James Cameron says Avatar may seem familiar — but there are twists you won't see coming. Meanwhile, there's a precious glimpse of Supernatural season five, righteous Zombieland/Legion posters, and a Fringe storyboard. Plus Shorts, 2012, FlashForward, Smallville, Chuck and Stargate.
Avatar:
Asked whether Avatar is a "classig going native film," in the style of At Play In The Fields Of The Lord, James Cameron responds that APITFOTL was one of the videos he used for reference. Then the reporter goes even further and asks if Avatar is similar to Dances With Wolves, since it's about "a battered military man who finds something pure in an endangered tribal culture." Cameron responds:
Yes, exactly, it is very much like that. You see the same theme in "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" and also "The Emerald Forest," which maybe thematically isn't that connected but it did have that clash of civilizations or of cultures. That was another reference point for me. There was some beautiful stuff in that film. I just gathered all this stuff in and then you look at it through the lens of science fiction and it comes out looking very different but is still recognizable in a universal story way. It's almost comfortable for the audience – "I know what kind of tale this is." They're not just sitting there scratching their heads, they're enjoying it and being taken along. And we still have turns and surprises in it, too, things you don't see coming. But the idea that you feel like you are in a classic story, a story that could have been shaped by Rudyard Kipling or Edgar Rice Burroughs.
He also says that the motion-capture software is so close to the actors' real performances, he wants to call it "emotion capture" instead of "motion capture." And that's what still astonishes him, more than the floating mountains and thousand-foot trees. [L.A. Times]
Shorts:
James Spader says his character, Carbon Black, is a bad guy, but "the things he's doing wrong are because he's oblivious to it," Spader said. "Or there's nothing Machiavellian about him; everybody in the picture is caught up in the story of the picture, and he is too. And he's completely caught up in it: Maybe even most of all, he's caught up in it." [Sci Fi Wire]
Legion:
Will there be punk-ass angels with guns in this movie? New poster says yes. [ShockTillYouDrop]
Zombieland:
And speaking of posters, here's a pretty sweet-looking one for this zombie carnage extravaganza. Bigger version at the link. [Coming Soon via Dread Central]
2012:
It's the end of John Cusack's careerthe world! Some new stills from the Roland Emmerich disaster movie. [IGN]
Fringe:
Jon Cassar, director of episode 2x06, Twittered a picture of his rough storyboards for the episode. What do you think it means? What are all those arrows doing? [TwitPic, thanks to The Booted Lady!]
And here are some set pics from the filming in Vancouver. [Alexei White on Flickr and Jon Yeo on Flickr via SpoilerTV]
And here's a thrilling new promo for the season opener:
Supernatural:
Here's a new promo for season five, featuring a few glimpses of the season opener, "Sympathy For The Devil":
And Eric Kripke says Sam's storyline will be similar to that of an "ex-addict" in the new season. Just as long as we don't go into "Willow in Buffy season six" territory, everything will be fine. [The CW Source]
FlashForward:
And here's a video I don't think we've shown you before. [TrekMovie]
Smallville:
New set photos purport to show you Tom Welling filming season nine, in a vaguely Matrix-esque outfit. But it's super hard to make out anything. More at the link. [SpoilerTV]
Chuck:
In episode 3x03, "Chuck Vs. The Angel Of Death," we'll meet Premier Allejandro Goya, the dictator of the fictitious Latin American country of Parador. (Is the name intentional?) And Goya has come to the United States to announce his country will be holding democratic elections for the first time. [SpoilerTV]
Stargate Universe:
Luis Ferreira's character, Col. Everett Young, is "a rock – cool and unflappable, a solid and steady leader... Young is the calm in the eye of the storm, the guy you want calling the shots when things get heated." And episodes 19 and 20 are a linked storyline with a "B" storyline that's still undergoing some revisions, and there's a surprising ending. [Joseph Mallozzi via SpoilerTV]
Also, Michael Shanks, who has a super-brief role in the series opener, will have a more significant cameo in another episode later on. [Gateworld]
Heroes:
Episode 4x07 is called "Strange Attractors." [SpoilerTV]
Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.