Sure the wildest panel today was the one for Twilight Saga: NEW MOON, the long line, the screaming girls were more than evident but if you were a movie geek like me, then James Cameron‘s panel AVATAR was the top highlight out of everything that happened in Hall H. Producer Jon Landau (Titanic) took on the hosting part but before that, Cameron started by explaining to the audience that this movie was made for the 14 year old boy who years ago were dazzled by sci-fi movies, he was of course talking about himself back when he was young. He compiled various scenes from the movie in total runtime of about 24 minutes. We’ll go through each of them below.
After those awesome, once again unimaginably awesome scenes,… the lead cast then came out to join Cameron and Landau. Before they sat down, each announced their characters in the movie. Sigourney Weaver talked about how awesome it was to reunite with her Aliens director, Stephen Lang talked about what made his character compelling, Zoe Saldana talked about the Wushu training she had to go through, the difficulty of learning Na’vi accent, and auditioning with Worthington. Unfortunately, Sam Worthington couldn’t make it because he’s in the middle of filming CLASH OF THE TITANS The remake but a video tape of him greeting the fans was shown.
Scene 1:
There was a military briefing and the movie’s villain, Col. Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang, was delivering his speech that’s filled with warning of the dangers in Pandora island. Sam Worthington entered as a soldier in a wheelchair. He kept staring as his narration began, talking about old days.
Scene 2:
Worthington’s character, Jake was paying attention to the Avatar program. It’s human DNA combined with the alien race of Pandora planet, blue creatures called the Na’vi, AVATAR allows a mental connection to the artificial bodies.
Scene 3:
Jake is in a lab with Sigourney Weaver’s character, the botanist Dr. Grace Augustine. Jake lied down in an MRI-like machine. He was either anxious or nervous but Grace kept telling him to keep his head down for the procedure to work
Scene 4:
Jake’s sidekick, Norm Spellman played by Joel Moore woke up as his AVATAR and he was loving it. Jake woke up also in the Na’vi body but the fact that he could walk got him so excited, he wouldn’t sit down. He knocked things over with his tail, broke out of the room, running.
Scene 5:
Jake and Norm and what I believe to be Dr. Grace, all in their Na’vi bodies are in Pandora planet’s jungle with a number of other soldiers, one of which is Grace. Jake touches them strange but hypnotic lookin’ plants and he couldn’t help but be amazed. Suddenly there was a gigantic rhino-like animal with a hammerhead nose. Grace told Jake not to run because it would upset the creature even more, Jake agreed and he bluffed the creature back. But then another creature appeared, way bigger, faster and obviously very pissed off. The scene turned very action packed from then on as Jake tried to run through the jungle from the hungry creature that was chasing him in full speed. I kid you not, the scene was an adrenaline rush.
Scene 6:
Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana, a female Na’vi was watching Jake from a distance. She pulled out a bow and arrow, intending to shoot Jake but a tiny floating alien butterfly stopped her from doing exactly that.
Scene 7:
Neytiri saves Jake from wolf-like lizard creatures. For some reason these threats appeared after Jake touched plants that caught his attention. Jake wanted to thank Neytiri, she spoke back in English, very angry at him, calling him an ignorant child. But when asked why she saved him anyway, Neytiri told Jake that his heart is strong and has no fear.
Scene 8:
Jake was in Neytiri’s Na’vi tribe. The leader didn’t like him so Jake was put to a test, he has to to a path underneath a waterfall where he would be forced to tame a dragon/pterodactyl things. Kinda like how cowboy would tame a wild horse before riding it. The process wasn’t smooth but Jake calmed one and rode it off the edge of the cliff, flying… it took him a short while before he figured out that if he wanted the creature to fly straight, all he had to do was to tell it so. It was a very amusing scene and it plays with heights.
Overall, those scenes were.. stunning, colorful, spellbinding,.. When the movie’s released this December, you’ll get an option to watch it either in 2D or 3D.. don’t watch it 2D!.. trust me, this is one achievement you’ll want to experience only in 3D.
AVATAR opens December 18th, 2009
