Avatar - By Buck Snodgrass

Dorothy’s dress went from grey to blue, and it—along with her socks, the sky, and some evil monkeys—never went grey again. Although Wizard of Oz was neither the first color movie nor the last black and white, I always imagined as a kid what audiences must have felt seeing color splash across the movie screen for the first time. Or—to put it in the negative—to see black and white for the last.

Last week I finally found out.

I took off my hip new 3-D specs, pushed my jaw back up, and tried to figure out what had happened. First of all, I realized that Avatar is a 3-D entity, in the sense that every element of the film—plot, characters, cinematography, even soundtrack—was designed not for a movie but a 3-D movie ( a new concept despite the blundering Scrooges and Bloody Valentines). Some movie houses are showingAvatar in 2-D, which is a concept akin to watching a Tarantino movie in a silent film theatre. Sure you see Samuel L look cool and shoot people, but you miss all of the cold-blooded shit he says to a motherfucker before he pops a cap in their ass. In 2-D, everything that makesAvatar great would be lost.

So, Buck, what makes this movie great? The answer: Pandora. Not satisfied with merely mapping the internet music genome, this monicker is now synonymous with the planet that defines theAvatar movie-watching experience. Everyone that I’ve talked to about this movie (myself, Andrew, and Sadie) has said the same thing: I didn’t want to leave Pandora. Beautiful colors, complex and diverse topography, noble inhabitants, and an Edenesque sense of untouched purity, create a place that really does make you think twice before taking of the 3-D glasses. When I left the theatre, real-world colors were dull and the Oxford Mall landscape felt undeniably second-rate.

In essence, Pandora provides a microcosm for the whole Avatar project: total immersion in a fictional work.Avatar places viewers within the frame, making them honorary inhabitants of Pandora and complicit in Jake’s journey. The journey, by the way, is a lot of fun, as we watch Jake go from a physically challenged marine working for a souless corporation/government/U.S. foreign policy to a Na’avi warrior saving a planet that you really, trully know and care about. It has all of the thrills, chills, and spills that you expect from an action movie, along with a Dances with Wolves plotline that enables you to concentrate less on characters and more on the complex and engaging world of Pandora. While Avatar’s success hinges on a plot that allows your attention to wonder from characters/story to Pandora’s wonders, it does raise questions about how 3-D movies will affect the way movies are made:

Will filmmaking shift from the storyteller to the visual artist? Will character-driven dramas take a backseat to stories that better fit the 3-D mold? And, alarmingly, what will Jerry Bruckheimer do with the pandora’s box (yes!) opened by Avatar’s success?

While some argue that Avatar may be a flash in the pan because of the cost-prohibitive nature of 3-D movies, I believe that studios will do whatever it takes to capitalize on Cameron’s success and, in doing so, make 3-D movies mainstream. More than likely this will be a good thing: action, sci-fi and other certain kinds of movies will become better, while traditional (and much cheaper) character/story driven movies will retain their priviledged place in cinema. And yet, there is part of me that, despite my love for Avatar, feels apprehensive about a now inevitable shift in filmmaking.

For better or for worse, Dorothy’s dress will never go grey again.