Avatar

Though there are two movies with the name 'avatar', I mean James Cameron's Avatar. I'm not really interested in the Last Airbender movie (just found out about it anyway and it's not out yet).

I went to catch this movie a couple of weeks ago and I must say, it is truly impressive. Every single creature looks real, especially the humanoid Na'vi. The expressions one their face gives you the impression that they are real people.

Some people will likely be reminded of another equally impressive computer generated (CG) movie called Advent Children when they heard about Avatar. Though Advent Children and Avatar uses motion capture, the difference is what technology they used to get the same result.

For Advent Children, like most current games and CG movies, the 3D elements are added AFTER the motion capture. For Avatar, James Cameron developed a kind of virtual camera that enables him to see how the CG characters interact with their environment.

The actors also apparently had to wear a kind of cap with a camera that captured their facial expressions. This enables the camera to really capture the actor's performance. It makes the Na'vi feel truly alive... and not mere dolls like Beowulf.

[SPOILER]
The story for Avatar is pretty well written. James Cameron apparently wrote an 80-page script in two week. It's a slight twist to the usual alien invasion story in that humans are the invaders. They have advance space ships and vehicles that looks like a cross between a dragonfly and helicopters and mechs!

In the future, humans found a vast planet teeming with life and what do they do? Plunder the planet Pandora for it's rare minerals. Of course, the natives aren't taking all this very well. The planet's environment, though beautiful are deadly. In fact, even the air kills. The human scientists created Human-Na'vi hybrid shells called Avatars that they control from within machines that look like big iron lungs.

A cynical friend of mine managed to simplify the story to one line: "It's like Pocahontas in space".
[END SPOILER] 

I found out recently that in the Worldwide Box Office, Avatar is the 2nd highest grossing film in the world with $1,341,694,147. The first place is taken by a little known movie called Titanic (1997) with $1,835,300,000. And here's the kicker (if you didn't realize it already), both films were directed by James Cameron.


Wikipedia: Avatar (2009 film)