There aren't really words to describe our level of excitement about James Cameron's Avatar, but the nearest we can get to it is 'Squeeee!' And that's not, strictly speaking, a word. But, suffice to say, we're really quite looking forward to it.
Both AICN and Premiere caught up with members of the Avatar team yesterday, the former talking to Cameron himself and the latter gabbing with Sigourney Weaver.
AICN's email from Cameron was mainly an update on the current status of production. Cameron told them:
"We've wrapped principal, and most of the live action portion of the movie is already cut. It's starting to look and sound like a movie. I'm ecstatic with the performances and the look...We still have a little performance capture work to do with Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana in March, when we get her back from Star Trek...And we have a couple of days with Stephen Lang in April or May, to shoot his character's last scene, which is so technically difficult it will take us until then to figure out how to do it".
Lang plays a high-ranking member of the human military in the movie, which is, in basic terms, the story of a battle between humans and the native race of a planet that mankind wants to exploit for its own benefit. We won't tell you anything about the sequence Cameron is referring to, because it's a bit spoilerish, but if it delivers on what he's described to us, it should be AH-mazing.
Cameron also said that, based on what he's currently working on, "I don't know if this will be a good film, great film, awful film, but I can say with absolute certainty that you will see stuff you've never imagined, and that the process of making this film will generate a lot of interest within the technical side of the biz"
Talking to Premiere, Weaver described her character Grace as "beautiful, with bright red hair and big eyelashes. No make-up. She's a scientist, and she's an attractive woman who has given up a normal life to devote herself to this planet and fight this fight. She learns a lot over the course of the story."
She also spoke of the movie's themes, saying, "I can't think of anything, frankly [that compares to it]...It's gonna be an experience for people. I don't think they're going to want to come out of the theater. I think kids will want to stay in the theater with their sleeping bags so they don't have to go out into the real world. It's about something. It's about ecology in a lot of ways. About greed...About love. About becoming a man. You know, a lot of [Cameron's] favorite themes. It's a very dense piece of work. I've only seen the motion-capture 40 percent done, but it's pretty awesome. The live action I've seen almost all of, and it's a very affecting story. When you see scenes that are very affecting in 3D, you can't keep them out".
Can't believe we have to wait over a year for this. OK, what's one level of excitement above squeeee?