| Avatar | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | James Cameron |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | James Cameron |
| Starring | |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | Mauro Fiore |
| Editing by |
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| Studio |
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| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) |
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| Running time | 162 minutes[1] 171 minutes (re-release)[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $237 million[3] $9 million+ (re-release)[2] |
| Box office | $2,782,275,172[4][5] |
Avatar (2009 film)
Avatar is a 2009 American[6][7] epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system.[8][9][10] The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi—a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body with the mind of a remotely located human, and is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.[11]Development of Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the film.[12][13] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999,[14] but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film.[15] Work on the language of the film's extraterrestrial beings began in summer 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006.[16][17] Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million.[3] Other estimates put the cost between $280 million and $310 million for production and at $150 million for promotion.[18][19][20] The film made extensive use of cutting edge motion capture filming techniques, and was released for traditional viewing, 3-D viewing (using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats), and for "4-D" experiences in select South Korean theaters.[21] The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a breakthrough in cinematic technology.[22]
Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was internationally released on December 16 and in the United States and Canada on December 18, to critical acclaim[23][24] and commercial success.[25][26][27] The film broke several box office records during its release and became the highest-grossing film of all time in North America[28] and worldwide, surpassing Titanic, which had held the records for the previous twelve years.[29] It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion.[30] Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director,[31] and won three, for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction. The film's home release went on to break opening sales records and became the top-selling Blu-ray of all time. Following the film's success, Cameron signed with 20th Century Fox to produce two sequels, making Avatar the first of a planned trilogy.[32]
Plot
By 2148, humans have severely depleted Earth's natural resources. In 2154, the RDA Corporation mines for a valuable mineral—unobtanium—on Pandora, a densely forested habitable moon of the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system.[10] Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, 10-foot (3.0 m)-tall, blue-skinned, sapient humanoids[33] who live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa.To explore Pandora's biosphere, scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars", operated by genetically matched humans; Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine, replaces his deceased twin brother as an operator of one. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement and assigns him as a bodyguard. While protecting the avatars of Grace and scientist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) as they collect biological data, Jake's avatar is attacked by a thanator and flees into the forest, where he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'vi. Upon sight of an auspicious portent, she takes him to her clan, whereupon Neytiri's mother Mo'at (C. C. H. Pounder), the clan's spiritual leader, orders her daughter to initiate Jake into their society.
Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), head of RDA's private security force, promises Jake that the company will restore his legs if he gathers intelligence about the Na'vi and the clan's gathering place, a giant arboreal called Hometree,[34] on grounds that it stands above the richest deposit of unobtanium in the area. When Grace learns of this, she transfers herself, Jake, and Norm to an outpost. Over three months, Jake grows to sympathize with the natives. After Jake is initiated into the tribe, he and Neytiri choose each other as mates, and soon afterward, Jake reveals his change of allegiance when he attempts to disable a bulldozer that threatens to destroy a sacred Na'vi site. When Quaritch shows a video recording of Jake's attack on the bulldozer to Administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi),[35] and another in which Jake admits that the Na'vi will never abandon Hometree, Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed.
Despite Grace's argument that destroying Hometree could damage the biological neural network native to Pandora, Selfridge gives Jake and Grace one final chance to convince the Na'vi to evacuate before commencing the attack. While trying to warn the Na'vi, Jake confesses to being a spy and the Na'vi take him and Grace captive. Seeing this, Quaritch's forces destroy Hometree, killing Neytiri's father (the clan chief) and many others. Mo'at frees Jake and Grace, but they are detached from their avatars and imprisoned by Quaritch's forces. Pilot Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez), disgusted by Quaritch's brutality, carries them to Grace's outpost, but during the escape, Quaritch gravely injures Grace.
To regain the Na'vi's trust, Jake connects his mind to that of Toruk, a dragon-like predator feared and honoured in Na'vi history. Thus connected, Jake finds the refugees at the sacred Tree of Souls and pleads with Mo'at to heal Grace. The clan attempts to transfer Grace from her human body into her avatar with the aid of the Tree, but she succumbs to her injuries before the process can complete.
Supported by the new chief Tsu'tey (Laz Alonso), who acts as Jake's translator, Jake speaks to unite the clan and tells them to gather other clans for battle against the RDA. Having noticed this convention, Quaritch organizes a pre-emptive strike against the Tree of Souls, believing that its destruction will demoralize the natives. On the eve of battle, Jake prays to Eywa, via a neural connection to the Tree of Souls, to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi.
During the subsequent battle, the Na'vi suffer heavy casualties, including Tsu'tey and Trudy; but are rescued when Pandoran wildlife unexpectedly join the attack and overwhelm the humans, which Neytiri interprets as Eywa's answer to Jake's prayer. Jake destroys a makeshift bomber before it can reach the Tree of Souls; whereupon Quaritch dons an AMP suit and breaches the avatar link unit containing Jake's human body, exposing Jake to Pandora's poisonous atmosphere. Quaritch then prepares to slit the throat of Jake's avatar, but Neytiri kills Quaritch and saves Jake from suffocation.
With the exceptions of Jake, Norm, Max and several other scientists, all humans are expelled from Pandora and sent back to Earth, whereafter Jake is transferred entirely into his avatar with the aid of the Tree.
Production
Origins
In 1994,[13] director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for Avatar, drawing inspiration from "every single science fiction book" he had read in his childhood as well as from adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard.[12] In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of synthetic, or computer-generated, actors.[15] 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".[52] Visual 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.[14] However, Cameron felt that the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that he intended to tell. He decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years. It was revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox executives in October 2005.[53]In February 2006, Cameron revealed that his film Project 880 was "a retooled version of Avatar", a film that he had tried to make years earlier,[54] citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters Gollum, King Kong, and Davy Jones.[12] Cameron had chosen Avatar over his project Battle Angel after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year.[55]
Themes and inspirations
Main article: Themes in Avatar
Avatar is primarily an action-adventure journey of self-discovery, in the context of imperialism and deep ecology.[67]
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's John Carter series.[38] The director has acknowledged that Avatar shares themes with the films At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Emerald Forest, and Princess Mononoke, which feature clashes between cultures and civilizations, and with Dances With Wolves, where a battered soldier finds himself drawn to the culture he was initially fighting against.[68][69]In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, Cameron was asked about the meaning of the term Avatar, to which he replied, "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."[11]
For the love story between characters Jake and Neytiri, Cameron applied a star-crossed love theme, and acknowledged its similarity to the pairing of Jack and Rose from his film Titanic. Both couples come from radically different cultures that are contemptuous of their relationship and are forced to choose sides between the competing communities.[72] He felt that whether or not the Jake and Neytiri love story would be perceived as believable partially hinged on the physical attractiveness of Neytiri's alien appearance, which was developed by considering her appeal to the all-male crew of artists.[73] Though Cameron felt Jake and Neytiri do not fall in love right away, their portrayers (Worthington and Saldana) felt the characters do. Cameron said the two actors "had a great chemistry" during filming.[72]
To create the interiors of the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux[77] oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico during June 2007. They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the platform, which was later replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI during post-production.[78]
Cameron said that he wanted to make "something that has this spoonful of sugar of all the action and the adventure and all that" but also have 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 that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans "represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future".[79]
Cameron acknowledges that Avatar implicitly criticizes the United States' role in the Iraq War and the impersonal nature of mechanized warfare in general. In reference to the use of the term shock and awe in the film, Cameron said, "We know what it feels like to launch the missiles. We don't know what it feels like for them to land on our home soil, not in America."[80] He said in later interviews, "... I think it's very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled ..."[81] and, "The film is definitely not anti-American."[82] A scene in the film portrays the violent destruction of the towering Na'vi Hometree, which collapses in flames after a missile attack, coating the landscape with ash and floating embers. Asked about the scene's resemblance to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Cameron said he had been "surprised at how much it did look like September 11".[80]
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