The spat106 short longform #7

Green Screens and Avatar Sequels

More and more movies are using the power of computer technology. This is the reliance of computer generated imagery or FBI for short as it’s known by people who can’t spell. This does make sense because often it is cheaper to create these scenes using graphics rather than use real life locations and often better to do computer generated imagery when the real life equivalent it is not practical. For instance you can’t actually go to Pluto to film a scene because they have stopped people going to it due to their demotion from a planet to a dwarf planet in 2006. The Plutonians are very petty like that.

One such film to make use of CGI is Avatar or to be more precise the upcoming Avatar sequels, which unnecessarily there will be 4 of, which is 4 more too many. Although a positive is that these 4 will be filmed in New Zealand because James Cameron has adopted New Zealand as his new residence. Why couldn’t he have filmed the Terminators here, he can make up for it by calling the first sequel, Avatar 2: Judgment Day and the second sequel Avatar 3; Rise of The Machines.

One of James Cameron’s previous films was of course Titanic which won a load of Oscars and was at the time the highest grossing film of all time. That got overtaken by his next film, Avatar. Personally I don’t know why Titanic got overtaken because My Heart Will Go On was on Titanic and I have no idea which was the signature song from Avatar. Why it wasn’t a remake of Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65 is going to hound me and hopefully James Cameron in his dreams. Although from the money he made from both Titanic and Avatar he’d be swimming in a silo of coins like Scrooge McDuck. That silo is probably somewhere on his New Zealand properties.

There is also a touch of arrogance existing with both the amount and release dates of the Avatar sequels. James Cameron sees the franchise almost the same as what we currently see the Star Wars franchise as. One thing that the Avatar series hasn’t got that Star Wars has is Darth Vader, a black costumed guy voiced by a black man but acted in costume by a white guy. All Avatar has is white people acting as blue avatars. That’s not really realistic is it, I say this as I watch a fight featuring lightsabers and people levitating others from a distance using Jedi powers.

Some years ago James Cameron descended right down to Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth. If these Avatar sequels about the blue alien versions of Native Americans don’t reach the heady heights of the original then Cameron will be tempted to go back to the Mariana Trench but stay at the bottom of it for the rest of his days.