AVATAR is a Game Changer
James Cameron's AVATAR is a game changer.
There are three reasons why Cameron's 3D extravaganza AVATAR is a game changer. The film is good. The technology is excellent and the hype is perfect. AVATAR is changing the game.
As seen by Hollywood marketeers, there are four segments within the film going world. The first demographic quadrant is female, 25 and under. The second quadrant is male, 25 and under. The other two segments are male and female over 25. A successful film needs to appeal to at least two of the quadrants. A really successful film has one of the quadrants seeing the film more than once. TITANIC succeeded because females under 25 went time and time again. With AVATAR the quadrant that will go again and again are the males.
AVATAR is an adventure film that transports the viewer to a new world. A world where the natives are ten feet tall, act like the Indians in DANCES WITH WOLVES, but with a deeper sensibility of their environment not unlike the heroes in a somewhat forgotten animated film called FERNGULLY.
The plot will be told and retold in a myriad of reviews, and it is not a game changer. James Cameron's films are not CITIZEN KANE or Mizoguchi or even Jason Reitman. But he can tell a story and his stories do have emotional cores. This makes them well crafted and well structured.
Where AVATAR changes the game is with the technology. The film is animated, but you wouldn't know it. Using a variant of "motion capture" technology called "performance capture", the technology leaps light years beyond the crudeness of THE POLAR EXPRESS. It has come of age. It now will grow in ways that excite even the most casual of film observer. AVATAR is shouting to everyone who can hear, "What a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet." (Al Jolson's first words spoken in THE JAZZ SINGER, another legendary game changer).
This all leads to the shameless hyping of the budget. At first the media manipulators were worried that AVATAR would be a bust. If so, the budget would hang around the studio's neck like that stinking albatross HEAVEN'S GATE that ruined almost ruined another studio. As the word slowly leaked out that the film was going to be huge, the real budget was became a talking/hyping point. The number is $500 million, making it the most expensive film of all-time, just like TITANIC. It now adds luster to the film and its mystique.
Yet make no mistake about it. The film did not cost $500 million. Perhaps the accountants will say that, perhaps the studio will say that and James Cameron is saying that. But what they are really saying is that EVERYTHING costs $500 million, including the new technology. If AVATAR is the vehicle that pays for all the bells and whistles for this new technology, it simply means that the power that be are not depreciating the new toys over a period of time, but right now. The next "performance capture" animated film will have a much lower budget. The toys are paid for. Hollywood is renowned for it fiscal legerdemain.
Money aside, AVATAR is a film to be seen more than once. It will bring a galaxy of people into theaters, especially internationally. As it grows the critics will start chiming in. Some folks will gripe about how actors are being replaced by computers. Some will find fault with the plot. It won't matter because more folks will see the money to made using this new technology and the flood gates will open.
We ain't seen nothing yet. AVATAR is a game changer.
