who hurt the Na'vi and themsleves in the process of exploiting Pandora's minerals. This is shown by the way that the Na'vi and humans both lost many lives and a part of their plans in the process of this movie; for the Na'vi their tree, for the humans their unobtainium. Even so, I think that since this plot is simmilar to movies in the past, it can only bring so much new insight into the topic of "spiritual bankruptcy" and "making new choices for the greater good". Avatar is limited by its cliches for since it is so simmilar to other plots, there is nothing that "sticks out" in particular about demonstating the themes, so the themes are not as memorable, in my opinion. An example of this is how Sully says "This is our land" after he has conquered the Turok and is calling the Na'vi to trust in him and work together to defeat the humans. This moment would be very touching if it had not been done in 300 ("This is Sparta!") as well as other movies; the issue is that this empowering call for union and trust to do what is right loses its power because it has been heard too many times before.

Also, as for there being a racist subtext, I think that is not really applied to this movie; yes, this movie does involve numerous white Americans going over and conquering a group of different looking people to exploit the land, but the movie is proving that this exploitation is wrong, that this is how people shouold not act in general. The Na'vi are portrayed as a relatively peaceful group of people who only fight because their land is in danger; this happens even between groups of people who look the same, such as the fights between Germany and France over Alsace-Loirrainne. Even so, that is not the point; this movie shows more how it is wrong to exploit a group of people for your needs, not considering theirs. It may be stereotypical, more so than completely racist, that the Na'vi are very tribal and based off of black actors, for often when Americans think of people being conquered, it is usually people of another race, as far as Western society goes. Of course, it makes sense that these people are tribal, for if they had had advanced technology, it would have been easier to defeat the powerful humans and their battleships. Also, these people are more connected to the land, like tribal people are generally attributed to be, more effectively showing the theme of the unbreakable connection between one and their environment. The only slightly racist thing may be that all the Na'vi had black actors and most of the humans were white; this is stereotypical, but I suppose the director used a bit of this physical difference between the actors just to further show how like blacks and whites, Na'vi and humans should treat each other more equally.