Why James Cameron waited to create Avatar

James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster hit, Avatar stepped over boundaries that had not been crossed in the cinema and CGI world ever before. Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and winning 3, Avatar is also the #1 All Time Domestic movie ever, and the #1 All Time Worldwide movie. But what made this movie so different than any other, and why was it not done sooner? As a matter of fact, James Cameron wanted to release the movie in 1999 because he had the story complete, but did not have the proper technology to complete it until it was released in 2009. What convinced him that CGI effects had progressed enough is when he saw the motion-capture CGI animation that was done to Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. The movie is more than half CGI, and each frame of the CHI scenes took an average of 47 hours to render. When I was in London this past fall semester, I worked on a Sci-Fi list documentary where I was able to help find extensive facts about the movies that we were given and able to contact people to interview for the documentary. I researched Avatar extensively and was able to find out this amazing information plus so much more, and was astonished by the achievements and advancements that were made throughout the process and production of this movie. Here's a few of the videos I watched to learn more about Avatar.