The king of the world shows us a magnificent new one in Avatar

Perhaps the most breathtaking moment in James Cameron’s Avatar – a movie that takes the breath from its awestruck audience with startling regularity – occurs roughly 45 minutes into the film. It introduces us to Neytiri, a blue-skinned warrior with amber-gold eyes and a supple 12-foot frame. Perched gracefully on a tree branch, Neytiri has spotted an intruder (who happens to be Jake Sully, our story’s hero), and she moves silently to eliminate the threat. Pulling her bowstring taut, she is poised to strike when, suddenly, something catches her eye: a wispy, jellyfish-like organism, floating delicately in midair. The ethereal life form drifts toward Neytiri, eventually settling on the tip of her arrowhead. Neytiri, for reasons unknown to us at the time, takes this as an admonition of her combative instinct; she lowers her bow, and Jake Sully is allowed to live a little longer.

This is a beautiful scene. It takes place in complete silence (with the exception of James Horner’s soft, reverent score), yet it constitutes a moment of both exquisite suspense (what will happen?) and slack-jawed wonder (just what are these creatures?), plus it effectively advances the movie’s story. But the scene is particularly noteworthy because it is possible – indeed probable – that none of what we see was ever actually filmed, instead constructed within the confines of a computer. (I use the word “confines” loosely, as Avatar suggests that any alleged boundaries of computer-assisted filmmaking may in fact be illusory.) Yet watching the scene unfold, I never for a moment questioned the authenticity of Neytiri, the tree branch, or the wispy creature. I was simply transfixed on what was happening, wondering who this Amazonian was and why she suddenly refused to kill.
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