Movie Review SSJ

James Cameron set a staggering box office record with Titanic, which won 11 Academy Awards in 1997. Avatar” is a science fiction film directed by James Cameron, its classic degree is no less than “Titanic”, the film 14 years to grind a sword, a huge investment of $ 500 million, took four years to complete the shooting. The film uses painting techniques to visual art throughout the creation of the theme, in order to achieve the artistic value of the work, the perfect combination of science fiction and animation, beautiful shots and images, is a classic. Avatar” is regarded as a landmark work in the history of cinema, which not only has a profound impact on the film production process, but also further expands the scope of film expression.

01 The era of stereoscopic cinema and the visual communication of 3D technology

Avatar”, which is translated as “avatar” in Chinese, is a 160-minute stereoscopic film that presents the main idea of the film’s creation and presents the strange world of Pandora to the audience through the pure use of 3D technology. It is a bold and successful attempt of visual communication in film creation. Avatar” is a film about: in the distant future, human beings on Earth, in order to go to the planet Pandora mining, human beings and indigenous people “Naomi” through genetic technology cloned into “Avatar”, and start The “Avatar Project”. Pandora is a planet that not only has 900-foot-tall trees, but also has a rare ore that is worth $20 million per kilogram. The clone Avatar is nearly 3 meters tall, controlled by the human mind, is a body paralyzed Navy member named Jack and “Naomi” combined to come. After the cloning, Jack disguised as “Avatar”, with his own Nami genes into the Nami interior, the Nami valuable ore stolen back to Earth. Jack thought he was just carrying out orders, but after arriving on the planet Pandora, he fell into the dreamy beauty. By a chance, Jack met and got acquainted with Neytiri, a Naami. In Neytiri’s body, he gradually learned the simple and kind quality of the Nami; at the same time, began to reflect on the greedy behavior of the people of Earth, and realized that their various actions for the planet Pandora means a robbery ……

Unlike traditional science fiction films, the film is presented in 3D technology throughout the visual communication, the whole story is placed in a three-dimensional character and expression, realizing the multi-dimensional perspective of film technology and film creation themes, creating an era of three-dimensional film creation. The initial budget for Avatar was $300 million, of which more than half was spent on the use of 3D technology. In order to use 3D technology to the extreme, James Cameron director in the production of the picture an average of 40,000 hours of labor per picture, stereoscopic picture is bold to use the new 3DFusionCamera system, this system to two Sony HDCF950HD camera as the protagonist, in the shooting scene like human eyes from different sides of the film content to take the material. This different side of the picture taken into the film image, 3D stereoscopic effect in the unconscious generated. Such filming effect makes the audience’s viewing experience comfortable and does not produce a sense of vertigo.

02 Perfect unity of science fiction theme and animation effect

The film “Avatar” science fiction theme presented throughout the 3D animation production technology, the effective combination of the two for the audience to show a bizarre planet beautiful world. The Pandora planet in the film is not only full of dreamy glowing plants of the jade forest, and transparent tree elves, but also has a strange glowing forest vegetation in the dark. The theme of the film is full of worries, questions and reflections on the fate of mankind, which is evident from the selection of the main character. The main character Jack is originally a physically disabled former Navy soldier, the film through Jack’s disability and the purpose of coming to the planet Pandora, it is an allegory of mankind not only destroyed themselves, and in the destruction of their own at the same time began to destroy Pandora such a wonderful and wonderful world. Humans themselves in the process of moving forward, but in fact became the process of destroying and breaking the world and all good things. Another wonderful thing about Pandora is that all the creatures on the planet are one, and they can communicate with each other through the neural bonds in their heads. The opposite of this integrated communication situation is the indifference and ugliness of the human community. Humans use their own way of thinking to interpret the planet Pandora becomes so pale and powerless. Therefore, the main character Jack prefers his identity as “Avatar”, rather than returning to Jack itself, he achieves the purification of mind and soul through the identity of “Avatar”, and through his efforts to save the planet Pandora.

So, how are these themes presented? The use of special effects in movies usually starts from characters, backgrounds, colors, forms, etc. Animation effects are also one of the means of special effects in movies. Avatar” is a film that makes full use of the basic cognition of beauty and ugliness, and the tree of the soul is designed to float and soar in the animation production, giving people a beautiful and longing visual feeling. Color is another means of expressing human emotions, joy and sorrow can be seen through the transformation between different colors. Red is exciting, white represents purity, green makes people longing, black is mysterious and deep, blue is calm and sad …… the most dynamic part of the beauty of nature is color, director Cameron in the film’s initial conceptual stage will be designed to Naomi’s skin blue, because the blue itself to the audience’s sensory perception is calm but sad, the director tried to convey through such a color. The director tried to convey a compassionate experience to the audience through such a color, awakening the consciousness of human beings’ interdependence with the natural world. In addition, there are also green colored birds and animals flying in the sky, a red and a green “lion-hawk winged beast” in the shuttle and chase, the intensity of color will be expressed to the fullest …… above all these forms, color, are achieved through animation effects, its The theme presentation and animation production are integrated and inseparable, unified in the visual art of the film and the audience’s visual experience. Whether the audience likes the way of animation or not, when they watch the film, they will put themselves in the middle of the visual art. Based on such a creation, it is required to use the animation technology at the same time, the artistry of the work through technical means to show, all this must be to tell a good story as a prerequisite, not because of highlighting the skills and ignore the theme and the original purpose of the film creation.

03 Explanation of the theme: human ideal and spiritual belonging

The plundering and destruction of Pandora and the Na’vi homeland and their lives by the Earth humans armed to the teeth with high technology in Avatar is not the whims of Hollywood writers and directors, but a metaphor for the history of Western colonization over the centuries. Nor is it a raw association to say that the Na’vi are the Indians of yesteryear, the native peoples of South America and Africa, or even the Chinese at the time of the Eight-Power Alliance. But if “Avatar” had expressed such an uninspired anti-colonial theme, it would obviously have disappointed many people. Happily, the crossover of the main character, Jack Sully, gives the film an unusual charm. As a paralyzed ex-Marine soldier, Jack almost appears as an “underdog”, but when he is tasked with replacing his brother, he disguises himself as an “avatar” and enters a Na’vi camp, learning the Na’vi survival skills in the process of falling in love with In the process of learning the survival skills of the Na’vi people, he fell in love with the daughter of the tribe’s leader, and when the Earthlings launched an operation to destroy the Na’vi homeland, Jack resolutely stood on the side of the Na’vi people and committed to the great feat of defending the planet Pandora and the right of the Na’vi to survive. This thrilling process is both a deliberate subversion of the classic screen heroes like James Bond and a rewriting of the classic theme of American patriotism that has been written repeatedly in Hollywood films for a long time.

Through the story of Jack and the aliens, Avatar explores and interrogates human spirituality through the presentation of details. On the one hand, the over-exploitation of the planet where they are located, the living space and environment of the earthlings have been full of destruction; on the other hand, the greedy nature of the earthlings has expanded infinitely, and has stretched its greedy arm to the planet Pandora. Earthlings are crazy enough to think that they can rule everything by relying on technology, and that they can do anything, but they do not know that what they do is like opening Pandora’s box step by step, and step by step they are heading for disaster and extinction. While living in Pandora’s planet “Naomi” but with nature as one, listening to the sound of nature, reverence for nature’s creatures, full of devout feelings. When Jack thanked Princess Navi for saving his life and killing the wolf-like beast, Princess Navi was sad and full of repentance, stroking the corpse of the beast and praying silently in the face of the lost life. When Jack came to the planet Pandora, but found that the human rendering for the poisonous steam, demons gathered in a horrible place, in fact, is a giant trees, mountains suspended, lakes, plants, colorful, beautiful fantasy garden. Although the creatures there have fierce faces, incomparable power and terrible tempers, they attack Jack only because the tranquility is disturbed, rather than attack, rather than self-defense, they are used to the cover of mimosa and the silence of the night. The indigenous tribe living in the rainforest – the Na’vi, although tiger-nosed and leopard-eyed, blue-skinned, tall and running like animals, but they are kind and friendly, united and loving each other, keep their promises, upright and brave, and have a psychic nature with nature, sheltered by the goddess Eve. In the film, the alien Princess Neville to Jack’s redemption and awakening, in a sense, is through Jack’s avatar to wake up the human race on Earth, so that they live in harmony with all living things, fear life, away from killing, cherish the environment and conserve resources. In fact, Pandora’s natural and integrated living environment is in stark contrast to mankind’s deteriorating living space, making Pandora a place where mankind’s ideals and aspirations are enshrined.