James Cameron's Jungle

First footage packed trail for James Cameron's upcoming game-changer Avatar. Sat on this one for a few days waiting for an inbed of serviceable quality. The above will do, although I can't help picturing bleeding-edge Cameron sicking in his mouth over such a tiny 2D window trailing his flick. Avatar broadly concerns a sweeping human tech-empire running into an alien harmony society, and creating remote-control infiltrator mutants to break it. Cameron has spoken of putting his own spin on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books, particularly the theme of a visitor going native and becoming a saviour. The culture clash is explicit in the footage, battling aside, it's live action actors trespassing on an animation wonderland. You're seeing real men, armed with recognisably speculative weapons, invading a hyper-stylised imagination jungle. In some shots it's hard to discern what's live and what isn't. The alien expressions are recognisable without straying into caricature, and much of the human arms read as solid forms. This cobalt wonder is due December.