Avatar

This afternoon, I finished work early and went to see Avatar at Silver City. But before we get into any serious discussion of that, I offer you a picture of Ian wearing the 3D glasses I brought home with me:

I had originally wanted to see the movie on my two weeks off over Christmas, but due to pestilence settling on our house on Boxing Day, the opportunity was lost. Tammy wasn’t really that interested in seeing it, not enough to find someone to watch the kids, so I started casting around for someone to go with. I thought I had a taker with Chris next door, but he’s a busy guy too, looking after his grandson some weekends (including last weekend). I couldn’t take Miranda, since she’s not old enough. Finally, I said that was it. I started work at six this morning and finished at two and then headed out the door by myself to aim for the three o’clock showing at Silver City. If I was late, I’d catch the 3:30. Tammy knew that I was going to do this, and left a box of Junior Mints in the car for me to find when I left. That’s my favourite movie theatre food… 🙂

So enough about the situation. On to the movie.

In short, it’s one of those films that marks a break between what has come before, and what has come after. I drove home in silence, unwilling to let the idiocy of FM radio interrupt my brain going over and over what I’d seen.

It was beautiful. The colours lifted the setting out of the stereotypical drab jungle setting. When Tammy was asking me tonight about the film, I just gave up and said “I’ve never seen colours like that.” When I originally saw bits and pieces of the movie, I remember being off-put by the big blue people. No more. They might have been strange in the drab everyday world, but in their setting they were perfect. The fantastic beasts were walking the line between what is possible and what would be too strange to believe. The bioluminescent effects were mesmerizing. As a wannabe artist some of the scenes made me want to cry, despairing of ever capturing anything as beautiful.

The animation was brilliant. The characters were easy to discern from one another, despite their strangeness. After a while you just forget that they are anything but real. There weren’t any false steps that broke the illusion. The long, thin bodies of the Na’vi could do amazing things and were graceful and athletic. And sexy. There, I said it.

As I mentioned, I saw it in 3D. That marks only the second movie I’ve seen in 3D, and the other was a campy 1960’s sci-fi movie that Tammy and I caught at the Roxy when we were dating. It seems a lot of movies are coming out in 3D in the last couple of years, largely computer animated ones where the line between 2D and 3D is arbitrary and easy to render either way. However, I think there is a line between making a movie 3D just for the spectacle, and using it as an immersive technique, which is what has happened in Avatar. The use of it is just… there. There are parts of the movie where a shot is set up as a spectacle, and 3D is another tool being used, but for the most part, it’s just subtly drawing you into the movie, making you feel even more like the world is real, touchable.

The scenes that seemed to struggle with the 3D were the simplest. A specific example would be a scene where character A and character B were having a conversation. A is talking, and is center frame, facing B, who is to the left, facing B. We can see A’s face, but only the profile of B. Something is visible in the background, just visual interest. In a normal movie, that works. The focus is on A, B is closer to the camera and so out of focus, as is the background. That’s expected. It works. In the 3D movie, you get so used to the idea of depth and your eyes adapting to 3D cues that if, for example your eyes drift from A to B’s profile and your eyes cross a bit more to the shallower depth, but try as they might, your eyes can’t bring B into focus. Same with the background. Your eyes uncross a bit to the depth of the background, but you can’t focus. That’s distracting. Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of these types of scenes, but come to think of it, that was my only real gripe in the whole movie.

Some people gripe about the story. I liked it. I’d rather see a simple story told well and in an original way than a complicated story hacked together in editing. The story was simple, but moving. I found myself sympathizing with not just the protagonists, but the “bad guys”, too and that is the mark of good storytelling. There is a moment of eucatastrophe, which had me giddy with excitement when it came. It made three hours sail along. Unlike the Lord of the Rings movies where they had to take the story and cut, cut, cut until it made it under three hours (for the theatrical release, anyways), this story was just the right length for a three hour movie to hold. Not rushed, not disjointed.

So I’ve told Tammy some of this now, and she’ll read this eventually. She made noises that she might want to go see it in the theatre to get it in 3D. If we do go see it or if we don’t, this movie is the first one that made me seriously consider getting a Hi-Definition video player like Blu-Ray. There were some things that were so beautiful and delicate that I wonder how they will look on DVD. I’ll find out eventually.

I went in on a mission, too: to see whether or not it would be appropriate to take Miranda. Ever since she saw the trailer (again and again and again) she’s wanted to go see it, but it was rated 14A, and she’s six. Admittedly she’s a dino-nut and doesn’t seem bothered by big scary things attacking and eating other big scary things. But having seen it, I don’t think I’ll take her to see it. It’s right on the cusp of what I would want her to see. By the time it comes out on video, I think she’ll be able to handle it, and we’ll be able to stop and answer questions if she has them. I think that on the whole she would love it. Just a bit too intense (moreso in 3D, a bit too much violence, and the language, while certainly not harsh, contains a few words I’d rather wait a while to hear coming out of her mouth. 🙂

Although she gets the same on network TV these days. She uttered a very Bart-esque “Why the hell are we back here?” when she and I were playing Halo together last week. It was funny as heck.