Breaking new ground

MANILA, Philippines - James Cameron (photo), director of Titanic, first conceived Avatar 15 years ago when 3D technology did not exist yet. There were just times in the film’s journey that Cameron had to rely on his natural instincts to bring Avatar to life.

The movie rolls to action when a paralyzed marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) volunteers for the Avatar program where humans are genetically engineered to become human/Na’vi hybrid to explore the lush planet of Pandora with the aid of botanist Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver). Once in Pandora they discover an amazing, lush world rich in bio-diversity with fluorescent forests full of trees as tall as skyscrapers and creatures they could never have dreamed existed, including fearsome prehistoric predators.

The desire to seek new challenges and overcome obstacles drove Cameron to make Avatar and, along with his team, pioneer the use of ground breaking new technology — to keep pushing forward, when others, perhaps, might have given up in despair. Indeed, when Cameron originally thought of making Avatar, back in 1995, he wrote the script and started to develop the project but got to a point where he realized that it simply couldn’t be done because the filmmaking tools weren’t available.

Cameron, having broken new grounds before hauled in the most Oscar awards for Titanic, one of which was for Best Visual Effects. Now, after four years in the making, Cameron is once again ready to break new grounds in Avatar, a fully-immersive new generation technology that disappears into emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story. 

Excerpts:

 What will the world expect in Avatar?

There will be huge battle scenes — the last of which is the mother of all battles that takes place on Pandora. The battle is aerial, it’s on the ground, it’s cavalry, it’s hand to hand - it’s gonzo. It’s absolutely the biggest thing I’ve ever done.

What is the film saying to society at large?

The innate ideas in the film were very appalling and I thought that they had a purpose right now.   I think it’s also good for our entertainment to not be completely vacuous — it asks you questions about our relationship with each other, from culture to culture, and our relationship with the natural world at a time of nature deficit disorder.

How challenging was it doing the film?

Both mentally and just in terms of pure stamina. We weren’t out at sea, we weren’t fighting storms, we weren’t fighting conditions, we were fighting the fact that we didn’t really know what we were doing. Nobody did. But we had to learn and solve problems and that’s what we did.

Did you plan on being away from filmmaking for such a long time?

I didn’t expect it to be as long away. My goal was to go and spend five years doing all the stuff I wanted to do in my alternate fantasy life — to be an explorer, scientist, space and underwater explorer and all of that. But one thing led to another and the years rolled by.

How much is the weight of expectation given the spectacular success of Titanic?

It’s a blessing and a curse because frankly that question reflects the way people think — What’s he going to show us this time? But the upside is that I can go out and raise money to do something extraordinary. So yes, there’s an expectation on the part of the studio that I’m going to be able to perform like I did before except that Avatar and Titanic are completely different stories that cannot be compared. We have to start over at zero to attract and entertain an audience. And that’s pretty exciting.

Avatar opens Dec. 17 in theaters.