That was my first reaction after seeing Avatar in 3D last night with family members. "Twice as good compared to the 2D version," said one boy. "Greatest movie ever made," reported Insight Media analyst Dale Maunu. I would not go that far, but I would say this is destined to go down as a 4-star classic for its story telling, world/culture creation and its 3D effects.

Chris Chinnock
Senior Analyst and Editor
for Insight Media

The story line, in case you are the only one who hasn’t heard, features a disabled soldier (Jake) who can control a genetically engineered alien Na’Vi lifeform on the moon Pandora, a 5-year journey from Earth. The humans are there to mine the precious "unobtainium" ore and will trample on the indigenous race to do so. But as Jake learns the ways of the Na’Vi, he falls in love with a Na’Vi woman and eventually turns to helping the Na’Vi repel the invading humans. It has a happy ending.

For me, the story was very similar in scope to Dances with Wolves, but there have been many other comparisons as well. Indeed, the Na’Vi are very much like the Native Americans whose culture and way of life were eradicated by ruthless US soldiers. The difference is that they are 10 feet tall, blue and live on a world that is so amazing in its beauty that it is hard to fathom why anyone would want to destroy it.

As for the 3D effects, the first thing I noticed that differed from most of the 3D animations I have seen to date was the use of toe-in in the acquisition of the 3D. Vince Pace developed the camera for this and the toe-in is meant to mimic the way human eyes work. The result is that many small, room-sized scenes seem to have a narrow depth of field with the foreground and background objects out of focus. This makes it disorienting to gaze around the 3D scene, which was initially distracting. However, the effect seems to be designed to draw your attention to the object of interest and after a while, this becomes much more natural. This was clearly a directorial choice that in the hands of a good director can be very effective.

The movie runs two and a half hours and there was no problem wearing glasses and viewing 3D for this time period. The 3D projection system was from MasterImage, which features a rotating polarizer wheel to sequence the left/right eye images. We sat in the center of the theater and experienced no issues. Even the fast action and flying scenes created no ill effects. However, there were several 3D trailers before Avatar that exhibited all kinds of poor 3D choices creating obvious eye fatigue. There was none of this in Avatar - a testimony to the quality of the 3D content creation.

And let’s not forget to mention the 22nd Century display technology depicted in the movie that featured holographic partial parabolic display stations that changed images as the operators swiveled about, and a 360-degree volumetric holographic display that can be manipulated with hand gestures.

The motion-capture CG animation was also amazing. The subtitles were never a distraction (translation of Na’Vi language). Not all actions and facial expressions are lifelike yet, but they are getting close. The rending of Pandora and the cultural wonders of this moon will be a lasting legacy, in my opinion.

I don’t think I have ever gone to a first run movie twice, but for Avatar, I will make an exception.

I want to also take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year. This will be the last Display Daily for 2009 - we will start back up on January 4th and kick off the New Year with CES coverage.