Film Review

In today’s world it seems the entertainment that the public goes seeking must almost always relate to technology, its advancements, and imaginative inventions, which hopefully will be created in the near future.  Avatar, a very popular film released in 2009 deals mainly with technology, its future, and imagination.  Computers play a main role in the plot.  And, on a different note, I wish to use some freedom in discussing the use of computers in the creation of the movie.  The characters, setting, and creatures are first created first in the minds, then on paper, and finally on the computers of the filmmakers.  They had to first develop a new technical language in which they could use as a basis for the making of the film. 

The first scene displaying the technology shows a main hub in the center of the room.  It is completely unrealistic since the display is of a far off land, which they are trying to gain control of.  The creatures that occupy it are fantasy-like.  The method the humans are using to gain control of the land is by sending in their own man-made creatures to gain better relations with them.  This is also unrealistic.  The technology is quite amazing in the way that they are able to transfer information from the main hub to their own hand-held tablets that are simply a glass screen that can display vast amounts of information in a very clear-cut way.  Evidently, it takes an educated person to use the devices, especially the fulcrum of technology that each device is linked to.

In order for the humans to ‘step into’ their Avatar’s body they place themselves in another computer-run machine.  It detects their physical body levels along with their mental patterns and so forth.  These machines, too, are connected to the main hub.  Between their personal tablets, the transformation-enabling machines, and the source to which all of the information is kept, they all link together so everyone involved in the mission is able to be up-to-date by the second. 

The most logical use of technology in the whole movie is the video logs which they keep.  Every human who has the capability of becoming an Avatar must sit at a desk, in front of a camera, and record themselves telling the experiences they had when they were an Avatar.  Today this is a common form of what we know as journal entries.  It allows them (and us in real life) to not only get the information, but also the emotion along with it, quickly. 

Avatar is one of the most technologically advanced films produced in its time.  The actors who played the Avatars were filmed with electronic headsets attached to them, as well as a full bodysuit to detect body movements and sounds (such as the script).  Rather than filming the acting in buildings and other places around the world they filmed the majority of the movie in a single room that contained all of the technology needed.  Machines were brought in to resemble the forms of transportation and their encounters with wild beasts.  Fighting scenes were also apart of the filming in these rooms, which brought a new level of filming and technology. 

Overall the movie, Avatar, is not only technologically advanced in the story that it tells (the tablets, human transformers, machinery, all connected to a main hub; which, if put simply, would be a network) but its creation is also amazingly technologically advanced.  All through the use of computers, a captivating and imaginative movie could be created.  Without computers the movie itself and its plot would be non-existent.