Vaughn On Movies – The World's Toughest Movie Critic™

Click to view trailer

As many of you know, I’ve been busy sifting through entries to the Tallgrass Film Festival. My apologies for getting to this at such a belated time.

Last Thursday I saw the trailer to James Cameron’s Avatar. This is a movie being met with a great deal of hoopla for a number of reasons. First there is the reputation of Mr. Cameron in the sci-fi genre. Not only is this his first fictive feature since 1997’s Titanic, the highest grossing film of all-time, but his first sci-fi film since 1991. In addition to this, Avatar has buzz surrounding its 3D presentation.

I’ll tell you straight up that I did not make it to any of the “Avatar Day” IMAX previews. The reasons being: one, Wichita knows not what IMAX is; two, busy. I saw the trailer on my computer, in 720p during my first viewing and most of this response is based solely on what is provided in that footage

It’s a rather typical trailer, with its bass heavy fades and some action highlights. Only one line of dialogue; which places it in a more specific category: the ambiguous trailer. I like the idea of not having a lot of the story within it. Who needs to hear the ending (Double Jeopardy)? We all know I’m going to end up watching this, but I’m uncertain that it’s enticing enough for everyone else.

We see the title “From the director of Titanic”. Many people saw Titanic, but this doesn’t seem related. I guess the studio is assuming that if you liked his sci-fi films, then you know full well of the director. Now I don’t know any people who currently love Titanic, so the inclusion of this, I feel is a little lost.

We also see various effects shots, and all look close to realistic. We see what we can assume is our setting, a rain forest planet. We see some of the creatures, ranging from blue elves to dinosaur-esque beasts. Both the setting and the creatures look nice, but I’m uncertain of how I’m going to feel for their circumstances. On first glance, these gangly elves look mildly goofy. Is an emotional scene going to carry the same weight it would with humans? Diseny/Pixar’s Up proved it to be possible.

Filling in the holes on my own, I see a Battle for Terra meets FernGully. It’s clear there is some human intervention on this planet, and it appears that one of the key figures in this is going to be the Sam Worthington character. I’d wager that the elf he’s looking over in the tube is the one he later places his mind into, so he can say the line, “This is great”. He then has to escape the militant humans, is met with weariness from the indigenous creatures, and then rallies them to fight the humans. I’m hoping there is more to it than that, because it seems like a played out story. Furthermore, these effects don’t strike me as impossible until 2009.

There is no mention of characters or places by name. No mention of why we see them fighting, crying, or seemingly yelling. Our lead elf manages to speak English, so maybe the other elves are familiar with our language as well (he has to be able to communicate with them in order for my theory to pan out). These are assumptions that I have. What are yours? Is this a movie that piques your curiosity? Do you think you can care about these creatures? Give me your thoughts.