Matias Arana's blog

James Cameron Will Film Three “Avatar” Sequels At the Same Time

2012-06-26T17:01:09Z

There is hardly a lot to actually report here outside of what the headline includes other than to say Sigourney Weaver has confirmed with Showbiz 411 that James Cameron will begin shooting Avatar 2, Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 all at the same time, all with her, and starting this fall. As far as anything more, Weaver tells Roger Friedman at Showbiz, "I just show up."

This seems to continue the thought Cameron relayed to the "New York Times" back in early May, telling the paper, "I'm in the Avatar business. Period. That's it. I'm making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4… the point is I think within the Avatar landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it… and doing it in an entertaining way."

Get Ready For A New iTunes AVATAR Special Release!

2011-12-20T23:29:55Z

Fox is going to release an interactive version of AVATAR that will allow you to change the point of view from finished product to the various stages of production, like green screens, CGI and performance capture.

You have probably seen much of this new content already through various behind-the-scenes clips, but never all together in one release.

As the title suggests, it is iTunes only. I already have three different AVATAR disc releases so I wouldn't be too thrilled about another, but a digital only version is interesting.

They call the green screen functionality "Green Screen X-ray" and it looks cool. You can move your cursor around to view the green screen behind the polished final version.

You can watch the official promo video below:

Source: MarketSaw.

Prequel or Flashback for Avatar II?

2011-10-12T06:23:42Z

When asked about Weaver's character returning Avatar 2 and 3 Cameron asked, "[Have] you ever heard of nonlinear storytelling?"

He goes on to explain, "A lot happens on that planet before she shows up, and before Jake [Sam Worthington] shows up to join her. She's there for fifteen years ahead of time. I don't know, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions. And I've already said way too much about Avatar 2 and 3 here and there, but people piece it together like those voice cameos and tell the whole story!"

So it sounds like we're either going to be looking at prequel material or flashbacks or both. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if Avatar 2 was a prequel of some sort that suggested an alternative for the Na'vi after their home tree was destroyed as well as introduces a long-ago enemy of theirs and then Avatar 3 explores that alternative and has that long-ago enemy return now that the humans are out of the way. Just spit-balling.

Excited about Avatar 2? News are now slowly wrapping up, just like they did a couple of years ago. Can't wait to keep posting news such as this to keep the fan base pumped!

You can read the entire article HERE.

Sam Worthington Offers Avatar Sequels Update

2011-08-14T02:23:41Z

I might be a bit late for this, and this is something we already know. But considering there are no exciting Avatar news right now, I'd like to share this article posted yesterday by ComingSoon.net

Sam Worthington, star of the new film The Debt, told reporters that writer-director James Cameron is already at work on an atlas which will help him expand the world of Avatar for its forthcoming sequels.

"I know he's nutting out like a bible at the moment," Worthington said today, "[It's] sort of like a precursor of Avatar 1, to just get himself back into the world and the mindset and the characters."

Worthington indicated that he's waiting for the call from Cameron on when to start, but he's excited about the story.

"Jim's the person who will tell me when to show up," he laughed. "I've talked to him, he's told me what his plans for the story are, and it's huge. It's just monumental. But he's not going to start until he raises the bar for himself, and he's in no rush."

Worthington also said that Cameron's decision to create a "bible" for the world of Avatar was very much in keeping with the filmmaker's notoriously detail-oriented approach to everything he does.

"That's how he works – it's very detailed and very weighty," he observed. "But the story arc is huge; I needed a break halfway through because I was exhausted. It was insane, but it's amazing. It's going to be amazing."

Avatar 2 is tentatively planned for December 2014 with Avatar 3 planned for release the following year.

Source: ComingSoon.net

Lightstorm Hires Kathy Franklin To Guide 'Avatar' Brand

2011-08-10T03:09:51Z

Kathy Franklin has been named President of Franchise Development at Lightstorm Entertainment. Announced by James Cameron and Jon Landau, the hire signifies Lightstorm's commitment, in collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox, to building the franchise and brand of AVATAR beyond the traditional licensing and merchandising avenues.

Cameron commented, “Anticipating the exponential growth of the Avatar universe, we looked for someone who could lead a team that will cement Avatar as a world class brand across all platforms and markets. Kathy’s experience, coupled with her drive and vision for what Avatar can be, made her the right choice.”

Franklin is a seasoned leader with a proven record of designing and implementing industry-leading branding, growth and communications strategies. As Vice President of Global Studio Franchise Development for Disney Consumer Products, she led the strategies that drove the Disney Princess, Disney Fairies, Cars and Toy Story franchises while building integrated partnerships with film, television, and online divisions of The Walt Disney Company. Before that, Franklin was Vice President of Disney Worldwide Outreach, during which she ran marketing and communications for all corporate philanthropic outreach and charitable giving. Franklin's first position at Disney was Director of Disney Learning Partnership, a philanthropy focused on supporting creative approaches to teaching and learning, which she helped launch and for which Franklin created DisneyLearning.org and executive produced "The Creative Classroom Series," an award-winning set of videos and educator guides.

"Bringing Kathy onboard at Lightstorm further reflects the unique creative and business relationship shared by Fox and Lightstorm on the Avatar franchise," said Oren Aviv, Twentieth Century Fox's Chief Marketing Officer, and Tony Sella, Fox's Chief Creative Officer. "Jim Cameron created an amazing universe of mass appeal and we're confident that with Kathy in place, this partnership will further capitalize on the tremendous opportunities inherent in this awesome property."

"Kathy has proven herself to be a forward thinker who possesses the ability to bring new ideas to life," said Landau. "With Kathy's leadership, in collaboration with the team and infrastructure at Fox, I'm confident our franchises will grow in innovative ways that remain consistent with the quality and themes of our films."

"From the beginning, Jim and Jon have viewed AVATAR as a franchise whose storytelling has global reach and impact across multiple platforms. I look forward to leading this exciting new phase in the evolution of the franchise and to working with the team at Twentieth Century Fox to drive AVATAR's continued growth," said Franklin.

Franklin will be based at Lightstorm's Santa Monica headquarters.

Source: Deadline.com

Avatar Wiki's 2nd Birthday!

2011-07-20T22:56:56Z

It was a Monday, July 20th 2009 when I clicked the create wiki button. Now, after two years of intense work (from both users and admins), we’ve managed to create the largest Avatar encyclopedia ever, editing over 644 articles and establishing a solid user base. It has been two years on which I’ve met new people, and on which fans from all over the world have met to contribute and talk about the movie event of the past decade: Avatar.

In these two years, many things have been achieved. We’ve got thousands of visits, ranked among Wikia’s best movie wikis, managed to upload almost 5,000 images, and above everything, the Avatar Wiki has become a Home Tree for our users, for our friends. We’d like to thank our amazing admin group, who has worked intensely to make this project possible. But it would not have been possible without the real stars, the users. You are the ones who contribute every day to make the encyclopedia grow and grow.

Ghaziya's awesome cake.

Added by Matias Arana

Now, how are we going to celebrate?! Ghaziya and Sarah have offered themselves to make a cake. Well, maybe we forced them... but that’s not the point. We’re going to celebrate in Faern’s house. Be sure to make it. The rest is up to you. Take your pet llamas as well.

Again, we’d like to thank every single one of you, who have made the Avatar Wiki successful. Now, let’s wait until Avatar II & III are released. We’ll be 5 years old by then!

--((((Matias)))) ~ Talk IRC 22:56, July 20, 2011 (UTC)

Cameron: Avatar Sequels Are Not a Trilogy

2011-06-22T01:41:24Z

Only James Cameron, the man with back to back biggest movies of all time, could get away with saying something like this. He’s currently writing two movies called Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 says they’re not a trilogy. Three films, same continuing story, not a trilogy. Okay James, whatever you say.

In a brand new interview Cameron said that he’s still writing both films but that they’re not exactly a trilogy, more of a “overall character arc.” Read the exact quote and more updates on the films after the jump.

Fox News (Via Coming Soon) caught up with the Oscar-winning King of the World and asked him for the latest on the follow-ups to Avatar, the biggest box office hit in history.

“

We’re shooting two films back-to-back, so I’m writing two scripts, not one, which will complete a [three]-film story arc – not really a trilogy, but just an overall character arc so I’m pretty excited about that. We’re doing a lot of preliminary work right now on new software and new animation techniques and so on. We’re creating a new facility in Manhattan Beach so everybody that’s not already dead is coming back.

”

They then asked if he was feeling any pressure after the incredible success of the first film:

“

There’s always an expectation. I had to deal with that after ‘The Terminator’ back in 1984. All of a sudden I had a big hit movie and it was ‘what are you doing next?’ But my job is take the audience on a journey and entertain them. The second I am sitting down writing, I just go to Pandora. I don’t think about that stuff, about standing on a red carpet. It has its own life, really. The characters have their own lives.

”

Cameron has always been extremely confident and single minded. He spent years and years making both Avatar and Titanic and experts said both films would be failures. But Cameron persevered and both films not only weren’t failures, they were the 100% opposite, each enjoying unprecedented, historic success at the time of release. If he says his new Avatar films are not a trilogy, as much as you’d like to jab at him, we’re at a point where you just might have to believe him. What do you think?

Source: Slash Film.

Avatar Spoof Gets Green Light

2011-05-10T18:09:54Z

A spoof of Avatar is inbound, exploding from the brains that must surely be attached to the necks of the team that brought the world Date Movie, Epic Movie and Vampires Suck. James Cameron’s indulgent off-world epic only came out in 2009 and is thus ripe for satire, much like all of the other targets that have been turned into the movie equivalent of coal by writing/directing duo and universal hate figures Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer during their improbably fruitful careers as bad directors.

The project’s title is The Biggest Movie of All Time 3D and according to Empire it will indeed be shot with glorious stereoscopic effects. For the viewer this means you will pay a little more to be disappointed by the sub-par, scattergun pop culture gags, served with a side of self-loathing.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with finding a market and then squeezing it for all its worth, which is precisely what this film and its production team are doing. But then there’s also nothing wrong with owning a pillow expressly for the purpose of having sex with it. It’s just not a particularly worthwhile activity.

Source: We Got This Covered.

In days of slow Avatar news, this is what we got =P

Avatar 2 Production Disrupted By Earthquake

2011-03-21T21:18:44Z

In the light of the Japan earthquake/tsunami disaster, filming in the region has become a risky prospect – which is bad news for two upcoming movie sequels, ‘The Wolverine’ and James Cameron’s Avatar 2.

There are several big movies that were planning to shoot in and around Japan in the next year, but in the light of the recent earthquake/tsunami tragedy, and the continuing dangers plaguing the region, it’s unthinkable that anyone could hope to launch a major Hollywood production there anytime soon.

20th Century Fox currently currently has two major films that were slated to be in production the Pacific region: the comic book movie sequel The Wolverine and Avatar 2, the sequel to James Cameron’s 3D mega-smash hit.

The big selling point of Avatar 2 has been James Cameron’s claims that the film will explore the oceans of Pandora. In fact, the director – as ambitious and meticulous as he is – had even floated the idea of diving into the Mariana Trench, the deepest known part of the world, which is located in the Pacific Ocean (to the Southeast of Japan). There, Cameron planned to do research and filming on the trench that he would use to create the underwater world of Pandora, using new 3D camera technology that would allow him to film in the treacherous deep-sea environment.

Obviously, with major earthquakes and tsunamis striking the region (and continued seismographic instability), Cameron’s dive is now a risky venture. Corona Coming Attractions has a source claiming that Fox is not willing to risk the potential danger to the divers and even Cameron himself, as the insurance coverage for such an expedition is now too high, given recent developments. The fact that aftershocks from the quakes could continue to keep the region unstable for years to come is also not a promising sign. Needless to say, Cameron may have to rethink his approach to the Avatar sequel.

SOURCE: Screen Rant.

Now, let's put Avatar 2 aside to give a minute of our thoughts to the victims of the tragedy that is still striking Japan. You can donate money here. Please remember that they need our help, and they will help us when needed.

Main Page

2011-02-10T02:34:55Z

Hello, recently I have seen some flaws in our Avatar Wiki's Main Page. I’ve tried to get to some conclusions and constructive solutions. Before I go ahead, I would like to show you which flaws that are compromising the look of our Wiki:

Flaw 1: The Community Banner takes the two sides of the main page. It's unnecessarily big, when it could go only at the left side, and especially when half of that content is in the bar that is upside (Wiki Navigation).
Flaw 2: The Welcome Section is unnecessary. It states the obvious, has a “create article” button, which is already displayed next to the number of articles, which by the way is also included in the Welcome Section.
Flaw 3: The Twitter and Facebook buttons take too much space, while they can be shortened in two lines with 3 extra links (Wiki Forum, Answers Wiki and IRC), as showed in my proposal of a main page (see below).
Flaw 4: The News Section is way too big, taking unnecessary space. It takes a big part of the main page, while it could be reduced to one thin line with 2 less news, which date about 8 months old.
Flaw 5: The Blog Section could only display 2 blogs, as there is a “see more” link, which gives you the access to the latest blogs (around 20).
Flaw 6: The Heading is one big picture that, in my opinion, looks terrible. You can barely see that it is a Woodsprite, and it makes the main page “shiny”. It could easily be avoided with a shorter and better heading.

Click the image to be redirected to the prototype.

Finding solutions for this problems wasn’t easy, but I tried to fix them by doing a prototype of what could be a better solution. You can find the prototype and explore it HERE. Yes, it is a big change, and it was created while I was playing with some codes to improve the wiki. Of course that it is only an option, and the flaws can be fixed by just editing the main page in a few minutes. But this is just a fresh proposal that some people may like.

Probably the biggest addition would be the Slider. It is a way to display four different images, while linking them to important articles or Avatar news. It would look great on the wiki, and the best part is that it doesn’t take space, it actually reduces it. The bad part would be that main page is 3MB, which means at least 25 seconds on a 1mbit connection (which is what many people have today). The loading time people are usually willing to wait is somewhere around 5 seconds. Of course that’s for the minority of the users, but it has to be considered.

The good parts and improvements of the prototype are:

The Slider can display several images while linking them to important wiki news and articles (The Avatar Con blog, for example).
It deletes the entire unnecessary Welcome Section (see above) and turns it into one single line that speaks for the whole content. The content inside the current Welcome Section is already displayed in different parts of the main page.
The Twitter and Facebook logos that took a considerable space, takes only one single thin line now. Even more, we have added the links for the Answers Wiki, the Avatar Wiki Forum and the Answers Wiki. All in a smaller place.
The Category Navigation (the small circles) used to take both sides of the main page (left and right), and now it only takes the left side, leaving more space for more information.
The Featured Article has a more detailed and bigger summary that looks better than the previous design. (That is of course, a matter of opinion)
We have moved the Featured Image to the bottom of the left side, to give space to our new section: Featured Quote. Yes, as there is more space, so we can add the Featured Quote next to it.
The News Section took too much space, space that is needed. So we have moved it into the right, and we removed two news. That means that the news from 8 months ago are now gone to leave space for more information.
Finally, we have reduced the number of blogs displayed from 3 to 2. Why? Because there’s already a link to the past blogs, and space is always important. There is still space for a third spot, but we find it unnecessary now.

So, the main goal of this new proposal is to keep everything tighter, while adding new sections. I find it easy to use, and it will definitely attract the eyes of the new users that visit us for the first time. Did you know that we get 64 thousand visitors monthly? We have to represent all of them in an easy-to-use main page. Also, if you don't like the Slider, we can remove it and stay with the rest, it's up to you guys.

Now, of course, this is a proposal. We can still just make those little tweaks in the current main page, it’s up to the Avatar Wiki community. 'That’s why we need ideas in your comments! Would you prefer to use the new proposal, or just tweak some things in the current one? If it is the tweak option, then how would you improve the current main page?

I appreciate in advance any type of answer and help you can give us!

NOTE: Please keep your comments constructive, and remember that it is a matter of opinions

The Oscars: 83rd Academy Award Nominations

2011-01-25T15:53:58Z

Last year's Oscar where somewhat a dissapointment for Avatar fans. And yes, it was The Hurt Locker's fault. This morning, the list for last year's best movies was unveiled, and it definitely had some surprises. So, which films will follow the lead of Avatar's multiple nominations? This year, The King's Speech did. It didn't only get 12 nominations, but it also took nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor, all major categories. So will The King's Speech be able to defeat the continous strike that The Social Network had?

THE SURPRISES (GOOD)

True Grit getting 10 nominations.
Hailee Steinfield (14 year-old actress for True Grit) getting a Supporting Actress nomination.
You Haven't Seen the Last of Me, Golden Globe winner for Best Song, not being nominated. Yes, that's good news! =P
How To Train Your Dragon being nominated for Best Original Score.
Javier Bardem getting a Best Actor nomination.

THE SURPRISES (BAD)

Tron: Legacy being snubbed for Best Visual Effects. Really?
Chritopher Nolan didn't get a Best Director nomination, after getting nominated in almost every single awards show. The Academy shows once again they don't like Nolan (The Dark Knight, anyone?)
Alice in Wonderland's score was also snubbed.
Mila Kunis was snubbed for Black Swan, after winning Best Actress in the Venice Festival.
No Best Original Screenplay nomination for Black Swan.

MOST NOMINATIONS

The King's Speech - 12 nominations
True Grit – 10 nominations
The Social Network – 8 nominations
Inception – 8 nominations
The Fighter – 7 nominations
127 Hours – 6 nominations
Toy Story 3 – 5 nominations
Black Swan – 5 nominations
Winter's Bone – 4 nominations
The Kids are All Right – 4 nominations

There are always surprises at the Oscars, they are unpredictable. I think the Best Picture award is going to The King's Speech, after getting that ammount of nominations and after winning the Producers Guild of America award (the equivalent for Best Picture at the Oscars).

YOU CAN CHECK THE COMPLETE LIST OF NOMINEES HERE

James Cameron Announces Avatar 2 & 3 Release Dates

2011-01-24T19:18:20Z

James Cameron says that ‘Avatar 2′ will arrive around Christmas 2014 and ‘Avatar 3′ around Christmas 2015. Also, most of the first film’s cast will be returning.

Audience members yearning to return to the exotically extraterrestrial locale of Pandora will have to wait for at least three more years, as James Cameron has confirmed that the first of his back-to-back Avatar sequels won’t arrive until Christmas of 2014.

While Cameron’s original 3D sci-fi smash frequently changed release dates before it finally settled on December 2009, both Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 are less likely budge from their still tentative winter holiday dates in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Entertainment Weekly spoke to Cameron, who told them “I am in the process of writing the next two ‘Avatar’ films now. We are planning to shoot them together and [edit them in post-production] together, and we will probably release them not quite back to back, but about a year apart.” The filmmaker also teased about the return of some familiar faces, saying that “Basically, if you survived the first film, you get to be in the second film, at least in some form.”

Cameron also revealed that a portion of the profits from Avatar 2 and 3 will be donated to “environmental causes that are at the heart of the ‘Avatar’ world.” Considering that the first film pulled in over $2.7 billion at the global box office, that should amount to some significant coinage.

Producer Jon Landau previously spoke out about the Avatar sequels, confirming the news that Avatar 2 will explore the ocean of the Na’vi homeworld but won’t amount to “an underwater movie”, a la Cameron’s The Abyss. Landau additionally implied that although the second two chapters in the franchise were being conceived simultaneously, the filmmakers won’t follow in the footsteps of previous back-to-back sequels and end Avatar 2 on a cliffhanger that immediately leads into the third film.

The Avatar sequels will feature more of the Alpha Centauri star system in some degree.

Added by Cadellin

Both Pandora and the other worlds of the Alpha Centauri AB system will be explored to some degree in the Avatar sequels, which look to deliver visual spectacle beyond that of even the original film – and hopefully a more creative narrative as well. Cameron has a good deal of freedom with respect to the possible storylines of Avatar 2 and 3 and look of not-yet glimpsed regions of the photo-realistic alien setting. Hopefully, the return trip to Pandora will be be worth all the time, effort, and money.

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana are essentially set to reprise their roles as Jake Sully and Neytiri, respectively, but it’s not clear yet who else will be returning in Avatar 2 and/or Avatar 3 – much less what new stars will be signing on for the sci-fi sequels. We’ll keep you updated on the status of both films as more information is released.

Source: Screen Rant.

Sam Worthington Talks 'Avatar 2'

2010-12-19T02:35:29Z

Sam Worthington, star of James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster 'Avatar,' told Moviefone this week that a sequel to the beloved fantasy-adventure is in the works.

"We've been discussing that with Jim. He had some ideas he told us while we were filming, which were really cool and out there," Worthington said during Moviefone's visit to the set of his new movie, 'Man on a Ledge.' "At the moment, he's still writing what he calls 'The Bible' and detailing the world. Once he's detailed the world -- more so than it's already detailed in his big brain, anyway -- then he said he can write the script and we can go explore the world -- things like going underwater ... going in the floating mountains."

Worthington also expressed curiousity about what's in store for his character, Jake Sully, a Marine who goes into an "avatar" body to defend an alien moon and be with his love, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a member of the Na'vi race.

"I always joked and said that they were married and Jake Sully got lazy and Neytiri kicked his butt," he said. "But there is something to [the notion of being] in a genetically-engineered body now, which he is. Is there a "use by" date on it? I don't know. What's the new dilemma? Is it just humans coming back, or is something even bigger than can threaten them, can threaten the world? We can look at our world again and see that we know we're hurting the environment, and we know we can do things about it. But what else are we doing that's wrong so it can reflect on our own life?"

Source: Moviefone.

2011 Golden Globe Awards

2010-12-14T19:50:14Z

Do you remember last year when Avatar got 4 Golden Globes nominations, winning Best Picture and Best Director? Well, in honor to that recognition, I would like to post this year's Golden Globes nominees. This year the lucky films are The King's Speech and The Social Network, with 7 and 6 nominations, respectively. It was to be expected, as the reviews by professional critics were extremely positive (The Social Network even scored %96 at Rotten Tomatoes, something very hard to achieve). Those movies, along Black Swan, Inception and The Fighter were nominated to the most coveted award: Best Motion Picture - Drama. Their respective directors were nominated in the Best Director category, as well.

Now, there were a few surprises, in my opinion. Why on earth is Burlesque nominated for Best Picture - Comedy?! That was probably one of the year's worst movies, both by public and critics, and it wasn't even nominated once, but three times. Anyway, the other nominated for that category were Alice in Wonderland, Red, The Kids Are All Right and The Tourist. Other surprise in the Comedy/Musical field was the double nomination of Johnny Depp for the same category, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture for his work on The Tourist and Alice in Wonderland (both nominated for Best Picture).

In other fields, Burlesque got two nominations for Best Original Song, along "Coming Home", Country Song, "There's a Place For Us", The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (really?), and "I See a Light", Tangled. For Best Original Score, as expected, Alice in Wonderland and Inception got a shot. The other nominees were 127 Hours, The King's Speech and The Social Network. Yes, How to Train Your Dragon's amazing score was robbed, again. It's almost a fact thet Toy Story 3 (one of the year's best, in my opinion) will get the Best Animated Feature award. Of course, it was nominated, and so was Despicable Me, How To Train Your Dragon, L'illusionniste and this year's surprise, Tangled.

Here are some of the nominees:

Best Motion Picture - Drama

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception (my choice, but likely not winning)
The King's Speech (likely winner)
The Social Network

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Alice in Wonderland
Burlesque (really?)
The Kids Are Allright (likely winner)
Red
The Tourist

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network
Colin Firth for The King's Speech (likely winner)
James Franco for 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine
Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama

Halle Berry for Frankie and Alice
Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman for Black Swan (likely winner)
Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Johnny Depp for The Tourist
Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland (yes, again)
Paul Giamatti for Barney's Version
Jake Gyllenhaal for Love and Other Drugs
Kevin Spacey for Casino Jack

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right (definitely winning)
Anne Hathaway for Love and Other Drugs
Angelina Jolie for The Tourist
Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right
Emma Stone for Easy A

Best Director - Motion Picture

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
David Fincher for The Social Network
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan for Inception
David O. Russell for The Fighter

---> Check out the complete list of nominees here.

Avatar Score Gets 2 Grammy Nominations

2010-12-02T17:42:01Z

Inception's score is considered to be a frontrunner.

Added by Matias Arana

The score of Avatar was released almost a year ago, but it was inelegible for the Grammys, because it was released after the Grammy's deadline, apparently. After many months, it got nominated for the category of Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media. This marks James Horner's 8th Grammy nomination, and this could be his third win. The widely acclaimed Avatar: Music from the Motion Picture has been nominated for several major awards, including the Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTAS. James Horner will be facing other highly acclaimed soundtracks, most notably Inception (Hans Zimmer) and Alice in Wonderland (Danny Elfman), which are considered the frontrunners. The other nods go to Toy Story (Randy Newman), and Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer, again).

Leona Lewis in the video clip of I See You.

Added by Jcameronfan123

Like as if that weren't enough, Avatar's theme song I See You also got a Grammy nomination this year, in the category of Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media. The song will be facing several critically successful songs, which in my opinion, may be better. Personally, I disliked I See You, so I disagree with this nomination in particular. Anyway, the frontrunner is obviously last year's Oscar winner The Weary Kind (Crazy Heart), which is a beautiful song. The other nominations include Down in New Orleans (The Princess and the Frog), Kiss Like You Kiss (True Blood, TV show), and This City (Treme, another TV show). I See You wasn't exactly lucky at this year's early awards, and even the Oscars decided to ignore it.

In my opinion, neither of the nominated Avatar works will win, as the Avatar Score is already old, and the voters are likely going to ignore it. In my opinion, Inception's score is superior than Avatar's, and I strongly believe it will win.

My bets:

Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media: Inception, Hans Zimmer
Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media: The Weary Kind, Crazy Heart

In your opinion, in which category should Avatar win? And if not, why?

Check out the complete list of nominees here.

New Rollback

2010-11-28T01:34:00Z

One of our oldest members, Ozzy, has been a member since January 2010, with more than 1,720 edits under his belt. He's been actively editing in the wiki for months now, and is an IRC regular. Some of you may not see him all the time, but that's because he lives in the other side of the world. A little island/continent/country called Australia. Besides that, he's one of the wiki's most trusted users, and we can count on him for everything we need.

About 5 days ago I decided that I should nominate Ozzy to be a rollback, which is anyone that can revert vandalism and bad-faith edits instantly. Normally, it takes a couple of clicks and some page nagivation to revert the page. Users with the "rollback" permission are able to undo bad edits with one click, by using the rollback link on different pages and user contributions list. They are just like regular users with one extra button. After proposing the idea to the rest of the admins, they unanimously agreed.

We know that he would do an awesome job, and he's joining the list of other awesome rollbacks: Skxwang and Draginfli. The admins and rollbacks welcome our new "staff" member, Ozzy. Congratulations, man.

The Simpsons on Pandora

2010-11-22T20:39:57Z

In yesterday's episode, The Simpsons started the episode with a parody of Avatar. It was pretty funny also. You can watch the video below:

Avatar Parody

Added by Matias Arana

Help us build a better wiki

2010-11-13T18:33:31Z

Hello everyone, we have created a survey to see what you like or dislike about the Avatar Wiki, and what you usually do when you're around. This information is very important for us and the future of the wiki, as it will be helpful for future decisions. The survey is completely anonymous, so please be honest with your answers. It will only take 5 minutes of your time, and, as mentioned before, this survey will shape the future of our wiki.

You can take the survey HERE. Thanks for contributing to the wiki and your participation in the survey.

Avatar Wiki Staff.

The Ultimate Avatar Sweeptakes

2010-10-26T03:02:30Z

You can sign up HERE.

Note: This contest is not related to the Avatar Wiki.

Interview, Earth Clip, Back-To-Back and More!

2010-10-21T00:40:19Z

Well, there is a lot of news! Enjoy!

James Cameron's Interview

Nearly a year after his movie “Avatar” broke box-office records and opened up a floodgate of big-budget 3-D features, James Cameron is still very much immersed in his budding science-fiction franchise and the medium of 3-D filmmaking. On Nov. 16 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment will release a special extended collector’s edition of “Avatar” on DVD and Blu-ray, including a longer cut of the film and nearly an hour of deleted scenes, among other bonus features.

But Mr. Cameron would not be the director who once declared himself the king of the world if his ambitions ended there.

He is also preparing a 3-D release of his 1997 blockbuster “Titanic” – now merely the second highest-grossing film of all time, after “Avatar” — to be released in 2012, while he weighs his choices for his next directing gig. His checklist includes a possible “Avatar” sequel and a 3-D film about the Egyptian monarch Cleopatra that might star Angelina Jolie. At the same time Mr. Cameron has been keeping a careful eye on the increasing use of 3-D in Hollywood, and is hardly shy about discussing who he thinks is doing right and who’s doing it wrong.

Mr. Cameron spoke recently to ArtsBeat about “Avatar”s past and present, as well as his future plans. These are excerpts from that conversation.

Question: Have you reached that saturation point where you’ve gotten sick of talking about “Avatar”?

James Cameron: That was about eight months ago. [laughs] I’m way past that. I’m numb at this point.

Question: Well, I appreciate your faking your way through this, then.

James Cameron: It’s not that. It’s turned into a kind of never-ending saga, really, because of the various iterations of the film. First the success, then the awards, then all the environmental work that was the fallout of the messaging of the movie, and then the DVD release. Then the theatrical re-release and now the special edition. I just want to be able to close the files so we don’t have to go back into them again. I had my team for the theatrical re-released version, and just said, “Guys, let’s just go for broke –- let’s just do everything that we could imagine fans would ever want to see.”

Question: There is even more material in this latest DVD release that hasn’t been seen previously. Where does it keep coming from?

James Cameron: There are different grades of finished. Part of the concept here, which was a little bit radical, was, let’s do a theatrical re-release and we’ll do it in Imax and digital 3-D, and we’ll finish the effects up to a release standard. And why not finish those effects to go into an even longer cut of the film in the collector’s edition? That accounts for about 16 minutes of material. Beyond that, we have an additional 47 minutes of scenes that were taken out at various stages along the cutting process while the film was first being fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. The film was made twice — at least the CG scenes were — to finish them up to our internal level of completion, which we called template. Then we give it to Weta Digital [the New Zealand visual-effects company], and Weta Digital would finish it to the photo-real level that was for release. So we have 47 minutes of stuff that’s finished up to a template level, and it’s watchable, you get it, but you can really see that it’s not done.

Question: There are certain directors who often say their films are not done when they’re released, and they want to rework them. Has that been true in your experience as well?

James Cameron: It’s never really been that. We did a special edition of “Aliens” that I just felt made a more complete viewing of the film. Like, if you really wanted to be scared to death for longer. And then with “The Abyss,” it really was a different movie in its director’s cut. That’s the only one where I really feel a sense of vindication as a filmmaker, where I felt like I was getting my day in court. With “Avatar,” it’s more horses for courses. When we did the theatrical re-release, that was for people who really wanted the big-screen experience and were fans of the movie and wanted to come back and immerse themselves in it. When you get the collector’s edition, it’s more of an alternate-reality experience of the “Avatar” story, and I think that’s permissible. I think the new technologies allow that, and it’s fun to have that relationship with a fan base, where you can literally give them alternative ways of viewing the film.

Question: What would be an example of that?

James Cameron: For example, here’s a thing that popped into my head when we were in the middle of this process. I’m a parent. I get into a lot of trouble with my wife when I let the kids watch “Avatar.” For the next two weeks, they’re running around saying, [swear word] and [swear word]. So I said, why don’t we take all of the network ADR [re-recorded dialogue] that we did, where you cover every line for some network version that’ll air 10 years later, and why don’t we put that in and do a family-friendly audio track and advertise it on the box? As a parent I would love that. If I was looking at a boxed set in a store, and it said, “Family-friendly audio –- all objectionable language has been removed,” I’d be like, great, now I can watch this movie with my kids, without having to flinch every time somebody swears.

Question: Do you think the success of “Avatar” set off an arms race among the Hollywood studios to release as many 3-D movies as possible?

James Cameron: I think it accelerated a move toward 3-D that was already in progress. There were a number of 3-D films that were being very successful over a period of three years or so, but “Avatar” was the moment that the wave crested, if you will. After that it was undeniable that 3-D was going to be lucrative and it was here to stay, and it wasn’t a gimmick and all those things. And I think there was a rush, a gold rush, and some mistakes were made and some bad 3-D reached the marketplace. And then there was a little pushback from the audience, that we don’t want to pay extra for something that’s not a great experience. And I think that the studios have been somewhat chastened by that, and they’re now attempting to do 3-D at a higher quality.

Question: So you think they’ve learned from these experiences?

James Cameron: We’re seeing now that the studios are swinging away from the hasty conversions. Of course, Warner Brothers just got smacked by not being able to get “Harry Potter” done in time. I’d been on record for years that you can’t do conversion as part of a post-production process on a big movie, because no one is willing to insert the two or three or four months necessary to doing it well. They’ve got the cost of the interest clock running on a $150 million negative. That’s $5, $10 million right there, the interest costs of delaying a release. And of course, they don’t even factor it in when they push the button and green-light a movie. It’s already based on a release date they think they can make, based on everything they know. You can’t suddenly open up that post schedule by four months, to do 3-D right. So finally somebody got burned, which is Warners, and they’d already partially got burned on “Clash of the Titans.” So now the word is out there that the conversion companies have been low-balling their bids to get a foothold in the market, because they’re all start-ups.

Question: Meaning that these companies are underestimating how much time and how much money it will really take to do the job?

James Cameron: I think they’re doing two things: they were low-balling the bid and they were delivering shabby 3-D, because they had no choice, because it had to be done as a throughput thing. When you’re buying 3-D by the yard, $50,000 a minute or $70,000 a minute, it’s not really being done correctly, where it’s really an artistic process. I talked to Louis Leterrier, who did “Clash of the Titans,” and he was in England mixing the movie while they were doing the 3-D here. So the filmmaker wasn’t even involved in the process. It was just being applied like a layer, purely for profit motive. There was no artistry to it whatsoever. Now everybody’s realizing that’s not the right way to do it. They’re having to get on that learning curve. I think that’s O.K. These are almost, in a way, predictable oscillations of an emerging market.

Question: So what do you think of George Lucas’s plans to re-release all of his live-action “Star Wars” movies in 3-D?

James Cameron: I’ve been encouraging him to do that for years. He and I went to ShoWest in 2005 and he showed a little bit of converted “Star Wars” and I showed some of my 3-D stuff, and we said, 3-D is coming. We wanted to get exhibitors excited about 3-D so they’d put it in the number of screens that we needed. George has been talking about this for a long time and it’s finally coming to fruition, and I think that’s the true and correct use of the conversion technology, is for movies that are already done and are already beloved films. I want to do it with “Titanic,” maybe I’ll go back to “T2,” I don’t know. Steven [Spielberg] could do it on some of his films that we’d all, I’m sure, love to see in 3-D. But it has to be done right, and it has to be done with the blessing and the supervision of the filmmaker.

Question: You don’t think he was in any way motivated by what you’d accomplished with “Avatar,” to at least keep pace with that technology?

James Cameron: He did hang back for a while. I think he was waiting for there to be a wide enough install base, both in movie theaters and now we’re looking at the roll-out of 3-D television. I think he’s timed it wisely to a point where he can do the theatrical re-release and then roll right into a 3-D DVD re-release. You don’t want to create a glut of your own product. He had only just, a couple of years ago, finished his whole epic cycle of six films. “Titanic” has been out of theaters for, what, 12 years now? We’re going to bring it out in 3-D as a theatrical re-release on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in 2012. It’s an arbitrary length of time but it’s a specific date –- it’s a specific date that means something to people. There will be a lot of talk about the Titanic disaster in the news, and the nonfiction TV sector at that time.

Question: Where are you now in preparing a 3-D version of “Titanic”?

James Cameron: We’re in the early stages of that process. We’ve been moving very slowly to make sure that we do it right, and we’ve basically gone to every single vendor who does 3-D conversion, that’s a credible vendor, and there were seven that we have received tests from. We’ve analyzed the tests, in a couple of cases we sent them back and told them to remake parts of it, because it was unacceptable, and now we’re baking off the different vendors against each other and we’re going to choose the top two or three vendors and we’re going to split the show up between them. That’s our game plan. So we maximize the quality. Everybody’s busy now because there’s a lot of conversion work.

Question: Given that the technology is there, and the distribution system is coming into place, is it likely that all the studios will start looking at the library titles they’ve got and see which films they can re-release in 3-D? Won’t this be the colorization debate all over again?

James Cameron: I think that’s a business strategy that everybody that’s got a library is going to be looking at. But I think it’s never going to reach the level of colorization. Because colorization was always a little bit of a bastard technology. The price point was low enough that you could start converting libraries, but people never really accepted the quality.

There’s a danger that conversion could go down that path. Fortunately in this 3-D renaissance that we’re in right now, people are demanding quality. And they’re paying for it: they’re paying a premium. As long as it has to be the highest quality, the highest and best use of your filmgoing time, then you can’t just do that and do these bulk conversions.

The thing about 3-D conversion is, if you don’t have actual data from the moment of photography, then it really boils down to a human, in the loop, sitting and watching a screen saying, “O.K., that guy is closer than that guy, this table is in front of that chair,” and there’s no other way to do. There’s no magic-wand software solution for this. It’s people looking at screens, making creative decisions. The thing that we found with our seven vendors on the “Titanic” test, which was only a minute long, they had six shots to do and all seven of the vendors came back with a different idea of where they thought things were, spatially. So it’s all very subjective, which is why it’s best if the filmmaker stays in the process. In my case, I was there when I shot it [laughs]. I know where everything was. I’ve got a strong sense of what it should look like.

Question: Won’t there be people who will argue that these films shouldn’t be converted to 3-D simply because it isn’t what their filmmakers originally intended?

James Cameron: I think the beauty of it is that purists can always be purists. And people who don’t care can watch it in 3-D. The problem right now is there’s so much pressure on existing product being converted. There aren’t enough new titles. The second we start broadcasting sports and episodic television, and all that in 3-D, that’s going to satisfy the demand that’s going to drive the sets. And then I think, sure, studios will look back at their libraries, but they’ll pick the best titles, to spend that kind of money on. If it costs you $15 million to convert a movie reasonably well, more to do it perfectly, you’re not going to do that with every film. You’re going to do it with only a handful of films that you believe you can reap that amount of additional from, downstream.

Question: I’m glad to see you have faith in the movie studios about some things.

James Cameron: I don’t really have faith. I have faith in their greed. And if they feel that they’re damaging their own market, I think that will inhibit them from doing things that are too egregiously stupid.

Question: There’s a lot of curiosity about what your next movie will be. Is an “Avatar” sequel a fait accompli?

James Cameron: I wouldn’t say it’s inevitable because we still haven’t worked out our deal with 20th Century Fox. So we’re still in an ongoing negotiation on that. Because it’s a big piece of business, and I’m trying to map it out as a game plan that stretches forward 10 years. And they don’t like to think that long term. We’ll get it worked out, probably. I would assign a high probability to that. Whether that’s my next film or not remains to be seen.

Question: There’s been some discussion in the industry trade publications that you’re contemplating a 3-D Cleopatra film that would star Angelina Jolie. Where do you stand with that?

James Cameron: There’s a Cleopatra project in work, meaning that it’s been in development at Sony. And it’s a subject that’s always fascinated me. So yeah, I’ve been talking to them about it but no decisions have been made. But it sounds hot, doesn’t it? I mean, Angelina Jolie and Cleopatra? To me, that’s like a slam dunk. Whether I wind up doing it or not, I think it’s going to be a great project.

Question: I don’t mean to discourage you, but someone probably once said the same thing about Elizabeth Taylor and Cleopatra.

James Cameron: [laughs] Yeah, but you know, there were a lot of people betting against us on “Titanic” as well. That kind of stuff isn’t particularly daunting to me. The idea of 10-foot-tall blue people that were 100 percent CG, it was Smurf Planet, plenty of reasons why “Avatar” wasn’t going to work either.

Source: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/james-cameron-on-avatar-titanic-cleopatra-and-the-future-of-3-d/

James Cameron Will Shoot ‘Avatar 2 and 3′ Back-To-Back

Screen Rant‘s Roth Cornet attended a Discussion/Q & A session with James Cameron and Avatar producer Jon Landau last night and learned a bit more about the plans for both Avatar 2 and a threequel, which we’ll dub Avatar 3 for now.

Cameron confirmed the rumor that Avatar 2 & 3 will be shot back-to-back and admitted that he has not yet decided whether or not to tackle those sequels next or take on another project first.

While reports were in last month that Cameron is developing a True Lies TV show, the Oscar-winning filmmaker revealed at the Q & A panel that he is not actually involved with the project. Cameron has expressed his interest in helming a live-action, big-budget adaptation of the anime/manga series Battle Angel in the past, but the timeline for that project remains very much up in the air. A 3D conversion of Titanic is currently being overseen by Cameron, but the director’s schedule is otherwise unsettled for the time being.

Cameron will shoot Avatar 2 and 3 back-to-back.

Added by Matias Arana

We found out last month that Cameron is working with Australian engineers to develop a “deep sea vessel” that will allow him to shoot footage of the Mariana Trench in 3D, but the filmmaker claims that the project is unrelated to Avatar 2. Cameron revealed his plans to explore the oceans of Pandora in the Avatar sequels earlier this year and he certainly seems to doing (if only indirectly) research for the films already – does that mean that Avatar 2 could arrive in 2013 after all?

Read on for Cameron’s official statement about the Avatar sequels:

“

“Our plan right now is to do ['Avatar 2 & 3'] as a single large production and release them a year apart. In order to do that, we have to refine our technical processes beyond the end of where we were finishing ['Avatar'] a year ago. We need to future-proof ourselves out five or six years to the end of the third film.”

”

A number of franchises have featured sequels that were shot back-to-back, but the results have generally been mixed – especially when it comes to big-budget fare like The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Cameron and his production crew already have the necessary technology to begin work on Avatar 2 & 3, which should both be less expensive ventures than the original Avatar – not to mention that Cameron seems to have a solid plan for where he will take the franchise next, in terms of both plot and setting.

The Extended Collector’s Edition of Avatar arrives on DVD and Blu-ray this November and most fans are eagerly anticipating a return trip to Pandora. While the general public’s interest in 3D has waned a bit since Avatar obliterated box office records last winter/earlier this year, both Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 should, if nothing else, be visually impressive enough to convince moviegoers to pay the 3D surcharge to check them out on in theaters.

Source: http://screenrant.com/james-cameron-avatar-2-3-sandy-83703/

Earth Scene Clip

Added by Matias Arana

Hey guys - its not much, but here is a taste of what is coming in the AVATAR Extended Collector's Edition three disc set on November 16.

We have seen bits and pieces of future Earth crop up here and there, but this is the first time we have anywhere near the 45 second run time of this partial scene that was aired at the SPIKE 2010 Scream awards. That is director James Cameron and producer Jon Landau introducing the clip.

Click here for more details as to what to expect in the disc release.

I don't know how long this will be up on YouTube, but have a look.

Source: http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/2010/10/short-low-quality-clip-from-avatars.html

Stephen Lang Talks Avatar 2 and More

2010-10-13T17:07:37Z

Stephen Lang Talks ‘Avatar’ Collector’s Edition & Quaritch’s Possible Return

We reported that James Cameron’s Avatar is getting an epic home video re-release this winter with the Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition, which will feature loads of special features including a new cut of the film that is nearly twenty minutes longer, almost an hour of deleted scenes, and enough behind-the-scenes and making of featurettes to keep you occupied for an entire weekend.

Actor Stephen Lang, who famously portrayed Avatar‘s villain, Col. Miles Quaritch, was on hand at the 2010 New York Comic-Con to discuss the Avatar Collector’s Edition, and we got a chance to speak with him.

During our discussion I got a chance to ask Lang about everything from what this new Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition might reveal about Col. Quaritch, to what the chances are that we’d his character return in the already-planned Avatar 2. Quick side note: if you haven’t seen it already, be sure to check out an article we already posted where I talked to Lang about his interest in playing X-Men’s Cable in a future film. It’s a good read.

As for the business of Avatar, check out what Lang had to say about the upcoming re-release below:

Screen Rant: Will see any extra scenes of Col. Quaritch?

Stephen Lang: Yeah I believe so. The new collector’s edition comes out on the 16th of November and it’s just got a huge amount of new stuff, there’s a good bit of the Col. in there. I haven’t seen it yet so I’m as interested as anybody else to see what [Jim Cameron] has included. He shot an awful lot – the story is a long and good story and when he released it last December nobody knew it was going to become what it has become and he wanted to do something that he thought was manageable for people: bring it in under three hours. And now the world has spoken, I suppose, people dig it, they want to see more of it and that’s what this is about – to offer as much information, as much of the wonders and beauty of Pandora, and background on the characters, where they come from [and] where the story could possibly go.

SR: Will any of the new material explain how Quaritch came to be hardass we saw in Avatar?

SL: Well we have a lot to say about his background – how he has arrived at this particular juncture, where he’s at in his own life. It’s central to who he is but it’s not central to the story. I would think that as the world of Avatar gets more articulated (in days, months, years to come) that the history of Quaritch will become part of what’s talked about as well – how did Quaritch become Quartich. I know I have a lot to say about it, but for the purposes of the film that we made, Quaritch is a fully-formed character, he is who he is and has been for quite awhile, and the story is not about his change – it’s about Jake’s change. It’s not that Quaritch changes, he just becomes more so as the story goes on – if Quaritch was a screw, he’d be tightening as the story progresses.

SR: Knowing the mythology of Pandora and that transformation is possible, is there any chance Quaritch could return for an Avatar sequel?

SL: I suppose it’s a possibility – I can say I have no particular knowledge of it – but it’s all in the hands of the creator, as it were. Whether Quaritch comes back or not…who’s to say what form he would come back in, you know anything could happen I suppose on Pandora. I always do think that the spot where he went down…that becomes an indelibly kind of taboo spot for the Na’vi from then on, it seems to me. So I always like to think that is sort of this anti-memorial in a way.

SR: Could we see Quaritch featured in another way? A prequel or side-story or something else (webisodes, books, etc…)?

SL: I think to see [Quaritch's] first day on Pandora would be real interesting, because that’s where [his] scars came from. We’ll see; Jim Cameron is I believe writing the novel right now, and I think he wants to do it himself because that’s where the story begins and ends, with him. But also, I would suspect that him telling the story of a history or a prequel of things…that is really going to illuminate what happens in the future on Pandora as well. So I think alot will be told in that – you could learn an awful lot about all the characters through that.

SR: Would you be willing to play Quaritch again – in whatever fashion it might occur?

SL: Yeah I couldn’t allow anybody else to do Quaritch! Can’t do it [Laughter]…I’m protective of him, I always felt that look, if I don’t love Quaritch, who will?

Source: http://screenrant.com/avatar-collectors-edition-stephen-lang-quaritch-kofi-82531/

The Re-release Special Contest Finalists

2010-09-19T20:38:49Z

The Avatar Wiki staff has chosen the finalists for the Avatar Re-release Special Contest. First of all, we would like to thank you all of your amazing entries. It has been a very difficult for us administrators to select the top 5. All contestants that are listed below have already won a T-shirt from the store of Learn Na'vi.

Without further ado, we’re proud to show you the finalists of our contest:

Click on the first link on each line to read the contest entries of the finalists.

Remember that they are in alphabetical order, not in points. We would also like to mention Tsu'tey te Rongloa Ateyitan’s poem “The Alien Romance”, which tied with one of the finalists, but under a random test, he wasn’t chosen.

So it’s now your time to vote! Your vote will count as 50% of the final vote. The admins have the other 50%, as we have already chosen an order for the five finalists. Read the entries and choose your favorite!

We will post the final results 5 days from now. This means that voting will end September 24 at 21:00/9:00pm UTC, so stay tuned!

PD: For the finalists, please provide your complete address (Country, city, street, etc.) here: avatarwiki@yahoo.com to receive your prize. If you don't, we will have to give the prize to another user. Also, please choose the t-shirt you want from Learn Navi's Store.

Thanks for your votes! Now the voting is closed, with almost 400 votes, the community has decided its best entry. Stay tuned, we'll publish the winner tonight!

JC: Done With Avatar, Blu-ray and Mountains of Madness

2010-09-11T15:57:13Z

James Cameron's luminescent-but-lethal jungle world will get you one way or another.

In case you missed Avatar the first time round, or wanted to see more, a Special Edition that's nine minutes longer is now in cinemas, but it doesn't end there.

A new Blu-ray is coming in November with the original theatrical release, the extended special edition and yet another cut, this time with 16 minutes of extra footage.

The reinstated scenes were raw and unfinished so the studio has spent millions getting all the special effects added.

Cameron says that after this next Blu-ray release there will be no going back and tinkering with the movie again.

He told Total Film: "I'm not going back to this. There's no revisiting this downstream and I don't see it coming back into theatres at all unless 20 years from now they want to do something and I'm a doddering old guy that can't stop them."

Asked which of the three upcoming versions should be regarded as the definitive cut, he said: "I'm going to watch all three back to back, which I haven't done yet, and see but I would say the 16-minute version is not a version that I'd put in a broader marketplace, it's more for hyper-fans."

He's next acting as a producer on Guillermo del Toro's 3D adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's novella At The Mountains of Madness, in which an Antarctic expedition discovers the ruins of an ancient civilisation and awakens hidden horrors.

Cameron explained: "That's Guillermo's green project that he's wanted to make for years and years. He and I linked up on that just a few weeks ago and he wants it to be his next film and just charge right into it. As I'm in a lull right now, the timing's perfect."

In a separate interview with Underwire, Cameron admitted he's normally not keen on being a producer but has made an exception in this instance: "I'm working with Guillermo because I enjoy his company, and a creative collaboration is something that we've talked about doing for a long time.

"It's going to be an epically scaled horror film and we haven't seen anything like that in a really long time -- I guess since Aliens."

He added: "The thing about Lovecraft is that he left a lot to the imagination. He never told you what they (the creatures) looked like. He managed to create a sense of creeping horror without specifics.

"Guillermo brings an eye for design that is so original and so quirky and so steeped in the lore of movie design and horror design, but always fresh and unexpected.

"Frankly, I just want to see what he comes up with and I want to enable the nuts and bolts of the production so he doesn't have to worry about that. I want to help him how to work in 3D."

It was reported by Collider that "Universal wants James McAvoy to play the lead in the film, but del Toro wants Tom Cruise to star. Chris Pine's name was also being tossed around, but his busy schedule may be too packed."

Cruise and del Toro had met before over a planned new Van Helsing film, with del Toro producing and Cruise set to star, but the project didn't happen.

The lead role in At The Mountains of Madness is William Dyer, a professor of geology at the fictional Miskatonic University in Massachusetts and leader of the disastrous Pabodie Expedition to Antarctica in 1930-31. He's also the narrator of the tale.

Other characters include a graduate called Danforth who sees something that causes him to lose his sanity; engineering professor Frank H. Pabodie; biology expert Professor Lake; and physics expert Professor Atwood. They are all from Miskatonic University.

It's been speculated that both Cruise and McAvoy may get roles in the film, which starts shooting in May 2011.

Avatar 3D Blu-ray Coming December 1?

2010-09-02T21:51:29Z

Good news and bad news. Can't say whether this is authentic or not, but Blu-ray.com is reporting they have a source that says the AVATAR 3D blu-ray will be distributed starting this December 1, bundled with Panasonic 3DTVs only.

They further said that ALICE IN WONDERLAND will be available in 3D as well but bundled only with Sony 3DTVs.

I know this is going to upset people but if this is true, I don't expect we will see the phenomenon much longer as 3DTV adoption in homes is expanding rapidly. Obviously money exchanged hands to grant the TV manufacturers an exclusive window to release their respective bundles, and a domino effect may have been started with the first agreement to be signed for them to stay competitive with each other.

The sooner these agreements stop though, the better it will be for consumers. I want both titles, but not two 3DTVs.

Source: http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/2010/09/avatar-3d-blu-ray-coming-december-1.html

Confirming earlier reports (see Blu-ray.com, May 23), HollywoodinHidef.com has it from a "well-placed source" that a 3D Blu-ray release of Avatar will be released on December 1, but it will be exclusively available with the purchase of Panasonic 3D TVs and Blu-ray players. In turn, a 3D BD of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland will be bundled with Sony 3D hardware.

In February, Avatar director James Cameron had said to the Wall Street Journal that a 3D Blu-ray of the movie would come out in November (see Blu-ray.com, February 18). That was promptly denied by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with a note that said verbatim: "3D is in the conceptual stage and Avatar will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November" (see Blu-ray.com, February 19).

The exclusivity period hasn't been specified for either title, but is said to be "unusually long" for Avatar.

The (2D) Collector's Edition Blu-ray of Avatar will be released in November.

Source: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=5071

The Re-release Special Contest Opinions and Questions

2010-08-18T19:02:31Z

This blog is for any question or opinion you have regarding the Re-release Special Contest. The contest blog only accepts contest entries.

The Re-release Special Contest

2010-08-18T17:33:22Z

The finalists have been chosen! Click here to get to the community voting.

Get your pens and paper ready ladies and gentlemen. The staff of the Avatar Wiki are preparing a contest in honor of the re-release of Avatar! In the IRC we proposed many ideas for topics, and we finally agreed on one: a poem or fanfic regarding any of the new scenes of the special edition! The poem/fanfic can be in any language you want, either English, Spanish, and even Na'vi! But remember to post a translated English version of it. The winner of the contest, along with the prizes listed below, will be featured in the Avatar Wiki, and our Facebook and Twitter! Not only ours', but Wikia's!

The awards for the winner and runner-ups.

Added by Matias Arana

To accomplish what we want, we have asked many webpages and organizations to feature our contest. We have asked LearnNavi.org, as we know their founder, and it would also attract more people who know a bit of Na'vi, which we're hoping may also help to improve some of our Na'vi language articles or add new ones. Also, we asked The Daily Beast to post the link, as some of our admins, including me, are doing a short review for the re-release. We're also expecting Wikia will post our link in their Facebook and Twitter as well, so we are trying to get some traffic here.

As in every contest, there are some rules. Yeah, it sucks, but still ;) You have to follow the procedures:

You need to be a member of Wikia. To be one is super easy! Just click here, add your information, and done!
The judges will be the administrators of this site: Matias, Samsonius, Faern, LuckyMan, UltimateChange and Jaybo. They will choose the top 5. Then, there will be an open voting for the community, which will make 50% of the final decision. The other 50% will come from the judges.
Blog comments should be reserved only for poem/fanfic submissions. Questions may be directed to Matias, Samsonius or Faern's talk pages. Therefore, anything that is not a submission will be removed from the blog. We also have the Opinions and Questions blog.
You must be 18 years or older to participate. If you are not of age, you must get the consent of a your legal parent or guardian, and must represent in your submission that you have done so.
Entries for the contest must be submitted by September 18th (11:59 UTC) starting today, August 18th. Most of the countries will have already released the special edition in theaters by this time.
The topic of the poem or fanfic has to be any of the extended scenes of the re-release:
1. The extended mating scene.
2. Grace's old school.
3. Tsu'tey's death.
4. Extended fanlizard scene.
5. The sturmbeest hunt.
6. The Na'vi attacking the bulldozer.

The prizes for winning are as follows:

Grand Prize - A Blu-ray/DVD copy of Avatar, a shirt from the LearnNavi store that the winner gets to choose, and the grand prize special edition badge!

2nd - 5th Place Prizes - A shirt from the LearnNavi store and a custom badge that corresponds to your position in the contest!

NOTE: If you win the contest, you should supply your address in the comments or, alternatively, if you would rather not share it publicly, email your address to avatarwiki@yahoo.com.

This should prove to be a simple task for some of you, and others will find it to be extremely difficult. Just give it a try and post your entry in the comments section below. The LearnNavi site is a great resource if you're looking for words and phrases to use. Good luck, and we hope that you all compete to the best of your ability!

Note on posting your entry: The wiki software does not display simple line break as line breaks after you submit your entry in the comments section. So, if you enter two lines with a normal line break between them, they will be displayed on one line. However, there are multiple ways to get around this:

Add <br /> at the end of each line
Add : in front of each line
Add an empty line between each line
Put your whole text between one single pair of <pre>...</pre> tags, e.g. <pre>Your text with multiple lines</pre>

Special thanks to Sebastian Wolff and LearnNavi for supplying the prizes and sponsoring our contest!

The contest has ended. The judges will go through the submissions and vote for the finalists. The community voting will take place as soon as we have those finalists.

The New Wikia

2010-08-17T16:33:18Z

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that Wikia is going through many changes, and the old Wikia, as we know it, will be gone. Wikia is changing all the interface, in new user testing, click tracking, member feedback, etc. Here's the first look:

The New Wikia.

Added by Matias Arana

The new features are:

Navigation: We’ve made it clearer and more focused and introduced better navigation between wikis. This prototype has a horizontal navigation that’s easy to find and easy to use as visitors move around your wiki.
Layout. We’ve given the site a cleaner layout, with fixed page width, new fonts, and a right-hand column. We’ll be developing handy new modules for the right column as well as a new tool to help you easily customize your color scheme.
Community activity. We want visitors to understand that wikis are ever-changing, collaborative communities. New users aren’t always aware of where to look for activity, so we developed tools to better surface all of your contributions and interactions. We will be watching closely how they perform in beta testing.
Toolbar. We’re experimenting with a toolbar that anchors at the bottom of your screen and stays with you as you scroll -- so you’ll never be without it! This will contain some popular tools and a customizable section for your personal tool choices.
Notifications. The toolbar also functions as your Notification Center. Notices here will tell you when you have new messages from other members, admins on your wiki, or from us.

Let's hope they don't mess with the new skin, and if it does, we'll do our best to change it again to fit it.

Community blog: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/Your_First_Look_at_the_New_Wikia

New Trailer for Re-release

2010-08-13T02:02:00Z

A new trailer for the re-release is on the Internet and it looks great!!! If you ever wanted to see a Sturmbeest, this is your chance! Also, Cameron said that the next edition of the DVD will contain 16-17 minutes of extra footage!

New scenes:

We can finally see the Sturmbeest hunt.

Neytiri and Jake having Na'vi sex =P

A huge bulldozer burning.

The new trailer.

Added by Faern.

Amazing Interview: Avatar 2, Novel, Re-release and more!

2010-08-07T14:36:42Z

This is an interview Jim Dorey had with James Cameron about some of his next work, the date for the novelization, what will appear in the extra footage, the script of Avatar 2, etc.

Cameron confirms he is producing Guillermo del Toro's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. The movie will be shot in native 3D using next generation FUSION 3D cameras from Pace. The project came up only 2 or 3 weeks ago when Cameron asked about if del Toro was still interested in it. As del Toro was clearly excited to do it, Cameron said "let's do it". They took it to Universal with both of them attached to the fast tracked project and now it looks like it will be going in the 2nd quarter of 2011.
Cameron talks about 3D conversions. TITANIC's conversion is taking 8 months to a year to complete, not a fast turnaround like CLASH OF THE TITANS. Cameron: "(TITANS) showed a fundamental lack of knowledge about stereo space, in addition to the shoddy work that comes from rushing." Cameron likes TITANS in 2D as do I (I have had the Blu-ray since it was released) from a directorial standpoint and as a fan of Sam Worthington.
Cameron on how they are technically converting TITANIC. "You just can't cut out edges, you're going to get flat people moving around." He will be using all his knowledge to put things on their right depth planes. They had tests for TITANIC from seven different conversion vendors on the exact same shots and they got back seven different answers as to were they thought things were spatially. "Some of them were not bad guesses and some of them were ridiculous."
The whole argument about conversion will go away for high end, first run 3D. Two years from now when there are thousands of 3D cameras out their shooting live feeds to 3D broadcast networks, how can a producer go to a studio and say: "I can't shoot 3D. It's too difficult. There are too many problems. It costs too much. It adds 6 months to post-production. They won't be able to say any of that stuff. That stuff is all garbage."
Cameron on talking with Steven Spielberg about converting his classic movies to 3D. "Make sure you are there for (the conversions), then it can be great."
Cameron talks about AVATAR 2's current status. He has an overall story arc for 2 and 3, but has some modifications for that after spending some time during the last few months with native tribes in the Amazon basin. Script will be a ways out yet for AVATAR 2.
He is focusing his writing right now on the AVATAR novel (corresponds to the first film) and that will take him the next couple of months to bang out. Not sure when it will be coming out, perhaps the end of the year or the first quarter of 2011.
The AVATAR re-release will have 9 extra minutes, not 8 and it will all be CG. No extra footage of live action characters drinking coffee. Rainforest; some at night; a hunt sequence - a lot of flying; high impact action; an emotional scene toward the end has been added back; "the best CG in the film has been added as far as facial performance"; A Na'vi counterattack after the bulldozer attack; more of Grace at the school; adding the Stingbat and Sturmbeast creatures; additional Quaritch final AMP Suit battle shots; more of the glade love scene. It is all on par with the best of the rest of the film. They had lots of footage to choose from and they put back the absolute best scenes and shots they could.
Cameron does not have the release timing of the 3D Blu-ray as they want to have a nice distribution of 3DTVs in homes. He has seen the 3D master run on consumer 3DTVs from Panasonic and Samsung and "It looks amazing. It looks really spectacular."

Thanks to Marketsaw for the info, and you can hear the interview here. Finally some important news!

UPDATE: More news :D Apparently Cameron and Fox are planning to do the Avatar sequels back-to-back. It would mean 20th Century Fox can shave a few hundred million off the budget costs and we won’t have to wait until 2018 for the trilogy to be complete (if a trilogy is their end goal).

Official Achievements Blog

2010-08-03T19:06:22Z

As almost nobody reads the Staff Blogs of Wikia, I'll post it right here. It's the official blog for the badges, and they mention our wiki! Special thanks to Samsonius who designed the badges. Great work!

We're excited to announce a great new addition to the Wikia feature set -- Achievements! Achievements can help you build a bit of friendly editing competition on your wiki, encourage your readers to become editors and recognize contributions.

With this dynamic new feature you can automatically earn "Badges" for making edits, adding pictures, writing blog posts and contributing to your wiki in other ways. Each badge that you earn gives you achievement points and contributors with the most points score a spot on the wiki's leaderboard.

You'll have a basic set of badges to get started or you can customize the names and images of each badge to fit your wiki's topic. The James Cameron's Avatar Wiki has done an awesome job with this, customizing each badge to fit the world of Pandora. For example, if you make 100 edits, you get the Nawm Tsamsiyu (Great Warrior) badge -- which is totally fierce and awesome looking!

If you're interested in adding Achievements to your wiki send a request to Special:Contact. See you on the leaderboard!

Go to the link to see some examples and to comment if you wish so.

LINK: http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sarah_Manley/Announcing_Achievements_-_Edit_your_way_to_the_top

Changes in Comments

2010-07-23T02:03:28Z

Wikia will be improoving comments on blogs and articles, so I want to show you their post so you don't be surprised for the sudden changes. Here's the blog they published:

We’ve been taking a close look at how the different features and tools on wikis work and improving those that aren’t hitting the mark. With that goal in mind, we’ll be implementing some refinements to commenting next week. We currently have two systems for commenting - one for articles and one for blogs. It didn’t make sense to have two different systems performing the same function on one wiki, so we’ve consolidated them into one super-commenting feature to be used on both blogs and articles.

Here’s a look at some of the changes you can expect:

Threaded replies: You’ll now have the ability to add an indented reply directly to a specific comment. Threaded replies to individual comments allow for a better organized flow of conversation.
Paginated comments: Large numbers of comments slow down page load times and keep content from appearing quickly. To keep pages running speedily we’ve added pagination to comments. Right now each page can contain 20 comments, and allows for an unlimited number of threaded replies.
Comment sort order: To keep conversations engaging and fresh, the default sort order for comments will now be newest first. This mirrors best practices commenting on many other sites around the web including Youtube, CNN.com and Blogger. If you prefer to have comments sorted by newest last, don’t worry - you can adjust that setting to meet your personal preference.

Commenting improvements will be live mid to late next week. Let us know what you think!

I still don't know if we can disable them for the wiki. Anyways, tell us what do you think of the upcoming changes.

Happy Birthday, Wiki!

2010-07-20T15:32:55Z

Happy Birthday, Avatar Wiki!

It's hard to believe it's already been a full year since the Avatar Wiki was created. At first, I created the wiki just for fun, and I never imagined that it would reach such an amazing level of quality. After I saw the movie and experienced it, I had the hopes that it would attract hundreds of avid Avatar fans and they can hang out and discuss anything and everything related to James Cameron's masterpiece, and I think we've definitely succeeded in that regard. We would not have survived an entire year without each and every one of you guys that have made an immense amount of edits to the largest resource for free Avatar information and news. I'm honored to share this community with all of you hard workers, and I think the wiki has a very bright future ahead of it. I'm not sure what the wiki has coming its way in the coming months and years, but I'm confident that the wiki will continue to grow and expand by way of everyone's hard work. The wiki has undergone though several changes in the short period of just one year. When I created it, the first article I wrote was Pandora. There was only about one paragraph of information about the film, so I could only edit about 15 articles. As more information poured in, I was able to create more and more articles, and eventually new users came to my aid! That's when Faded-Myth, the second admin, was promoted. Together, we built the wiki together and requested a new skin, that is still being used on the German Avatar Wiki. When the movie was released, the activity went crazy, many users joined the wiki, and as I couldn't handle it all by myself, I promoted more users. After a lot of hard work by the community, the wiki became what it is now, a vast online resource for everything under the sun relating to Avatar.

Now, after 1 year, the wiki has been spotlighted twice, and it is considered as the seventh best Movie Wiki in Wikia. Remember that thanks to all of you this has become possible. Special thanks to our admins and rollbacks, who are our most trusted users.

I would just like to say, thank you all for making this wiki such a truly amazing place, and for establishing a community that is one of the most fun-loving and caring communities around. You guys and gals are the heart and soul of this place, and I know that, through your hard work, the wiki will continue to thrive and amass all of the quality information about the thing that brings us all together: Avatar.

Avatar 2 Updates

2010-07-17T23:59:30Z

New scenes of the Avatar Re-release.

Added by Monster-stevo

Got an AVATAR 2 update that many of you have been screaming to me about and yes, you are right - it is time to talk some AVATAR again!

Firstly, from one of my best sources, it is true that there is no final script or breakdown yet. There is a breakdown of the Jake / Warrior King story arc however. Further, entire sequences and situations that were developed during the production of AVATAR that were intended for the sequel(s) or simply couldn't make it into original are queued up too.

I have this confirmed from three top sources. Another source said "Yeah no ready script at all. What I've heard it's more of a pitch. But the storyline and where the characters go is already there and quasi discussed. I don't know where he (Cameron) is, but he's not in the states."

Yet another source said: "News will start to gather soon on Jim's next adventure into another world "or two", I do have news for your readers, I have heard Jim wants to push the Alien world further into the abyss. Pandora best prepare for all war, because I promise you it's on it's way."

And don't forget what we already think will take place: AVATAR 2 will continue several years after the events of the original. The oceans play a key role. It will also lay the groundwork for the other moons in the system. Things are going to get quite "weird" to the point of becoming somewhat abstract! Each movie will stand on its own and there will definitely be NO shooting the sequels back to back. Trilogy? Actually no. The sky is no limit for this universe - the plot lines are endless.

And of course don't forget this AVATAR 2 SPOILER ALERT: This is verbatim from my source... "Oh and Pandora has a lot of shit coming its way. Break out the space marines, looks like some bugs need a stomping."

The first two quotes are from this week and those last two quotes were from late April / early May and things can change of course, especially as JC has not finalized a script but it certainly is VERY interesting. More when I get it guys. It is very hard to acquire anything that isn't there yet! But as you know we have the best internal sources for AVATAR right here and when I get - you will get it!! Hang on, it will be a heckuva ride in the coming months.

Article thanks to Marketsaw!

James Cameron Made $350 Million from Avatar

2010-07-10T04:46:28Z

James Cameron personally earned $350 million from the theatrical release of Avatar, the biggest financial gain by a director from a single film in history, reports Deadline.

The figure is staggering, but not once you consider the movie has made $2.7 billion for Fox since its December 2009 release, the highest grossing movie of all time. The studio is even planning a “Special Edition” re-release on August 27 for those who might have missed it the first time around that contains an additional eight minutes of footage.

Cameron is also hatching plans for a sequel that could potentially dive into the depths of Pandora’s ocean, which comes as no surprise from the aquatic enthusiast who made The Abyss his love letter to the sea. It’s also no secret the visionary filmmaker considers the original adventure as part of a possible trilogy that could expand into space and the interstellar territory of his own Aliens. The massive total was also helped by record-breaking sales of the DVD and Blu-ray, a stripped down version released in April. He’ll pad his fortune come November when the new discs hit with special features and those precious eight minutes of Na’vi lovemaking (or whatever the extra footage winds up being).

His personal gain far surpasses the $97 million he took home from Titanic, once the biggest blockbuster ever. But Cameron stands to add a few more dollars since he’s spearheading a 3D re-release of that film as well, scheduled for sometime in 2012. Cameron ranked second on Forbes list of celebrities (behind Oprah) and now sits at third for lifetime domestic grosses (behind Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis). That’s with 9 films to Spielberg’s 24, mind you.

Finke’s article also mentions the Fusion Camera System he created, which helped revolutionize the way stereoscopic film is captured and rendered into eye-popping 3D. Once Hollywood stops slapping a third-dimension on their clunkers on the cheap (read: The Last Airbender), Cameron will make a fortune off the cutting-edge technology alone, just as George Lucas did after Star Wars.

Source: http://www.newsinfilm.com/2010/07/09/james-cameron-made-350-million-from-avatar/

Sam Worthington Interview

2010-07-10T01:31:20Z

This is an interview Sam Worthington gave, including deatils of the re-release of Avatar. He didn't really have any updates on Avatar 2 at the moment.

"Avatar 2 will be whenever Jim decides to write it. I think he's in Thailand at the moment or trying to save the gulf. But I'm sure he's going to put pen to paper soon."

He was also asked about the extended edition of Avatar, which we announced yesterday will be in theaters on August 27. Here's what he had to say about the new re-release and more on Clash of the Titans 2 as well.

Can you talk about the additonal eight minutes that will be in the theatrical release?

Sam Worthington: I wish we added eight hours. I think the first cut I saw was about six hours long.

Do you know what's in the additional eight minutes?

Sam Worthington: No, I don't. He hasn't told us. There's a couple of extra hunting scenes. There's a much-speculated and blogged sex scene everyone keeps f--king harping on about. To be honest, I think everyone's going to be disappointed that's it's not blue porn.

They're making that.

Sam Worthington: Yeah. But there's a lot of other character parts. Giovanni [Ribisi] stuff and Stephen Lang stuff. So it's up to Jim. I know Jim would only release it if it enhanced the story by putting it back in.

Is there more stuff on Earth?

Sam Worthington: Yeah there is. We shot all that. When we first saw all that, it didn't [work]. You just want to get to the planet. It's kind of a slow burn. Jim always wanted it to be a slow burn start so that you would adjust to your eyes and adjust the world, but it because too much of slow burn. It was like, "hurry the f--k up, man."

Source: http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEBtrGGIVhvqFF

Article Comments Discussion

2010-07-09T03:33:55Z

Hello everybody, as you have maybe seen in other wikis, like The Last Airbender Wiki, they use a new feature called Article Comments. They replace the talk pages, and comments are up like blogs, so people can discuss about it. Like the discussion in the Last Airbender Wiki says: Article comments are a relatively new way to spruce up the wiki allowing readers (which are soon to come in an even more abundance) to give their say, regardless of how minuscule, about the article itself or its content. This is great to get us to gather more feedback from viewers, without even making them load the talk page and try to understand that they can give input (the conventional way is confusing.) Article comments have the potential to replace talk pages fully, however I wouldn't do this to such an extent, and continue to use talk pages for discussions or for generally bigger things; article comments are great in the 'Doesn't Aang like ... more than ...' styled-questions, which can usually get lost on talk pages, user talk pages, or even in blog comments. Enabling article comments would greatly improve the accuracy of our information (by allowing it to be challenged more easily) while not getting in the way. Also this Article Comments System has the potential to be very productive and a large help, as it could help pass messages about the articles in a simpler way. Plus, it wouldn't hurt to just try the comments system, and if later unwanted it could simply be disabled.

On the other hand, they may be useless. Some comments in the other wikis are rude and unusefull, like Neytiri is sooo hot, or Avatar sucked, bi"·$s!. That would give more work to the admins to delete those posts. I'm personally against the article comments, but some users in this community likes it, so I just decided to make a blog about them, so the community comes first.

So we decided to make a voting, but please also comment below to see your ideas.

Thanks, and happy editing!

VOTING HAS ENDED, ARTICLE COMMENTS HAVE BEING REJECTED

Avatar is the King of the Saturn Awards

2010-06-25T21:27:42Z

King of the World? More like King of the Universe.

Here's one more feather in his Na'vi cap: James Cameron's space-themed Pocahontas tale dominated last night's Saturn Awards, taking home Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director, Best Writer and Best Actor and Actress for stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana, who played the marine grunt sent to Pandora and the Na'vi princess he falls for, respectively.

The ceremony, which took place in Burbank, honors the most accomplished works in the sci-fi, fantasy, thriller and horror genres and the Titanic helmer has long been a mainstay. In fact, Avatar marks a personal triumph for Cameron who holds the mark for most Saturn victories, having won twice for directing and writing. He was also feted with the Visionary Award.

All in all, the blue-tinted blockbuster won 10 trophies including Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Stephen Lang and Sigourney Weaver, Best Music for composer James Horner and Best Production Design and Special Effects (natch) to the team of Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones.

Other notable winners on the film side: Watchmen, which snagged Best Fantasy flick, and Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, which was named Best Horror film. While Quentin Tarantino's WWII revenge fantasy thriller Inglourious Basterds took a scalp of its own, Best Action-Adventure thriller, last summer's surprise hit District 9 scored Best International Film, and Monsters and Aliens landed Best Animation prize.

On the tube side, while Lost gets ready to enjoy a long after-life in syndication, its final season found the acclaimed ABC serial mystery earning a Saturn for Best Network TV Series while star Josh Holloway quipped his way to a Best TV Actor win for his role as everyone's favorite con-man, James "Sawyer" Ford.

Not to be outdone, J.J. Abrams' other baby, Fringe, garnered kudos for Best TV Actress for Anna Torv and Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy for Best Actor in a guest-starring role. While Breaking Bad broke in with Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series.

For making one of the best sequels of all time in The Empire Strikes Back and bringing unexpected depth and heartfelt emotion to George Lucas' space opera franchise among other cinematic achievements, veteran filmmaker Irvin Kershner was honored with the Life Career Award, appropriately enough on the Star Wars film's 30th anniversary.

The big loser of the night? Guy Ritchie's amped up take on Sherlock Holmes which uncovered eight nominations but walked away empty-handed.

Here's a complete list of kudos for the 36th Annual Saturn Awards:

Best Science Fiction Film: Avatar
Best Fantasy Film: Watchmen
Best Horror Film: Drag Me To Hell
Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film: Inglourious Basterds
Best Actor: Sam Worthington (Avatar)
Best Actress: Zoe Saldana (Avatar)
Best Supporting Actor: Stephen Lang (Avatar)
Best Supporting Actress: Sigourney Weaver (Avatar)
Best Performance by a Younger Actor: Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones)
Best Director: James Cameron (Avatar)
Best Writer: James Cameron (Avatar)
Best Music: James Horner (Avatar)
Best Costume: Michael Wilkinson (Watchmen)
Best Make-Up: Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow (Star Trek)
Best Production Design: Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg (Avatar)
Best Special Effects: Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andrew R. Jones (Avatar)
Best International Film: District 9
Best Animation Film: Monsters vs. Aliens
Best Television Series: Lost
Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series: Breaking Bad
Best Presentation on Television: Torchwood: Children of Earth
Best Actor on Television: Josh Holloway (Lost)
Best Actress on Television: Anna Torv (Fringe)
Best Supporting Actor on Television: Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)
Best Supporting Actress on Television: Julie Benz (Dexter)
Guest Starring Role on Television: Leonard Nimoy (Fringe)
Best DVD Release: Nothing But the Truth
Best DVD Television Release: Lost (The Complete Fifth Season)
Best DVD Special Edition: Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut
Best DVD Collection: Star Trek Original Motion Picture Collection
Best Local Stage Production: Fantasy/Musical: Mary Poppins (Ahmanson Theatre)
Best Local Stage Production: Play/Dramatic Musical: Parade (Mark Taper Forum)
Best Local Stage Production: Small Theatre: Fellowship: The Musical (Falcon Theatre)
The Visionary Award: James Cameron
The George Pal Memorial Award: Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman
The Producers Showcase Award: Lauren Shuler Donner
The Life Career Award: Irvin Kershner

Source: http://uk.eonline.com/uberblog/b187633_avatar_lost_rack_up_saturn_awards.html?utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=imdb_uk_topstories#ixzz0rtz2CdbU

So Avatar finally won some awards for the actors! They all deserved it, so congratulations to Sam, Zoe, Sigourney and Stephen, who all won the major awards for acting (Best Actor and Actress, Supporting Actor and Actress)! What do you think about the awards? Avatar gets nominated for 10 awards and it wins 11 (including the Visionary award for JC).

Avatar 2 Arriving in 2013?

2010-06-04T21:54:52Z

James Cameron intends to complete his next film, another 3D epic, within three to four years – but will that film be Avatar 2?

Avatar director, James Cameron, isn’t slowing down. Even after spending ten years creating the most successful film of all time, Cameron is hopping right back onto the pre-production horse – with the intention of releasing his next film in “three to four years.”

The blockbuster director hasn’t been shy about the possibility of Avatar 2 but don’t expect any official sequel announcements any time soon.

If you’re looking at that short production time-frame and thinking Cameron might forfeit the 3D platform, in favor of a quicker turn-around on his next project, think again. Speaking at the recent All Things Digital Conference, Cameron made it clear that his next movie would continue to expand 3D film-making.

Even if the upcoming project isn’t an Avatar sequel, it will be “some other big film that uses that same technology.”

And why not? It’s a platform Cameron has been aggressively promoting – even so far as to convince NASA to include a 3D camera on their upcoming Curiosity Rover.

Read full article: http://screenrant.com/avatar-2-2013-benk-63202/

Join the Home Tree Iniciative

2010-05-30T03:00:26Z

Join the home tree iniciative! Learn more here: http://www.avatarmovie.com/hometree/

New Characters and Creatures

2010-05-22T23:17:39Z

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on any new main or secondary characters. Like who would you want them to be and what would you want them to do and be like? Many characters died in the first movie, so that opens many spots. I assume that there will be new characters, but never thought on how they would be... Any thoughts? I would like more clan leaders from the sea, or even from the jungle, as well as new human characters (there will be more humans, yeah).

As Avatar 2 will be exploring Pandora's oceans, there will be marine creatures, how exciting! I want huge, weird, creative, luminiscent creatures that can be tamed as well. If they are going to explore islands, then there will be terran creatures as well, who knows?

So has anyone think of this? If you have, then leave your comment below and share it with us!

Roger Ebert Hates 3D. What About You?

2010-05-01T18:00:15Z

The changing landscape of cinema seems to be at the footsteps of 3-D. Personally, I foresee in the next 10 years, a new golden age of cinema. A technology that expands the communal experience of movie watching. There has been a long debate over 3-D as a viable way to expand the medium and artform of film. With the advent of James Cameron’s “Avatar” as a successful model for Hollywood and why every movie should be in 3-D.

In this week’s issue of Newsweek, Roger Ebert has written a op-ed piece for the weekly publication. In this piece titled, “Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too)”, Ebert expresses his concern for the technology and why he feels it is going to waste in the Hollywood lifestyle. Furthermore he describes that he “Cannot imagine a serious drama, such as Up In The Air or The Hurt Locker, in 3-D.”

“

3-D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension. Hollywood’s current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches. It is driven largely to sell expensive projection equipment and add a $5 to $7.50 surcharge on already expensive movie tickets. Its image is noticeably darker than standard 2-D. It is unsuitable for grown-up films of any seriousness. It limits the freedom of directors to make films as they choose. For moviegoers in the PG-13 and R ranges, it only rarely provides an experience worth paying a premium for.

”

Ebert makes a good point. Do movies need to be in 3-D to be successful? Hollywood seems to think so. Up converting “Clash of The Titans” last month was a perfect example of the big studios attempt for a money grab. People are going to see a movies such as “Clash of The Titans” and “The Last Airbender” anyway, why not squeeze a few more dollars out of them. Big studios can just deliver piss poor renditions of film images and the consumers will just eat it up. Has this nation and moviegoers simply been sold this sentiment?

Roger Ebert has, recently, been the target of the online movie community with his rather scathing one star review of Matthew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass”. Ebert states “I know, I know. This is a satire. But a satire of what? The movie’s rated R, which means in this case that it’s doubly attractive to anyone under 17. I’m not too worried about 16-year-olds here. I’m thinking of 6-year-olds”. Online film critics like Harry Knowles expressed “I suppose you’ll never really just get KICK-ASS… You’re no square in my book. But you may be in danger of being a ‘grown up’.” I tend to agree with Roger Ebert, only that I feel Vaughn should have pushed the ideas of “Kick-Ass” further.

I do encourage our readers to read both Roger Ebert’s op-ed piece for Newsweek and his review for Matthew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass”. Both are very well written and do have insight on what we are watching and why we are watching them. Highly recommended reads! The questions and ideas raised are fascinating and well worth your thinking.

Cinema has been long tied to money, profit and art. It is probably the only artform where money is the clear mark for success. Every week we play the box office game, which movie will make the most money over the weekend. In this way, cinema has become a sport. Movies, studios and moviegoers duking it out every week for a clear cut “winner”. “Transformers 2: The Revenge of The Fallen” was the highest grossing movie of 2009. Does that make it an important piece of art and will be heralded as such? Did studios see this film as a missed opportunity to make more money by converting it to 3-D?

Does Roger Ebert get the point of the changing face of cinema? Is he “in danger of being a grown up”? Is Ebert right about the future of 3-D and Hollywood?

Source: http://criterioncast.com/2010/05/01/roger-ebert-hates-3-d-what-about-you/

Some Buyers Seeing Red

2010-04-30T00:51:38Z

All they wanted to do was watch some blue-skinned aliens defend their home planet. Yet a number of the millions of people who made "Avatar" a record-breaking Blu-ray seller have been unable to get their discs to take flight.

Retailers have fielded calls from angry customers since the Fox blockbuster hit stores last week.

The problems plaguing James Cameron's science-fiction opus mirror those that crop up every time a tentpole movie hits Blu-ray -- be it "Iron Man" or "The Dark Knight."

The culprit, an individual at Fox told TheWrap, is not the discs, but that certain Blu-ray players need to be upgraded with new firmware.

Unlike with DVD players, Blu-ray owners can't play a passive role when it comes to maintaining the latest in home entertainment technology. Players need to be updated periodically to play new file formats -- the same way computer programs such as browsers, Microsoft Office or iTunes do.

As for "Avatar," Fox maintains that the problem is largely limited to Samsung players, but a few Panasonic and LG players also require the enhancement.

To that end, Fox and various manufacturers have launched a widespread educational campaign. But they have their work cut out for them.

At one point, the grievance chorus grew so loud that Amazon launched its own "Avatar" complaint page.

One customer wrote: " ... When 3 out of 3 players in my house (Denon, Samsung and PC) won't play it, then 20th Century Fox should be slapped with losses on this one for doing this crap."

Yet another wrote: "I bought the latest Samsung Blu-Ray player 5 days ago and updated all the firmware before installing it. It will not play Avatar! I bought the new player specifically because Avatar was coming out."

Indeed, these problems seem to crop up whenever a big-budget film hits stores shelves, requiring studios and Blu-ray manufacturers to launch fresh educational primers for consumers.

In the case of "Avatar," Samsung aggressively addressed customers complaints, taking to various forums often under the name "Mister Samsung" to advise disc owners about the firmware requirements and provide trouble-shooting tips.

Retailers also have done their part to acclimate consumers, with Amazon and Best Buy reminding potential buyers in ads and on the disc's cover that not only is the movie not in 3D, it also may require a firmware update (Amazons warning pictured).

If those attempts to capture viewer attention fails, the "Avatar" disc itself kicks off with a reminder that to ensure the best possible viewing experience, players may need to be updated, showing a URL where help can be found.

Downloading the firmware doesn't cost anything, unless player owners go to retailers like Best Buy where they will be hit with a $30 charge. If a player is ethernet-equipped, the upgrade can be downloaded from the manufacturer's site directly or it can be transferred to a disc or a flash drive.

The educational campaign seems to be working, with complaints on forums quieting down as the word about updates goes out, according to the studio individual .

But Fox better hope that aggrieved customers don't heed the advice of a certain frosted tipped blogger.

On Perez Hilton, the rabble rouser slyly informed disgruntled disc owners on Wednesday that "...you can still download the flick on many of your favorite, illegal torrent sites."

Link: http://www.thewrap.com/article/firmware-updates-have-some-avatar-customers-seeing-red-16828

Avatar Wiki is the 8th Best Movie Wiki!

2010-04-25T03:48:50Z

The Avatar Wiki is in Wikia's Top Ten Movie wikis list! It peaks at number 8, and it is with the greatest wikis of all wikia, like Wookipedia (biggest wiki ever), the lord of the rings, harry potter, marvel and star trek.

It's an honor to be included. You can check the list here: http://www.wikia.com/Movie

6 New Tracks!

2010-04-24T16:06:26Z

Ok, I've just realized that the Avatar Soundtrack just released a deluxe version with 6 new tracks! Some of you may have noticed, but for the ones who didn't, this blog is for you. The 6 new tracks are:

Pandora (30 sec. sample for the ones that doesn't have iTunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv3BwDGn8YI&feature=related)
Viperwolves Attack (30 sec. sample for the ones that doesn't have iTunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZwl5h-Nuqc&feature=related)
Great Leonoptryx (30 sec. sample for the ones that doesn't have iTunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oILTXyHin-U)
Escape from Hellgate (30 sec. sample for the ones that doesn't have iTunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkhHGG3-x-c&feature=related)
Healing Ceremony (30 sec. sample for the ones that doesn't have iTunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GNlI_2S0IE&feature=related)
The Death of Quaritch (30 sec. sample for the ones that doesn't have iTunes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2YQchV9ro8&feature=related)

You can buy it from iTunes through this link!

Avatar Already Sets Single-Day Blu-ray Sales Record!

2010-04-23T02:16:58Z

Though it hasn't even been out for a full day, it seems James Cameron's latest blockbuster is setting records on the Blu-ray shelves. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Avatar has already shattered the single-day Blu-ray sales record, previously held by The Dark Knight.

Early estimates are indicating that the Avatar Blu-ray has already sold more than 1.5 million copies today and combined DVD and Blu-ray sales were said to be north of 4 million total units sold, making it the easy favorite to be the top-selling release of the year.

It was said that retailers sold out roughly 60% of their Avatar Blu-ray stock already, with merchants also selling 50% of the DVD stock today.

Link: http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEawKdea3ONDdf

Blu-ray Reviews

2010-04-22T21:04:07Z

Hey everyone, now that the DVD/Blu-ray is available, critics have their own reviews, and guess what: they are extremely positive.

Exctrats from Hollywood News:

Wow. Really, wow. Just … unbelievable.

There is no drop off in visual quality. None. Yes, “Avatar” is presented in 2-D on the Blu-ray. But to date, this is the best-looking Blu-ray transfer of a film I’ve seen, and man, it ain’t even close.

Cameron’s visuals are razor sharp with no excessive brightness. Pandora’s colors burst off the screen, using a wide palette of blues and greens that I didn’t even know my television was capable of replicating. ’m not exaggerating when I tell you that this will be the film that inspires everyone on the planet to invest in Blu-ray technology.

He gave it 4/4 stars.

Exctracts from Real Loop:

In Short: flawless. Not a spec of artifacing, not a hint of interlacing, DNR, EE, everything is crystal clear, and wonderous to behold. This is the best the film has ever looked, even besting its theatrical presentation.

Every skin pore, every facial tic, every nook and cranny of the CGI is in full swing in this transfer, and it’s just gorgeous.

The audio: The last 20 minutes of the film alone, will blow you to the back of the room. Dialogue comes through clearly, and nothing is overshadowed, being be the loudest explosion, of the smallest sound of a bug flying around.

Mo'at Will Return

2010-04-20T23:03:58Z

In celebration of Earth Day, James Cameron's monster sci-fi hit Avatar is making its Blu-ray and DVD debut on April 22nd. To help usher in this monumental release, we caught up with Na'vi Queen Mo'at herself, CCH Pounder, to talk about the film. And of course our conversation turned to Avatar 2. Here's what the actress had to say about the impending sequel:

Has James Cameron talked to you about returning to Pandora for Part 2? Do you know how Queen Moat is going to continue on in this universe?

CCH Pounder: I don't get demoted. I still remain the Queen. I don't have a husband. I don't know exactly what that entails, or how that will be set-up in this culture that James Cameron is still creating. Can a woman become head of the tribe? This is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you and all the people waiting for the sequel. We do know that there is a sequel. He didn't want to jump on it right away. The first one took so much thought in putting it together. The next one is going to be even more about story. Because we've established the language. We've established the environment. Now it's the next phase in the "Na'vi meet the humans" storyline.

It took you, personally, a year and a half to shoot your role in the film. With all the technology in place, is it still going to take you another year and a half to shoot your character, or are you going to be able to go in, like on a normal film, and knock it out in three months?

CCH Pounder: I think its going to be like that. I don't know that any of James Cameron's films ever take just three months. Because with my year and a half, I had one of the shorter shooting periods. For instance, Zoe Saldana was there for two and a half years. I don't know if it will be that short. I do know that because this stuff is in place, it will be much easier for him to write the story. But James is forever inventing. (Laughs) He will come up with something that I'm sure will delay it. Because its going to be even bigger, and faster than it was before. His techno-mind is that amazing. He is already thinking ahead. And he will benefit from the films that are coming after Avatar, and what they have learned. The technology of film is changing. And we are being swept up in that as actors.

Avatar 2 comes to theaters in 2014. The film is directed by James Cameron.

Source: http://www.movieweb.com/news/NE6zgd9a98wA8c

Answers Wiki Logo Voting

2010-04-18T23:24:53Z

Read previous blog!

Now it's time to vote. Below are the nominees in order of submission and the option to vote. Choose your favorite logo, and remember that you can only vote once. The voting ends on Sunday 25.

NomineesEdit

1.- Draginfli

Added by Draginfli

2.- Jaybo

Added by JayBO

3.- Tectonium

Added by Tectonium

4.- Denizine

Added by Denizine Reillaruse

5.- Revengeance

Added by Revengeance

VotingEdit

Option Number 5 Won, congratulations Revengaence!

Searching For Our Avatar Answers Wiki's Logo

2010-04-13T01:07:37Z

As some of you may have seen the last few days, I've recently created our own Avatar Answers Wiki, where you can submit your question, and then get the answer from all users from all around the world. The Answers Wiki in general were created by Wikia Inc., and the URL is blah.answers.wikia.com.

I requested Draginfli a logo, and he made a great one, which you can still see in the Wiki. But a few minutes ago, Tectonium showed me another logo, so, with the help of FreakyTy, I decided to make it fair, a poll. But as there are only two possible logos, I this idea: users can submit their own logo, and then we'll make a poll. So anyone can create one, and we'll choose the favorite.

Remember, to create a logo you need to:

The image has to be 216x155
It has to include Avatar Answer Wiki
You need to add a picture of the movie
You need to be creative ;)
One person can only make one image

If your logo is the winner:

You'll get an special mention in the MediaWiki:Sitenotice and in the Answers Wiki itself
You'll get an special userbox

We invite all the users to submit their own logos!

Almost forgot to mention, all submissions are available until Sunday 18, then we'll proceed to vote.

Matias Arana's blog

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6 New Tracks!

Avatar Already Sets Single-Day Blu-ray Sales Record!

Blu-ray Reviews

Mo'at Will Return

Answers Wiki Logo Voting

NomineesEdit

VotingEdit

Searching For Our Avatar Answers Wiki's Logo

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