This Cameron took four and a half years to produce, and the total cost of nearly 500 million US dollars to build "Avatar" not only opened up a new world of movie 3D technology, it also brought people an epoch-making audio-visual experience. It will bring the movie theaters that were once severely impacted by home projection and Blu-ray HD DVD back to the focus of the fans' attention, and a new era in the history of movies has begun.
Ashamed and proud,
the story of "Avatar" revolves around Jake Sully, a former naval soldier who was injured and paralyzed in battle. He decided to come to Pandora to manipulate human genes and the genes of the local Na'vi tribe on behalf of his deceased brother. The "Avatar" hybrid creature created by the combination. Jake's goal is to enter the Na'vi tribe with a height of nine feet, a long tail behind them, blue skin and yellow eyes, and persuade them to leave their homes where they lived for generations voluntarily, so that humans can cut down the originality of the area under the leadership of SecFor. Forest, mining expensive "unobtainium" underground ore.
In this 162-minute story, there are adventures, challenges, love, big bang adventures, and familiar Hollywood personal heroism, and there are legendary drama routines that are not perfect. Nonetheless, the plot of "Avatar" itself has enough reverberations. This touching comes from the contrast between the pros and cons of the drama, which is horribly real despite some facial makeup. The number one villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch, is the representative of the hawks' military strike force. He is a man of the men and the elite of the elite. At the same time, he is arrogant and indifferent to all foreign cultural species. How similar is it to the famous war madman in American history, General Curtis Limay, and General Maxwell Taylor, who was the "Pushman of the Vietnam War"! Parker Selfridge, the manager of SecFor, who only pursues the maximization of commercial profits, despite his monotonous thinking, showed a rare regret when he witnessed the burning of the tree of Na'vi people's homeland. The protagonist Jake is an "eye-opener" person who changes his outlook on life and the world in the play. It goes without saying that his innocence reveals and the experience of spiritual growth is moving, but the life force of Na'vi princess Neytiri, who is more in harmony with man and nature, is the latter's vitality. More radiant, just like the Pandora star in her life, full of vitality, more tenacious than weeds.
When Colonel Miles Quaritch called the Na'vi "savages" and Parker Selfridge called them "blue monkeys" in the play, what lingered in my mind was the "yellow" East Asian "yellow" used by the American government elite in the book "Excellence". "Little people"; "terrorists" in the Middle East, "untouchables" and "untouchables" who refuse to demolition and destroy the construction of a harmonious society. With the greedy tentacles of human beings that "all things under the earth are for me", little by little, it penetrates into such a beautiful Na' The vi homeland is like the reckless expansion of our own footprints on this planet. "Being ashamed" is the only sigh I can utter. But when I followed Jake's eyes to observe and experience the wonderful world of Pandora's Grecian, I followed him to experience rebirth, love, dignity and redemption, and I had to feel deeply proud of my dedication to being a person and a person. We are complex, contradictory, and sinful; but at the same time simple and fragile, we hope forever.
This feeling is very similar to that after watching "Titanic": I know it is a cliche in Hollywood, but I am so sincere and moved with no regrets.
The technological revolution
had experienced the 3D effect of "Reaper is Coming 4" earlier this year, and was not very satisfied. The picture is layered in depth, similar to the effect of a three-dimensional painting, but it does not have an immersive sense of presence.
"Avatar" only opened for a few minutes, and the truly immersive effect appeared immediately. Jake Sully wakes up from the dormant cabin of the spacecraft, and is in a weightless spacecraft. In order to express Jake's levitation, the camera rolls in the same position, and the viewing effect is that the focus of the screen is stationary, and the person in the seat—myself— -Gone! After Jake became an "Avatar" hybrid creature and entered the virgin forest of Pandora Star, those rich and diverse herbaceous plants seemed to be under the human nose and within reach; the first time Jake saw an inverted umbrella-shaped giant multi-layered red flower, those The petals of the needles that stretch out like the sun almost cover the heads of the audience in front, and you may be able to reach them by stretching their necks. Not to mention the "soul tree" seeds flying all over the sky. They are like snowflakes and transparent jellyfish in the ocean. They surround the characters in the movie and everyone in front of the screen, making you breathless and dizzying. , Makes you completely lost in the fantasy world of Pandora Star.
I only experienced this deep shock caused by the beauty of the scenery the first time I saw the crystal-clear Caribbean waters of the blue crystal bottom, and I only sighed when I experienced the colorful tropical fishes within reach of the coral reef forest under the sea. I only praised when watching Kubrick's "2001: A Journey in Space" through the black hole. In "Avatar", Cameron presents the fantasy world of Pandora he created by himself to the audience in a way of experience, which is unique in the history of film.
In order to be 100% able to express Pandora's fantastic dream world, Cameron used three breakthrough technologies: virtual camera technology, facial expression capture, and a fusion camera system.
Virtual camera technology is still mainly used in 3D virtual world games, such as the "Legend of Zelda" series of games. Players control their own artificial intelligence in the virtual world, and provide real-time two-way feedback of character behavior information, and the three-dimensional character of the character The environment changes in real time as its action position changes. In "Avatar", the actors wear countless sensors for "action capture", and the computer directly processes the captured data, and directly displays the virtual characters they represent on the monitor according to a pre-made ratio, so that the director can real-time Observe the interactive effects of virtual characters and virtual electronic Pandora world.
Expression capture refers to computer graphics technology that captures the actor's expression. Cameron established a special stage (the volume) at Playa Vista in Los Angeles, which is 5 times larger than a general performance capture studio. 120 fixed cameras were installed to capture all the information of actors' performances from all angles; playing as Na'vi The human actor wears a special hat at the same time, and a miniature camera records in detail all changes in his facial expressions during the performance. Cameron hopes to use this to transmit 95% of the actor's performance and facial expression information to his or her digital avatar. The result is an extremely realistic imaging effect, and the audience is completely unable to distinguish the interaction between real people and virtual characters.
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United Digital Stereo Camera is a 3D stereo camera system created by director Cameron and digital camera technology innovator and cameraman Vince Page. This system uses two Sony HDC-F950 high-definition camera lenses, shooting at a distance of about 70 mm just like the left and right eyes of a person, and automatically adjusts the distance between the left and right lenses as the distance between the person and the lens changes, and transmits the data back The corresponding EVS XT[2] imaging processing system is synthesized to create a stereoscopic depth of field experience most similar to the human eye. The joint digital stereo camera has now been widely used in the shooting of many 3D movies, including Cameron's own 3D documentary "Deep Sea Alien" shot using the same technology.
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Without these three technological innovations, there would be no immersive Pandora star experience, and the audience would not be able to experience the mysterious, awkward, and strange. Can't feel the speed of flying a dragon bird, can't comprehend the color of roaming the night forest, can't perceive the breath and whisper of the tree of life. And all these feelings belong to the theater, which is the key to ensure the story is true and emotional.
The arrival of the new era
Director Cameron has been silent for many years after "Titanic". Starting from 2005, he began to prepare for "Avatar". In four and a half years, he developed his own 3D camera and engaged in technological innovation. This early truck driver was inspired by Kubrick's "2001: Space Journey" to enter the film industry and the director's dormant ability is really extraordinary.
The overall story of "Avatar" is actually a bit like "Battle for Terra", a bit like "Castle in the Sky", and a bit like "Dances with Wolves" and "Pocahontas" ( Pocahontas), or "District 9" (District 9), which also reveals many historical murders and human social realities such as "enclosure movement", "colonial expansion", "Vietnam War", "demolition", "forest deforestation", etc. The cruel shadow of the problem. This leftist sense of social responsibility is what makes me most admire Cameron outside of his unparalleled film technology revolution. The movie specifically mentions the brutal cruelty of human beings "fight terror with terror" and "pre-military strikes". In fact, all audiences know which government and what phenomenon it is aimed at.
After all, a film with only technological advancement can only stay on the textbook of the film school, but it cannot stay in the hearts of movie fans. Hollywood movies like Michael Bay's "Transformers 2", no matter how much technical input, no matter how dazzling visual effects, and no matter how complicated fighting scenes, are just a gimmick lacking true feelings, which only adds to headaches. And Cameron’s "Avatar" is great not only because of its unprecedented 3D technology, not only because of its unmatched visual effects, not only because it took 4 and a half years and cost 500 million to forge, and most importantly, it It has a conscience, it tells the truth, it stands on the opposite of capital and power, and it allows us to examine human beings. And all of this must be carried out in the cinema, the eternal "tree of life" in the movie.
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