Director James Cameron took the stage at E3 this week to talk a little about his upcoming film Avatar, and the video game that will follow (click here to see video—and look for what appears to be some early promo art). Cameron talks up the film’s plot and production, and speaks at length on his partnership with game developer Ubisoft.

Production on the game follows similar lines Cameron employed when he commissioned Orson Scott Card to draft the novelization of The Abyss. As Cameron had given Card freedom to explore the narrative dimensions that a film just can't put onto the screen, the Avatar game will feature original characters that interact with the world of the film, and follow an original, wholly separate storyline.

Creating an original story that runs parallel to the film allows for enough creative divergence so as not to regurgitate the film, and Cameron’s talk allays any such fears. What is strange is that, in the months leading up to Avatar’s December release date, virtually all its publicity has skirted the edge of the actual product.

The auteur’s recent comments on the film seem to downplay the story for sake of pushing the technology used to create it, keeping any real look at the film behind a thick veil. Absent any other promotional material, Avatar’s biggest draw rests on the advent of “Stereoscopic 3-D,” an innovation said to create a fully immersive experience—dreaming with your eyes open, as Cameron said at E3.

Early production art that leaked out last week provided a small glimpse under the hood, but strangely recalls well-established hardware put to good use in other sci-fi productions, including Cameron’s own Aliens. What’s known of Avatar’s plot, and already noted by others, even appears to follow the rough beats of Dances with Wolves—a wounded soldier takes a mission to the final frontier where he meets an alien race, falls for one of the natives, and is forced to choose sides when the “military industrial complex” moves in to make trouble.

By themselves, plot and production similarities make for poor indicators (how many retreads of Shakespeare’s plays have seen success, and how many retreads did the playwright compose himself?), but taken together with the peculiar lack of promotion, it’s easy to assume the quality of the story may not have the strength to stand on its own terms. In essence, all indications point to selling the experience of the film over anything else.

Article Author: Travis Johnson

Travis Johnson is a freelance writer in Colorado Springs, and spends most of his time writing magazine features or grant proposals. He mostly blogs about the movies, and is hard at work writing his first novel.

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