Here come the Avatar imitators, writes DONALD CLARKE
About a decade ago, I bumped into a scriptwriter who was then being propelled through a particularly gruesome (though nicely lucrative) version of creative Hades. He had been hired to write a disaster movie based around the destruction of the Hindenburg. The commission came from a major studio, so he didn't feel able to turn it down, but, the more he thought about it, the less sense the project made.
Aware that the German airship took, it is reckoned, 37 seconds to burn itself into ashes, my associate was required to deliver a script that was – they wanted an epic, of course – about 99.5 per cent padding and around 0.5 per cent flaming action. The film never happened, but, if you want a sense of the unsquarability of this particular circle, check out Robert Wise’s ghastly Hindenburg from 1975. It’s a monumental bore.
About a decade ago? Yes, that's right. The idea for a film about the Hindenburg had, of course, arisen during the brainstorming that followed the spectacular success of Titanic. As is often the case, Hollywood approached the problem in ploddingly literal-minded fashion. Rather than trying to isolate the cultural or sociological attractions of James Cameron's film, the team from head office set themselves the task of replicating the film's story as closely as possible. We need a terrible catastrophe from the first years of the 20th century involving the destruction of an iconic transatlantic vessel.
How about a film concerning a burning airship starring baby Winslet (Claire Danes, perhaps) and baby DiCaprio (maybe Ryan Phillippe)? Argh! The humanity!
The rampaging, unstoppable advance of Cameron’s passably entertaining Avatar will set off similar conversations in the boardrooms and juice bars of Sunset Boulevard. As you read this, the 3D science fiction epic should be closing in on the number one spot in the all-time box-office charts. What does it all mean? What should Mega Pictures Incorporated learn from 20th Century Fox’s success?
Well, the reverberations have already begun to show themselves in the trade papers. Two weeks ago, it was announced that Pierre Morel, director of Takenand the upcoming From Paris with Love, is to helm a new version of Frank Herbert's durable science fiction novel Dune. If Paramount does not decide to shoot the film in 3D, then I will eat my own underpants live on irishtimes.com. Duneis, that studio trusts, going to be the Avatarof 2012 (or so). Another half-dozen embryonic 3D space adventures have also begun squirming in their wombs.
There are great dangers here. Cameron’s film is so flimsy in the script department – a fact lost on the bafflingly enthusiastic American critics – that it is near impossible to extract any potential themes or inclinations. So, once again, we will have to endure pale copies.
It could get very nasty indeed. The ultimate manifestation of post- Titanicdisaster porn arrived with the loathsome bilge-delivery system that was Michael Bay's cacophonous Pearl Harbor. The humanity! The humanity!
