The someone who thinks that Avatar showing a fictional character smoke is "like someone just put a bunch of plutonium in the water supply" is Stanton A. Glantz of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. Glantz is referring to actress Sigourney Weaver's character Grace Augustine.

James Cameron has taken that assessment seriously, responding to the Times, that Weaver's character is a rude, foul-mouthed smoker for good reason.

He says that "from a character perspective, we were showing that Grace doesn't care about her human body, only her avatar body, which again is a negative comment about people in our real world living too much in their avatars, meaning online and in video games."

Now, I'd be offended by that, ever so slightly, but I just ate enough candy to make myself feel ill and plan on being motionless in front of the TV tonight playing Bayonetta. So maybe you'll be offended on my behalf.

‘Avatar' Joins Holiday Movies That Fail an Antismoking Test [NY Times via Wired GameLife]

Update: I apologize, I haven't been online much due to the holidays. I realized that there was an erroneous data point for Andrew Stanton in 2009 that was never supposed to be there. I missed it when I initially looked over the graph, but it's been removed now.

As we've been reflecting on the last ten years, we've been asking ourselves whether any true "masters" of science fiction and urban fantasy have emerged, especially in film and television. It's certainly been a decade of highs and lows, of old masters who've begun to fade and bright new stars just cresting the horizon.

To that end, I've attempted to chart the relative "master levels" of various directors and television producers over the several years. This is an utterly unscientific chart; I looked at the projects these folks have had since 2000 and assigned each one a "master level." The number reflects my understanding of the projects acclaim, its ability to attract an audience (i.e. box office/Nielsen numbers), its awards, whether it succeeded in something unusual (such as a relatively popular foreign language film in the case of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Dr. Horrible's status as a breakthrough web film), and the nebulous sense that it add or subtracted from the individual's "geek cred." The numbers themselves are largely subjective and, of course, you should feel free to nitpick.

The greater purpose was to offer a watercolory sense of whether any "masters" have emerged from this crowd. Certainly, the last year has brought low some of the genres' promising potentials. Joss Whedon entered into the decade riding high on a Buffy/Angel cocktail. Though his name wasn't enough to overcome Fox's confusing treatment of Firefly, but the show's eventual cult popularity led to the Serenity feature film, and the Whedon brand helped make Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog an important moment for web-based content. Perhaps this all made Dollhouse — which has been, by turns, frustrating and brilliant — all the more disappointing, its impeding demise fairly readily accepted, even by Whedon's fanbase. Similarly, Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica, despite being regarded by some readers as the most overrated scifi of the decade, was regarded by many as a turning point for smart, politically savvy space opera. But a rocky final season punctuated by finale filled with dei ex machinae left a lot of folks sour on the entire series. And the Wachowskis, while doing a solid (though Alan Moore-enraging) bit of cinema with V for Vendetta, never quite lived up to the promises of The Matrix.

But there have been plenty of masterful bright spots as well. Bryan Fuller gave us some beautiful urban fantasy with shows with Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, and Pushing Daisies, even if many of his efforts (including the truly amazing The Amazing Screw-On Head) were prematurely axed, or shafted before ever getting off the ground. Guillermo del Toro brought us to great heights with Pan's Labyrinth, even if his other eye candy films didn't hit the same heights.

So have we seen any masters? Peter Jackson has certainly come close. Granted, The Lord of the Rings movies are high fantasy, but they showcased Jackson's ability to handle a difficult epic in a way that not only pleased JRR Tolkien's fans, but also won him mainstream accolades. And his remake of King Kong, which should have been automatically anathema, proved both profitable and well-reviewed. The Lovely Bones has been his blip, earning him his worst reviews in 20 years. But it's more likely that 2009 will be remembered as the year Jackson introduced the world to filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, demonstrating that he has a good eye for new talent and the Hollywood cache to bring that talent to light. It's not for nothing that he made this year's power list.

Another power list member, JJ Abrams, has also given us a good spate of fun and thoughtful science fiction. While he didn't give us the decade's best monster movie, he did manage to reboot the Star Trek franchise in a way that was respectful to what came before and drew in folks who never turned into the TV shows. Of course, we still have yet to see as Lost will end and whether Fringe will survive.

Chris Nolan is on the list of promising possibilities for eventual masterhood. Although Memento wasn't science fiction, it took a "what if" concept (here, what if a man searching for his wife's killer had no short term memory) and portrayed it in a thoughtful, suspenseful, and ultimately heartbreaking way. And he not only shot fresh blood into the corpse of the Batman franchise, he made it Oscar-worthy. And now he's continuing the science fiction thread with Inception.

And, of course, there's the question of whether James Cameron will prove the kind of science fiction as much as he claimed to be the king of the world. His foray into science fiction television, Dark Angel, never fared particularly well in the ratings; it was eventually canceled in favor of Firefly, and it never achieved the posthumous popularity of the later show. But perhaps Avatar is the reinforcement of his previous scifi successes, proof that he can still be relevant where other long-time directors have started to fade away. Hopefully, we won't have to wait another 12 years to see his next installment.

Personally, though, after seeing the delightful Monsters Inc. followed by the superb The Incredibles and WALL-E, I have my fingers crossed for Andrew Stanton and Pixar Studios. Here's hoping that John Carter of Mars is something phenomenal.

Still, singling out directors and producers as possible masters might be missing the point entirely, even when we're talking about movies and TV. Alan Moore might well be your science fiction master, not just because he has written so many fantastic books, but also because those books have captured the imagination of so many directors in the last several years — albeit with varying results. And in the coming years we'll see how comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan — who has been working on Lost as well as the Buffy Season Eight comics — translates to the big screen when Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Runaways hit theaters.

So who, if anyone, do you see as your science fiction master? Someone from the list above? Perhaps Russell T. Davis for reviving and expanding Doctor Who? Or maybe writers like Jane Espenson, who have worked on so many of the shows we love? And, with filmmakers like Neill Blomkamp and Duncan Jones arriving on the scene, who might prove themselves master of the genre in the next ten years?

Graph by Steph Fox.

Here's a bonus chart, with more data:

As Cameron puts it, Pandora is really the garden of Eden, and humanity is here looking for apples. Behind all of the special effects wizardry and lush visuals, the story is really a heavy-handed tale about humanity encroaching on the wilderness and how stepping into the shoes of those we encroach upon will change or perception and potentially our actions. Still, very pretty world. I'd pillage that for resources any day.

Unfortunately, you can't get much of a feel for how nifty the flying is without watching someone flail around on the Balance Board. But the scenery is lush and the stealth gameplay is easy to see. Note how the prompt shows you to swing the Wii Remote a certain way to pull off an attack — that can be quite the stealth-wrecker if you get it wrong.

Enjoy!

Video Games | Avatar | Banshee Gameplay Featurette

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Avatar | Navi Gameplay Featurette

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Answer: It denies it ever made that promise.

Unlike the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, the Wii version of Avatar deliberately avoids the main plot of the movie and puts players in the shoes – or sandals as the case may be – of the story's antagonistic alien race. Also, it seems a little more kid-friendly than Cameron's film (although Avatar hasn't been rated yet).

What Is It?
Avatar on the Wii has players taking the role of the alien Ryuk, out to recover artifacts stolen from his people and rescue natives of his planet held by Earthling military types. The game has optional Wii Motion Plus and Balance Board functionality and features drop-in/drop-out cooperative play where Ryuk's sister joins the fight.

What We Saw
I played the tutorial level, level two in co-op mode and a flying level from a little later in the game.

How Far Along Is It?
The build I saw was pretty early days, but Ubisoft says the game is on track to come out a couple of weeks before the film's release in December.

What Needs Improvement?
Co-op Is Painful On The Ground: Rather than splitting the screen, the co-op in Avatar orients to one player and keeps both on the screen at all times. In ground-based levels, this is tedious if your partner keeps messing up jumping puzzles, or if you're trying to aim a ranged weapon somewhere farther along the path of the linear level. Also, there's an unfortunately bug where the camera gets confused about which player is the leader made it even worse.

Avatar Film Spoiler Warning

Oversimplified Plot Leads To Uncomfortable Implications: Cameron says his film is delivering a profound message and from what I saw of the Wii cut scenes based on plot points from the film, I gather that message is one of pro-environmentalist/anti-racism. Kind of like Fern Gully, only with aliens instead of pixies. The problem with the Wii game is that it has to oversimplify that message to create viable gameplay. So rather than exploring both sides of the "Hi, we need your planet" equation, the game just drops a bunch of humans into levels and tells the player "These guys suck, kill them all." On a surface level, this comes off as clumsy and boring – but if you're approaching it with an understanding of the message Cameron's film is trying to get across, I imagine it's just uncomfortable and sad.

End Spoiler

What Should Stay The Same?
Co-op Is Awesome In The Air: There are several flying levels in the game that allow you to hook up the Wii Balance Board and wing it or just sit back and point your Wiimote at the screen. Either way, you're expected to maneuver past obstacles, score pickups and shoot at stuff. On the Balance Board, this is more complicated because the flying creature responds to shifts in your weight to go forward, back or tilt for hard turns – meanwhile, you're still pointing at the screen with the Wiimote and mashing buttons to shoot or perform quick time events. The whole experience is a little overwhelming, which is why having a second player in co-op to handle the shooting is awesome. Bonus, you don't get any of those pesky camera issues from ground co-op.

It Feels Like Assassin's Creed: The combat in Avatar follows the three basic principle of Assassin's Creed – stalk, attack, evade. The only difference in Avatar is that you don't have a little meter to tell you when your cover is blown; instead you get little icons above the heads of the humans that may or may not be on to you. Using talk grass or high vantage points, you sneak up on them one by one and get the drop on them with quick one-hit kills. Then you slink back into the shadows to evade anybody who might've noticed you. It's old hat for Assassin's Creed fans and totally in keeping with the environmentalist commando them of Avatar. Bonus – if your stealth attack goes tits-up, you can pull off combo melee attacks with rhythmic swings of the Wii Remote.

Auto-Stealth: You don't have to press any buttons to pull off stealth – just walk into an area of shadow or tall grass, or spring up into a tree. Humans on this planet are cursed with poor eyesight and a limited range of neck motion apparently.

Final Thoughts
I haven't seen the 360 or PS3 version of Avatar, so I'm not sure how the Wii version stacks up in comparison. On its own, though, it's an ambitious game with some good ideas. But it still needs a lot fine tuning and polish to pull it all off.

Note: This image appears to be from either the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 version — but it shows off both the bird you'll be flying and the helicopter at which you'll be shooting.

Ubisoft reminds us that James Cameron's Avatar: The Video Game will need 1080p resolution from an HDMI cable if you're grabbing up that game with the expectation of having your mind blown. So if you're an early adopter of technology, and that early adopted technology includes the Xbox 360, you're SOL. You'll be experiencing normal video game graphics like the rest of us.

I realize, of the potential population to be disappointed by this realization, I've described maybe 12 people. But it is a useful caution to keep checking the console requirements as technology gets more sophisticated.

3D TV Doesn't Guarantee a 3D Avatar, Says Ubisoft [UGO Games Blog]

Weaver will be offering her line reading expertise to James Cameron's Avatar: The Game, which is slated to hit the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC, PSP and Nintendo DS later this year. Other famous people who will add vocal talent to Avatar include Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang.

Our Comic-Con covering compatriots at io9 got a peek at 25 minutes worth of James Cameron's Avatar, which should probably get you pumped to slap on some 3D glasses. Maybe not as much as an announcement that Weaver's pipes will be pumping through your speakers this Holiday, but exciting nonetheless!

Now, every gamer who also loves Aliens, Terminator and True Lies probably has nothing but mad respect for Mr. Cameron. But I've never heard (or rather seen) so many Twitters about how boring the guy's 13-minute talk about Avatar was. Come on, guys — this is the man responsible for the sex scene in Titanic! How could he be boring?

Answer: spending about five of those 13 minutes going on about helicopters against 10-ft tall cavemen and something about having sex with giant blue tiger people. Mike Fahey might have made that last part up, I dunno.

But Luke Plunkett reports that while slaving away on the new film, Avatar, Cameron has also been working closely with Ubsioft on the game. The two mediums share a setting, but not a plot — however, there's a lot of creative overlap in stuff like lighting decisions. Also, he says, " When the game needed something the movie didn't provide, the Ubi team were given the green light to do their on thing."

Now that makes me more nervous than an over-long talk about sex with tiger people. Here's hoping this week's demo can reassure me.

Avatar Set Picture And James Cameron Interview [Latino Review]

I don't know whether [this] will be [a] great film from a narrative and critical standpoint. The experience of Avatar will be an experience unlike any other movies.

Even if this movie is a bloated disaster, you really gotta admire Cameron's ambition. That beard, too.

Avatar Movie [Empire via io9]

James Cameron: 3D heading beyond movies [Cnet]

Things are going well on Avatar, or at least as well as can be expected on such a ridiculously complex project. We've wrapped principal, and most of the live action portion of the movie is already cut. It's starting to look and sound like a movie. I'm ecstatic with the performances and the look. The cast chemistry worked out perfectly...

There's a spirit on this film, an esprit de corps amongst the virtual team, that comes from knowing we're doing something absolutely groundbreaking. It's why people still have good morale after working on this thing for two years or more. And we still have more than a year and a half to go. I don't know if this will be a good film, great film, awful film, but I can say with absolute certainty that you will see stuff you've never imagined, and that the process of making this film will generate a lot of interest within the technical side of the biz. When I edit with some of our early stuff, "shot" using our virtual camera system over a year and half ago, it already looks laughably crude.

Movie-based games generally lean towards the miss side of hit or miss, but Cameron shows great faith in the Ubisoft team.

I told the Ubisoft team I wanted them to be free to do their very best work, and not think of this as a movie-based game. They responded with a fully realized presentation which captured the soul of the world and the characters, while promising to be a knockout game on its own terms. Their passion inspired my confidence that they are going to do something transcendental."

The movie and corresponding game are both set for May of 2009, when James Cameron's "Avatar" will completely kick your very soul right in the nuts.

Ubisoft And 20th Century Fox Team Up For Video Game Based On James Cameron's "Avatar"

London, United Kingdom - 24 July 2007 - Today, Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announced that it will develop and publish the video game based on Twentieth Century Fox's "Avatar," the upcoming feature film written and directed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron, whose previous films include "Titanic," "True Lies," "The Abyss," "Aliens," "The Terminator" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."

"Avatar" is the story of an ex-Marine who finds himself thrust into hostilities on an alien planet filled with exotic life forms. As an Avatar, a human mind in an alien body, he finds himself torn between two worlds, in a desperate fight for his own survival and that of the indigenous people. More than ten years in the making, Avatar marks Cameron's return to feature directing since helming 1997's Titanic, the highest grossing film of all time and winner of eleven Oscars® including Best Picture. The "Avatar" cast includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver. Academy Award-winning visual effects house, WETA Digital, renowned for its work in "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy and "King Kong," will incorporate new intuitive CGI technologies to transform the environments and characters into photorealistic 3D imagery that will transport the audience into the alien world rich with imaginative vistas, creatures and characters.

"Ubisoft is excited to partner with 20th Century Fox and James Cameron on this important project. 'Avatar's' rich scenario, onscreen action and special effects will provide a wealth of inspiration to create a unique interactive experience," said Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer of Ubisoft. "True to their reputation, Ubisoft's creative teams are looking forward to recreating Cameron's high definition 3D environment in a compelling game for film and game fans."

James Cameron commented: "For the movie 'Avatar' we are creating a world rich in character, detail, conflict and cultural depth. It has the raw material for a game that the more demanding gamers of today will want to get their hands on - one that is rich in visuals and ideas, and challenging in play. I told the Ubisoft team I wanted them to be free to do their very best work, and not think of this as a movie-based game. They responded with a fully realized presentation which captured the soul of the world and the characters, while promising to be a knockout game on its own terms. Their passion inspired my confidence that they are going to do something transcendental."

Elie Dekel, Executive Vice President of Fox Licensing and Merchandising added: "James Cameron's "Avatar" will re-define the movie-going experience forever. Cameron's vision and innovative approach to film-making demand that we align this breakthrough project with the most talented and creative partners in the world. As we embark on the incredible journey that is "Avatar," we are thrilled to be collaborating with Ubisoft on the development of the video game. After an extensive review, it became clear the talented Ubisoft team is uniquely able to bring Cameron's vision into the interactive realm."

The game is expected to release in conjunction with the movie's planned opening in May 2009.

"Our game's about becoming a Colonial Marine, and looking at it from the Colonial Marines' perspective," explained Pitchford. The Colonial Marines battled the acid-blooded xenomorphs in Aliens, and were a template for the troopers who fight alongside the Master Chief in the Halo games.

Pitchford also mentions that even though there is communication between his company, Gearbox, and Obsidian Entertainment, the company that is responsible for making the upcoming RPG version of the Aliens game, both companies are taking two completely different directions. I can only assume one of them will do Alien vs. Predator, or is that just wishful thinking? Kim Phu

Gearbox spins out Aliens, Heat game details [Gamespot UK]

The New York Times has a piece up on James Cameron's $200 million sci-fi epic Avatar. The film, as Cameron explains, is a mix of CG characters and CG environments with live-action and live environments. And how does he plan to capture this? He (and his computer experts) have designed a special camera that allows him to view actors proformances in the film's virtual environment in real time. Cameron says:

It's like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale. It's pretty exciting.

Sounds like it! Side note: Damn, James Cameron looks old. Brian Ashcraft

Avatar Film [NY Times via 3pointD]

And from the stupid, clueless Hollywood celebrity quote department, Mr. James Cameron:

"It turns out films and MMOs are not that different," explained Cameron's pal Landau. "That shouldn't be too surprising though. After all, what we do as filmmakers is create virtual worlds. Both our industries build experiences that have the same goals."

Yeah, yeah. Whatever chuckles. If Titanic and Eve Online are on the same wavelength, so is World of Warcraft and House of Leaves. I mean, if commonality is achieved simply by both trying to create "virtual worlds" (whatever he means by that) then MMOs are the same as all art! Which is convenient.

Obviously, the difference between an MMO and Titanic is pretty obvious. For one, a game is more interactive than a film. I am not a person that will argue that games are the only interactive mode of art — I simply don't agree. But it is certainly the only mode where the audience can have any control over the actions taking place in art, although I do believe that a reader, listener, viewer does have an intellectual and emotional interaction with an artist that qualifies all art as interactive. But the most important element of an MMO is the social element, which all other forms of art wholly lack. There is no novel you can read where you interact in real-time with other readers, portrayed as characters in their own work. Same as film.

It's just disingenuous fluff, but I'm at the pub, there's no wifi (despite expectations to the contrary!), and I sometimes like giving my confused thoughts on these things. Florian Eckhardt

Edit: From the overworked, underpaid department: obviously, Cameron didn't say this. It says it right in the quote. His buddy Jon Landau did. I'm not sure how to fix the post without just slapping myself in the middle of the forehead and loudly enunciating, "Duhhhhhhh..."

Titanic director talks games [Eurogamer]

At the recent Austin Game Conference, Hollywood producer Jon Landau (Titanic, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Dick Tracy) talked MMOs and film. Earlier this year, Landau and director James Cameron became board members for MMO game network Multiverse. While nothing official has been announced, Laundau referred to himself as "a filmmaker who's involved in creating IP that games are based on." With cinema's production and technology moving closer to gaming, the producer points out:

It turns out films and MMOs are not that different. That shouldn't be too surprising, though. After all, what we do as filmmakers is create virtual worlds...Both our industries build experiences that have the same goals.

And in Hollywood, those goals are sequels, while in online gaming, they're called "expansion packs." Brian Ashcraft

More Here via Eurogamer

True, the headline makes me think about the Super Mario Brothers Super Show and how a similar show hosted by Night Elves could be a giant mess, but that's not what this is about. Instead, Business Week published an article interviewing James Cameron (yep, Terminator 2 director). Cameron indicates he wants to create a game that will first lure MMO gamers and have them play in the virtual world, before the movie comes out shortly thereafter.

Also in the story is Imagine Entertainment's team-up with Alex Seropian (one of the guys behind Halo, now running Wideload) on a program titled XQuest. That curious experience is described by Business Week after the jump.

James Cameron's Game Theory [Business Week]

"If it flies, contestants will occupy a cramped spaceship-like module for a month. Its flight simulators will subject them to rocket-like conditions, including six Gs of thrust. Players will ply the galaxy while following the rough contours of a plot. Outside the ship, online gamers will track the crew's mission and ultimately board their own PC-based spaceships to rendezvous with contestants in shared, simulated space."