Avatar the award winning movie
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,[21] and was released for traditional viewing, 3D viewing (using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats), and for "4D" experiences in select South Korean theaters.[22] The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a breakthrough in cinematic tec hnology.[23]
Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was internationally released on December 16 and in the United States and Canada onDecember 18, to positive critical reviews and commercial success.[24][25][26] During its theatrical run, the film broke several box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time, as well as in the United States and Canada,[27] surpassing Titanic, which had held those records for twelve years.[28] It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion.[29] Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director,[30] 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 Foxto produce two sequels, making Avatar the first of a planned trilogy.[31]
By 2154, humans have severely depleted Earth's natural resources. The Resources Development Administration (RDA) mines for a valuable mineral—unobtanium—on Pandora, a densely forested habitable moon orbiting 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[32] 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. Witnessing 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,[33] 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 anoutpost. 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),[34] 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 men 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 fires at them, hitting Grace.
To regain the Na'vi's trust, Jake connects his mind to that of Toruk, a dragon-like predator feared and honoured by the Na'vi. 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 of Souls, but she dies 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 all of the clans to battle against the RDA. Noticing the impending gathering, 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; Quaritch escapes from the crashing bomber, wearing an AMP suitand breaks open the avatar link unit containing Jake's human body, exposing it 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, after which Jake is transferred permanently into his avatar with the aid of the Tree of Souls.
Cast
Further information: Fictional universe of Avatar
Humans
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a disabled former Marine who becomes part of the Avatar Program after his twin brother is killed. His military background helps the Na'vi warriors relate to him. Cameron cast the Australian actor after a worldwide search for promising young actors, preferring relative unknowns to keep the budget down.[35] Worthington, who was living in his car at the time,[36] auditioned twice early in development,[37] and he has signed on for possible sequels.[38] Cameron felt that because Worthington had not done a major film, he would give the character "a quality that is really real". Cameron said 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".[39]
Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch, the head of the mining operation's security detail. Fiercely loyal to his military code, he has a profound disregard for Pandora's inhabitants that is evident in both his actions and his language. Lang had unsuccessfully auditioned for a role in Cameron's Aliens (1986), but the director remembered Lang and sought him for Avatar.[40]Michael Biehn, who was in Aliens, read the script and watched some of the 3-D footage with Cameron,[41] but was ultimately not cast in the role.
Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine, an exobiologist and head of the Avatar Program. She mentors Sully and is an advocate of peaceful relations with the Na'vi, having set up a school to teach them English.[42]
Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacón, a combat pilot assigned to support the Avatar Program who is sympathetic to the Na'vi. Cameron had wanted to work with Rodriguez since seeing her inGirlfight.[40]
Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, the corporate administrator for the RDA mining operation.[43] While he is at first willing to destroy the Na'vi civilization to preserve the company's bottom line, he is reluctant to authorize the attacks on the Na'vi, doing so only after Quaritch persuades him that it is necessary, and the attacks will be humane. When the attacks are broadcast to the base, Selfridge displays discomfort at the violence.
Joel David Moore as Dr. Norm Spellman, a xenoanthropologist[44] who studies plant and animal life as part of the Avatar Program.[45] He arrives on Pandora at the same time as Sully and operates an avatar. Although he is expected to lead the diplomatic contact with the Na'vi, it turns out that Jake has the personality better suited to win the natives' respect.
Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel, a scientist who works in the Avatar Program and comes to support Jake's rebellion against the RDA.[46]
Na'vi
Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, the daughter of the leader of the Omaticaya (the Na'vi clan central to the story). She is attracted to Jake because of his bravery, though frustrated with him for what she sees as his naiveté and stupidity. She serves as Jake's love interest.[47] The character, like all the Na'vi, was created using performance capture, and its visual aspect is entirely computer generated.[48] Saldana has also signed on for potential sequels.[49]
C. C. H. Pounder as Mo'at, the Omaticaya's spiritual leader, Neytiri's mother, and consort to clan leader Eytukan.[50]
Wes Studi as Eytukan, the Omaticaya's clan leader, Neytiri's father, and Mo'at's mate.
Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey, the finest warrior of the Omaticaya. He is heir to the chieftainship of the tribe. At the beginning of the film's story, he is betrothed to Neytiri.
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, orcomputer-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".[51] 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 inOctober 2005.[52]
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,[53] 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.[54]
Development
Wikinews has related news:Elvish, Klingon and Na'vi: Constructed languages gain foothold in film
From January to April 2006, Cameron worked on the script and developed a culture for the film's aliens, the Na'vi. Their language was created by Dr.Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC.[12] The Na'vi language has a vocabulary of about 1000 words, with some 30 added by Cameron. The tongue'sphonemes include ejective consonants (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.[17] Actress Sigourney Weaver and the film's set designers met with Jodie S. Holt, professor of plant physiology at University of California, Riverside, to learn about the methods used by botanists to study and sample plants, and to discuss ways to explain the communication between Pandora'sorganisms depicted in the film.[55]
From 2005 to 2007, Cameron worked with a handful of designers, including famed fantasy illustrator Wayne Barlowe and renowned concept artist Jordu Schell, to shape the design of the Na'vi with paintings and physical sculptures when Cameron felt that 3-D brush renderings were not capturing his vision,[56] often working together in the kitchen of Cameron's Malibu home.[57] In July 2006, Cameron announced that he would film Avatar for a mid 2008 release and planned to begin principal photography with an established cast by February 2007.[58] The following August, the visual effects studio Weta Digital signed on to help Cameron produce Avatar.[59] Stan Winston, who had collaborated with Cameron in the past, joined Avatar to help with the film's designs.[60]Production design for the film took several years. The film had two different production designers, and two separate art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora, and another that created human machines and human factors.[61] 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.[62]
Fox was wavering because of its painful experience with cost overruns and delays on Cameron's previous picture, Titanic, even though Cameron rewrote Avatar's script to combine several characters together and offered to cut his fee in case the film flopped.[52] Cameron installed a traffic light with the amber signal lit outside of co-producer Jon Landau's office to represent the film's uncertain future.[52] In mid-2006, Fox told Cameron "in no uncertain terms that they were passing on this film," so he began shopping it around to other studios, and showed his proof-of-concept toDick Cook (then chairman of the Walt Disney Studios).[52] However, when Disney attempted to take over, Fox exercised its right of first refusal.[52] In October 2006, Fox finally agreed to commit to making Avatar after Ingenious Media agreed to back the film, which reduced Fox's financial exposure to less than half of the film's official $237 million budget.[52] After Fox accepted Avatar, one skeptical Fox executive shook his head and told Cameron and Landau, "I don't know if we're crazier for letting you do this, or if you're crazier for thinking you can do this ..."[63]
External audio
James Cameron interviewed by F. X. Feeney on writing Avatar.
Interview, from here[64]
In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as "a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence ... an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling".[65] The January 2007 press release described the film as "an emotional journey of redemption and revolution" and said the story is of "a wounded former Marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival". The story would be of an entire world complete with an ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and native people with a rich culture and language.[49]
Estimates put the cost of the film at about $280–310 million to produce and an estimated $150 million for marketing, noting that about $30 million intax credits will lessen the financial impact on the studio and its financiers.[18][19][20] A studio spokesperson said that the budget was "$237 million, with $150 million for promotion, end of story."[3]
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.[66] 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 and the deep jungles of Pandora were visualized from Disney's 37th animated film,Tarzan.[37] 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.[67][68]
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]
Jake's avatar and Neytiri. One of the inspirations for the look of the Na'vi came from a dream that Cameron's mother had told him about.[66]
The look of the Na'vi—the humanoids indigenous to Pandora—was inspired by a dream that Cameron's mother had, long before he started work onAvatar. In her dream, she saw a blue-skinned woman 12 feet (4 m) tall, which he thought was "kind of a cool image".[66] Also he said, "I just like blue. It's a good color ... plus, there's a connection to the Hindu deities,[69] which I like conceptually."[70] He included similar creatures in his first screenplay (written in 1976 or 1977), which featured a planet with a native population of "gorgeous" tall blue aliens. The Na'vi were based on them.[66]
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.[71] 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.[72] 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.[71]
Pandora's floating "Hallelujah Mountains" were inspired in part by the Chinese Huang Shan mountains (pictured).[73]
For the film's floating "Hallelujah Mountains", the designers drew inspiration from "many different types of mountains, but mainly the karst limestone formations in China."[74] According to production designer Dylan Cole, the fictional floating rocks were inspired by Mount Huang (also known as Huangshan), Guilin, Zhangjiajie, among others around the world.[74]Director Cameron had noted the influence of the Chinese peaks on the design of the floating mountains.[75]
To create the interiors of the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux[76] 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.[77]
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".[78]
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 termshock 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."[79] He said in later interviews, "... I think it's very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled ..."[80] and, "The film is definitely not anti-American."[81] 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".[79]
Filming
Principal photography for Avatar began in April 2007 in Los Angeles and Wellington, New Zealand. 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.[82] The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3-D Fusion Camera System, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace.[83] In January 2007, Fox had announced that 3-D filming for Avatar would be done at 24 frames per second despite Cameron's strong opinion that a 3-D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable.[84] According to Cameron, the film is composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional miniatures.[85]
Motion-capture photography lasted 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista in Los Angeles.[54][86] Live action photography began in October 2007 at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand, and was scheduled to last 31 days.[87] More than a thousand people worked on the production.[86] In preparation of the filming sequences, all of the actors underwent professional training specific to their characters such as archery, horseback riding, firearm use, and hand-to-hand combat. They received language and dialect training in the Na'vi language created for the film.[88] Before shooting the film, Cameron also sent the cast to the Hawaiian tropical rainforests[89] to get a feel for a rainforest setting before shooting on the soundstage.[88]
During filming, Cameron made use of his virtual camera system, a new way of directing motion-capture filmmaking. The system shows the actors' virtual counterparts in their digital surroundings in real time, allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. According to Cameron, "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."[90] Using conventional techniques, the complete virtual world cannot be seen until the motion-capture of the actors is complete. Cameron said this process does not diminish the value or importance of acting. On the contrary, because there is no need for repeated camera and lighting setups, costume fittings and make-up touch-ups, scenes do not need to be interrupted repeatedly.[91] Cameron described the system as a "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".[92]
Cameron gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology.[65] Spielberg said, "I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation ... Motion capture brings the director back to a kind of intimacy that actors and directors only know when they're working in live theater."[91] Spielberg and George Lucas were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.[93]
To film the shots where CGI interacts with live action, a unique camera referred to as a "simulcam" was used, a merger of the 3-D fusion camera and the virtual camera systems. While filming live action in real time with the simulcam, the CGI images captured with the virtual camera or designed from scratch, are superimposed over the live action images as in augmented reality and shown on a small monitor, making it possible for the director to instruct the actors how to relate to the virtual material in the scene.[88]
Visual effects
Cameron pioneered a specially designed camera built into a 6-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured and digitally recorded for the animators to use later.[94]
A number of innovative visual effects techniques were used in the production of Avatar. According to Cameron, work on the film had been delayed since the 1990s to allow the techniques to reach the necessary degree of advancement to adequately portray his vision of the film.[14][15] The director planned to make use of photorealistic computer-generated characters, created using new motion-capture animation technologies he had been developing in the 14 months leading up to December 2006.[90]
Innovations include a new system for lighting massive areas like Pandora's jungle,[95] a motion-capture stage or "volume" six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture. To achieve the face capturing, actors wore individually made skull caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors' faces; the information collected about their facial expressions and eyes is then transmitted to computers.[96] According to Cameron, the method allows the filmmakers to transfer 100% of the actors' physical performances to their digital counterparts.[97] Besides the performance capture data which were transferred directly to the computers, numerous reference cameras gave the digital artists multiple angles of each performance.[98] A technically challenging scene was near the end of the film when the computer-generated Neytiri held the live action Jake in human form, and attention was given to the details of the shadows and reflected light between them.[99]
The lead visual effects company was Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, at one point employing 900 people to work on the film.[100] Because of the huge amount of data which needed to be stored, cataloged and available for everybody involved, even on the other side of the world, a new cloud computing and Digital Asset Management (DAM) system named Gaia was created by Microsoft especially for Avatar, which allowed the crews to keep track of and coordinate all stages in the digital processing.[101] To render Avatar, Weta used a 10,000 sq ft (930 m2) server farmmaking use of 4,000 Hewlett-Packard servers with 35,000 processor cores running Ubuntu Linux and the Grid Engine cluster manager.[102][103][104] The render farm occupies the 193rd to 197th spots in the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. A new texturing and paint software system, called Mari, was developed by The Foundry in cooperation with Weta.[105][106]Creating the Na'vi characters and the virtual world of Pandora required over a petabyte of digital storage,[107] and each minute of the final footage for Avatar occupies 17.28 gigabytes of storage.[108] To help finish preparing the special effects sequences on time, a number of other companies were brought on board, including Industrial Light & Magic, which worked alongside Weta Digital to create the battle sequences. ILM was responsible for the visual effects for many of the film's specialized vehicles and devised a new way to make CGI explosions.[109] Joe Letteri was the film's visual effects general supervisor.[110]
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.[111] Horner recorded parts of the score with a small chorus singing in the alien language Na'vi in March 2008.[112] He also worked with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race.[113] The first scoring sessions were planned to take place in spring 2009.[114] During production, Horner promised Cameron that he would not work on any other project except for Avatar and reportedly worked on the score from four in the morning till ten at night throughout the process. He stated in an interview, "Avatar has been the most difficult film I have worked on and the biggest job I have undertaken."[115] Horner composed the score as two different scores merged into one. He first created a score that reflected the Na'vi way of sound and then combined it with a separate "traditional" score to drive the film.[88] British singer Leona Lewis was chosen to sing the theme song for the film, called "I See You". An accompanying music video, directed by Jake Nava, premiered December 15, 2009, on MySpace.[116]
Marketing
Promotions
Cameron at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con promoting the film
The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009,[117] and Empire magazine released exclusive images from the film in its October issue.[118]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. Twenty-five minutes of footage was screened[119] in Dolby 3D.[120] Weaver and Cameron appeared at additional panels to promote the film, speaking on the 23rd[121] and 24th[122] 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.[123]
The 129-second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009.[124] The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on October 23, 2009, then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews.[125][126] An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews.[124] 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.[127] The teaser has been among the most viewed trailers in the history of film marketing, reaching the first place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views.[128] On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3-D cinema in Vietnam, Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen exclusive 16 minutes of Avatar to a number of press.[129] The three-and-a-half-minute trailer of the film premiered live on November 1, 2009, during aDallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on the Diamond Vision screen, one of the world's largest video displays, and to TV audiences viewing the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.[130]
The Coca-Cola Company collaborated with Twentieth Century Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact with the website's 3-D features using augmented reality (AR) technology.[131] The film was heavily 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.[132] A week prior to the American release, Zoe Saldana promoted the film on Adult Swim when she was interviewed by an animated Space Ghost.[133]
McDonald's had a promotion mentioned in television commercials in Europe called "Avatarize yourself", which encouraged people to go to the website set up by Oddcast, and use a photograph of themselves to change into a Na'vi.[134]
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 byHarper Entertainment on November 24, 2009.[135] 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.[136] The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure was released onNovember 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 Jon Landau wrote the foreword, Cameron wrote the epilogue, and director Peter Jackson wrote the preface.[137] In October 2010, Abrams Books also released The Making of Avatar, a 272-page book that detailed the film's production process and contains over 500 color photographs and illustrations.[138]
In a 2009 interview, Cameron said that he planned to write a novel version of Avatar after the film was released.[139] In February 2010, producer Jon Landau stated that Cameron plans a prequel novel for Avatar that will "lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with", saying that "Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things".[140]
Video games
Main article: James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
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.[141] James Cameron's Avatar: The Game was released on December 1, 2009,[142] for most home video game consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone), Microsoft Windows and December 8 for PSP.
Action figures and postage stamps
Mattel Toys announced in December 2009 that it would be introducing a line of Avatar action figures.[143][144] Each action figure will be made with a 3-D web tag, called an i-TAG, that consumers can scan using a web cam, revealing unique on-screen content that is special to each specific action figure.[143] A series of toys representing six different characters from the film were also distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the United States and Venezuela.[145]
In December 2009, France Post released a special limited edition stamp based on Avatar, coinciding with the film's worldwide release.[146]
Release
Initial screening
Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was released theatrically worldwide from December 16 to 18.[147] The film was originally set for release on May 22, 2009, during filming,[148] but was pushed back to allow more post-production time (the last shots were delivered in November),[95] and to give more time for theatres worldwide to install 3D projectors.[149]Cameron stated that the film's aspect ratio would be 1.78:1 for 3D screenings and that a 2.39:1 image would be extracted for 2D screenings.[150] However, a 3D 2.39:1 extract was approved for use with constant-image-height screens (i.e. screens which increase in width to display 2.39:1 films).[151] During a 3D preview showing in Germany on December 16, the movie's DRM 'protection' system failed, and some copies delivered could not be watched at all in the theaters. The problems were fixed in time for the public premiere, however.[152] Avatar was released in a total of 3,457 theatres in the US, of which 2,032 theatres ran it in 3D. In total 90% of all advance ticket sales for Avatar were for 3D screenings.[153]
Internationally, Avatar opened on a total of 14,604 screens in 106 territories, of which 3,671 were showing the film in 3D (producing 56% of the first weekend gross).[154][155] The film was simultaneously presented in IMAX 3D format, opening in 178 theaters in the United States on December 18. The international IMAX release included 58 theaters beginning on December 16, and 25 more theaters were to be added in the coming weeks.[156] The IMAX release was the company's widest to date, a total of 261 theaters worldwide. The previous IMAX record opening was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened in 161 IMAX theatres in the US, and about 70 international.[157] 20th Century Fox Korea adapted and later released Avatar in 4D version, which included "moving seats, smells of explosives, sprinkling water, laser lights and wind".[22]
Box office
General
Main article: List of box office records set by Avatar
Avatar released internationally in more than 14,000 screens.[158] Avatar earned $3,537,000 from midnight screenings domestically (United States and Canada), with the initial 3D release limited to 2,200 screens.[159] The film earned $26,752,099 on its opening day, and $77,025,481 over its opening weekend, making it the second largest December opening ever behind I Am Legend,[4][25]the largest domestic opening weekend for a film not based on a franchise (topping The Incredibles), the highest opening weekend for a film entirely in 3D (breaking Up's record),[160] the highest opening weekend for an environmentalist film (breaking The Day After Tomorrow's record),[161] and the 40th largest opening weekend in North America,[4] despite a blizzard which blanketed theEast Coast of the United States and reportedly hurt its opening weekend results.[18][25][26] The film also set an IMAX opening weekend record, with 178 theaters generating approximately $9.5 million, 12% of the film's $77 million (at the time) North American gross on less than 3% of the screens.[156]
International markets generating opening weekend tallies of at least $10 million were Russia ($19.7 million), France ($17.4 million), the UK ($13.8 million), Germany ($13.3 million), South Korea ($11.7 million), Australia ($11.5 million) and Spain ($11.0 million).[162] Avatar's worldwide gross was US$241.6 million after five days, the ninth largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film.[163] 58 international IMAX screens generated an estimated $4.1 million during the opening weekend.[156]
Revenues in the film's second weekend decreased by only 1.8% in domestic markets, marking a rare occurrence,[164] earning $75,617,183, to remain in first place at the box office[165] and recording the biggest second weekend of all time[166] (since surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers).[167] The film experienced another marginal decrease in revenue in its third weekend, dropping 9.4% to $68,490,688 domestically, remaining in first place at the box office,[168] to set a third-weekend record.[169]
Avatar crossed the $1 billion mark on the 19th day of its international release, making it the first film to reach this mark in only 19 days[170] (a record now matched by both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in 2011 and Marvel's The Avengers in 2012).[171] It became the fifth film gross more than $1 billion worldwide, and the only film of 2009 to do so.[172] In its fourth weekend,Avatar continued to lead the box office domestically, setting a new all-time fourth-weekend record of $50,306,217,[173] and becoming the highest-grossing 2009 release in the United States.[174] In the film's fifth weekend, it set the Martin Luther King Day four-day weekend record, grossing $54,401,446,[175] and set a fifth-weekend record with a take of $42,785,612.[176] It held to the top spot to set the sixth and seventh weekend records earning $34,944,081[177] and $31,280,029[178] respectively. It was (and still is) the fastest film to gross $600 million domestically, on its 47th day in theatres.[179]
On January 31, it became the first film to earn over $2 billion worldwide,[180] and it became the first film to gross over $700 million in North America, on February 27, after 72 days of release.[181]However, after inflation adjustment, the movie falls to fourteenth on the all-time box office list.[182] It remained in the number one spot at the domestic box office for seven consecutive weeks—the most consecutive No. 1 weekends since Titanic spent 15 weekends at No. 1 in 1997–'98[183]—and also spent 11 consecutive weekends at the top of the box office outside the United States and Canada, breaking the record of 9 consecutive weekends set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.[184] By the end of its first theatrical release Avatar had grossed $749,766,139 in the U.S. and Canada, and $1,999,298,189 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $2,749,064,328.[4]
Including the revenue from a re-release of Avatar featuring extended footage, Avatar grossed $760,507,625 in the U.S. and Canada, and $2,021,767,547 in other territories for a worldwide total of $2,782,275,172[4][5] with 72.7% of its total worldwide gross in international markets.[4][5] Avatar has set a number of box office records during its release: on January 25, 2010, it surpassedTitanic's worldwide gross to become the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide 41 days after its international release,[185][186][187] just two days after taking the foreign box office record,[188]and on February 2, 47 days after its domestic release, Avatar surpassed Titanic to become the highest-grossing film of all time in Canada and the United States.[189] It became the highest-grossing film of all time in at least 30 other countries[190][191][192][193][194][195] and is the first film to earn over $2 billion in foreign box office receipts.[28] IMAX ticket sales account for $228 million of its worldwide gross,[196] more than double the previous record.[197]
Box Office Mojo estimates that after adjusting for the rise in average ticket prices, Avatar would be the 14th-highest-grossing film of all time in North America.[198] Box Office Mojo also observes that the higher ticket prices for 3D and IMAX screenings have had a significant impact on Avatar's gross; it estimated, on April 21, 2010, that Avatar had sold approximately 75 million tickets in North American theatres, more than any other film since 1999's Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.[199] On a worldwide basis, Avatar ranks third after adjusting for inflation, behind Gone with the Wind and Titanic,[200] although some reports place it ahead of Titanic.[201]
Commercial analysis
Before its release, various film critics and fan communities predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, in line with predictions made for Cameron's previous blockbuster Titanic.[202][203][204] This criticism ranged from Avatar's film budget, to its concept and use of 3-D "blue cat people".[202][203] Slate magazine's Daniel Engber complimented the 3D effects, but criticized them for reminding him of certain CGI characters from the Star Wars prequel films and for having the "uncanny valley" effect.[205] The New York Times noted that 20th Century Fox executives had decided to release Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel alongside Avatar, calling it a "secret weapon" to cover any unforeseeable losses at the box-office.[206]
"I think if everybody was embracing the film before the fact, the film could never live up to that expectation ... Have them go with some sense of wanting to find the answer."
—James Cameron on criticism of Avatar before its release.[203]
Box office analysts, on the other hand, estimated that the film would be a box office success.[207][202] "The holy grail of 3-D has finally arrived," said an analyst for Exhibitor Relations. "This is why all these 3-D venues were built: for Avatar. This is the one. The behemoth."[207] The "cautionary estimate" was that Avatar would bring in around $60 million in its opening weekend. Others guessed higher.[207][208] There were also analysts who believed that the film's three-dimensionality would help its box office performance, given that recent 3D films had been successful.[202]
Cameron said he felt the pressure of the predictions, but that pressure is good for film-makers. "It makes us think about our audiences and what the audience wants," he stated. "We owe them a good time. We owe them a piece of good entertainment."[203] Although he felt Avatar would appeal to everyone and that the film could not afford to have a target demographic,[203] he especially wanted hard-core science-fiction fans to see it: "If I can just get 'em in the damn theater, the film will act on them in the way it's supposed to, in terms of taking them on an amazing journey and giving them this rich emotional experience."[209] Cameron was aware of the sentiment that Avatar would need significant "repeat business" just to make up for its budget and achieve box office success, and believed Avatar could inspire the same "sharing" reaction as Titanic. He said that the film worked because, "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it. They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life."[203]
After the film's release and unusually strong box office performance over its first two weeks, it was debated as the one film capable of surpassing Titanic's worldwide gross, and its continued strength perplexed box office analysts.[210] Other films in recent years had been cited as contenders for surpassing Titanic, such as 2008's The Dark Knight,[211] but Avatar was considered the first film with a genuine chance to do so, and its numbers being aided by higher ticket prices for 3D screenings[210] did not fully explain its success to box office analysts. "Most films are considered to be healthy if they manage anything less than a 50% drop from their first weekend to their second. Dipping just 11% from the first to the third is unheard of," relayed Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office analysis for Hollywood.com. "This is just unprecedented," he said. "I had to do a double take. I thought it was a miscalculation."[164] Analysts predicted second place for the film's worldwide gross, but most were uncertain about it surpassing Titanic because "Today's films flame out much faster than they did when Titanic was released."[164]Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, believed in the film's chances of becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, though he also believed it was too early to surmise because it had only played during the holidays. He said, "While Avatar may beat Titanic's revenue record, it will be tough, and the film is unlikely to surpass Titanic in attendance. Ticket prices were about $3 cheaper in the late 1990s."[164] Cameron said he did not think it was realistic to "try to topple Titanic off its perch" because it "just struck some kind of chord" and there had been other good films in recent years.[212] He changed his prediction by mid-January. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time," he said.[213]
"You've got to compete head on with these other epic works of fantasy and fiction, the Tolkiens and the Star Wars and the Star Treks. People want a persistent alternate reality to invest themselves in and they want the detail that makes it rich and worth their time. They want to live somewhere else. LikePandora."
—James Cameron on the success of Avatar[214]
Though analysts have been unable to agree that Avatar's success is attributable to one primary factor, several explanations have been advanced. First, January is historically "the dumping ground for the year's weakest films", and this also applied to 2010.[215] Cameron himself said he decided to open the film in December so that it would have less competition from then to January.[203] Titanic capitalized on the same January predictability, and earned most of its gross in 1998.[215] Additionally, Avatar established itself as a "must-see" event. Gray said, "At this point, people who are going to see Avatar are going to see Avatar and would even if the slate was strong."[215] Marketing the film as a "novelty factor" also helped. Fox positioned the film as a cinematic event that should be seen in the theatres. "It's really hard to sell the idea that you can have the same experience at home," stated David Mumpower, an analyst at BoxOfficeProphets.com.[215] The "Oscar buzz" surrounding the film and international viewings helped. "Two-thirds of Titanic's haul was earned overseas, and Avatar [tracked] similarly ...Avataropened in 106 markets globally and was No. 1 in all of them", and the markets "such as Russia, where Titanic saw modest receipts in 1997 and 1998, are white-hot today" with "more screens and moviegoers" than before.[215] According to Variety, films in 3D accumulated $1.3 billion in 2009, "a threefold increase over 2008 and more than 10% of the total 2009 box-office gross". The increased ticket price – an average of $2 to $3 per ticket in most markets – helped the film.[215] Likewise, Entertainment Weekly attributed the film's success to 3D glasses, but also to its "astronomic word-of-mouth". Not only do some theaters charge up to $18.50 for IMAX tickets, but "the buzz" created by the new technology was the possible cause for sold-out screenings.[216]Gray said Avatar having no basis in previously established material makes its performance remarkable and even more impressive. "The movie might be derivative of many movies in its story and themes," he said, "but it had no direct antecedent like the other top-grossing films: Titanic (historical events), the Star Wars movies (an established film franchise), or The Lord of the Rings(literature). It was a tougher sell ..."[215]
Critical reception
See also: Themes in Avatar for more reviews
The film received mostly positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 285 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.4 out of 10.[217] Among Rotten Tomatoes' top critics, who are popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs,[218] the film holds an overall approval rating of 93%, based on a total of 41 reviews.[219] The site's consensus is that "It might be more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling, but Avatar reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking."[217] On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film has a "universal acclaim" rating score of 83 based on 35 reviews.[220] CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend revealed the average grade cinemagoers gave Avatar was A on an A+ to F scale. Every demographic surveyed was reported to give this rating. These polls also indicated that the main draw of the film was its use of 3D.[221]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "extraordinary" and gave it four stars out of four. "Watching Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977", he said. LikeStar Wars and The Lord of the Rings, the film "employs a new generation of special effects. "Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message".[222] A. O. Scott of At The Movies also compared his viewing of the film to the first time he viewed Star Wars, and added that although "the script is a little bit ... obvious," it was "part of what made it work".[223] Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the film. "The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in Avatar, and it's very much a place worth visiting."[224] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter 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.[225] Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers awarded Avatar three and a half out of four stars and wrote in his print review, "It extends the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron's talent may just be as big as his dreams."[226] Richard Corliss of Time magazine thought that the film was, "the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures."[227] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times felt the film has "powerful" visual accomplishments but "flat dialogue" and "obvious characterization".[228] James Berardinelli, film critic for ReelViews, praised the film and its story, giving it four out of four stars he wrote, "In 3-D, it's immersive—but the traditional film elements—story, character, editing, theme, emotional resonance, etc.—are presented with sufficient expertise to make even the 2-D version an engrossing 2½-hour experience."[229]
Avatar's underlying social and political themes attracted attention. Armond White of the New York Press wrote that Cameron used villainous American characters to misrepresent facets ofmilitarism, capitalism, and imperialism.[230][231] Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, praised the film for its "profound show of resistance to capitalism and the struggle for the defense of nature".[232] Russell D. Moore in The Christian Post concluded that propaganda exists in the film and stated, "If you can get a theater full of people in Kentucky to stand and applaud the defeat of their country in war, then you've got some amazing special effects."[233] Some commentators sympathetic to anarcho-primitivism have even praised the film as a manifesto for their cause.[234][235] Adam Cohen of The New York Times was more positive about the film, calling its anti-imperialist message "a 22nd-century version of the American colonists vs. the British, India vs. the Raj, or Latin America vs. United Fruit".[236] Ross Douthat of The New York Times opined that the film is "Cameron's long apologia for pantheism ... Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now",[237] while Saritha Prabhu of The Tennessean called the film a misportrayal of pantheism and Eastern spirituality in general,[238] and Maxim Osipov of The Hindustan Times, on the contrary, commended the film's message for its overall consistency with the teachings of Hinduism in the Bhagavad Gita.[239] Annalee Newitz of io9 concluded that Avatar is another film that has the recurring "fantasy about race" whereby "some white guy" becomes the "most awesome" member of a non-white culture.[240] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune called Avatar "the season's ideological Rorschach blot",[241] while Miranda Devine of The Sydney Morning Herald felt that, "It is impossible to watch Avatar without being banged over the head with the director's ideological hammer."[242]
Critics and audiences have cited similarities with other films, literature or media, with several accounts concluding the matter as simple "borrowing" and others claiming outright plagiarism. Ty Burrof the Boston Globe called it "the same movie" as Dances with Wolves.[243] Like Dances with Wolves, Avatar has been characterized as being a "white savior" movie, in which a "backwards" native people is impotent without the leadership of a member of the invading white culture.[244] Parallels to the concept and use of an avatar are in Poul Anderson's 1957 short story Call Me Joe, in which a paralyzed man uses his mind remotely to control an alien body.[245][246] Cinema audiences in Russia have noted that Avatar has elements in common with the 1960s Noon Universenovels by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which are set in the 22nd century on a forested world called Pandora with a sentient indigenous species called the Nave.[247] Various reviews have compared Avatar to the films FernGully: The Last Rainforest,[248][249] Pocahontas[250] and The Last Samurai.[251] NPR's Morning Edition has compared the film to a montage of tropes, with one commentator stating that Avatar was made by mixing a bunch of film scripts in a blender.[252] Some sources noted similarities to the artwork of Roger Dean, which featured fantastic images of floating rock formations and dragons.[253][254] Similarities have been found between Avatar and Ursula Le Guin's novel The Word for World is Forest, with Gary Westfahl writing for Locus Onlinethat "... the science fiction story that most closely resembles Avatar has to be Ursula K. Le Guin's novella "The Word for World Is Forest" (1972), another epic about a benevolent race of alien beings who happily inhabit dense forests while living in harmony with nature until they are attacked and slaughtered by invading human soldiers who believe that the only good gook is a dead gook."[255]
Avatar received compliments from filmmakers, with Steven Spielberg praising it as "the most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since Star Wars" and others calling it "audacious and awe inspiring", "master class", and "brilliant". On the other hand, Duncan Jones said: "It's not in my top three James Cameron films. ... [A]t what point in the film did you have any doubt what was going to happen next?".[256] Time ranked Avatar number 3 in their list of "The 10 Greatest Movies of the Millennium (Thus Far)"[257] also earning it a spot on the magazine's All-TIME 100 list,[258]and IGN listed Avatar as number 22 on their list of the top 25 Sci-Fi movies of all time.[259]
Accolades
Main article: List of accolades received by Avatar
Avatar won the 82nd Academy Awards for Art Direction, Cinematography and Visual Effects, and was nominated for a total of nine, including Best Picture and Best Director.[30] Avatar also won the 67th Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director, and was nominated for two others.[260] At the 36th Saturn Awards, Avatar won all ten awards it was nominated for: Best Science Fiction Film, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Writing, Best Music, Best Production Design and Best Special Effects.
The New York Film Critics Online honored the film with its Best Picture award.[261] The film also won the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Action Film and several technical categories, out of nine nominations.[262] It won two of the St. Louis Film Critics awards: Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film.[263] The film also won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Production Design and Special Visual Effects, and was nominated for seven others, including Best Film and Director.[264] The film has received numerous other major awards, nominations and honors.
Extended theatrical re-release
In July 2010, Cameron confirmed that there would be an extended theatrical re-release of the film on August 27, 2010, exclusively in 3D theaters and IMAX 3D.[265] Avatar: Special Edition includes an additional nine minutes of footage, all of which is CG,[266] including an extension of the sex scene[267] and various other scenes that were cut from the original theatrical film.[266] This extended re-release resulted in the film's run time approaching the current IMAX platter maximum of 170 minutes, thereby leaving less time for the end credits. Cameron stated that the nine minutes of added scenes cost more than $1 million a minute to produce and finish.[2] During its 12-week re-release, Avatar: Special Edition grossed an additional $10.74 million in North America and $22.46 million overseas for a worldwide total of $33.2 million.[4]
Home media
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on April 22, 2010[268] and in the UK on April 26.[269] The US release was not on a Tuesday as is the norm, but was done to coincide with Earth Day.[270] The first DVD and Blu-ray release does not contain any supplemental features other than the theatrical film and the disc menu in favor of and to make space for optimal picture and sound. The release also preserves the film's native 1.78:1 (16:9) format as Cameron felt that was the best format to watch the film.[271] The Blu-ray disc containsDRM (BD+ 5) which some Blu-ray players might not support without a firmware update.[272][273]
Avatar set a first-day launch record in the U.S. for Blu-ray sales at 1.5 million units sold, breaking the record previously held by The Dark Knight (600,000 units sold). First-day DVD and Blu-ray sales combined were over 4 million units sold.[274] In its first four days of release, sales of Avatar on Blu-ray reached 2.7 million in the United States and Canada – overtaking The Dark Knight to become the best ever selling Blu-ray release in the region.[275][276] The release later broke the Blu-ray sales record in the UK the following week.[277] In its first three weeks of release, the film sold a total of 19.7 million DVD and Blu-ray discs combined, a new record for sales in that period.[278] As of July 18, 2012, DVD sales (not including Blu-ray) totaled over 10.5 million units sold with$190,806,055 million in revenue.[279]
The Avatar Three-Disc Extended Collector's Edition on DVD and Blu-ray was released on November 16, 2010. Three different versions of the film are present on the discs: the original theatrical cut, the special edition cut, and a collector's extended cut[280] (with the DVD set spreading them on two discs, but the Blu-ray set presenting them on a single disc). The collector's extended cut contains 6 more minutes of footage, thus making it 16 minutes longer than the original theatrical cut. Cameron mentioned, "you can sit down, and in a continuous screening of the film, watch it with the Earth opening". He stated the "Earth opening" is an additional 4½ minutes of scenes that were in the film for much of its production but were ultimately cut before the film's theatrical release.[281] The release also includes an additional 45 minutes of deleted scenes and other extras.[280]
Cameron initially stated that Avatar would be released in 3D around November 2010, but the studio issued a correction: "3-D is in the conceptual stage and Avatar will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November."[282] In May 2010, Fox stated that the 3D version would be released some time in 2011.[278] It was later revealed that Fox had given Panasonic an exclusive license for the 3D Blu-ray version and only with the purchase of a Panasonic 3DTV. The length of Panasonic's exclusivity period is stated to last until February 2012.[283] On October 2010, Cameron stated that the standalone 3D Blu-ray would be the final version of the film's home release and that it was, "maybe one, two years out".[284] On August 13, 2012, Cameron announced on Facebook that Avatar would be released globally on Blu-Ray 3D.[285] The Blu-Ray 3D will be released on October 16 2012.[286]
On Christmas Eve 2010, Avatar had its 3D television world premiere on Sky.[287][288][289]
Sequels
In 2006, Cameron stated that if Avatar were successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film.[290] In 2010, he said the film's widespread success confirmed that he will.[291] The prospect of sequels was something he planned from the start, going so far as to include certain scenes in the film for future story followups.[290][292] In August 2010, Cameron stated that his plans are to shoot both sequels in the planned trilogy back-to-back. He also mentioned, "what I'm working on primarily is the novel" and "presumably, once the novel is nailed down, work will begin in earnest on getting the sequel going."[293]
Cameron stated that they are going to widen the universe while exploring other moons of Polyphemus.[282] The first sequel will focus on the ocean of Pandora but will also feature more of the rainforest from the original movie.[294] Later in 2010, Cameron announced his intention to capture footage for this sequel at the bottom of the Mariana Trench using a deepwater submersible.[295] In December 2011, Cameron revealed that he is writing second and third films together, but that he is just starting to design the ocean ecosystem of Pandora and the other worlds to be included in story. The storyline, although continuing the environmental theme of the first film, will not be "strident", as the film will concentrate on entertainment encouraging action to save the oceans of our blue planet.[296]
The sequels will continue to follow the characters of Jake and Neytiri.[297] Cameron implied that the humans would return as the antagonists of the story. "I expect that those nasty humans didn't go away forever," he said.[298] Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana have signed on to reprise their roles in future sequels.[292] In February 2010, Cameron confirmed that Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Grace Augustine, will also be appearing in Avatar 2, stating that "no one ever dies in science fiction."[299]
The sequels, to be produced by Cameron's own Lightstorm Entertainment in partnership with 20th Century Fox, were originally scheduled to be released in December 2014 andDecember 2015.[31] In January 2012, producer Jon Landau stated that Avatar 2 is "four years away" and is scheduled to be released in 2016.[300][301] During the 2011 CinemaCon in Las Vegas, James Cameron stated his intention to film the two Avatar sequels at a higher frame rate than the industry standard 24 frames per second, in order to add a heightened sense of reality.[302] In May 2012, Cameron said that "[he was] making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4".[303] In June 2012, actress Sigourney Weaver revealed that the three sequels were shooting simultaneously, and that she wasn't sure how long shooting for the movies was expected to take.[304] In early September, 2012, Cameron told MTV he had a concept for a fourth movie. It would be a prequel, set 35 years before the events of the first film, that deals with the early colonisation of Pandora.[305] That same month, while promoting the 3D Blu-Ray release of Titanic, he stated that the scripts for the second and third Avatar parts are still being written, with both being "separate stories that have an overall arc inclusive of the first film", and the second having a clear conclusion instead of a cliffhanger to the third film. Cameron expects to start pre-production on January 2013 and release Avatar 2 in 2015.[306]
List of accolades received by Avatar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
List of awards won by Avatar
Writer, producer, and director of Avatar, James Cameron
[show]Awards and nominations
Total number of wins and nominations
Totals 71 144
Footnotes
Avatar is an American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron that was released in 2009. The film was premiered by 20th Century Fox in London, England on December 10, and was released in the United States and Canada on December 18, grossing $27 million on its opening day and $77 million during its opening weekend in 3,461 theaters, ranking number one at the box office.[1] The film went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time,[2] as well as in the United States and Canada. It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide.[3] Avatar was also well criticized and accumulated an approval rating of 83% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[4]
Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won three, for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effectsat the 82nd Academy Awards.[5] The film garnered four nominations at the 67th Golden Globe Awards ceremony, and received two awards forBest Film – Drama and Best Director.[6] Avatar was nominated for eight British Academy Film Awards, winning Best Production Design andBest Special Visual Effects. The film's achievement in visual effects were praised by the Visual Effects Society, who honored it with six accolades during their annual awards ceremony. Avatar was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Awards, the Producers Guild of America Awards, and the Writers Guild of America Awards. The film was nominated for ten Saturn Awards and it went on to win all ten at the36th Saturn Awards ceremony. Zoe Saldana's win for the Saturn Award for Best Actress marked a rare occurrence for an all-CG character.[7]
Avatar received recognition from numerous North American critics' associations. The film garnered nine nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association where it won Best Action Film and several technical categories.[8] The Austin Film Critics Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association placed the film on their lists of the year's top ten films.[9][10] Phoenix Film Critics Society honored the film with Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design and Best Visual Effect awards and also included it on its top ten films of the year list.[11] It won two of the St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association awards for Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film,[12] and the New York Film Critics Online honored the film with its Best Picture award.[13]
In December 2009, the American Film Institute recognized the film and Cameron's advances in CGI effects with their yearly "AFI Moments of Significance" award claiming it "will have profound effects on the future of the art form".[14] In January 2010, it was announced that the Southern Sky Column, a 3,544-foot (1,080 m) quartz-sandstone mountain in the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China, had been renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" (阿凡达-哈利路亚山) by the city government in honor of the film.[15] According to park officials, photographs from the park became a source of inspiration for the floating Hallelujah Mountains seen in Avatar.[16] Time ranked Avatar number 3 in their list of "The 10 Greatest Movies of the Millennium (Thus Far)"[17] also earning it a spot on the magazine's All-TIME 100 list,[18] and IGN listed Avatar as number 22 on their list of the top 25 Sci-Fi movies of all time.[19]
[edit]Awards and nominations
Date of ceremony
|
Award
|
Category
|
Recipients and nominees
|
Result
|
Nominated
| ||||
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| |||
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg (Art Direction); Kim Sinclair (Set Decoration)
|
Won
| |||
Won
| ||||
Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, and James Cameron
|
Nominated
| |||
Nominated
| ||||
Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
|
Nominated
| |||
Nominated
| ||||
Won
| ||||
Mauro Fiore
|
Nominated
| |||
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Won
| |||
Top 10 Films
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| |||
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| |||
James Horner
|
Nominated
| |||
Mauro Fiore
|
Nominated
| |||
Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, and James Cameron
|
Nominated
| |||
Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair
|
Won
| |||
Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Tony Johnson, and Addison Teague
|
Nominated
| |||
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew Jones
|
Won
| |||
February 12, 2010
|
Nominated
| |||
Best Action Movie
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Best Art Direction
|
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Won
| ||
Best Cinematography
|
Mauro Fiore
|
Won
| ||
Best Directing
|
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Editing
|
James Cameron, John Refoua, and Stephen Rivkin
|
Won
| ||
Best Picture
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Makeup
|
Avatar
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Sound
|
Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Tony Johnson, and Addison Teague
|
Won
| ||
Best Visual Effects
|
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andy Jones
|
Won
| ||
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| |||
Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing
|
Tony Johnson, Chris Boyes, Gary Summers, and Andy Nelson
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Cinematography
|
Mauro Fiore
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Original Score
|
James Horner
|
Nominated
| ||
Excellence in Fantasy Costume Design – Fantasy Film
|
Mayes Rubeo and Deborah Lynn Scott
|
Nominated
| ||
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| |||
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| |||
Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic
|
James Cameron, John Refua, and Stephen Rivkin
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Film
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Best Sci-Fi / Fantasy
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Actor
|
Nominated
| |||
Best Actress
|
Won
| |||
Best Director
|
James Cameron
|
Won
| ||
October 17, 2010
|
Feature Film
|
Avatar
|
Won
| |
Best Cinematography
|
Mauro Fiore
|
Won
| ||
James Cameron
|
Won
| |||
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| |||
James Horner
|
Nominated
| |||
Nominated
| ||||
February 20, 2010
|
Best Sound Editing – Best Sound Editing: Music in a Feature Film
|
Jim Henrikson, Dick Bernstein, and Michael Bauer
|
Won
| |
Best Sound Editing – Best Sound Editing: Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film
|
Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Kim Foscato, Cheryl Nardi, Marshall Winn, Petra Bach, Richard Hymns, Stuart McCowan, and Steve Slanec
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Sound Editing – Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film
|
Addison Teague, Chris Boyes, Luke Dunn Glelmuda, Jim Likowski, Ken Fischer, Shannon Mills, Tim Nielsen, Chris Scarabosio, Dennie Thorpe, and Jana Vance
|
Won
| ||
James Horner
|
Nominated
| |||
Nominated
| ||||
November 11, 2010
|
Outstanding Compositing - Feature Film
|
Erik Winquist, Robin Hollander, Erich Eder and Giuseppe Tagliavini - Weta Digital
|
Won
| |
Best Picture
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Director of a Motion Picture
|
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Cinematography
|
Mauro Fiore and Vince Pace
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Original Score
|
James Horner
|
Nominated
| ||
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| |||
February 26, 2010
|
Film Score of the Year
|
James Horner
|
Nominated
| |
Film Composer of the Year
|
James Horner
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction Film
|
James Horner
|
Nominated
| ||
Film Music Composition of the Year, for "War"
|
James Horner
|
Nominated
| ||
Best International Film
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| ||
February 18, 2011
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Sierra Award (Best Art Direction)
|
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Won
| ||
Director of the Year
|
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| ||
Film of the Year
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| ||
February 23, 2010
|
Live Action 3D Feature
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| |
Best 3D Character
|
Neytiri
|
Won
| ||
Best 3D Scene
|
Jake Sully's first flight
|
Won
| ||
Best 3D Stereography / Live Action
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Achievement in 3D Visual Effects
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Achievement for Marketing 3D Content / Live Action
|
Won
| |||
Avatar
|
Nominated
| |||
Zoe Saldana
|
Nominated
| |||
Nominated
| ||||
Sam Worthington vs. Stephen Lang
|
Nominated
| |||
Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington
|
Nominated
| |||
February 26, 2010
|
Zoe Saldana
|
Nominated
| ||
May 26, 2010
|
Fantasy Film
|
Avatar
|
Nominated
| |
Best Production Design
|
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Film
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Top 11 Films
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Cutest Couple
|
Neytiri and Jake (Zoe Saldana & Sam Worthington)
|
Nominated
| ||
Favorite Movie Actress
|
Zoe Saldana
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Ten Films
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Best Cinematography
|
Mauro Fiore
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Director
|
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| ||
Favorite 3D Live Action Movie
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
Favorite 3D Animated Movie
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
December 22, 2009
|
Mauro Fiore
|
Won
| ||
James Cameron, John Refoua and Stephen Rivkin
|
Won
| |||
Best Production Design
|
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Won
| ||
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andy Jones
|
Won
| |||
Actriz que se Roba la Pantalla
|
Won
| |||
Película Más Padre
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
Theatrical Motion Picture – Producer of the Year
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Nominated
| ||
January 20, 2010
|
Outstanding Feature Film
|
James Cameron
|
Won
| |
Best Director
|
James Cameron
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Production Design
|
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Nominated
| ||
February 6, 2010
|
Lucky Brand Modern Master Award
|
James Cameron
|
Won
| |
Visionary Award for Avatar
|
James Cameron
|
Won
| ||
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| |||
Sam Worthington
|
Won
| |||
Zoe Saldana
|
Won
| |||
Stephen Lang
|
Won
| |||
Won
| ||||
James Cameron
|
Won
| |||
James Cameron
|
Won
| |||
James Horner
|
Won
| |||
Best Production Design
|
Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg
|
Won
| ||
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew Jones
|
Won
| |||
Best Director
|
James Cameron
|
Won
| ||
Best F/X
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
The Ultimate Scream
|
Avatar
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Science Fiction Movie
|
Avatar
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Science Fiction Actress
|
Zoe Saldana
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Villain
|
Stephen Lang
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Supporting Actress
|
Sigourney Weaver
|
Nominated
| ||
Fight Scene of the Year
|
"Final Battle: Na'vi vs Military"
|
Nominated
| ||
3-D Top Three Award
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
Best Visual/Special Effects
|
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andy Jones
|
Won
| ||
Most Original/Innovative or Creative Film
|
James Cameron and Jon Landau
|
Won
| ||
Sci-Fi Movie
|
Avatar
|
Won
| ||
Actress Sci-Fi
|
Zoe Saldana
|
Won
| ||
Actor Sci-Fi
|
Sam Worthington
|
Won
| ||
Villain
|
Stephen Lang
|
Nominated
| ||
Fight
|
Sam Worthington vs. Stephen Lang
|
Nominated
| ||
Hissy Fit
|
Nominated
| |||
Lifetime Achievement, for Making of
|
James Cameron
|
Won
| ||
Richard Baneham, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, and Eileen Moran
|
Won
| |||
Best Single Visual Effect of the Year, for Quarich's Escape
|
Jill Brooks, John Knoll, Frank Losasso Petterson, and Tory Mercer
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Single Visual Effect of the Year, for Neytiri Drinking
|
Thelvin Cabezas, Joyce Cox, Joe Letteri, and Eileen Moran
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture, for Neytiri
|
Andrew Jones, Joe Letteri, Zoe Saldana, and Jeff Unay
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture, for Pandora
|
Jean-Luc Azzis, Peter Baustaedter, Brenton Cottman, and Yvonne Muinde
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture, for Samson, Home Tree, Floating Mountains, & Ampsuit
|
Simon Cheung, Paul Jenness, John Stevenson-Galvin, and Rainer Zoettl
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture, for Floating Mountains
|
Dan Lemmon, Keith F. Miller, Jessica Cowley, and Cameron Smith
|
Nominated
| ||
Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture, for Jungle / Biolume
|
Shadi Almassizadeh, Dan Cox, Ula Rademeyer, and Eric Saindon
|
Won
| ||
Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture, for Willow Glade
|
Thelvin Cabezas, Miae Kang, Daniel Macarin, and Guy Williams
|
Nominated
| ||
Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture
|
Erich Eder, Robin Hollander, Giuseppe Tagliavini, and Erik Winquist
|
Nominated
| ||
Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture, for End Battle
|
Jay Cooper, Beth D'Amato, Eddie Pasquarello, and Todd Vaziri
|
Nominated
| ||
Best Original Screenplay
|
James Cameron
|
Nominated
|
Avatar is a science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, starring Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldaña, Stephen Lang,Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. It was made byLightstorm Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox on December 18, 2009. The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a fictional Earth-like moon in a distant planetary system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, while the Na'vi — the sapient and sentient race of humanoids indigenous to the moon — resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the remotely controlled, genetically engineered human-Na'vi bodies used by the film's human characters to interact with the indigenous population.
Avatar had been 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, James Cameron developed the script, the language, and the culture of Pandora. He stated that since Avatar was successful, there will be at least two sequels.
The film was first titled Project 880, and was released in traditional 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 to critical acclaim, it earned an estimated $27 million on its opening day and an estimated $77,025,481 domestically its opening weekend. Worldwide, the film grossed an estimated $232,180,000 its opening weekend, the ninth largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. It is also considered to be a front-runner for awards and nominations at the 82nd Academy Awards. So far, it has been nominated to 4 Golden Globes, 2 of which it won: Best Director and Best Motion Picture (Drama). The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and moderate tobacco usage.
The movie has grossed over $2 billion worldwide, the first movie to ever do so. On January 25, 2010, Avatar surpassed Titanic as the highest grossing film of all time, worldwide.
Plot Edit
In the year 2154, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former U.S. Marine paralyzed from the waist down due to wounds sustained in combat, is selected to participate in the Avatar Program. Originally, the position was supposed to be filled by his identical twin brotherTom Sully, who was recently killed by a man who attempted to rob him of his money. Arriving from the six-year journey from Earth toPandora, Jake awakes from cryosleep with hundreds of other personnel to work at the human colony on this inhabited moon ofPolyphemus, one of three fictional gas giants orbiting Alpha Centauri A. Jake meets with Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), a hardened and seasoned military veteran who is in charge of security on the colony. Quaritch welcomes the new personnel and military soldiers and briefs them on Pandora. It is mostly covered with lush rainforests and wildlife, and home to the primitive Na'vi, a sentient race of tall, blue-skinned humanoids.
The colony personnel and military are under the jurisdiction of the Resources Development Administration (RDA), a non-governmental organization back on Earth. Jake is introduced to Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), a biologist who arrived on the same rotation of personnel as he did and Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), a botanist as well as the leader of the Avatar Program, which allows humans to control avatars, which are genetically engineered human-Na’vi hybrids who look like Na'vi. Using the avatars, Grace and her team have made some considerable progress teaching some Na’vi their ways and English as well as learning their language and culture. Grace is not pleased with RDA administrator Parker Selfridge's (Giovanni Ribisi) decision to use Jake to replace his brother’s avatar position, as she will have to spend time training him in Na’vi culture as well as teaching him how to control his avatar. Parker stresses that the RDA needs to mine the extremely valuable mineralunobtanium, which can be found in huge deposits on Pandora. Meanwhile, Quaritch makes Jake his informant to gather information on the Na’vi and their home, the Hometree (kelutral), which has huge deposits of unobtanium buried deep below its surface. He wants Jake to gain their trust and convince them to leave their home within three months. After being trained for several weeks in his new body, Jake, Grace and Norm explore the native wildlife with Trudy Chacon (Michelle Rodriguez), a retired Marine pilot who is assigned to ferry them to their location. While Grace and Norm study the wildlife, Jake encounters a group of hammerhead titanotheres, a rhinoceros-like animal species. However, the titanotheres flee from a thanator (palulukan), a terrifying land predator. Grace shouts at her group to flee. Jake runs from the thanator, who is after him, and loses most of his equipment and weapon in the process. He narrowly escapes death from the predator and falls into raging rivers below.
Avatar logo shown before closing credits.
As darkness falls, Jake creates a fire torch using a sap substance on the trees, and once more runs and fights a large group of small sizedviperwolves (nantang). A female Na’vi named Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) rescues him and kills several of the viperwolves before they all flee. Neytiri is at first angry with Jake for having caused her to kill the viperwolves needlessly and leaves him. Jake goes after Neytiri, who tells him not to follow as she knows he is an avatar hybrid - a dreamwalker from the Sky People. Jake is caught by her fellow Na’vi, but Neytiri defuses the situation by telling her people that she witnessed him being chosen by the seeds of Eywa, a spiritual entity that the Na’vi worship, which indicate him as a pure spirit. Meeting Eytukan (Wes Studi) and Mo'at(C. C. H. Pounder), the leaders of the Omaticaya clan, who are also Neytiri’s parents, Jake presents himself as a warrior "dreamwalker", a term the Na’vi used to call the avatar hybrids, with his intention to learn from them. Eytukan and Mo’at agree to teach Jake, making a reluctant Neytiri his tutor. From that day on, Jake spends his time learning the ways and culture of the Na’vi warriors, while jumping back to his original human body to report to Parker and Quaritch on information regarding the aliens. Grace arranges the movement of the avatar team to a remote camp in the Hallejuiah Mountains after finding out from Dr. Max Patel that Jake has been having regular communications with Quaritch about the Na'vi.
In his avatar form, Jake learns how to bond and control his flying mountain banshee, while gaining respect and admiration from the Na’vi, his relationship with Neytiri continuing to grow, but also earning the jealousy and annoyance of Tsu'tey (Laz Alonso), Neytiri’s betrothed and next in line to be the clan leader. Reporting back to Quaritch, the Colonel wants Jake to begin his plan to convince the tribe to leave the Hometree, but Jake is now reluctant and weary of his fellow humans to exploit the moon’s resources. He tells Quaritch that he will attempt to convince the tribe once he is made part of the People, a ceremony granting the greatest honor to an avatar. That night, Jake undergoes the ceremony where Eytukan considers him as one of their own and made part of the People, with Grace and Neytiri looking on. Jake is now part of the Omaticaya clan, and with this he can choose his mate; he and Neytiri choose each other and spend that night mating at the Tree of Voices, and they are now mated for life. When Jake and Neytiri awake, they encounter several bulldozers, sent by the RDA, destroying the nearby forests. In his attempt to stop them, Jake destroys one of the machine’s camera arrays. Returning to the Hometree, Tsu'tey confronts him for mating with Neytiri. Before anything else can happen, Jake and Grace are suddenly sent back to their human bodies when soldiers sent by Quaritch arrive and open their link units to take them back by force.
Quaritch and Parker have seen footage of Jake destroying the bulldozer’s cameras and have checked his entry logs, indicating him as losing interest to participate in the plan as well as committing possible treason. Grace tells an unbelieving Parker that the trees and plant life make up a huge network which connects the spiritual consciousness of all life, including the Na’vi, and must not be destroyed. Given a chance to attempt a final plea to the tribe to leave their home, Jake and Grace return to their avatar forms but the Na'vi refuse to listen after Jake reveals he was sent by his superiors to convince them to move. They are bound and labelled as traitors by the Na'vi who intend to defend themselves. A large strike force led by Quaritch destroys the Hometree, burning it to the ground, while killing large numbers of the tribe, despite their attempts to retaliate. Mo’at releases Jake and Grace from their bonds and pleads them to save her tribe. Eytukan is killed in the destruction, leaving Neytiri devastated. She tells Jake to stay away when he tries to comfort her.
In the chaos, Jake and Grace are sent back to their original bodies to be placed under arrest for treason, along with Norm, who tried to stop the military from disabling their avatar forms. Trudy Chacon rescues the avatar team from prison and flies them to safety, however Grace is shot by Quaritch when he attempts to stop them from leaving the colony. The team has the camp container holding the avatar transfer pods sent near the Tree of Souls, where the remaining Omaticaya tribe has fled to safety. Jake makes his intention to redeem himself in the eyes of the Na’vi and successfully tames and controls a great leonopteryx, an enormous flying creature related to the banshee, making him the sixth Toruk Makto in Na'vi history. Jake makes a plea to Mo’at to save Grace from dying. This is done by trying to have her consciousness transferred permanently into her avatar form, using the Tree of Souls, before her human body expires. However, it is too late, as Grace is too weak to be transferred. Before she passes away, she tells Jake that she’s seen Eywa and the holy entity does exist.
Following Grace's death, he asks Tsu’tey, who has been made clan leader, and the entire tribe to stand with him and face the humans. Having earned back the tribe’s trust, Jake makes plans to join with other clans to strike back at the human forces. Surveying the Na’vi, Quaritch learns that other clans have converged with the Omaticaya at the Tree of Souls and decides to destroy them and their holy ground to put an end to their defiance once and for all. The night before the battle, Jake appeals to Ewya to fight along side the Na'vi, asking her to look into Grace's memories of Earth. A huge military fleet commandeered by Quaritch approach the Tree of Souls, beginning the Assault on the Tree of Souls. Thousands of Na’vi warriors led by Jake and Tsu’tey take to the skies and attack the fleet, causing huge losses on both sides. Neytiri is knocked off her banshee and flees the military ground forces, while Norm’s avatar is shot, forcing him to jump back to his real body and continue the fight as a human. Tsu’tey makes a valiant attempt to take down the shuttle carrying the explosives, but is shot and falls to the forest below. Trudy makes a valiant attempt to protect Jake from Quaritch's Dragon, but is outgunned and killed.
When all things seem bleak, the native wildlife of Pandora strikes back in force, seemingly responding to Jake's earlier plea to Eywa for help. The ground and aerial troops are scattered by the wildlife, while the shuttle carrying the explosives is destroyed before it reaches the Tree of Souls. During the wildlife's attack on the ground, a thanator approaches Neytiri and offers her to ride it. She accepts by bonding with it. Jake manages to bring down Quaritch’s gunship, but the Colonel manages to get into his AMP suit and escape the ship's destruction. Finding the camp containing the avatar pods by chance, Quaritch attempts to destroy Jake’s body but Neytiri and her thanator attack him. However, Quaritch kills the thanator with his AMP and is about to kill Neytiri when Jake arrives to challenge him. As they fight, Jake destroys the AMP’s life support and canopy but is caught in the mech’s grip. Neytiri saves Jake by planting two arrows into Quaritch’s chest, killing the Colonel. The camp is damaged during Quaritch's attack and leaks deadly Pandoran air, leaving Jake's human body almost dying from the poisonous air until Neytiri helps him put on his exopack. At this moment, Jake says to Neytiri "I See you", the traditional Na'vi greeting. Neytiri begins to shed tears of joy and says it back to him. The words take on an entirely new meaning as Jake is in his human form.
Having put an end to the military's attack, the Na'vi round up the remaining RDA personnel to be sent back toEarth, never to return, while allowing a select group to stay with them on Pandora, which includes Jake, Norm, the avatar team and many other RDA defectors. Jake decides to stay in his avatar form forever, and concludes his final entry log of his experiences on his birthday. Returning to the Tree of Souls, he undergoes the consciousness transfer from his human body to his avatar form, and awakens to a new life as a Na'vi.
Cast Edit
Humans Edit
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a Marine veteran, paralyzed from the waist down that volunteers to go to Pandora as an avatar driver. There he falls in love with the Na'vi princess, Neytiri. He is the main protagonist of the film.
Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine, a xenobotanist that mentors Jake Sully and helps him in the amazing planet of Pandora. She is in charge of the Avatar Program.
Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon, a SecOps pilot that takes the avatar team to different parts on Pandora.
Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman, an anthropologist who studies plant and nature life (like Dr. Grace Augustine).
Stephen Lang as Miles Quaritch, the chief of security on Pandora. He has a profound disregard for Pandoran life and is the main antagonist.
Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, the Administrator of the RDA who does anything for money and the second-most prominent villain, after Quaritch.
Matt Gerald as Lyle Wainfleet, a SecOps corporal.
Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel, the doctor of the operation that passes the human mind on an avatar.
Na'vi Edit
Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, the Omaticaya clan princess that Jake falls in love with.
CCH Pounder as Mo'at, the clan's spiritual leader and mother of Neytiri. She feels uncomfortable about the humans visiting her home planet.
Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey, the clan's finest warrior that was supposed to mate with Neytiri.
Wes Studi as Eytukan, the clan's leader and father of Neytiri. He is well-respected by his people.
Special Edition Re-release Edit
There was a threatrical re-release of the film in theaters on August 27, 2010, it included an extra 9 minutes of footage. It was only released in 3-D and IMAX 3-D and was only in theaters for one week.
The 9 extra minutes of footage include:
A sturmbeest hunt after Jake learns to ride an ikran (Jake kills one of these creatures with his bow from atop his ikran).
A scene near the end of the film where a mortally wounded Tsu'tey assigns the clan's leadership to Jake and orders him to end his agony. Jake unwillingly does so, and recites a prayer for him.
The mating scene is extended and shows Jake and Neytiri connecting their queues and the deep meaning that this act has for the Na'vi.
The scene near the campfire is extended. Neytiri tells Jake her full name.
Grace, Norm and Jake visit Grace's abandoned school.
Another added scene is inserted after the destruction of the Tree of Voices by RDA bulldozers. The Na'vi attack the bulldozers and kill the human escorts, leaving the equipment destroyed and burning. Even the soldiers in AMP suits are killed. This scene shows Lyle Wainfleet reporting the scene of the attack to theOperations Center. The addition of this scene helped clarify the reason for the decision by Quaritch andParker Selfridge to destroy the Hometree.
A scene is also added after Jake, Grace, Trudy and Norm arrive at the remote base Site 26 in the Hallelujah Mountains. In this scene, it is explained why the mountains float (they are rich in unobtanium, a natural superconductor that floats in the presence of magnetic fields).
There are also a few seconds added to many already-existing scenes (for example, an addition to the scene where Jake touches the fan lizard).
Soundtrack Edit
Avatar: Music from the Motion Picture was released on December 15, 2009 by composer James Horner.
Awards
Empire Awards
Best Movie (Winner)
Best Actress (Zoe Saldana)(Winner)
Best Director (James Cameron) (Winner)
Academy Awards
Art Direction (Winner)
Cinematography (Winner)
Directing (James Cameron) (Nominated)
Film Editing (Nominated)
Music (Score) (James Horner) (Nominated)
Best Picture (James Cameron and Jon Landau) (Nominated)
Sound Editing (Nominated)
Sound Mixing (Nominated)
Visual Effects (Winner)
British Academy Awards [1]
Best Cinematography (Mauro Fiore) (Nominated)
Best Director (James Cameron) (Nominated)
Best Editing (Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, James Cameron) (Nominated)
Best Film (Nominated)
Best Music (James Horner) (Nominated)
Best Production Design (Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair) (Winner)
Best Sound (Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, Tony Johnson, Addison Teague)(Nominated)
Best Special Visual Effects (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones)(Winner)
Golden Globes
Best Motion Picture: Drama (Winner)
Best Director (James Cameron) (Winner)
Best Original Score (Nominated)
Best Original Song (Nominated)
Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA)
Best Picture (Nominated)
Best Director (James Cameron) (Nominated)
Best Cinematography (Winner)
Best Art Direction (Winner)
Best Editing (Winner)
Best Makeup (Nominated)
Best Visual Effects (Winner)
Best Sound (Winner)
Best Action Movie (Winner)
Saturn Awards
Best Science Fiction Film (Winner)
Best Actor (Sam Worthington) (Winner)
Best Actress (Zoe Saldana) (Winner)
Best Director (James Cameron) (Winner)
Best Writing (James Cameron) (Winner)
Best Supporting Actor (Stephen Lang) (Winner)
Best Supporting Actress (Sigourney Weaver) (Winner)
Best Music (James Horner) (Winner)
Best Production Design (Winner)
Best Special Effects (Winner)
New York Critic's Online
Best Picture (Winner)
Producers Guild Award
Best Picture (Nominated)
Director's Guild Award
Best Director (James Cameron) (Nominated)
Writer's Guild Award
Best Original Screenplay (James Cameron) (Nominated)
Deleted Scenes
James Cameron confirmed that he filmed at least 45 minutes of scenes not included in the theatrical version.
On the Extended Collector's Edition, there is 45 minutes of deleted scenes included as part of the collection.
Here is a short description of some of those scenes as well as several scenes from the script that were not included in the Extended Collector's Edition:
Stingbat Attack: Jake, in his wheelchair, comes near the fence that surrounds Hells Gate, staring at a creature that resembles a stingbat, orange and has wings that appear more bat like, attacks the fence, trying to get at him, but is killed by Lyle Wainfleet. This is reminiscent of the scene described in the original manuscript, where Jake is nearly killed by a slinth, a creature that was replaced by the thanator, near the fence of Hell's Gate.
In the script, Trudy Chacon and Norm Spellman have a romantic relationship. Before she crashes, Trudy whispers: "Norm, I love you." Jake discovers their relationship, when, getting out of a link, finds them sharing their intimacy in Norm's bunk.
There is a scene that takes place after the Assault on the Tree of Souls where Jake, having returned to his avatar body, finds a dying Tsu'tey, whose queue had been cut off by Lyle Wainfleet. Tsu'tey is in much pain and confesses to Jake that he considered him to be a brother and was proud to fight with him. He declares Jake the new Omaticaya clan leader. He then asks Jake to end his life. Jake reluctantly does so with a knife and blesses him with the same rite shown when he killed his first hexapede. This scene was included as part of the extended re-release and later the Extended Collector's Edition, but with minor changes, as Tsu'tey does not lose his queue in either version of the film, and is merely dying from the gunshot injuries that he sustained during the battle.
The mating scene between Jake and Neytiri was cut short because James Cameron felt that it would make some audience members feel uncomfortable, and so that the film would not get an "R" rating. The scene was restored to its original length in both the extended re-release and the Extended Collector's Edition.
The script goes into greater detail during the mating scene. Neytiri says that she appreciates the kisses of Jake, but her people have something more (referring to the connection between queues). Jake is disturbed, because he understands that Neytiri knows that his real body is not there. Neytiri convinces Jake that the only thing that is important is the presence of the two souls. So Jake agrees to connect queues, and they are united forever. After this, Jake, in his human body, goes rigid, understanding the depth of his own actions.
After months in the Na'vi part of his life, Jake starts to hate human food. This fact is in particular shown in a scene later added into the Extended Collector's Edition where Jake refuses to eat a microwave-heated burrito, a food considered by the Na'vi (in the script) as "food for larvae."
The Dreamhunt: After having captured his ikran, Jake is actually an "adult" Na'vi. The last rite is theUniltaron, when a Na'vi will discover his "protective animal", similar to rituals in some Native American cultures. During the rite, Jake sees a toruk, the "last shadow," and is shy about sharing his vision, as the animal is considered to be a symbol of bad luck. Mo'at decrees that the vision is not clear and that Jake is not obliged to share it.
There is also a scene in which Jake, riding an ikran, hunts for a sturmbeest -- an animal which is not featured in the original theatrical release of the film but is present in both the extended re-release and the Extended Collector's Edition.
Hunt Festival: Another scene sees Jake and Tsu'tey, during a hunt festival, engage in a drinking contest. Tsu'tey is ready to open himself emotionally to Jake, but Neytiri interrupts them and takes Jake to dance with her, angering Tsu'tey. While Jake and Neytiri dance in the front of the fire, Tsu'tey watches them jealously. This is another sign of the rivalry between Jake and Tsu'tey. This scene is also important as it highlights the fact that Neytiri is falling in love with Jake. Mo'at and Eytukan discuss this and they come to the conclusion that they have to separate the two because Neytiri is promised to Tsu'tey.
The Challenge: In another scene, Tsu'tey, upon learning that Jake and Neytiri are mated for life, challenges Jake to a fight to the death. Jake accepts the challenge, and the two fight with staffs. The fight ends when Jake and Grace are returned to their human bodies by Quaritch, and Tsu'tey is stopped from killing Jake's lifeless avatar by Neytiri.
Another scene shows Grace telling Jake how her school closed: Sylwanin, along with several other Na'vi children, had burned an RDA bulldozer and fled to Grace's school seeking protection. RDA soldiers, however, followed the children to the school and opened fire. Despite Grace's best efforts to keep the Na'vi safe, Sylwanin and many others were killed and Grace herself was shot. The scene was added into the Extended Collector's Edition, although there is no mention of Grace being shot during the massacre.
Following the destruction of the Tree of Voices by the RDA, Tsu'tey (acting under Eytukan's orders) leads a war party against them. The aftermath seen by Quaritch and Parker Selfridge shows several bulldozers destroyed and the squad of mercenaries killed, serving as the decisive moment for the RDA to destroy the Hometree. This scene was inserted into both the extended re-release and the Extended Collector's Edition.
You're a long way from Earth: Prior to the Assault on the Tree of Souls, Quaritch takes over the operation, much to Selfridge's fury, who angrily berates the Colonel for "turning the mine-workers local into a freakin' militia!" and tries to stop him from proceeding with the assault. Quaritch dismisses Selfridge and prepares for the upcoming battle.
New Life: At the end of the film, Neytiri was supposed to be shown as pregnant with Jake's child.
DVD / Blu-ray Releases
Blu-Ray Edition
The theatrical version of the movie was released on April 22nd, 2010 on Blu-ray and DVD. This was a bare-bones release, containing nothing in the way of special features.
The Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition, containing all three versions of the film and bonus content, was released on November 16th, 2010. It is a three disc set, containing behind the scenes material as well as deleted scenes.
A 3D version featuring the theatrical cut was also released in late 2010. This version was exclusively bundled with Panasonic 3D TVs and Blu-ray players. A general release was planned for Q1 of 2011,[2] but the bundling period was extend by one year until early 2012.[3]Albeit for copies circulating on the internet, these discs are currently not available as stand-alone products. Alimited 3D edition was announced for October 15/16 2012.[4]
Sequels
On December 11, 2009, one week before Avatar was released to theaters, James Cameron hinted that he intended to make two sequels if Avatar was successful enough. As of September 2012 the estimated release date of Avatar 2 is Christmas 2015, with Avatar 3 following one year later. While the film franchise was originally intended to be a trilogy, a prequel has also been announced, set 35 years before the first film.
Cameron has stated that basically all of the surviving characters would return for Avatar 2. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Joel Moore, and CCH Pounder have all signed on for Avatar 2, while Stephen Lang[5]and Michelle Rodriguez [6] have both expressed interest in returning. When asked about the sequel, Giovanni Ribisi stated that he was not allowed to say anything. [7]
Cameron is currently working on scripts for the second and third films; Pre-production is expected to begin in January 2013. [8]
Trivia
General
The font used for the film's logo is Papyrus, with a few minor adjustments.
A casting call was posted on the website of Mali Finn Casting in early December 2005 for the female lead. The casting call was erroneously reported to be for James Cameron's Battle Angel (2011). However, Battle Angel will be the second of the back-to-back Cameron projects with a planned 2013 release (although the release was pushed further back to begin work on the sequels for Avatar).
Actors
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 didn't want people thinking it was Aliens (1986) all over again, as Sigourney Weaver had already been cast.
Sigourney Weaver plays a "James Cameron" persona for her character in Avatar. Sigourney stated in an interview, "I teased him because to me I'm playing Jim Cameron in the movie as this kind of brilliant, approach-driven, idealistic perfectionist. But that same somebody has a great heart underneath. So I have to say I was always kind of channeling him."
The second James Cameron film that doesn't feature either Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Jennette Goldstein, or Arnold Schwarzennegger, the first being Piranha 2: The Spawning.
Production
Announced on June 14, 2005 in the Hollywood Reporter, James Cameron's untitled "Project 880" is a parallel project being developed alongside Battle Angel (2011). It will use the same digital-3D camera system (developed by Vince Pace) and virtual production studio (developed by Robert Legato) that Cameron will use on Battle Angel.
James Cameron originally attempted to get the film made in 1999 as his immediate follow-up to Titanic(1997). However, at the time, the special effects he wanted for the movie ran the proposed budget up to $400 million. No studio would fund the film, and it was subsequently shelved for almost ten years.
James Cameron's first feature film since Titanic (1997).
The movie is 40% live action and 60% photo-realistic CGI. A large amount of motion capture technology was used for the CGI scenes.
Seeing the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) convinced James Cameron that CGI effects had progressed enough to make Avatar (2009).
Movie
The film is rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking, according to commercials on air. It is James Cameron's third film to receive this rating (with Titanicand The Abyss).
Avatar was the first film to feature the new 20th Century Fox logo, which is animated by Blue Sky Studios, the makers of Ice Age (2002). It was according to trailers and commercials.
The major part of the film takes place in August 2154, 200 years after James Cameron's birth (* 16. August 1954).
President Obama watched Avatar on Thursday, December 31, 2009 with his family.
Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. Taking inflation into account, it ranks 14th.
Avatar is the first film to earn more than $2 billion worldwide at the box office.
References
1. ↑ http://www.bafta.org/awards/film/film-awards-nominations,949,BA.html, BAFTA Film Nominations
2. ↑ http://hdguru.com/avatar-3d-blu-ray-is-coming-in-december/2369/
3. ↑ http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/panasonic-extend-avatar-3d-offer-201103031042.htm
4. ↑ http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=9309
5. ↑ http://worstpreviews.com/headline.php?id=21708
6. ↑ http://www.eonline.com/news/marc_malkin/michelle_rodriguez_talks_avatar_2_gassy/230117
7. ↑ http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Giovanni-Ribisi-Talks-Madness-Rum-Diary-27623.html
8. ↑ http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/09/10/james-cameron-avatar-sequels-a-daunting-writing-task/
