Is Avatar a glorified video game?

Since the trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar was released, opinions have shot back and forth, mostly from extreme ends of the spectrum — either it looks like trash or it’s going to be the best movie ever made. One particular opinion that stuck with me was my friend’s when he said, “This looks so fake. It looks just like a video game.”

Which was interesting, because to many an outsider that’s all Avatar appears to be: a glorified video game. But that doesn’t mean it’ll suck. And not to contribute to the hype machine, but there’s a lot of potential riding with the release of this new sci-fi epic.

For one, it could change the way Hollywood and developers approach video game adaptations. Cameron didn’t want to simply tack on a mediocre title when it came to the Avatar video game, which has unfortunately been the trend with video game adaptations.

James Cameron chose to take a different approach to the Avatar video game.

So instead of having something thrown together at the last minute, the game and movie have been developed side-by-side, both the filmmakers and game developers in close contact with one another throughout the process.

If the game turns out well, perhaps other directors will see the benefit of taking video games seriously, and similar collaborations will crop up in the future. Or, if things go terribly wrong, they’ll continue seeing video games as an easy way to scrape an extra buck. In any case, all the game has to do is avoid sucking to be considered a success, which shouldn’t be too hard.

I don’t think anyone really wants big projects like these to fail, and the Avatar video game can have my blessing.

As for the movie, it seems as if many people, despite their best hopes, have lost their faith in it. Just like I am with the game, I’m still holding on. But at least my friend already thinks the film is naught but a strange evolution of video game cinematics, and that Ubisoft’s rendition might actually outdo Cameron’s.

There’s a lot of eye candy in the trailer, and as others have already spouted all over the Internet, the graphics are good but not revolutionary. Since the film was touted to herald the dawn of a new era, it’s understandable to be underwhelmed by the footage’s visuals. At this point, I’d even say Heavy Rain could give Avatar a run for its money.

The visuals in Avatar are great, but they as of yet haven't knocked anyone's pants off.

But not only are the visuals not what we thought they were, it seems those less-than world-changing graphics might be the movie’s focus, trouncing storyline and interesting characters. So when people think that Avatar is simply a souped-up video game, they’re equating video games to a hollow, action-packed movie with fancy window dressing.

Interestingly enough, Cameron himself said that, when watching footage from the movie, some viewers felt they were actually going on the journey themselves, so great was their immersion into Avatar’s world (it’s towards the very end).

But haven’t video games been immersing audiences like this for years?

There could be some truth to what my friend said. Avatar, at its core, could very well be a glorified video game. And maybe the kind of story that Cameron’s trying to tell would work better inside a video game after all.

People say Avatar looks like a game as if that’s a bad thing, but it doesn’t have to be. Maybe the Hollywood just isn’t cut out for certain stories, and though Avatar won’t necessarily suck, this is a sign of the cinema’s shortcomings.