Avatar 15 Minute 3D Reel Presentation Review

I was one of the lucky few who seen the 15 minute reel for James Cameron’s new film in more than 12 years “Avatar”.

On thursday this trailer was released http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXF2nH4Z9sc

Alot of people were underwhelmed with this trailer, myself included, but after seeing this footage in 3D i am under no impression that this film will be a visual delight.
The reel started with a quick intro by James Cameron himself stating that the all the footage shown was from the first half of the movie so that there wouldn’t be any spoilers.

It starts with a General talking to his troops in a small mess hall and straight from the off you can see the 3D aspects of this film, even in a simple scene like this the image has at least 5 or 6 layers of depth to it immerising the viewer in this world.

In the next scene Sigourney Weaver, from Aliens, preps our hero Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, from Terminator Salvation fame, so that he can undergo his tranformation into his avatar so that he can interact with the indigenious people of this planet called Pandora.

in the Next scene, our previously wheelchair bound hero awakens in his avatar, an 8 foot tall blue Na’Vi. As he awakens he feels his legs for the first time in years. Getting excited he gets up from the operating table and stumbles around to the dismay of the doctors around him, he is excelerated and rushes out of the room.

This next scene is the first outside of the cold confines of the military base, the planet of Pandora is a lush landscape of vegatation and dangerous otherworldly wildlife. Our Hero Jake, now in his Avatar tries to confront one of the animals but comes up against and even deadlier beast who chases him through the jungle.

Next Jake is saved from wolf like creatures by Neytiri, a female Na’Vi, she puts out the flames that Jake was trying to use to get rid of the beasts thus illuminating the forest in a neon glow which amazes Jake.

in our last full scene, we see Jake tame a giant bird like creature so that he can fly, this is a coming of age ritual for the Na’Vi and we see that not all of them think that their new recruit can be all that he can be.

Then there is a montage of action shots of a huge war between the Na’Vi and the humans.

Overall this footage was truly stunning, even though the Na’Vi world and people firstly look like they’re from a computer game, you soon see the subtleties in the performances and see the actors behind the CG and unlike previous movies like The Polar Express and Beowulf, these CG characters have a soul behind their eyes.

I personally cannot wait to see this movie in full when it come s out worldwide on December 18th