Avatar

The film of 2009 will be Avatar. It isn't the best movie of the year but will probably be the biggest. It is already the second highest grossing movie after Cameron's own Titanic . Over the last 12 months James Cameron - the director of Avatar - has been building the film up as a game changer. The Jazz Singer of 3D cinema. Well it ain't!

That doesn't mean it ain't a good film. It is very enjoyable and looks amazing. Cameron has certainly created an alien world, that doesn't look like a quarry in Wales! In fact it looks beautiful, which leads me onto the Jazz Singer point.

For those who don't know the Jazz Singer was the fist talkie (non-silent film) and showed the Hollywood that movies with sound were the way to go. Cameron claimed this film would do the same for 3D. It doesn't. In fact I think it shows the problems with 3D far more than the positives it brings to the cinema experience. As I said earlier Cameron creates a beautiful world that is dulled by the 30% colour loss that the 3D effect brings. It was often more enjoyable watching the film with the glass off, even though the image was out of focus. In fact I often forgot the movie was in 3D. You just don't notice it, or at least I didn't.

However, one thing Cameron does get right is CGI interaction. The human cast look like they belong in that world. Something that other CGI heavy films, like the Star Wars prequels, suffered from!

This leads me on nicely to my final point. In August 2009 Empire journalist Helen O'Hara posted a blog on the Empire website defending Avatar from some of the internet hate it was suffering six months before it was actually released! In the blog she stated that "If Cameron can deliver a truly, convincingly alien world, this is a step towards a Dune that nails it, towards a Forever War worth watching or towards seeing of the weirder Iain M. Banks onscreen - The Algebraist, say." Now I believe Cameron did create a truly convincing alien world and I hope Helen O'Hara's theory is correct because in many ways I don't think that Avatar is alien enough. While the planet looks beautiful and unique the alien creates that live on it don't. Yes the Na'vi are nine foot tall and blue but they still have two arms and two legs and look human. In fact Cameron had to cut a Na'vi sex scene to ensure a PG-13 rating in the states, which suggests that the censors thought they looked quite human! So when you compare the Na'vi to the Dwellers of Banks' The Algebraist - aliens that are described as looking like two discs, similar to a yo-yo, with various appendages at edges and hubs including two long spindle arms - then the Na'vi just look like slightly posher blue CGI versions of Spook's pointy ears from the orginal series of Star Trek.

And to make matters worse for Avatar examples, if not overly extreme versions, of truly alien looking aliens exist in movies like District 9 or Camerons' own Aliens and their budgets were alot smaller than Avatar's.

Perhaps Avatar is just the first step however. Instead of the giant leap Cameron seemed to be promising, perhaps it is no more than a small - but very important step - in a far longer process!