For the last year the hype for Avatar has been building. We have been told we were going to see alien environments that would blow us away. We were told that we were going to see computer generated characters the realism of which would be astonishing. We were told that Avatar was the next step in cinema.
Cameron’s been stepping away from some of the hype lately (like at a Q&A at LA’s Aero Theater, where he was described as ‘unusually humble’), but the beginning of what is sure to be a flood of Avatar images and concept art make me think he should step even further away.
Yesterday Cameron showed up at the E3 gaming convention to talk up Ubisoft’s 3D video game for Avatar, and out of that talk came some images. IGN labels them as screenshots, but they’re obviously concept art. And like previous concept art we’ve seen from the film, nothing impresses all that much. Skull Island in a Star Wars Prequel setting is what I get from these images. Which isn’t inherently bad, it’s just not… special.
Maybe the whole thing comes down to the 3D. In that case, only a segment of the population will ever get to experience the film in the correct way, and when it comes out on Blu-Ray you’ll never be able to see it right again. More and more I’m reminded of films like How the West Was Won…
Head to IGN to see all the images.
