Have you ever come across a tech-savvy teenager who just can't keep his / her fingers off their mobile Facbook apps for 5 minutes...and has to constantly keep everyone "updated" via Twitter every 10 minutes...and can't survive a day without having some form of networking tool with them? Sure you have. Well, James Cameron is exactly like that, only he seems to have the urge to take his 3D cameras everywhere, even if its completely out of context. The Avatar director claimed on Sunday that he is returning to Brazil to 'make a 3D film on indigenous people of the Amazon who oppose construction of a huge dam for fear it could flood tribal lands.' "I want to return to meet some of the leaders of the Xikrin-Kayapo tribe who invited me. I want to take a 3D camera to film how they live, their culture," Cameron told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. So far, Cameron has visited the Amazon twice to show support for its people and also to film some footage on the resistance to the damming on Xingu River. From what we've heard, this footage will make it to the special edition Blu-Ray / DVD release of Avatar later this year. Right now, this is what we have so far on said damming project :
"President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gave the green light last week for the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Xingu River, a southern tributary to the mighty Amazon. Work is set to begin on the project either late this year or early 2011. Opponents of the dam project say it is not economically viable and would cause the displacement of 16,000 people because it would create a flood zone of 500 square kilometers along the banks of the Xingu. The government says no indigenous land would be threatened and that it has spent millions on reducing the social and environmental impact of the dam."
Cameron seems to have given himself the obligation to help this tribe, explaining that he "did a film on the same topic", referring to Avatar, and that he could not play deaf towards the issues happening over there. All this sounds well and good to me, it's all for a good cause after all, but why the 3D? How does 3D help to solve a very real damming project? Correct me if I'm wrong but as talented as the guy is, Cameron seems to be getting even more full of himself lately. First he starts giving unwarranted advice to every other director under the sun, simultaneously self-proclaiming himself as the 3D messiah, and now he's going around trying to shoot everything and anything with an extra dimension? Yeah sure, like I'd love to see a documentary about a very concerned group of tribespeople while having their faces be virtually 3inches away from mine. How fun. Note the sarcasm.