In any medium, those of you in the business of creative practise will no doubt at one point in your life struggled to come up with an idea that is unique. In a world as deeply connected to the spirit of sharing via the internet I came to the realisation that it is very difficult for people trying to create new and wondrous IPs. Almost to the extent that those who are managing to bring new IPs to light are creating some kind of revolution. Such as indie puzzle game ‘Braid’ and even existing main stream developers are trying new ideas out with games such as ‘Mirror’s Edge’ and ‘Portal’.
While I don’t know the interstices of coming up with a game idea and creating it to fulfil its auteurs desires, I can image it being pretty hard. I mean no matter how hard you try a lot of people with really interesting ideas simply fail at being able to convey just how they would see their IP being developed to another person who would be the one creating it. To further summarise my thoughts I’m going to be taking a closer look at James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’, which is being heralded a masterpiece in film.
The story of ‘Avatar’ takes place on a planet six light years from Earth on a Planet called ‘Pandora’ (or moon around a gas giant) where a mining company has established a base of operations to mine a rare mineral that occurs naturally on the planet and sells back on Earth for twenty-five million dollars a gram and we follow the story of one Jake Sully, a crippled ex-marine who’s twin brother has just been murdered. Jake’s brother was part of the ‘Avatar project’, a project created to fuse human minds with genetically grown Na’vi (Pandora’s sentient humanoid species) as a way of communicating with them and being able to study the world of Pandora without being subjected to the lack of oxygen. Truth be told the story that we follow throughout our viewing experience is quite basic and is something we have all seen before in the forms of a militaristic company out for money, a physically crippled individual given new life through science and a ‘spy’ who falls for the other side. As the film progresses it’s painfully obvious who you are supposed to be siding with and it’s clearly not the Humans. The only humans we really care about in this film are the science nerds all the hard private military types look down on, as they seem to be the only ones with any kind of moral compass.
But the story isn’t why ‘Avatar’ is being so wildly praised. Its main selling point is its visuals. When people first told me about this film they told me that if I had to see it that I should do so in 3D as not doing so wouldn’t do it justice. Nowadays 3D isn’t some gimmick that you look at with crummy red and green gel paper glasses but rather polarising 3D. Having had a brief play on ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’ on the PC using the same sort of 3D at the Eurogamer Expo up in Leeds at the end of October 2009 I have some idea of how the technology works. In basic terms the screen displays the same image multiple times that to any on-looker it would just appear out of focus and feel like their eyes need testing. The result however is that it actually has a very realistic visual impact. In the case of the Batman game I couldn’t get over that I felt like I was controlling Batman in an actual box that if I were to move my hand toward the screen I could be able to reach in and move him around like a doll. Car racing-sim ‘Need for Speed’ also had a similar feel, with the actual cockpit of the racing car feeling like it had actual depth and the steering wheel was indeed at arm’s length when in reality I’m standing in front of a monitor, pressing buttons on a keyboard with an Nvidia booth-babe standing next to me and me feeling like a pillock wearing those big heavy specialised Nvidia glasses. Like some sort of super-nerd with the ability to use my special glasses to see through time.
‘Decent’ 3D technology is already here and most startling of all for computer users it’s not that expensive. Ok maybe that’s a lie as the demand for high powered gaming machines has dropped given the amount of games people need them for has also taken a decline but for a mere £400 you could be enjoying 3D today and the new 3D is the new leap forward in terms of HD viewing. The highest end Nvidia graphics cards are already capable of rendering 3D, all you require are some new drivers and a specialised monitor
Moving back to ‘Avatar’ the 3D is used to draw audience attention to what the filmmaker wants you to pay attention too. In the opening sequence in which most of the audience are amazed at what they are seeing through their ‘Blues Brothers’ inspired glasses, so huge I didn’t even need to take my normal ones off (which I assume is the point of them being so huge) is that you are drawn into following a tiny drop of water floating around in space, everything else is blurred and you have a full sense of depth of field. Something films, TV shows and games have tried to simulate but not to such an extent. With a ‘true’ depth of field you seem to be able guess at the distance of the object and that truly draws you in.
In my mind ‘Avatar’ is a technological spectacle. Never have such visual ideas been portrayed to such a mind blowing extent but yet I feel like I’ve seen it all before. The world of ‘Pandora’ reminds me too much of the worlds I’ve explored as an ‘avatar’ in ‘World of Warcraft’. This is probably the easiest comparison I can make that ‘Avatar’ isn’t a wholly new world envisioned for the first time. So to see as I see I’m going to list a few of the easy comparisons. The Na’vi, ‘Pandora’s’ native in habitants are a tall, tribal, druidy race who live inside and under a holy tree. This screams ‘Night Elves’ at me but maybe that’s just my limited imagination. The world itself doesn’t seem so new to me. The ‘Hallelujah Mountains’, where most scientific instruments are distorted and small islands of rocks float through the air, some of which with water sources pouring out of them I seem to have encountered in ‘Nagrand’ and reminded me of the anime series ‘Escaflowne’ where magical floating rocks are attached to ships to make them fly and even the bioluminescent jungle had a touch of ‘Zangarmarsh’ to it, just less mould and serpent monsters. That is where my comparison ends with ‘World of Warcraft’ and while not everyone has experienced this on a personal level those of you haven’t should now at least have an idea of what was running through my mind at least.
The ideas of this new world have indeed been done before but never in one film to such a fantastic degree. WETA, the special effects company behind ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘King Kong’ out did themselves in making New Zealand into something out of this world, again. To the point people where getting depressed that our world isn’t like that. The Earth in Avatar is only referenced to briefly by Jake as he mentions that the world was paved over and no jungle remained, leaving me to assume it was a lot like one of those city covered Star Wars planets but a lot less majestic.
