Review of Avatar 3D

Ever since the birth of film, directors have been trying to create a visual effect of 3D to intrigue and amaze the audience. In fact the story of 3D in movies is almost as old as movies them selves.

On january 25th 1896, the epic movie "L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat" (The Arrival of the Mail Train) was shown to a select audience. It consisted of a 50 second (!) long clip of a train rolling into a station and people walking on the station.


According to urban legend, the crowd in the audience, not having witnessed such moving images before, got into a state of panic as the train charged against them and promply ran out of the room. So in a way, the idea of 3D in movies has been present for over a century.

While the "golden age" of 3D movies was in the early 1950's, to me 3D outside of computergames has always represented something of the 80's or early 90's where all the cool kids would have a pair of specatcles like these:

Nothing makes you cooler than wearing cheap glases with differently colored lenses.

The idea of these 3D glasses (or anaglyph glasses for those of you out there interested of the correct name of them) was to look at pictures with red and blue layers separated from eachother so that the various lenses affected the vision presented by each eye, thus giving the illusion of depth in an otherwise very messy picture as the one presented bellow.


Now, I haven't seen a movie in such 3D (as far as I can remember) though from what I can recall, the images I tried looking at though 3D glasses did underwhelm me and I most likely thought that the glasses were cooler than the images.

Bear these glasses in mind when you continue to read this. Because it was these nostalgic but utter useless glasses that I had in mind when I went to see Avatar. My expectations were not high, to say the least and I expected to get a similarily cheap and rubbish pair of spectacles for the viewing of Avatar. Instead, this is what I got:

Goodbye 3D glasses of the past; hello 3D glasses of the present.

While not exactly the same as the glasses I got, those depicted above are very close. The package they came in had a cute little illustration on them that said that they shouldn't be used as sunglasses. Why anyone would actually want to go out in public wearing 3D glasses other than to a costume party or a LARP is unknown to me, but I guess that a disclaimer was needed for sue-issues.

So 3D glasses on, expectations low and scepticism high, the curtains to the big screen were pulled aside and the commercials and previews started. At first I got a bit dizzy from looking at non-3D through the 3D glasses. They weren't intended for that, granted, but that doesn't stop me from being a idiot. After a while the "please put on your 3D glasses" message appeared and all the cool kids did like they had back in the 80's and followed the instructions.

The first 3D commercial played this time around was a commercial for some car. I had seen the commercial on TV in 2D and I must say that I did see a difference. It felt like looking at one of those pop-up books, but in video form. While that was a bit fun, it wasn't overwhelmingly impressive.

But that was before the trailer that changed my view of it all and that took my scepticism, stomped on it and tossed it in the garbage to join my 3D glasses from the early 90's. Alice in Wonderland.

The Cheshire Cat came flying out of the screen towards me and in ways it was like seing a glimpse of what they must have felt back in 1896 when the train came rushing towards them. It was impressive.

I can't help but feel that the Cheshire Cat stole part of the show. That segment of the trailer for Alice was the most impressive 3D effect I witnessed that evening; or at least the one that left the biggest impression on my memory. Then again, it was also the first 3D effect I saw that really worked so that is probably why; it's not like Avatar was without awesome 3D effects, not at all, it's just that the Cheshire Cat was first.

So after having all my initial scepticism blown away by a grinning cat, the movie started.

Avatar is about the alien world called Pandora and how humans have travelled there and found it to be rich with the valuable mineral unobtainium. Problem is that the ground the unobtainium lies under is home to and sacred ground of the natives of Pandora, the Na'vi.

The Na'vi, are blue-skinned humanoids with cat-like features whom are longer and stronger than humans. In order to try and communicate with the Na'vi, the humans have started a project where they control Na'vi bodies modified with human DNA (pretty much like a remote controlled Na'vi) called Avatars.

Jake Sully, the main character of the movie was chosen to pilot one of the Avatars since his brother, who was supposed to pilot it, died.

After being chased by a beast and getting lost in the woods of Pandora, Jake Sully's Avatar stumbles upon the female Na'vi Neytiri who, instead of killing him saves him since she got a sign from Eywa, the Na'vi deity. (Pretty much mother nature.)

Jake Sully becomes a part of the Na'vi culture and gets to learn of their ways and culture. He reports back to the military chief of command Colonel Miles Quaritch and gives them vital information about how to attack the Na'vi, should the eventually refuse to move away from the unobtainium deposits.

Jake gradually learns the Na'vi way of life and also falls in love with Neytiri and thus switches sides in the conflict. However, the humans attack the Na'vi and force them to flee. The Na'vi, furious over Jake's betrayal, more or less excluded him from the clan.

After taming a beast that only five people has every managed to tame before since like forever, Jake manages to win back the trust of the overly impressed Na'vi. Under his command, they manage to defeat the humans and send them back home. Yay.

Oh, and Jake becomes a Na'vi due to magic.

For a longer description of the story of Avatar, read the plot section on Wikipedia.

Many people have been discussing how the movie is similar to Pocahontas or Ferngully. While I have not seen Pocahontas (*gasp*), the similarities to Ferngully did appear in my head too. From what I can tell though, Avatar is pretty similiar to Pocahontas:
+ Show Spoiler +

For all of you who might know the premise of Ferngully, it's pretty much that of humans trying to cut down a rainforest but are stopped by the faeries whom inhabit the forest together with a human that one of the faeries shrunk down to her size and whom had learned the faerie way of life.

The Nostalgia Critic and the Nostalgia Chick did a joint review of that movie that sums it up very nicely. It can be found here.

While Ferngully did appear in my mind there was one other thing that appeared in my mind and that did so way before I thought of Ferngully. Stargate.

I will admit that I haven't seen that much Stargate nor do I know much about that series, but I have seen the episode called Enemy Mine.

Enemy Mine can pretty much be summed up in:
"Humans want rare mineral from alien planet. The mineral is located in a mine that is sacred to the alien race that lives on the planet and who pretty much only have sticks and stones to defend themselves with. One of the members of the human exploration team tries to talk with the natives to make them move. They don't. Humans use their superior weaponry in an atempt to defeat the natives. The natives defeat the humans who are forced to surrender and find another solution."

The similarities are rather evident.

In addition to being very similar to the movies/series mentioned above, the story of Avatar is extremely predictable. There wasn't much that surprised me in the movie when it came to plot (part from the fact that the main character was handicapped) and all the characters were extremely stereotypical.

In other words, the story is not a main selling point of Avatar.

So what do I think of Avatar? As stated the story isn't original at all. The characters are pretty standard too and the plot is very, very predictable.

...but it works. It really works. Despite being so long, the only time that I felt that the movie was too long was when they exagurated the action towards the end.

Avatar 3D might not be the deepest or most original movie ever made (understatement of the year?) but it is beautiful. If taken as a visual experience, Avatar does not disappoint.

So my recommendation is: go see Avatar in 3D now. I predict that the future will remember it as a pioneering movie of new 3D effects, but as nothing more than that. In other words go see it while it's fresh. It won't be worth watching five or ten years from now.