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by guest blogger Victor Piñeiro
Well, he did it. And I doubt many of us are surprised.
James Cameron's Avatar finally surpassed his last movie, Titanic, as the world’s all-time top grossing film. Meanwhile, videos exploring the sexual possibilities of neuron-tendrilled Na’vi ponytails are sprouting up all over the web, China is renaming a mountain “Avatar Hallelujah Mountain”, and aspiring Earthbound Na’vis are getting suicidal as they suffer from post-Avatar melancholy and Pandora withdrawal.
It’s to the last point I’d like to speak. Serotonin-challenged Avatar geeks, fret not, for Pandora is assuredly coming. In time, we’ll all get the chance to be Jake Sully.
Avatar has been positioned by Cameron et al as the most revolutionary movie of the decade, and the prime talking point of most journalists and fans centers around whether the director delivered on his grandiose promise. Though the argument tends to hinge on Avatar's stunning visual acrobatics and immersive 3D special effects, I contend that the real revolution lies outside the movie. The revolution lies in what's next.
Is Avatar even a Hollywood movie? Sure, it operates with the usual three act structure, hitting most of the expected plot points at the prescribed time—what Hollywood studio would give any auteur $300M without a Hollywood-structured script? However, note how much of the film is devoted to exploring Pandora. Most of Act II's first half is spent lingering on the planet's flora and fauna, and we continue getting sweeping panoramic shots for the remainder of the film. While plenty of directors indulge in this kind of lavish cinematography, Cameron usually isn't one of them. Cameron wrote some of the most tightly-paced action movies of the 90s—and if anything, he's become even more disciplined over time. The man knows what he's doing, and is delivering exactly what he intended to: a travel brochure for the first truly immersive virtual world.
The director who proclaimed himself "King of the World" didn't spend a decade hibernating in order to produce yet another movie, or even a trilogy—he already conquered film with Titanic. Avatar is less of a movie and more of a personal invitation to all of us. He hasn't handed us the keys to his kingdom yet, but it's only a matter of time.
Why else gather a team of scientists to create a biologically-feasible planetary ecosystem for a fictional world? Or hire a master linguist to create an actual language for the Na'vi? One of the movie’s most talked-about ancillary products is nothing less than a comprehensive encyclopedia of the planet.
Sure, this millennium's movies are tasked with either riding on an existing franchise or creating a new one, but Avatar goes well beyond IP-building. Cameron is taking Tolkien’s idea of world-creation into the twenty-first century. Most of us have felt emotionally, imaginatively or even visually immersed in Middle-earth when reading the novels, watching the trilogy or playing the video games. Cameron wants more, wants to physically immerse us in Pandora. He wants us to feel like Jake Sully in the film. "Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream."
For now there is no virtual world or Massively Multiplayer Online game tied to Avatar, but one is inevitably coming. And it ultimately won’t be tethered to a screen. Embedded in Avatar is a wink to the audience, an implicit promise that Cameron will do everything in his power to take us to Pandora, and to let each of us play out the movie's last shot—opening our eyes and awakening into another world.
Victor Piñeiro is the Writer/Producer of Second Skin, an award-winning documentary on virtual worlds. He is currently a Strategist at Big Spaceship.
Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms
