Twelve years in the making. Technology pushed to the absolute edge. Excitement. Doubt. That’s James Cameron’s Avatar.

The more trailers we saw for Avatar, the more observers began questioning Cameron’s vision. But the critics are now putting that to rest. Last week in his four-star review, Roger Ebert called it “an extraordinary film.”

Avatar‘s world premiere is set for this week, and we can finally see for ourselves.

We had Classical Animation and Digital Character Animation grad Michael Cozens, a lead animator on Avatar, in our Main Theatre this past summer to discuss working with 3D stereoscopic tech with students. But the VFS connections don’t stop there – many 3D Animation & Visual Effects grads worked on the film, many out of New Zealand’s renowned Weta Digital: Technical Director Tamir Diab, Layout TD Alfredo Luzardo, Motion Editor Chrystia Siolkowsky, and Animators Aaron Gilman, Ben Sanders, and David Yabu.

Congratulations to our alumni who were involved in this groundbreaking new film. We’ll be first in line!