The Innovative Technology in Avatar

playitforward (68)in #film • 7 years ago (edited)

The Innovative Technology in Avatar

To me, it is apparent that Avatar is insanely innovative. Not story-wise, but technologically. When the movie came out in IMAX 3D, it was just astonishing. The digital environment was so beautiful and comfortable to connect to that some people fell into depression because they couldn't live there.

The Creator

James Cameron is known for his films being directed with excellent special effects that leave their viewers with their mouths open. From classics like Titanic to films from the modern era like Avatar, which marked a trend for its innovative technology. In fact, by 1994 and well before Titanic's colossal success, Cameron had a script about Avatar starring computer-generated images. Being a world entirely out of the director's imagination, he had the freedom to experiment with the various elements of it, such as the aliens and their native language. However, it took more than ten years for Cameron to feel that the technology in current filmmaking had advanced enough that Avatar could be considered as a project again.
When Cameron made the decision to retake the project in 2006, he teamed with Dr. Paul Frommer, a linguist and director of the Communication Management Center at the University of Southern California, who was the creator of the native language for the Na'vi culture and the necessary complement to give life to the protagonists of this story.

The Movie

Set in 2154 on a planet called Pandora, a humanoid race in conflict with humans. While humans aspire to a hidden treasure in the forests of the Na'vi land, the natives strive to maintain the integrity of their territory. In this strategic game, the former Marine Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, is a fundamental piece, since he’s in the arduous work of having to integrate to its community like one of them, participating in its customs and creating a bond with the people.

The CGI Technology

The plot of Avatar is based on turning this former marine into a Na'vi, through a program that involves providing all the features that will allow him to mingle with them. The aliens stand out for being, well, mostly blue, in addition to the facial features that could only come to life thanks to CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) technology. This kind of animation allowed Cameron to take everything he had been working on for more than a decade and to make it happen. The CGI animation makes its debut on the big screen in the 90's, and has been evolving at a brisk pace. With its help, directors have complete freedom to create fantastic universes and make possible what once seemed impossible.

The impact of a film like Avatar was to see these aliens with such a realistic characterization. This, thanks to the CGI technology, that allows directors register movements and gestures of real actors and transfer them to a character generated in a computer.

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The Outcome

Avatar was praised worldwide for his creativity and innovation, which earned Cameron an Academy Award for Best Director. Taking the risk of creating an entirely different story, using techniques that were still on the making and with a budget of almost $300 million, made it become the highest grossing film in history to date.

Opinion

Avatar has these cultural and environmental images that were just beautiful. I think the film would have been notably better had the story been different than Pocahontas, but it is indeed a film to marvel at the technology.