Sydney Australia, April 2010
When the biggest movie of all time comes out on Blu Ray, the premium format for home cinema, people are going to take notice. That’s 20th Century Fox’s thinking, and one would be hard pressed to come up with a reason to tell them that they are wrong. So they held a little viewing party to show exactly how much detail had gone into the making of this Blu Ray, and of course to brag just a little about how the film continues to bring money in by the bottomless pit load. After a delightfully blue (get it?) alcoholic beverage a short presentation from Fox marketing took place where they outlined some of their Blu Ray releases to come this year, and just how hard they worked to make Avatar the centrepiece of everyone’s collection.
So how hard exactly did they work? Well apparently James Cameron himself spent some six weeks making sure the transfer was up to scratch, and showed off everything Pandora had to offer. It definitely shows. While obviously not as impressive as a giant 3d screen, Avatar on Blu Ray is still a sight to behold. Everything looks wonderfully sharp and immersive. The audio transfer suffered from some poor mixing at the start, resulting in the dialogue sounding very muffled over the extremely loud music, but that was due to an error with the mixing console at the screening. Once that was cleared up the audio transfer held up just as well, helping to bring the world to life.
Apart from that, it was business as usual. Pretty much everyone has seen Avatar, and people who spend time on gaming websites are probably five times more likely to have seen it, so the general gist of the movie should be known. Some people love it, there are many who have been to see it multiple times, and even a few who thought it deserved best picture at The Academy Awards. While it may be a great piece of visual storytelling and certainly one of the best looking films of all time it definitely is not deserving of best picture. It is a film with a familiar plot, executed incredibly well.
But what do quibbles with the plot matter in this instance? They are certainly not going to stop this release flying off the shelves. I wouldn’t be surprised if it managed to help shift quite a few systems itself, giving the market quite a boost. It’s beautiful looking and will definitely be a film to show off with a huge high definition screen.
Jamie Kirk, Reviewer