Pandora's Music Box:
Rock Stars' Na'vi Avatars
Source: rollingstone.com
February 18, 2010 - Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, The Beatles and more stars' "Avatar" alter egos. Click on the source link above to check out Rolling Stone's Avatarized gallery.
James Cameron Talks About The Political Response To 'Avatar'
Source: mtv.com
February 17, 2010 - The director talks about the backlash and revisionist history to "Titanic" and the "Terminator" films as well.
James Cameron Talks About The Environmental Aspect Of 'Avatar'
Source: mtv.com
February 17, 2010 - The director tried to instill viewers with "moral outrage" that might inspire them to do something about the environment.
James Cameron Writing 'Avatar' Prequel -- But Not For The Big Screen
Director plans to write debut novel that tells the film's backstories, producer Jon Landau reveals.
By Larry Carroll | Excerpt: mtv.com
February 12, 2010 - It's the highest-grossing film of all time, possesses the most Oscar nominations of any film heading into next month's ceremony and is the word on everyone's lips: "Avatar." Now, James Cameron is beginning work on a prequel — but it won't be coming soon to a theater near you.
"Jim is going to write a novel himself," the film's producer, Jon Landau, told us when he stopped by the MTV News studios recently. "Not a novelization — and there is a distinction. A novelization basically retells the story of the movie. Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things."
Ever since "Avatar" mania engulfed Hollywood, rumors and small details have leaked out about possible prequels, sequels, comic books and novelizations. But Landau's comments appear to indicate the first definitive plan to provide more from the "Avatar" world to the seemingly endless appetite of its fans.
"[We] won't have time to do [these stories] in the movie, or maybe in sequels," Landau explained of what Cameron will be writing about. "[So the novel will] give a foundation for the world.
"It would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with — like the schoolhouse and Sigourney [Weaver's character] teaching at the schoolhouse; Jake on Earth and his backstory and how he came here; [the death of] Tommy, Jake's brother; and Colonel Quaritch, how he ended up there and all that," Landau explained.
Although Cameron has extensive writing credentials, including the screenplays for everything from the first two "Terminator" films to "Titanic," the "Avatar" prequel would mark his debut as a novelist.
"I don't think Jim has ever written a novel before, but his first step of writing a script is often in a novella format," Landau said. "So this is just expanding that, and I think that he'll be very adept at it."
As for when "Avatar" fans can look forward to experiencing Cameron's novel, Landau had some encouraging news: "I'm hoping by the end of this year."
James Cameron talks with SBclick about the Na'vi of Avatar and Social Consciousness
February 10, 2010 - James Cameron discusses the raw materials used to conceive of the Na'vi people from the film Avatar. Cameron also talks about the social responsibility we all have for this globe. From the 2010 Santa Barbara Film Festival.
February 2, 2010 - Time for some harmless pokes at Avatar with these poster mashups. Some of them are quite hilarious, others . . . not so much. Click the source link above to view over 25 Avatar poster mashups.
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What's Subversive About Avatar?
Excerpt: foxnews.com
February 18, 2010 - James Cameron was on "The View" Wednesday morning and he was quite frank about the premise and purpose of his film, "Avatar." He plainly explained it was anti-corporate and that his goal was to wrap that "subversive" message in an entertaining vehicle that America, or the world, would swallow whole:
JAMES CAMERON, DIRECTOR, 'AVATAR': Well, look — here's, here's — I think the film is definitely anti-corporate, you know, and I think that the corporations and the corporate lobbies are doing a huge damage to the country and the environment.
This is meant to wake folks up. Sure, sure, clearly. To me it's a very personal film in the sense that when I was a kid, you know, in high school it was the start of the environmental movement and I made a film in high school about pollution.
So, you know, in the years since, trying to get documentaries funded about the environment — you can't raise any money to do that. Nobody wants to buy that stuff. So I thought if I make a big, spectacular action science fiction film, I can embed these themes in a movie that people are going to see for other reasons.
James Cameron on 'Avatar': 'It's my most personal film'
By John Horn | Excerpt: latimes.com
February 15, 2010 - Los Angeles Times reporter John Horn is one of the top journalists covering Hollywood and he recently sat down with five directors --- James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, Lee Daniels and Jason Reitman -- and conducted a fascinating round table discussion. You can find video snippets of it at our sister blog 24 Frames -- but here are two intriguing excerpts from "Avatar" writer and director Cameron, who may be the king of the world (again) on Oscar night.
Cameron on a beloved scene that just didn't make the cut...
It was an epiphanal scene for me when I was writing the script, and when I wrote it, I actually kind of welled up myself. It’s a scene at the end where the warrior that Jake has had to prove himself to, Tsu’tey, the guy that’s ... keeping him out of the clan and the whole Na’vi experience, is dying after the battle ... Jake goes to him and he hands him the baton of leadership and says, “You have to lead the people,” as he’s dying. Very, very powerful, emotional scene and again, the rhythm — it just messed with the rhythm of the ending. It just felt like there was one dramatic beat too many...
It had to come out completely, and that was the one scene that we finished all the way through the [special effects] Weta process because nobody could imagine the scene not being in the movie. Nobody. All the effects people came to me and said, “I can’t believe you’re cutting Tsu’tey’s death.” They were all invested in the scene. So, I actually had it out and I put it back in ... Then it got right down to the end where the final decision had to be made and I said, "No, it’s coming out."
Cameron on the fact that "Avatar" is a truly personal film...
It’s hard to visualize “Avatar” maybe from the outside as a personal film, but to me in a funny way from my perspective, it’s my most personal film because it so accurately reflects my childhood — as a kid who was both an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy and comic books and constantly conjuring all these images in my head before there were VCRs and I could just watch any movie any time I wanted ...
There was very little imagery out there at the time. You had to make it up yourself, and as an artist I was always drawing all these things, so all the stuff in “Avatar” was stuff I had been drawing for years as a teenager ... And then as a scuba diver sort of discovering the endless bounty of nature’s imagination underwater, which is really, ultimately, almost unfathomable. So “Avatar” is all of that, all sort of distilled down into one movie. The story was written 15 years ago, and certainly there was a strong environmental consciousness then ... but it’s obviously on our minds a lot more now as this sense of a coming day of reckoning ... that we really have to deal with this.
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February 10, 2010 - THE CLAIM: 3-D movies can induce headaches and sickness.
THE FACTS: The epic science-fiction film "Avatar" has broken box-office records. But it has had some unwanted side effects. Many viewers have complained that "Avatar" and other 3-D films give them headaches, nausea, blurred vision and other symptoms of visually induced motion sickness. The problem, studies indicate, is that the films often cause unnatural eye movements.
Normally, when an object approaches a person, the eyes respond in two ways. They converge, or rotate inward to follow it (as an example, extend an arm with your index finger pointed up, then slowly pull it toward your nose). At the same time, as the object approaches, the eyes focus and maintain a clear image of it by changing the shape of the lens, a process called visual accommodation.
But a 3-D object flying off the screen causes sensory conflict. The eyes rotate inward to follow it, but they must also maintain a fixed focus on the display surface. So they converge without accommodating, an uncoupling of two natural processes that -- over the course of a long movie -- can be stressful. There is no proven way to prevent this. But film buffs who have sat through multiple screenings of "Avatar" say one trick is to avoid looking at unfocused parts of the scenes, which sounds a lot easier than it is.
THE BOTTOM LINE: 3-D movies can cause unnatural eye movements that induce strain and sickness.
Subscribe to The New York Times / National Edition - The New York Times gives you great stories in depth from around the world. It is the detailed stories and some investigative stories that you can't find anyplace else that are so refreshing to read.
February 9, 2010 - Survival has appealed to Avatar director James Cameron on behalf of an Indian tribe through an ad in the film industry magazine Variety (published today 8 February 2010). In the ad Survival asks Mr Cameron to help the Dongria Kondh tribe of Orissa, India, whose story is uncannily similar to that of the Na’vi in Avatar. The ad says:
'Appeal to James Cameron
Avatar is fantasy .. and real.
The Dongria Kondh tribe in India are struggling to defend their land against a mining company hell-bent on destroying their sacred mountain. Please help the Dongria. We’ve watched your film – now watch ours: www.survivalinternational.org/films/mine.'
Survival’s ten-minute film ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’ - narrated by Joanna Lumley - exposes the Dongria’s plight. The Dongria live in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa state, India. British FTSE-100 company Vedanta Resources is determined to mine their sacred mountain’s rich seam of bauxite (aluminium ore). Vedanta is majority-owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal. The Dongria and other local Kondh people are resisting Vedanta, and are determined to save Niyamgiri from becoming an industrial wasteland.
Other Kondh groups are already suffering from a bauxite refinery, built and operated by Vedanta, at the base of the Niyamgiri Hills. Survival’s director Stephen Corry says, ‘Just as the Na’vi describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything’, for the Dongria Kondh, life and land have always been deeply connected. The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out today in the hills of Niyamgiri in Orissa, India.
’Like the Na’vi of ‘Avatar’, the Dongria Kondh are also at risk, as their lands are set to be mined by Vedanta Resources who will stop at nothing to achieve their aims. The mine will destroy the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and wreck the lives of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area. ‘I do hope that James Cameron will join the Dongria’s struggle to save their sacred mountain and secure their future.’
February 9, 2010 - Sequence Magazine has put together a 45 minute video montage using existing videos on the making of Avatar along with a 5 minute music video sound-track by Leona Lewis. This video has a lot of new footage that was not included in the last 20 minute Making of Avatar that they aired a week ago.
Sequence Magazine: ". . . note that this is not an official making-of, it is something that Sequence Magazine staff had put together from all the material available freely on the Internet. We just chose the most interesting videos and edited it to create an organized “film” about Avatar." Click the source link above to view the video.
February 9, 2010 - Weta Digital, an intregral partner in Avatar's visual effects, features an array of video snippets on the film along with stare and compare scenes of how effects were added into the shots. Click the video link above to view the currently offered seven videos.
February 7, 2010 - After seeing Avatar, we wondered how James Cameron and his crew of artists dreamed up the lush, gorgeous world of the Na’vi. We thought maybe his inspiration came from imagining the land inhabited by Native Americans before Europeans pillaged and plowed its people, forests and animals. Zoe Saldana’s character Neytiri had to be based on Pocahontas, right? How naive!
Playboy seems the more likely source. Having been married five times (often to women who’ve starred in his movies), it’s no secret that Cameron has an appetite for ladies. The above picture of German model Veruschka von Lehndorff is from Playboy’s January 1971 issue, when the director would have been at the masturbatory young age of 16. Before Playboy, Veruschka steamed up the silver screen in Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blowup — a film Cameron is sure to have seen.
Avatar Bolsters News Corp.’s Earnings
By Alex Billington | Excerpt: firstshowing.net
February 6, 2010 - Yes, this is a weird update, but I always love hearing what Quentin Tarantino has to say, even if it's sometimes quite crazy. So back in December, Tarantino unveiled his Top 8 movies of 2009. It was an odd list and actually incomplete, because Tarantino hadn't seen every movie from that year that he wanted to. Well, Tarantino has now seen everything and has quickly put together a final list. It showed up in British tabloid writer Baz Bamigboye's Daily Mail update (via The Playlist and contains most of those old films as well as some interesting new ones. "My movie aside, I cannot NOT list Avatar at the top," Tarantino said.
Tarantino's Top 11 Films of 2009: 1. Avatar; 2. Star Trek; 3. Drag Me to Hell; 4. Funny People; 5. Zombieland; 6. Chocolate; 7. Observe & Report; 8. The Hurt Locker; 9. Julie & Julia; 10. Up in the Air; 11. District 9
As far as I know, these aren't in specific order, however they're numbered in the way that Tarantino listed them. The two films not on this new list are Precious and An Education. New additions include Avatar, Julie & Julia, and The Hurt Locker, but the rest of them are the same. While not everyone will agree with this list, I always love hearing about Tarantino's picks, just because he's always got some crazy stuff, or (like this year), some odd mainstream picks.
Avatar Bolsters News Corp.’s Earnings
By Tim Arango | Excerpt: nytimes.com
February 3, 2010 - Buoyed by the success of “Avatar,” the science fiction blockbuster that has become the highest-grossing movie to date, the News Corporation reported a quarterly profit on Tuesday that surpassed the expectations of Wall Street analysts.
“Avatar,” made by James Cameron and released by News Corporation’s 20th Century Fox film studio, has generated nearly $600 million at the North American box office, and more than $2 billion worldwide, making it the highest grossing movie to date in dollars not adjusted for inflation.
It surpassed “Titanic,” another film from Mr. Cameron, that had topped the list of moneymakers. Because of the success of “Avatar,” several Wall Street analysts raised their earnings estimates for the News Corporation in recent days.
At the company’s newspaper unit, which is central to the company and close to Mr. Murdoch’s heart, operating income increased from $200 million to $259 million. Revenue increased from $1.5 billion to $1.65 billion. The company attributed the profit gain to “increased advertising revenues at The Wall Street Journal and lower operating expenses throughout the newspaper businesses from prior year restructuring efforts,” according to a company statement.
The cable network division contributed the most to the company’s overall profit, largely because of the success of Fox News, which has emerged as the growth engine of the News Corporation. While “Avatar” certainly helped, the film will probably be a larger contributor in the third quarter. The film was released on Dec. 18, so it was only in theaters for 13 days during the quarter.
“In the quarter we booked much of the film’s costs but only a small portion of its receipts,” Mr. Murdoch said. On the call, Mr. Murdoch defended the value of content, especially journalism, in the face of the Internet and new technologies, which have upended traditional media models.
