Brave new world

Neytiri and Jake make final preparations for an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world. Photo / Supplied

With the first decade of the new millennium drawing to a close, it seems appropriate to conclude it with the film that could determine how cinema is seen in the future.

Avatar has arrived at the end of a year that has already seen children's movies such as A Christmas Carol and Up attracting audiences with their impressive 3D animations.

However, none compares to the lavish, revolutionary special effects of James Cameron's spectacular 3D extravaganza, which totally immerses the viewer in its strange alien environment. "Every film-maker who has made a 3D film before has felt it necessary to constantly remind you that you're watching a 3D movie by having things coming out at you like they're invading your personal space," says the Canadian-born director, in London for Avatar's world premiere.

"But to me, if you're constantly being reminded that you're watching a 3D film, you're also being reminded that you're watching a movie. I don't want you to spend the two hours and 40 minutes of the film thinking that you're in a movie theatre – I want you to go to [the fictional world of] Pandora." With no eye-catching objects flying around, Avatar's more subtle 3D can initially seem slightly underwhelming.

However, Cameron draws you in with the intricate detail with which he creates his verdant rain forests. "I approach 3D as if were a window," he says. "I like to think of it as a portal into another reality.

The portal sits some comfortable distance from you and through it you can see the characters and the scenes in that world. We weren't looking for opportunities to constantly flex our 3D muscles. We didn't want to wear out our welcome and make it seem like a gimmick. We wanted it to seem like a natural part of the cinematic art."

Unlike many lesser blockbusters, Avatar is no empty spectacle. "There are lots of movies that involve special effects but Jim Cameron is the only one who understands that they're not just for effect," says Sigourney Weaver, who plays Dr Grace Augustin.

"He uses it to enhance the emotional story, using 3D in this case to make the audience's sensory experience even sharper." Cameron was reluctant to cast Weaver, whom he first worked with on 1986's Aliens, as he wished to avoid comparisons between the cantankerous scientist and the iconic Ellen Ripley.

Nevertheless, parallels are inevitable as both films feature a troop of futuristic Marines being dispatched to a hostile off-world colony. "It was great playing someone who ends up finding her true happiness in an alien life, especially after my history with aliens," laughs Weaver. "Grace was such a wonderful combination of qualities. She was full of authority and wit but she's also a very conflicted person.

"I really admire women who have devoted themselves to the study of certain things. I felt that with what Jim gave me we were able to construct a very believable character, who flowers in this alien world and culture."

Set in 2154, the film centres around paraplegic marine Jake Sully (Australian actor Sam Worthington, last seen in Terminator: Salvation), who gains a new lease on life on Pandora when he infiltrates the indigenous tall, blue Na'vi population through the use of an artificial Avatar body. He is working for the Corporation, an authoritarian mining company which intends to mine the planet's ironically titled precious mineral, Unobtainium.

However, he goes native after falling in love with Na'vi warrior Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, who was Uhuru in this year's other great science fiction epic Star Trek. "I'm a big admirer of Sigourney's career and she is such a great role model," says Saldana.

"I wish there were more genres in which women had the opportunity to be presented as the complex creatures that we are. We can be heroes and we can save everybody and we can also be vulnerable and be saved, all in the one person."

Cameron spent as much time building up the details of the Na'vi's culture as he did on refining the film's pioneering special effects, even devising a fictional tongue that is spoken by the actors. He was inspired by his numerous trips to New Zealand, where much of Avatar's outdoor scenes were filmed and its CGI sequences shot by Weta Digital.

"I started off doing a certain amount of free associating and I liked the sound of Maori and other Polynesian languages so I put that in there," says Cameron, who collaborated with USC Linguistic professor Paul Frommer. "He started to riff on that and brought in sounds from other African and European languages and even some Native American sounds. He created a whole sound palette and would make MP3s of all these weird sounds.

"At first, it was a bit too guttural, as the Na'vi language has to be really mellifluous, even melodic. He wanted to find things that the actors could pronounce but would still sound a little alien to the ears in terms of European-based cultures." With a budget estimated between $250 and $500 million, Avatar ranks alongside Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End as one of the most expensive movies ever made.

But if Cameron is nervous about the film's prospects, he is not showing it, perhaps because he has been here before. His last effort, 1997's Titanic, cost a then-staggering $200 million and, after being savaged by the critics, was widely predicted to flop at the box office.

However, it won several Academy Awards and became the highest grossing film in history, raking in $1.8 billion worldwide. Avatar has been positively reviewed to date, with The Times declaring it to be "immense in every way" and the Evening Standard praising it as "a dramatic leap in film technology."

Cameron can also take heart from the encouraging performances of other 3D films, which made 10 per cent of British box office takings this year. "I'm going to do all of my films in 3D now, no matter what the subject," he says. "I'm going to continue to make that point and we'll have to see whether other film-makers rise to the challenge." He is also contemplating an inevitable sequel.

"When I pitched this to 20th Century Fox four and a half years ago, I said that I'm going to spend a lot of time, energy and money creating not only a process but these digital assets," he says.

"All the leaves of every plant and tree, the muscles of all the creatures and the facial expressions of all the main characters cost millions of dollars, so it really make sense to see it as the potential start of a franchise or a saga that plays out over several acts. I have it mapped out but I haven't written the scripts yet so it all depends on whether this film does well." Avatar is out now in cinemas.