James Cameron: Avatar 4 will be a prequel

According to director James Cameron, Avatar 4 will be a prequel that sets up the second arc of the franchise's story line.

There have been some conflicting reports of late on what exactly director James Cameron has in mind for the future of his Avatar movie franchise. In June, comments made by Avatar star Sigourney Weaver led us to believe that Cameron was planning to shoot three Avatar sequels back to back to back. Then, last week, Cameron’s long-time collaborator and Avatar co-producer Jon Landau told the Courier Post Online that while Cameron was planning to shoot both Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 in short order, Avatar 4 was not yet on the man’s short term schedule.

While that leaves us wondering when/if Avatar 4 might hit theaters, we can confirm that James Cameron wants to make a fourth Avatar film. At a recent press event to promote the September 10 release of a new Blu-ray Collector’s Edition of Cameron’s massive hit movie Titanic, MTV asked the director what plans he has for the future of the Avatar series. Though Cameron is a bit vague on the specifics of Avatar 4, he makes it plain that the inevitable movie would be a prequel and that it would kick off the second arc of Cameron’s overarching Avatar storyline.

“I have an idea for a fourth,” Cameron said. “I haven’t really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na’vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world.”

“Because when we drop in, even in the first film in Avatar 1, as it will be known in the future, we’re dropping into a process that’s 35 years in to a whole colonization. That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we’ll start, not imitating Star Wars, but it’s a logical thing to do because we’ll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films.”

That’s an ambitious plan, especially given that Cameron is talking about a film that is still hypothetical and won’t even enter pre-production for at least four years. Then again, Cameron goes on to tell MTV that making Avatar sequels should be far, far easier now that the first movie has laid the technological and canonical ground work for Cameron’s Avatar universe. “It was a hideously complex process to make [Avatar] and a lot has been said about that, but we don’t want [the sequels] to be done in the same prototypical way as the first one, we want it to be a much smoother workflow just for creativity reasons,” Cameron added.

That’s great news for Avatar fans, but we have to wonder if perhaps this far-reaching scheme isn’t a bit overly ambitious. What happens to this franchise if Avatar 2 is a flop? Will Cameron drop his planned third and fourth Avatar films, or will the director be forced to make them regardless of fiscal gain simply because he’s already put so much effort into mapping out the tale he wants to tell? We have faith in James Cameron — even his early work under Roger Corman is surprisingly watchable — but we worry that the man may be biting off more than even his massively popular, intensely wealthy jaws can chew. 

Then again, like we said, Avatar 4 is a long, long ways off. It seems a bit premature to worry about a film that won’t materialize until the end of the decade, so instead let’s all start grilling Cameron about the far more imminent Avatar 2. Isn’t it odd how little we know about that film compared to the hypothetical fourth Avatar movie?

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

That hypothetical fourth Avatar movie is now in doubt

Despite previous reports, it seems that James Cameron won't be filming Avatar 4 any time soon.

In June we brought you word that following the massive $2.5+ billion success of Avatar, director James Cameron would be filming Avatar 2, 3 and 4 back to back. This news emerged from an interview conducted with Avatar actress and celebrated extraterrestrial killer Sigourney Weaver which stated that “she films Avatar 2, 3, and 4 with James Cameron” immediately following a theatrical run in a Christopher Durang play at New York City’s Lincoln Center.

At the time we had no reason to doubt Weaver’s claims. Avatar made huge amounts of cash, and since Cameron had already put so much work into the special technology used to film the movie, it seemed perfectly likely that the man would want to get a jump on as many Avatar sequels as possible. Thanks to a new interview with Avatar co-producer Jon Landau however, that plan is now in doubt.

Landau was recently asked to comment on Weaver’s claims by New Jersey’s Courier Post newspaper, and according to him that earlier interview wasn’t entirely correct. “We doing two [Avatar sequels] back-to-back, but not a third,” Landau stated simply. Though this does contradict Weaver’s claims that a fourth Avatar movie is already in pre-production, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the fourth movie will never materialize. Landau would certainly know what he’s talking about in this instance, but knowing how devoted James Cameron is to this Avatar universe we’d be genuinely surprised if that first Avatar flick only spawned a trilogy. 

Unfortunately, it seems that Landau had nothing else to say about the future of Avatar. That’s understandable as the Courier Post interview was mostly focused on the relatively recently re-released 3D version of Cameron’s Titanic (Landau also co-produced Titanic), but leaves Avatar fans wondering what direction this series will take. Normally we’d be pushing for rampant speculation on this fourth Avatar flick, but honestly that would be getting way, way ahead of ourselves.

Assuming Landau is correct (and, again, we have no reason to doubt him), we’ve still got Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 coming in the next few years. Given that neither has entered full production, and James Cameron’s lengthy, perfectionist filming process, we probably won’t see Avatar 2 until at least the summer of 2014. The third movie could possibly see theaters the very next year, but we’re more inclined to believe that it will debut in 2016. So that’s what? The next four years of James Cameron’s life mapped out? Add another Avatar sequel and Mr. Cameron would have to devote six years to this single property. Given Cameron’s love of ocean exploration, and his eternally-in-production live-action adaptation of the Battle Angel Alita manga we’d have to assume that the man would want to take some time over the next half-decade to explore his non-Avatar interests. Cameron is devoted to his creations, but he’s not psychotically obsessed with them.

In the end, Landau’s claims generate more questions than answers. From here on out can we all agree to just ignore any bit of Avatar news that doesn’t come directly from James Cameron? Otherwise we’re going to waste at least the next two years offering up meaningless predictions for the future, and frankly we’d rather spend our days keeping our readers pleasantly entertained with bizarre pop culture ephemera.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Human Immortality in 33 Years Claims Dmitry Itskov’s 2045 Initiative

Twentieth Century Fox/AP Photo

Although James Cameron’s “Avatar” took place more than 140 years into the future, a Russian billionaire has teamed with  dozens of scientists to lay out a plan that would use avatars to transfer human consciousness into an artificial form. The goal:  human immortality by 2045.

The 2045 Initiative, a life-extension project founded by 31-year-old Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov in February 2011, offers a timeline for immortality over the next 33 years. Beginning with remotely controlled robotic avatars and re-creating the human brain through computer models, the end result would be human immortality in the form of holographic avatars.

The 2045 Initiative, which has  had a major social media blitz, brought together 30 top Russian scientists to develop the “imortal” technology, laying out  the plan for human immortality on its website.

“The first phase  is to create a humanoid robot dubbed ‘avatar,’ and a state-of-the-art brain-computer interface system. The next phase consists of creating a life-support system for the human brain and connect it to the ‘avatar.’ The final phase … is to create an artificial brain in which to transfer the original individual consciousness into,” reads the plan.

Got that?

Here’s the 2045 Initiative’s timeline for this feat:  

2015 – 2020: A robotic copy of a human body remotely controlled by a brain-computer interface

2020 – 2025: An avatar is created in which a human brain can be transplanted at the end of  life

2030 – 2035: An avatar that  can now contain an artificial brain in which a human personality can be transferred at the end of  life

 2040 – 2045:  A holographic avatar emerges

In addition to taking the Internet by storm, the 2045 Initiative has  also launched its own political party, called Evolution 2045, pushing a  new strategy for human development. The Russia-based party takes a global approach, encouraging other countries to follow in its footsteps “not in the arms race, but in the race for building a bright future for mankind.”

Last  month Itskov appealed to members of the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, urging  them  to take heed of  the “vital importance of funding scientific development in the field of cybernetic immortality and the artificial body.

“Contributing to cutting-edge innovations in the fields of neuroscience, nanotechnology and android robotics is more than building a brighter future for human civilization. [It's also] a wise and profitable business strategy that will create a new and vibrant industry of immortality — limitless in its importance and scale. This kind of investment will change every aspect of business as we know it,”  read Itskov’s open letter.

Itskov plans to host a Global Future Congress meeting next year in New York. A previous event was held last February in Moscow.

This  massive hypothetical technology would give the “new” mankind amazing survival abilities, according to the Initiative.

“The new human being will receive a huge range of abilities and will be capable of withstanding extreme external conditions easily: high temperatures, pressure, radiation, lack of oxygen,” claims the Initiative on its website.

And according to a slick video produced by the 2045 Initiative, once the hologram-like avatar reinvents mankind’s scientific and social structure, war and violence will go by the wayside as “spiritual self-improvement” becomes mankind’s primary goal.

But what about the average Joe who  just wants to live forever?

The cost of these avatars should be on par with that of an automobile, the Initiative’s website assures, as soon as mass production begins.

So start saving up.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com