[REVIEW] AVATAR

[Emperor]

I admit folks.. I am not very excited about this film.  I plan to watch it as I have little doubt it will get a best picture nod.

 

Feel free to post your reactions in this thread.

 

this review is spoilerific btw!  The gist is he liked it.

 

It's been an excruciatingly long wait, but, in holding off ten-plus years to allow the technology to catch up to his fertile imagination, James Cameron has delivered in AVATAR an exemplary piece of world-building that will likely be cinema's CG and 3-D gold standard for years to come. It is frequently awe-inspiring, a triumph on several levels - unfortunately, none of these levels are marked "storytelling", "dialogue", "character development" or "subtle integration of theme".

 

Cameron has struggled in some of these areas before, but he's typically compensated for his shortcomings by blowing the audience away with his keen sense of pacing and a string of expertly shot-and-edited action sequences (this is why many people didn't complain about the ear-splittingly awful Terminator-John Connor banter in T2 until their third or fourth viewing - and, for the most part, still didn't give a shit). While he can still bring the militaristic, planet-decimating fury with more muscle and swagger than any director working today, he's misguidedly opted for the slow-burn approach with AVATAR's narrative, therefore relying on a broadly-drawn collection of cliche magnets to hook the audience into his on-the-nose tale of interplanetary conquest. The film comes to life periodically, thanks to Zoe Saldana's sinuous and soulful portrayal of Neytiri (and a number of vertiginous flights through the verdant expanses of Pandora), but the story is so painfully predictable - and, sad to say, corny - that one spends most of their time ticking off the seconds until the big final battle - which is impressive, but not nearly as rousing as it ought to be.

 

The film really labors in the early going as Cameron attempts to get us to identify with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a wheelchair-bound jarhead who's been recruited to take his deceased brother's place in the experimental Avatar Program. Jake is delighted by the idea of taking up residence in a genetically-bred Na'vi avatar with working legs, and, once he's jacked in, has no interest in waiting around for a mandatory physical adjustment period. Jake wants to take his ten-foot alter-entity out for a spin. The unbridled joy with which he sprints away from his laboratory handlers is an exhilarating declaration of personal freedom (and classic Cameron); though Jake has largely come across as a complete bore up until this point (both the writing and Worthington's charm deficiency are to blame for this), in this moment, he seems ready to assert himself and take over the movie.

 

Doesn't happen. What does happen - and what has been widely glimpsed via Comic Con, "AVATAR Day" and officially released clips - is a fact-finding excursion through the Pandoran jungle that leads to a hackneyed confrontation with a couple of huge, rampaging beasts - "hackneyed" because it turns into that scene everyone loved from THE BEAR twenty fucking years ago, then leads to a long chase punctuated by a life-threatening leap off a cliff, and, a few seconds later, a stay of execution for Jake because one of those floaty jellyfish things lands on the tip of Neytiri's poised arrow. Oh, native cultures! You'd still be around today if not for your ignorant obeisance to ancient customs and omens. (Actually, everything really does shift and alight for a reason on Pandora; the entire planet - from the Na'vi to the beasties to the grand, old trees - is neurally connected.)

 

Faster than you can say "Tatanka", Jake is hard at work earning the trust of the Na'vi in order to advance the agenda of (evil mining company) SecFor's Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) - who, in one of the film's more nuanced moments, is introduced putting a golf ball into a coffee mug in the middle of a bustling situation room (how fiendishly cavalier!). Now, why would a seemingly decent guy like Jake want to play a pivotal role in the displacement of an alien civilization? Well, the kill-happy Quaritch has promised to requisition him a pair of working legs provided the operation is a success. Since Jake has no chance of paying for this procedure himself (a genuinely poignant nod to the enduringly shitty treatment of veterans in this country), he's willing to play both sides if it'll get him walking on his own again.

 

For a punishingly long stretch of the film, Cameron cuts back and forth between Jake's gradual induction into Neytiri's tribe and the slow-mounting intrigue at the base; meanwhile, anyone who's watched a fair share of movies is screaming to themselves, "Just get on with the big betrayal already!" Yes, sooner or later, Quaritch is going to welch on his deal, Jake is going to be ostracized, and Weaver's scrappy research team is going to be forced into performing some kind of covert operation in order to save the Na'vi from certain extinction. To Cameron's credit, he does manage to build some momentum as the expected occurs - but, for the first time in his career, it feels like he's going through the motions rather than telling a story in which he's emotionally invested. At least TITANIC had the wrap-around gimmick (and adherence to the historical record as an excuse for predictability); AVATAR is straightforward, spoon-fed and only surprising when someone slips and falls off a tree branch (or the back of a winged creature) hundreds of feet in the air. There may not be much suspense in AVATAR, but there sure is a shitload of vertigo!

 

AVATAR was doomed to fall short of expectations the minute it was sold as a "game changer" for the medium. After all, what, short of ushering in a newfangled era of Feel-A-Round, could a 3-D movie offer audiences that they've never seen before? Though there are select sequences in AVATAR which suggest a more immersive experience is on the horizon (particularly the opening, painstakingly-layered shot of technicians hauling intergalactic travelers out of hyper-sleep in zero gravity), wouldn't all of these advances be more useful in video games, where such immersion would heighten the liberating sense of first-person control? And, if so, isn't this a bit disquieting for cinephiles? Of course, there will always be a need for great storytellers to take an audience somewhere they can't possibly get to on their own, but when the path is this well-trod, wouldn't it be nice to have the option to stray? If tentpole films continue to embrace formula this rigorously, perhaps "game ender" is more apt.

 

As AVATAR launches into its grand finale - which, again, does work on a visceral, vengeful level - the gulf between visual invention and narrative originality keeps widening. There is honestly not a surprising beat in the entire battle; everything unfolds as it would in a bargain, made-for-SyFy movie. Thankfully, Cameron summons all of his crowd-pleasing powers and, at times, overpowers the decibel-shattering sameness by sheer dint of his considerable talent. And that's the one heartening takeaway from AVATAR: Cameron can still pin an audience to their seat and give them a spectacular night out at the movies; even on his worst day (and I do feel AVATAR is his weakest effort to date by a significant margin), he can plop them down in a fantastic world populated with fantastic creatures, and make them never want to leave. That said, he only engenders audience sympathy when Saldana is on the screen; when she's not around, and we're stranded with Worthington and his charisma-free crew (as long as Cameron's in recycle mode, he could've at least given us a Hudson-esque wild-card), the film becomes empty spectacle. But there's another positive: if nothing else, it looks like Cameron's found his next ass-kicking female muse!

 

Where Cameron goes from here will obviously be dictated by the success of AVATAR. And while I'm pulling for him to break all box office records despite my overall disappointment with the film (the medium needs guys like Cameron, Spielberg and Jackson operating at full strength, if only because there's a legion of studio-mollifying hacks like Shawn Levy ready to spring up in their space), a minor humbling probably wouldn't hurt. Cameron's best films deal with blue-collar Americans battling aliens, machines or, in the case of his masterpiece, THE ABYSS, nature (without and within). True, AVATAR offers an interesting twist in that it's about bidding farewell to our wasteful, warlike race (and the nihilist in me kinda loves this), but it would be far more interesting (and tragic/bittersweet/controversial) if the film had an actual human in it.

 

Sadly, his characters are just ciphers - either pure of heart or evil to the core of their being. And if the future of our country/planet really is in the hands of the Quaritch-es (as Cameron seems to be indicating, given the sorry state of Earth in AVATAR), I'm all too good with the systematic elimination of humankind. Maybe that's the point of this film. And maybe we've found a filmmaker who's even more disdainful of Americans than Jean-Luc Godard. And maybe I'm talking myself into loving this movie.

 

 

[Emperor]

This one is less spoiler and more in love with the movie...

 

If there is one complaint that will resonate with absolute certainty throughout every serious discussion of AVATAR it will be the derivative nature of the work. Make no mistake about it; AVATAR is not a deftly original work of fiction. Cameron has even gone so far to say so. The film is based heavily upon the science fiction he grew up reading like JOHN CARTER OF MARS, as well as a number of films including specifically LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. Absent from what he’s mentioned is Frank Herbert’s DUNE, which most of you are familiar with via David Lynch’s 1984 film of the same name and mirrors the AVATAR protagonist’s hero’s journey pretty point for point. And while early jokes by SOUTH PARK have seeded people’s thoughts with notions of DANCES WITH WOLVES, that film is itself a derivative work borrowing from some of the same influences as Cameron and ultimately only shares pieces of structure with it. This isn’t DANCES WITH WOLVES. It is DUNE – give or take a few plot elements.

 

So the question for many people will not be how well Cameron told THIS story, but rather how many times they’ve seen this story before and their tolerance for seeing it again. Because really, there isn’t much new in terms of story here. That critique is valid.

 

So why is it that I am passionately in love with AVATAR? Because everything else is as wildly original as we were promised. You have never seen a film that looks and feels anything like AVATAR. The CG, live action and 3D elements are so perfectly fused that they are inseparable. One element never overshadows the others. It is all given equal weight and feels lifelike and real every step of the way. If there is one element that stands out as the most talked about and noteworthy of the film, it is the eyes. WETA has perfected their performance motion capture technology to the point that they get real, honest to god performances out of digital creations. There are guys I have spoken with already that have all but fallen in love with the Na’Vi princess (of sorts) played (so to speak) by the already incredibly beautiful Zoe Saldana. Her voicework combined with the realistic facial expressions work in tandem to form a fully realized CG character.

 

Meanwhile, Cameron’s reliance upon 3D is a real breath of fresh air. There is not one gimmick – NOT ONE – that involves shooting at the audience or trying to get you to duck. The cheap tricks that many films have been relying upon this past year (such as MY BLOODY VALENTINE and THE FINAL DESTINATION) are entirely absent here. The 3D is about depth of field and giving you a sense of geography. It is entirely environmental, a way of bringing you into the movie rather than having the movie come out to you. And the effect is masterful. I’ve seen a number of 3D films this year, and usually the ham-fisted nature of the 3D rendering and direction caused eyestrain about an hour or so into the film. But here everything is so smooth that I’ve sat through two screenings of this near 3 hour epic and never once had to take off my glasses or even close my eyes for a few moments.

 

But most interesting to me was the fact that this very much felt like a film someone spent 10 years making. Pandora isn’t just a neat place to visit; it is the epitome of great science fiction. The entirety of this distant moon (which orbits a gas giant) has a biology that makes sense. And while they never take a moment to explain it to you, the nerdier a science dork you are, the more you will take away from everything Cameron has created. This is a guy who has spent countless hours at the bottom of the sea exploring “alien” environments. He has witnessed ecosystems most of us have only read about. And here he has created one of his own based upon his many passions and skill sets.

 

Pandora, as a moon, would have two different things governing its daylight: its rotation and the time it spends in the umbra of its parent planet. This leads to a planet that spends a much smaller amount of time in sunlight than it does out of it. So the ecosystem is based very heavily upon bioluminescence, something Cameron uses to beautiful effect. Meanwhile the lower gravity has led to increasingly larger creatures and beings, making humans rather diminutive invaders. Every animal you will see, from the tiniest bug to the largest herd beast, has its own personality, defense mechanisms and place in the food chain. Watching Avatar doesn’t just take you on an adventure. It transports you to a whole new world – which is, after all, one of the very reasons we watch and read sci-fi.

 

Of course this is all before you even begin to touch upon the rich culture of the Na’vi. I say this to you now: you have officially attended your last convention which did not have people in blue body paint, speaking Na’Vi to one another while occasionally uttering the phrase “Hometree.” The Gnostic Taoist ecological spiritualism of the Na’vi will appeal to a lot of people. Their belief system is deep, rich and draws from a number of different philosophies here on earth, combining Native American mysticism with pagan concepts of a Mother Earth and a smattering of Asian philosophy – all wrapped in a warrior monk package and dressed up with tribal chic. Although I must admit I wince at the notion that I will one day walk into a debate conducted in both Klingon and Na’vi about the frailty of human beings and the best ways to go about killing them.

 

There are a lot of folks who will try to make political hay out of the “message” of the movie. Some will try to pin it on Iraq or Afghanistan, while others will scream about environmentalism. But doing so requires conveniently forgetting about certain details, like the army not being the army at all, but ex-military mercenaries on corporate payroll. The ideas here are universal, not specific, and will mean as much 20 years from now as they do today. Wars and incursions have almost always been fought over resources, so trying to say that the corporate mission for “Unobtanium” is a direct comparison to oil in the Middle East only carries weight until you begin to look into almost every war we’ve had, pretty much since the dawn of time.

 

AVATAR is seven different kinds of bad ass. Every action sequence is a nail biter and every major set piece will wow you. Cameron creates such rich, dynamic characters while giving each their own moment in the sun that you can’t help but love them all – hero or villain. Truth be told, Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch is one of the single baddest mother fuckers to appear on film in years – and easily one of the greatest villains of the decade. He’s a villain so great you admire him as much as you hate him – a perfect Cameron character and one that will put Lang on the map of geeks the world over. Everyone is in top form here, from Sigourney Weaver to Joel David Moore. Even Sam Worthington and Michelle Rodriguez turn in great performances under the careful watch of Cameron.

 

This is a great movie – a truly wonderful piece of science fiction that must be seen BIG and in 3D. No waiting for DVD on this one. Love it or hate it, this was the way this film was designed to be seen. Handily one of the best films of the year, AVATAR is a must see. A worthy addition to the geek pantheon, I look forward to the next week and a half of solid discussion about this film.

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

Albion.

Came out roughly a year or two after 'JC' came up with his idea for this movie...

 

Aside from the "remote-accessed bodies that makes no sense since the military could cut them off right away as soon as they found out they were disobeying orders" there is ALOT in common with the two.

 

Only albions got magic.

[Daetirion]

Just been to see it.

 

First reactions, predictable plot made up by absolutely stunning graphics and an exceptionally well built world. Soundtrack pretty awesome except choice of end song, and occasional themes i swear i've seen in Westerns.

 

It is long, especially given the predictability. However you can pretty much sit back and enjoy the pretty pictures towards the end. First fantasy aerial battle i've seen to rival the Serenity final showdown.

 

Any classicists out there will note several speeches are straight out of Thucydides... i know they're standard themes but having just written a few thousand words on it, i then had large sections thrown straight back at me with the names changed.

 

Finally, Deus Ex Machina... is this acceptable when it actually is a God? ^_^

[Corki]

Any classicists out there will note several speeches are straight out of Thucydides... i know they're standard themes but having just written a few thousand words on it, i then had large sections thrown straight back at me with the names changed.

 

Finally, Deus Ex Machina... is this acceptable when it actually is a God? ^_^

 

Now you have my interest...I will be looking out for these when I see the film early next week, though I never did any Thucydides while at university, despite having Simon Hornblower, a great fountain of knowledge on Thucydides, in our department (well, I did get lectured by him on Homer - just pure awesome!). I'm guessing you read a few of his books! ;)

[Paityr]

Just saw it. Scored the last seat in a sold-out Sunday matinee where it was playing in 3D. Here are my thoughts:

 

Plot/Story: Predictable, unoriginal, filled with ham-fisted storytelling and cliches up the butt. The benevolent natives at one with nature vs. the greedy corporation and mindless marines hell-bent on shooting anything that moves. Still, it was enjoyable enough and sort of fun to watch unfold, even if you knew everything that would happen before it did.

 

Acting: given the uber-cliched roles they were cast to fill, I felt that the acting was decent. Nothing over the top (with the exception of the military commander, I suppose).

 

Dialogue: a few cheesy bits, but none of the offensive, crude or just plain stupid dialogue you often find in other "eye candy" movies. *cough*Transformers*cough*

 

Characters: completely two-dimensional, with no middle ground. Cameron makes it VERY clear who he wants you to think of as the good guys and who are the ones you are required to despise. Still, I did find myself liking the characters he wanted me to, for the most part.

 

Visual Effects: eye-popping, mind-blowingly beautiful, stunning, unbelievable. You cannot describe the LOOK of this film without resorting to a mouthful of superlatives. I've never seen anything like it. While I'm not sure that it will "revolutionize" film-making, it is sure a huge leap forward with respect to visual effects. The 3D was used very well, with none of the stupid tricks to force you into acknowledging it (like a monster leaping out of the screen at you, etc). Much as with UP, Cameron chose to use the 3D as merely another way to help you become absorbed into the stunningly beautiful world he created. It works marvelously. You can almost reach out and touch all the wonderous plants and little floaty things.

 

Overall Impressions: Despite the utter lack of creativity on display with the plot, this was an amazing film to see in the theater. In fact, I believe that movies like this are what theaters were MADE for. If he had put half the effort into the story that he did into the visual effects, James Cameron would have created a cinematic masterpiece. As it is, however, it is merely a very pretty movie. Ok, a legen- wait for it - darily beautiful film, but not the masterpiece he hoped it would be, I expect.

 

I will see this again in the theaters. Several times, probably. The special effects are THAT good.

 

Pait

Impressed

[Zashara]

Special effects do not a great movie make.

 

I'll post more later!

[Krakalakachkn]

It’s no wonder that, partly due to the enormous online buzz (“Avatar” has been one of Twitter’s trending topics almost constantly for days now), it’s had one of the best-opening weekends in the history of cinema. It earned $73 million in the U.S. and $159.2 million internationally; combined, it’s a $232.2 million worldwide total.

 

It’s not the best opening weekend of all time, but the movie did manage to break some records. It’s the biggest 3D release of all time, and the biggest original content (which means it’s not a sequel or a part of a franchise) opening weekend ever.

 

These accomplishments are even more impressive when you take into account that the weekend was very snowy in both Europe and the U.S., keeping many folks at home. The movie’s production and promotion cost approximately 400 million dollars, so it’s not making money just yet, but the way it started, this film might be one of the biggest hits of all time, proving that James Cameron still has the touch of King Midas.

[Emperor]

Here is my official review.

 

I went into the movie with Transformer like expecations... forcing myself to buy tickets and making the wife go with me as she secretly wished me dead.  I believe this is going to be one of the movies that makes the top 10 for best picture so I know I need to see it before Oscar night. Otherwise I would have avoided this in the theatres.

 

The moment I put on the 3d glasses I regretted it. There is a reason 3d died.  Until I can go see a 3d movie without glasses, it should not be revived.  With that said though... the 3d really did bring the movie alive at many points.  So I can not totally hate on it as I would like.

 

Have you seen Dances with Wolves?  Then you already know the plot for this movie.  Except Dances with Wolves created characters that I identified with by the end of the movie.  It was about 3 hours as well and took the time for character building.  Avatar fell on it's face here.  I think 45 minutes could have been cut as there were some points that were just there for graphics and showing off 3d stuff.  Personally I prefer movies with depth over graphics.  So yeah the plot was VERY predictible.  And if you don't roll your eyes when they introduce the 20 million dollar mineral they are after unobtainium, then I need to smack you.  If I write a story over 15 years I might think up something a little better.

 

The graphics were REALLY good.  There was a moment in the film where I gave up looking for depth and started treating it as a cartoon... like the Lion King.  Once I did this I found I enjoyed the movie much more.

 

The wife went in expected to hate this movie.  She came out hating it.  I went in thinking Transformers and I came out happy that it was better than I expected.  Would I agree with a Best Picture nod?  Yes... because it is going to be a favorite for the masses and for a popcorn flick, it wasn't that bad.  Will it make my top 10 of 2009?  Porobably not. 

 

My final verdict is:  Not as bad as I thought it would be.  I appreciate depth and character building... and this was nonexistant in this movie.  I will say it is my favorite cartoon of the year so far... but then again I haven't seen Up.

 

 

 

 

 

[Krakalakachkn]

I'm going to plug Up here again.  It was AWESOME!

[Emperor]

Avatar doesn't have a bad story, but its unswerving direction does make it a predictable one. Since the internet's already hashed out the cultural angles of James Cameron's splendid epic, let's take a look at the storytelling mechanics--something he approached with a caution only $400M buys. What risks could Cameron have taken to add some surprise, without spiking the straightforward narrative? Here's five ideas to get us started...

 

1. Jake actually betrays the Na'vi

Our hero's journey is smooth sailing: Jake so badly needs his destination that there's never much ambivalence about the journey. This lack of internal conflict manifests when the Na'vi tribe rejects him: his only betrayal of them is the plain fact of his original mission, which he'd had abandoned in any case. Wasn't it obvious that he might be telling others what he'd learned about the tribe? As the first "warrior" dreamwalker, no less.

If Jake instead pursued an explicit and timely opportunity to betray his new friends, his 'going native' afterward would have been a powerful moral turning point rather than a faint point on a 'character arc.'

 

2. Give his rival some balls

In Dune, off-worlder Paul Atreides is forced to kill to gain acceptance with the locals when his own kind finally forces him into the wilds. In Avatar, however, Jake only has to show up on a fancy ride. Instead of becoming a nonentity after their earlier aikido warmup, Na'vi chief-to-be Tsu-tey could have drawn a line in the moss: I represent the caution and tradition of my people, and you'll have to beat me down to change and lead us. If Jake has to defeat, even kill an ally who hates him, it tarnishes his character--but Pandora is red in tooth and claw, after all, and it is what he's fighting for.

 

3. The savages show how smart they are

Jake masters the bow and horse. Why not let one of the Na'vi surprise everyone by getting to grips with some of that weird sky-people tech? And perhaps even do a little betrayal of his or her own.

 

4. Show the colonel's hidden depths

You can't just let Steven Lang take a role like that and then bury him in cartoon villainy. Colonel Quaritch is evidently a spiritually blasted former soldier who went private-sector after tiring of fighting dirty wars. As Lang says in an interview, "I didn't play a villain; I played a man who is doing his job the best way that he can." But he isn't given much space for that nuance by the script. For example, he knows that his brief is to protect a blood diamond operation, not patriotic duty, and yet in his climactic battle with Jake, he asks him how he could betray his people. What he really means is, "How could you not be a soldier, son?"

In the movie, Jake simply snarls. A retort would be sweeter. "Is that what they told you when you quit Venezuela?" does the the trick. The Colonel knows he's lost, after all, and getting irony thrown in his face offers him a chance to choose his own doom--without any need for the leaden pathos that often comes with such turnarounds. Consider the many suggestions that Quaritch is the only human on Pandora to feel at home there in his own body--he is much more like the Na'vi than he'd like to admit.

 

5. Kill Carter Burke

That brings us to the disinterested corporate apparatchik in charge of the whole show. He's the real villain of the piece, who gives the natives none of the respect offered them by his soldiers and scientists, at least until his decisions' moral consequences are thrown in his face by Ripley.

Wait... wrong movie. In any case, Mr. Cameron had the right idea the first time around. Kill the slimeball--or better yet, let an alien do it.

[Krakalakachkn]

I will be seeing this in iMax decently soon; but not in 3D because Empy didn't like it..and I only do what Empy likes.

[Silver]

Saw this yesterday. Very entertaining. 3D wasn't too bad. Didn't even feel like 2 and a half hours.

[Pookie]

My hubbie and I watched this in 3D, though warned by numerous people that motion sickness or migraines were potential outcomes.  I'm glad we did, though I found in the first fifteen minutes that I had to watch what they wanted me to be watching (and not the background characters or scenery) or I did start to get yecky-feeling.

 

I can tolerate bad acting and some level of bad dialogue or obvious storyline.  Yes, I did roll my eyes at unobtanium.  I'd still say that the worldbuilding in the movie was phenomenal.  I'm not just talking "ooh, it's pretty," though that was certainly the case.  For me there was a certain level of seamlessness in the environment of the story, even though my hubbie and I both went "... floating mountains?  Uh..."

 

I think the thing that likely makes me most enthusiastic about a movie like this is that people who would normally pass by sci-fi or fantasy can be drawn to the genre when a movie like this becomes sort of "mainstream".  It's what I enjoy reading/watching the most, so if other people start enjoying it more too, more demand = more variety for me to enjoy.  This movie had the spoon-fed plot I find frequently in popular movies (urk) as well as the shoot-em-up so many people like (blah) in a sci-fi/fantasy "skin" I enjoyed.  It had a "crowd pleaser" feel to me, which I find exciting when applied to "my genre". 

 

I'd watch it again if I didn't have kids and a lack of 5-hour childcare.  In 3D.  Not in one of the front rows of the cinema.  And preferrably not having to pee for the last half hour but not wanting to go and miss "important stuff". 

[Emperor]

If "Watchmen" proved one thing, it's that you can never have enough blue schlong. Short of being flashed by some random stalker dressed up as Papa Smurf, the next likeliest place you'll find it is on the upcoming "Avatar" DVD & Blu-ray.

 

Director James Cameron tells The Telegraph that the home video version of the film will include several deleted scenes that were excised from the theatrical version in order to keep the film's PG-13 rating. One such scene was an extended version of Jake Sully and Ney'tiri's love scene under the tree.

 

"We had it in and we cut it out. So that will be something for the special edition DVD, if you want to see how they have sex" says Cameron. Does this mean someone had to apply motion capture dots to Sam Worthington's manhood? No, rather the 'synching' process that the Na'vi do with other beings on the planet is done between the two characters in this.

 

Zoe Saldana, who played Ney'tiri, said "It was a very funny scene to shoot because there were so many technical things that sometimes you have to keep in mind that paying attention to all those might disrupt the fluidity of how a scene is supposed to take place. Because Jim was shooting for a PG-13 rating, we couldn’t move in certain directions. The motion would look a little too past the PG-13 rating standards. So it was really funny for Sam and me. We had a lot of giggles there."