Avatar: more 3D than Na’vi language
Posted by You may remember in a previous post that I was looking forward to seeing Avatar, in part due to the fact that James Cameron had asked linguistic guru Professor Frommer to come up with an entire language for the alien race in the movie – the Na’vi. I was quite excited by this and, having no problems with subtitled films, hoped that the language would make the movie even more immersive.
I was a little disappointed.
Whilst the movie was indeed beautiful, and the 3D was fantastic, there were really very few instances where the Na’vi language was used. Maybe 0.5-1% of the movie, if that. It seems to me that they could easily have got away with using the same trick as District 9 and used a near-incoherent alien tongue. Inventing a language is surely a huge undertaking, so it strikes me that Prof. Frommer’s efforts may have been just a little wasted.
Even worse (and rather off-topic) what was Cameron thinking when he decided to use that Papyrus font for the subtitles and movie poster? I’ve always considered that font second only to Comic Sans in terms of ugliness…
Anyway, I still recommend going to see the film at the theater, in 3D. It’s certainly a feast for the eyes!