I wish Kenya had IMAX!

So I could watch this upcoming movie Avatar in all it‘s cinematic glory! What is Avatar you may ask? Do you mean Avatar: The Last Airbender? No, The Last Airbender is a cartoon and it is also being made into a movie, and that one is being done by M.Night Shyamalan. By the way, can I just say I think M.Night is a director who has wonderful concepts for movies, but for some reason his movies fail to impress me. I liked Signs and Sixth Sense, but that’s about it. Even The Happening was disappointing. Anyway that’s vibe for some other day.

The Avatar I am referring to here is an upcoming movie directed by James Cameron. Now you know you cant go too wrong with James Cameron behind the lens. The last Hollywood movie James did was actually the Titanic. I know, that seems like eons ago. For some reason almost all my friends hated Titanic, they said it was too mushy and unrealistic. Well, I for one quite liked it..mushiness and all. Anyway, the thing with Avatar is that is supposed to be this big budget ($240mill) photo-realistic movie that will usher in a (r)evolution in filmmaking. The film uses some new kind of 3D technology and some characters in the movie have been created using motion-capture. They will appear to be very lifelike, so much so it will be almost impossible to tell the difference between them and regular actors. Do I hear a big yawn? Where have we heard such claims before countless times? So many computer generated(CG) movies have come out of Hollywood and none have really struck me as “taking it to that next level.” I must give Lord of the Rings its props though, "Gollum" so far has been the most lifelike CG creature I have seen on screen so far. I also watched this movie called Beowulf in 3D, and though the story was great, the 3D and CG characters failed to impress yet again.

Luckily for us, the people behind Gollum (LOTR), a company called WETA Digital(owned by Peter Jackson) are also the geeks behind the effects in Avatar. Another factor in Avatar’s favour is that James Cameron is the same guy who delivered to us Terminator 2 which I consider a revolutionary movie when it comes to effects. I remember being blown away when I fist saw it all those years ago in primary school. Take shortcuts, Jim does not. After all, he has been working on this film for only what 15 yrs! Well, not really but he did want to make the movie in 1994. He felt though that the technology hadn’t yet reached a point where it could visually match his vision, until now that is!

So, all you Sci-fi/CG/James Cameron fans can now count down and wait with baited breath for the December release of AVATAR. A few people saw minutes of the film at Comic Convention(Comic-Con) and most reports indicate the movie is stunning so far. Lucky for those with IMAX screens and 3D! Argh, I wish there was an IMAX screen in Kenya so that we could watch this film in all the glory and quality it was intended to be seen in. O.K I understand the digital projectors required for IMAX are very expensive, so tickets would probably be in the Ksh2-3K range, but still. This is an exciting moment in film and I’m willing to cough up the dough for it dammit! Sigh.

Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to make do with our regular silver bird(or whatever they’re called these days) screens! The movie still promises to be spectacular with regular movie screens due to the action/photo-realism in it. Yeah, of course they’d say that so we could shell out dough for the ticket. Anyway, line up to see this movie I will, IMAX or no IMAX(sigh). See you at your nearest non-IMAX Kenyan cinema come December(or whenever its released on this end)