James Cameron's Pocahontas in Space a.k.a Avatar

James Cameron's Avatar is a ground breaking movie that has brought a new look to the 3D movie industry. The amazing colors, graphics, and unbelievable sets are what makes this amazing and put on a different level than many other movies of today. But the topic of this weeks posting will not be about any of these specifics of this great film. This blog posting will be dedicated to the striking resemblance that Avatar has with Disney's Pocahontas.I was shocked just about as much as those who will read this are going to be when I am through proving this to you. I begin this comparision with the main characters. In Pocahontas John Smith is a white settler who has reached the new world of North America. He is a part of the large group of white settlers who have come to the Americas to explore and obtain the gold from the Natives that they have found a plethora of. In Avatar the main character Jake Sulley travels into the new world of Pandora through his own Avatar, which allows him to look like the Natives of this planet. Jake Sulley who is an ex-marine is sent there for research, but also has another mission getting this valuable substance called "unobtainium." This is an exact similarity between the two

Next there is the similarity between Jake Sulley and his new found friend Neytiri, who is very skeptical of his reason for being on her people's land. However after passing through a part of the forest where the Tree of Souls, which is what the people of Pandora base decisions off of, gave Neytiri a sign that Jake Sulley was trustworthy. This is the same in Pocahontas with the Mother Willow tree and John Smith.

The next similarity is when the humans attack the Tree of Souls to remove the native people from their home so that they could capture the unlimited supplies of "unobtainium"



This video above will prove the exact copy that James Cameron seems to be responsible for. As lazy as this seems after talking with my roommate he made the point that this is a common folklore narrative. What we have to realize about this film is that it was about breaking new barriers in the 3D world. It achieved that but I just think it is hilarious that this similarity was found, but it doesn't really matter because the films graphics were some of the best I have ever seen.

The Secrets of the Hobbit 3D

We all know the Lord of the Rings and the genius behind the movie empire, Peter Jackson. What we don't always know is the genius inside of Jackson and on the set. However, now we are able to take a sneak preview into this wonderful world of 3D that will be the Hobbit. This should be released sometime in December 2012

On the Hobbit Blog, Peter Jackson's latest post takes viewers on a tour of the set and of how they are shooting the newest edition of this trilogy. He takes us on specific tours of sets cameras, equipment, and many other things.

The first half consists of the obstacle they found shooting the intense action scenes and elaborate CGI scenes of this movie. He explains that the problem with shooting 3D is that you need two cameras. This is because in order achieve the 3D feel that audiences crave, you need to replicate the view of the human eyes and interocular distance between them. This allows for the feeling of being right in the movie. They explain how because of the large size of the lenses they use, it is difficult to get the two cameras to shoot close enough together where the images overlap. So to my surprise, they actually shot one camera straight on and the other camera from above and bounced it off a mirror so that the interocular distance was perfect and the 3D effect was perfect.

Another amazing aspect of this film is the top of the line equipment they are using. Before watching this video I hadn't heard of Red Cameras. I think this is because I have never seen one and they range in price from $10,000-$40,000 a piece. This movie has 48 of them in use everyday!!!!!!!!!! Just think if we had the budget they do and the equipment. I think I speak for everyone to say we would be in heaven. All that aside, whats also amazing is that the resolution that normal HD movies that aren't 3D, are shot in is usually 1080p. But since this is 3D they are shooting in 5k resoulution!!!!! Now thats just unheard of and I almost couldn't believe it. But remember they are using 2 top of line cameras for every shot. This footage is going to be insane to see. They are also shooting with 48 frames per second which is also going to add to the 3D world that this movie will create. The human eye sees in 60 frames per second, so the fact that this movie is so close, this will allow for the clearest, most amazing image on the screen.

Click Here to see video. Sorry couldn't find the embed version.

I cannot wait to see this movie, not because I am a fan of Lord of the Rings, but solely based on the fact that this is going to be one of the greatest 3D viewing experiences much like that of Avatar.

Legends never die...just retold

Due to the massive flooding I have been watching a lot of television and by that I mean a lot of cartoons because I am twenty years young. While bingeing on cartoons I have noticed a pattern with some shows that I loved (and still do) and probably you guys and gals have watched too when you were little.

Let's see if you figure out which show I am talking about:

A trickster, a womanizer, a tough guy and a voice of reason travel great distances to collect X, be it for personal gain or to save the world. During their travels they stop at multiple towns to help the villagers out with their problems. They have a creature that they use for traveling and the trickster has a bo staff and can ride the clouds.

Give up? Obviously I was talking about Dragonball!

No wait! I just described Avatar: the Last Airbender!

Hold on! That kinda sounded like Pokemon!

What the hell is going on? Why are these shows similar to each other? Did they all just copy each other? Well kinda not really, to fully understand what is going on here we need to jump to 1590 in China.

Meet Sun Wukong...he is the inspiration for these show and many others that I did not mention. He is one of the main characters of the famous Chinese epic, Journey to the West. The basic summary of the story is a monk named Xuanzang must travel to India to recover Buddhist scriptures with the help of a monkey named Sun Wukong, a pig named Zhu Bajie, a water demon named Sha Wujing and a dragon king named Yulong that took the form of a horse. Along the way they encountered villages that required help or demons that are trying to steal Xuanzang and/or the scriptures.

Sound familiar? You can change certain key words like scriptures to dragon balls or Sun Wukong to Aang and you get the basic gist of each story. But why did these shows (and many others) use this story as a inspiration?

To give a really short answer to that question it is because Journey to the West is, at the basics, a pure adventure story. The story is about a group of people that go from point A to point B and dealing with challenges along the way; that is easy to use as a backbone for a story during any time, place or with any type of characters. The characters' personalities are simple tropes that can be molded into fleshed out characters with little effort. The story itself can be viewed as a basic skeleton of a adventure story that a writer can pick up and alter to fit the needs of the television show that they are creating.

I wanted to show the roots of shows that we have all seen as we were growing up.