Avatalbion

From the very first time I saw the previews for Avatar where I didn't know the details of the storyline, I was intrigued because it seemed like it was going to be a lot like Albion. After finally getting to see it and looking at the storyline and setting standing on their own rather than latching on to a game from my past that I've artificially connected to it, I can now say that it's a lot like Albion. The setting is almost entirely identical as of halfway through the game - humans land on a planet rich in rare resources but which is inconveniently populated by another intelligent species of tall cat-people. There is, of course, the fairly important whole idea of the avatars, which obviously isn't done in the game, but the whole style of the two of them share a lot of similarities, including ones I wasn't even expecting when the film started, like the glow of life in the plants of the forest and the idea of having a way to tie bodies together and hear their spirits, though in Avatar this seems to be part of the hair rather than the forehead. Even the first lines are spent talking about the main character's dreams of floating in cryogenic sleep.

The film looks... wondrous. I was trying to think of words to describe it and that just about does it - I can certainly see why it's being called the mark of the next generation of CGI as Jurassic Park was before it, and I really haven't seen anything come close to this level before. You can easily forget that so much of the film is computer-generated - it's sort of like what the Final Fantasy film set out to do, except it works. The details of the creatures and plants on Albion Pandora are all incredible, with so much detail on the various species, their eyes, the alien way they move or beat their multiple wings, everything. The scenery is also wonderful, a feeling shared by the main character when he is first in the avatar body, able to walk around unaided and to see the reactions of the plants as he touches them. Throughout the first half of the film, you're treated to gorgeous sweeping shots of all of this as the group of characters spends their time running through the jungle and climbing up through something that looks like a rendered Derek Riggs album cover to the inexplicably floating islands, complete with Civ 4 music in the background. For the first hour it would be entirely appropriate to say that it invents a new film genre of alien planet tourism.

Then, just as you've absolutely fallen in love with it, in a remarkably familiar move, you are treated to a sequence of destruction that is easily the most difficult and horrifying scene to watch since Bambi's mother died when you were four, and which would be entirely appropriate as a Turing test to confirm that you have a soul. Again it's made all the more intense by the quality of the CGI - the facial expressions of the terrified and dying Iskai Navi during the firestorm are distressingly realistic and humanlike. This also sets you up to despise the unbelievably ruthless colonel who looks like Bryan Fury and proves just about as indestructible. It's telling that during the giant battle scene, by comparison, you don't feel one scrap of empathy for the people who are being lanced clean through by arrows or thrown out of their helicopters of weirdness. Because we're humans, and we can only ugly and despoil. Thanks a lot, James Cameron.

It has a running time of roughly eight hours but it really doesn't feel like it takes a long time, and that must be a good sign. It should also be mentioned that it's quite an impressive feat to have made a film that consists mostly of blue cat-people who don't tend to wear any... clothing, and yet not have it come off as fanservicey in any sort of way. However, perhaps this is because it's too late for me - maybe, in a few years' time, a load of new people on Furaffinity will be thinking back to going to see this film when they were 12 and realizing that this must have been where it all started going wrong.

Rather like Albion, in fact.