James Cameron unveiled the first footage from his highly anticipated sci-fi epic Avatar for a select audience of 1000 or so at the CineExpo in Amsterdam, and the hype just isn't going away. What had everyone so worked up in anticipation is a revolutionary new type of 3-D technology that the movie will be showcasing.
The word from a 3-D skeptic over at Coming Soon is that it was "a jaw dropping experience." He describes a scene in which Jake (Sam Worthington) and Norm (Joel David Moore) mentally link with the human-alien hybrids (avatars) they will use to explore the moon Pandora, which is poisonous to humans.
It's the third scene where my heart begins to pound like crazy. Jake and Norm will inhabit their Avatar for the first time. They enter some sort of capsule and – flash – their mind enters the blue creatures, now lying on hospital tables. And not before long Avatar Jake wakes up. And it took my breath away. I thought – just like you guys – that I've seen it all with Gollum, or The Hulk, but Cameron has done it again. These creatures seem so real, that within minutes you forget you're watching an enormous and very blue CGI character. Even the eyes are totally convincing. The characters have real personalities and a soul.
And that's the reaction of a 3-D skeptic. Others are even more lavish with their exclamation points. The cheerleaders of the 3-D revolution over at MarketSaw are suggesting that the audience witnessed something historic that they can tell their grandchildren about.
So when will the rest of us be getting a peek at this amazing new world that Cameron has created? Well, there are intriguing photos from the after-party including a shot of the bioluminescent forest on the moon Pandora at night. The resolution on the pictures is not quite good enough though to give a full impression of what the audience saw. And of course they are not in 3-D.
The next public showing of Avatar footage is rumored to be at the San Diego Comic-Con at the end of July.