Avatar: How James Cameron's 3D film could change the face of cinema forever

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A movie revolution will take place at the end of the year - potentially offering as big a leap in our viewing experience as the change from black-and-white television to colour.

James Cameron, the film director who pushed technical effects to the limit with the blockbuster Titanic in 1997, and ushered in the dawn of action films with '80s classics such as Terminator and Aliens, has unleashed the film he has been hoping to make for nearly 20 years.

Avatar, when it is released in December, will be the most ambitious 3D film ever released, and the first trailer, unveiled on the Internet yesterday, gives us a glimpse of the future.

Avatar: The film is set on a distant planet, allowing luscious scenery in full 3D. In this scene, a spaceship prepares to land in a verdant forest on the world of Pandora

The storyline follows the future battle between Earth and alien moon Pandora, a 'terrifyingly beautiful' world full of strange creatures and rich minerals.

But while James Cameron is known for packing his sci-fi films with strong storylines - from the fatherhood theme of Terminator 2 to the motherhood theme of Aliens - the story which will dominate this film's release is the 3D experience.

It's not the first time cinema has flirted with 3D - Alfred Hitchcock even experimented with the technology when he filmed Dial M for Murder in the 1950s.

But the results have often been derided, either for hokey effects or poor stories, with Spy Kids 3D and Journey to the Centre of the Earth both getting a lukewarm reception.

However the $237m budget of Avatar signals a leap in technology - indeed, Cameron waited 15 years before starting filming as technology had not advanced enough to portray his vision.

Cutting edge: A scene from Avatar shows a blue-skinned native from the planet Pandora

Breath-taking: Cameron developed new technology that could revolutionize film making

Tired of waiting for technology to catch up, he co-developed a new generation of stereoscopic cameras.

Simplified, this is the equivalent of two cameras strapped together, each providing a slightly different perspective on the scene, mimicking the way human eyes view the world in three dimensions.

This changes the ballpark of moving images. Suddenly the screen changes from a flat painting to an immersive world with depth.

Your eyes are tricked into seeing a 'world' on the screen, with a distinct foreground and background. In effect, the cinema screen becomes a theatre stage.

There's still at least one throw-back to the 'early days' of 3D - viewers will need to wear glasses to get the illusion.

However these are not the red and green cardboard cut-outs you used to get free with Sugar Puffs before Comic Relief.

These are sophisticated Active glasses, which do not cause the headaches experienced in the past, or more importantly rely on frequent 'pans' of the camera to make the image appear in 3D.

Each lens has a different filter , which removes different part of the image as it enters each eye. This gives the brain the illusion it is seeing the picture from two different angles, creating the 3D effect.

The film depicts a battle between Earth and the alien civilisation from Pandora - but who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

James Cameron on Avatar set with one of his stereoscopic cameras

Continuing to develop new technology as he went along, Cameron also devised a 'virtual camera', a hand-held monitor that allowed him to move through a 3D terrain.

This, Cameron said, allowed him to create 'the ultimate immersive media', which he anticipates will exceed any and all expectation.

In essence, this allowed Cameron to direct the film as if it was computer game. If he wanted to change the viewpoint, he could click a few buttons on a mouse and a computer would redraw the virtual world from the new perspective.

Of course, the film is making a buzz becuase of this technology, but Cameron is keen to stress that film, as ever, is about story, and the aim is not to bamboozle and distract viewers with special effects.

'The irony with Avatar is that people think of it as a 3D film and that's what the discussion is. But I think that, when they see it, the whole 3D discussion is going to go away...

'That's because, ideally, the technology is advanced enough to make itself go away. That's how it should work. All of the technology should wave its own wand and make itself disappear.'

Our reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization on a remote world

Life-like: The mix of real footage and motion-captured CGI will bring the remote world to life, in immersive 3D

So what is the storyline?

It focuses on Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, who took one of the lead roles in this summer's Terminator 4, on Cameron's recommendation.

Jake is a former Marine who is confined to a wheelchair following a war on Earth. He is selected to take part in the Avatar program - where his mind will control a healthy body on a remote world - and sent to Pandora, a rainforest-covered moon with a mix of beautiful and terrifying creatures, known as the Na'vi.

These are sentient, humanoid beings, considered primitive by humans - but this turns out to be a grave misjudgment once humans decide to savagely claim the world as their own.

Meanwhile, Jake has to decide where his allegiances lie in a battle which will decide the fate of the two planets.

We'll have to wait until December to see how the film will fare with audiences and critics, but it is an experiment that will be watched keenly.

It's not the first time a film-maker's dream has led to a new dawn in cinema. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's epic dreams for Star Wars led to the formation of Industrial Light and Magic, which became the forefront of special effects for decades.

That team was responsible for the next leap in CGI (computer-generated images) when they made the dinosaurs come alive in 1993's Jurassic Park.