TED | 《阿凡达》編劇克雷格：想要技術創新，必需歷險

And you know, that curiosity also manifested itself in the fact that whenever I wasn't in school I was out in the woods, hiking and taking "samples" -- frogs and snakes and bugs and pond water -- and bringing it back, looking at it under the microscope. You know, I was a real science geek. But it was all about trying to understand the world, understand the limits of possibility.

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正因而，我對此是神魂顛倒，不得不繼續下去。只好我作出了一個更讓人吃驚的決定。在《泰坦尼克号》獲得成功之後，我決定：“好吧，我在荷里活製作影片的工作到這兒就能告一段落了。在接下來的一兩年裡，我要成為一位兼職探險家。”因而，我們開始計劃那些探險公益活動。我們趕赴俾斯麥沉船，藉助機器人裝置來觀測它的殘骸。我們隨即又返回了泰坦尼克的殘骸。並且締造出了一大批能纏繞成像纖維的機器人。目地就是深入到殘骸中，探索其內部的模樣──一個前無古人的作法。在此之前，沒有人看完殘骸的內部。自己沒有所須要的技術，而且我們就締造出相應的技術。

Sounds crazy. But this goes back to that theme about your imagination creating a reality. Because we actually created a reality where six months later, I find myself in a Russian submersible two and a half miles down in the north Atlantic, looking at the real Titanic through a view port. Not a movie, not HD -- for real. (Applause)

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與此同時，我也是名音樂家。我能繪能畫。我也發現即使當時沒有電腦遊戲、特技影片的滲入以及現今傳媒產業發展中大量的影像化，我不得不在我的頭腦中來締造那些影像。堅信大家兒時都和我一樣，在唸書的這時候，常常會在我們神經系統中把作者所敘述的東西像影片一樣播出。而我則是在腦海中描寫外星人微生物、外星人世界、機器人、太空船等等。我躲在教材前面塗鴉的舉動總是被數學老師給逮個正著。正因而，我不得不為我的締造力尋求其它的發洩途徑。

但我卻無法想象出這天我藉由浮潛窗所看見的一切。在我們隨即的探險過程中，我探測到過定居在熱液噴口的微生物，有時候會看見我之後從來沒有看完的東西，有時候會看見任何人之後都沒有看完的東西，甚至是許多在我們當時目擊並記錄之後，還沒有被科學所敘述的事物。

而我對科幻小說的鐘愛也是與我周圍的世界相呼應的，即使當時是60二十世紀中後期，人類文明開始登月，開始逃出深海。皮埃爾.格斯特（法國電影攝影師）將他神奇的聽覺特技帶進我們的生活中，為我們呈現出了之後無法想象的鳥類、自然景觀和一個奇妙的世界。這一切都或許和科幻小說之間造成著共鳴。

I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction. In high school, I took a bus to school an hour each way every day. And I was always absorbed in a book, science fiction book, which took my mind to other worlds, and satisfied, in a narrative form, this insatiable sense of curiosity that I had.

Now, that blew my mind. And it took a lot of preparation, we had to build cameras and lights and all kinds of things. But, it struck me how much this dive, these deep dives, was like a space mission. You know, where it was highly technical, and it required enormous planning. You get in this capsule, you go down to this dark hostile environment where there is no hope of rescue if you can't get back by yourself. And I thought like, "Wow. I'm like, living in a science fiction movie. This is really cool."

So, I decided I was going to become a scuba diver at the age of 15. And the only problem with that was that I lived in a little village in Canada, 600 miles from the nearest ocean. But I didn't let that daunt me. I pestered my father until he finally found a scuba class in Buffalo, New York, right across the border from where we live. And I actually got certified in a pool at a YMCA in the dead of winter in Buffalo, New York. And I didn't see the ocean, a real ocean, for another two years, until we moved to California.

而且我將那個想法置放身旁，轉而製作了一部關於大船墜入海底的電影。我當時跟電影公司說整部電影將會是岸上的“羅密歐與茱麗葉”，將會是一部史詩般的、唯美激情的電影。但私下裡，我的真實動機是去造訪一下泰坦尼克的殘骸。這才是我製作那部電影的其原因。我說的是事實。不過電影公司當時是不知情的。我勸服了自己。我說：“我們將逃出船骸，實地考察拍攝地，做為影片的開場。此事非常重要、頗具噱頭。”只好我勸服了自己投資於一場歷險歷程。

此外，我的好奇心也展現出在其它方面：每當我不須要上課的這時候，我總會趕赴樹林裡，郊遊和收集“化石”，兔子呀、蛇呀、蟲子呀、池水呀，通通送回家裡，放在電子顯微鏡下科學研究。我當時算得上是極品的科學狂人。但這一切都是為的是嘗試瞭解那個世界，瞭解可能將的邊界線。

而且我們在製作紀錄片的同時，卻是在科學研究太空科學。我把兒時身為科學小說迷的經歷和真實從事這一行業的經歷取得聯繫到了一同。在那個探索之旅中，我也學到了許多東西。我學到了許多關於科學的東西。但我也學會了許多關於領導者就可以的東西。即便編劇要得是一位領導者專業人才，是領導、是掌舵者之類的。

So, drawing a line through those two dots of experience came to, "This is going to be a whole new world," this was a whole new world of creativity for film artists. So, I started a company with Stan Winston, my good friend Stan Winston, who is the premier make-up and creature designer at that time, and it was called Digital Domain. And the concept of the company was that we would leapfrog past the analog processes of optical printers and so on, and we would go right to digital production. And we actually did that and it gave us a competitive advantage for a while.

與此同時，我也開始對太空信息技術感興趣。這自然也是受到了年少這時候科學短篇小說的負面影響。結果我和太空街道社區創建了很密切的取得聯繫，和英國航天局戰略合作，成為了自己諮詢理事會的一員，策畫真正的太空任務，趕赴白俄羅斯，參訪太空人之後的材料科學協定等等一連串的事情，以便於我們帶著我們的3D攝影器材趕赴國際太空站。

正因而，深海探險成了我新的愛好。所以了，這歸結於其中的疑惑感、權威性。它是天地萬物合一、是探究未知、是疑惑無邊、是想像無窮，是荷里活難以給與我的難得經歷。儘管我能想像出一個微生物，接著藉助計算機特技將它締造出來。

So, when I came back to make my next movie, which was "Avatar," I tried to apply that same principle of leadership, which is that you respect your team, and you earn their respect in return. And it really changed the dynamic. So, here I was again with a small team, in uncharted territory, doing "Avatar," coming up with new technology that didn't exist before. Tremendously exciting.

So, I was completely smitten by this, and had to do more. And so, I actually made a kind of curious decision. After the success of "Titanic," I said, "OK, I'm going to park my day job as a Hollywood movie maker, and I'm going to go be a full-time explorer for a while." And so, we started planning these expeditions. And we wound up going to the Bismark, and exploring it with robotic vehicles. We went back to the Titanic wreck. We took little bots that we had created that spooled a fiber optic. And the idea was to go in and do an interior survey of that ship, which had never been done. Nobody had ever looked inside the wreck. They didn't have the means to do it, so we created technology to do it.

要曉得，我當時就在泰坦尼克的艦橋上，趴在一個潛水器內，看著就有如那個的木製艦橋，心想著曾在這兒演出的樂團。我操控著一個較大型的機器人探索器飛到船內的走廊。儘管我在操控著它，我的價值觀卻是在那個探索器內，我感覺我確確實實地置身於在泰坦尼克的殘骸中。那是我所經歷過的最不可思議的卻又似曾相識的感覺，即使在機器人的觀測燈點亮周圍之後，我就已經曉得每一轉角背後所隱藏的一切，其原因就在於影片製作的過程中，我耗費了許多個月的時間在那個場景中走來走去。而攝影棚中的道具就是按照那個船的圖紙所製造出來的一個真實數學模型。

And an interesting thing happened: The Jacques Cousteau shows actually got me very excited about the fact that there was an alien world right here on Earth. I might not really go to an alien world on a spaceship someday -- that seemed pretty darn unlikely. But that was a world I could really go to, right here on Earth, that was as rich and exotic as anything that I had imagined from reading these books.

我是在科幻小說的陪伴下長大的。初中的這時候，我每晚要乘坐一個半小時的公交車來往幼兒園。漫長車程中，我總是沉浸在書本里，這些科幻小說將我的價值觀帶回其它的世界，以敘事的形式，滿足了我當時強烈的疑惑感。

而且通過這些探險，我開始真正地欣賞海底的美妙，比如說那些生活在深海裂口處的奇妙的鳥類們。它們算得上就是地球上的外星人微生物。它們住在一個人工合成的環境中，完全不須要我們賴以生存的木星光照。而且當你看見那些生活在500度低溫的海底地柱鄰近的鳥類時， 你或許會覺得它們完全不可能將存活。

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但在90二十世紀中後期，我們發現儘管子公司的初衷是在微生物、人物設計方面略有建樹，但我們在這一方面卻是過時了。因而我創作了那個《阿凡达》的經典作品，旨在將視覺效果和計算機特技推至極限，藉助計算機動畫電影製造出具備真實人類文明感情的微生物。主要配角將由計算機制作。整個場景也都是由計算機制作。但我卻碰了一鼻子灰。我們子公司裡的人告訴我說，我們在當時的技術條件下，是難以順利完成這種的特技的。

I didn't really learn about leadership until I did these expeditions. Because I had to, at a certain point, say, "What am I doing out here? Why am I doing this? What do I get out of it?" We don't make money at these damn shows. We barely break even. There is no fame in it. People sort of think I went away between "Titanic" and "Avatar" and was buffing my nails someplace, sitting at the beach. Made all these films, made all these documentary films for a very limited audience.

英國民航局有一篇自己很討厭的名言：“失利並非一個選項。”但在表演藝術和探險中，失利必定是個選項，即使那些都須要勇於挑戰的信心。沒有哪個須要技術創新的關鍵努力奮鬥是在沒有信用風險的條件下順利完成的。你必須願意承擔那些信用風險。而這就是我所想要留給你們的啟迪：不論你做什么，失利都是其中一個選項，但懼怕卻並非。謝謝你們。

You know, it's Arthur Clarke's law that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. They were seeing something magical. And so that got me very excited. And I thought, "Wow, this is something that needs to be embraced into the cinematic art." So, with "Terminator 2," which was my next film, we took that much farther. Working with ILM, we created the liquid metal dude in that film. The success hung in the balance on whether that effect would work. And it did, and we created magic again, and we had the same result with an audience -- although we did make a little more money on that one.

And in that bond, you realize that the most important thing is the respect that you have for them and that they have for you, that you've done a task that you can't explain to someone else. When you come back to the shore and you say, "We had to do this, and the fiber optic, and the attentuation, and the this and the that, all the technology of it, and the difficulty, the human-performance aspects of working at sea," you can't explain it to people. It's that thing that maybe cops have, or people in combat that have gone through something together and they know they can never explain it. Creates a bond, creates a bond of respect.

這就是查爾斯·懷特運動定律──先進的信息技術和魔法之間是無法區分的。而當時觀眾們所親眼目睹的便是此種魔力。這令我深感無比激動。我當時想到，“天呀，此項技術須要在電影表演藝術中大覆蓋範圍推展。”而且在我的下一部電影《终结者2》中，我們將此項技術推向了新的臺階。通過和“輕工業光魔”(ILM)電影特技子公司的戰略合作，我們締造了影片中這個氣體合金傢伙。而電影的成功是否將取決於此項技術能否奏效。結果它奏效了，我們再度締造了魔法，我們再度從觀眾們那兒獲得了同樣的回饋。但那部電影的電影票房要稍稍好一點。

有意思的是，皮埃爾.格斯特的電影令我驚喜地發現，原來在那個地球上就存有著一個外星人世界。我或許難以嗎在有生之年搭乘太空船趕赴外星人世界。這聽起來太不著邊際了。但那個地球上的確存有著一個我嗎能趕赴的世界——富庶而奇異，擁有著我通過書本所幻想的一切。

Tremendously challenging. And we became a family, over a four-and-half year period. And it completely changed how I do movies. So, people have commented on how, "Well, you know, you brought back the ocean organisms and put them on the planet of Pandora." To me, it was more of a fundamental way of doing business, the process itself, that changed as a result of that.

此種經歷是令人難忘的。但我到頭來所做的，卻是勸服太空科學家們追隨我們趕赴海洋深處，讓自己可以切身體驗。太空生物學家、行星科學家等等對極端環境感興趣的現代人都被我們帶回深海裂口處，讓自己能親眼觀看、採取樣本、探測儀器等等。

So, what can we synthesize out of all this? You know, what are the lessons learned? Well, I think number one is curiosity. It's the most powerful thing you own. Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality. And the respect of your team is more important than all the laurels in the world. I have young filmmakers come up to me and say, "Give me some advice for doing this." And I say, "Don't put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you -- don't do it to yourself, don't bet against yourself, and take risks."

But when I chose a career as an adult, it was filmmaking. And that seemed to be the best way to reconcile this urge I had to tell stories with my urges to create images. And I was, as a kid, constantly drawing comic books, and so on. So, filmmaking was the way to put pictures and stories together, and that made sense. And of course the stories that I chose to tell were science fiction stories: "Terminator," "Aliens" and "The Abyss." And with "The Abyss," I was putting together my love of underwater and diving with filmmaking. So, you know, merging the two passions.

片長：17 : 05

演講者： James Cameron

那場經歷令我大為讚歎。前期的準備工作是很繁雜的，我們須要搭建攝影機、燈光等等。但真正讓我憤慨的是，那些深海浮潛公益活動就如宇宙探險一樣。二者都是高科技產物，二者都須要縝密的部署。你踏進船艙，步入這漆黑凶險的環境，假如你難以依靠他們的力量回到如果，你是沒有任何被解救的可能將的。我當時想到：“天呀！我就似的活在一個科幻片裡頭一樣。太酷了！”

So, I shelved it, and I made this other movie about a big ship that sinks. (Laughter) You know, I went and pitched it to the studio as "Romeo and Juliet' on a ship: "It's going to be this epic romance, passionate film. Secretly, what I wanted to do was I wanted to dive to the real wreck of "Titanic." And that's why I made the movie. And that's the truth. Now, the studio didn't know that. But I convinced them. I said, "We're going to dive to the wreck. We're going to film it for real. We'll be using it in the opening of the film. It will be really important. It will be a great marketing hook." And I talked them into funding an expedition.

At the same time I was getting very interested in space science as well -- again, it's the science fiction influence, as a kid. And I wound up getting involved with the space community, really involved with NASA, sitting on the NASA advisory board, planning actual space missions, going to Russia, going through the pre-cosmonaut biomedical protocols, and all these sorts of things, to actually go and fly to the international space station with our 3D camera systems.

Since then, in the intervening 40 years, I've spent about 3,000 hours underwater, and 500 hours of that was in submersibles. And I've learned that that deep-ocean environment, and even the shallow oceans, are so rich with amazing life that really is beyond our imagination. Nature's imagination is so boundless compared to our own meager human imagination. I still, to this day, stand in absolute awe of what I see when I make these dives. And my love affair with the ocean is ongoing, and just as strong as it ever was.

約翰英國首相的影片為全世界的觀眾們締造出一個超乎想像的虛幻世界。在演說中，他闡明瞭他兒時對“奇幻”的痴迷，從讀科幻小說到上山下海，最後這些“奇幻經歷”又是怎樣促進他打造出轟動一時的熱門經典作品呢？看完《外星人》、《终结者》、《泰坦尼克号》和《阿凡达》的你，一定無法錯失那場精采的談話。

And so, I really got bitten by the bug of deep-ocean exploration. Of course, the curiosity, the science component of it -- it was everything. It was adventure, it was curiosity, it was imagination. And it was an experience that Hollywood couldn't give me. Because, you know, I could imagine a creature and we could create a visual effect for it.

而且那一次的經歷是非比尋常的，它使我體會到了一種遠程監控的經歷──你事實上能擁有阿凡達的化身，接著你的意識被注入到車輛中，注入到另一種存有方式中。這確實是很深刻的體會。或許這一切能讓我們大致猜想數十年後的世界會是什麼樣的。做為一位科學小說迷，我能想像各式各樣人類文明社會的未來，藉助半機械人來進行探險和其它公益活動。

充滿著挑戰。在六年半的時間裡，我們變為了一個大家庭。那個經歷徹底發生改變了我製作影片的形式。現代人評論家說：你把海底微生物帶返回現代人視野中來，放在了潘朵拉那個地球上。對於我來說，則更著重於處事的基本法則和那個過程本身，這也會發生改變了事情的結果。

而《深渊》也帶來了另一種啟迪：為的是很好的呈現出影片的敘事模式，締造出影片中的氣體水生物，我們開始採用計算機動畫電影技術。電影工業中的首家計算機制作的軟表面人物也因而而誕生。雖然那部電影票房不濟，正好回本而已，我卻因而而親眼目睹了更讓人驚訝的一幕──全球觀眾們都被影片所呈現出的魔法深深地吸引。

No fame, no glory, no money. What are you doing? You're doing it for the task itself, for the challenge -- and the ocean is the most challenging environment there is -- for the thrill of discovery, and for that strange bond that happens when a small group of people form a tightly knit team. Because we would do these things with 10, 12 people, working for years at a time, sometimes at sea for two, three months at a time.

沒名、沒份、沒錢。你究竟在做什么呢？我做這一切是為的是那個經歷本身的價值，為的是那個挑戰──而大海就是最富挑戰的環境，我做這一切也是為的是探索發現的驚訝感，為的是那種一小群人共同組成一個密切的團隊時所撞擊出的美妙的凝聚力。即使每一次我們都會和10到12個人一同工作上兩個年頭。有時候要在海上呆上個2-3個月。

NASA has this phrase that they like: "Failure is not an option." But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration, because it's a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. So, that's the thought I would leave you with, is that in whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not. Thank you.

And my love of science fiction actually seemed mirrored in the world around me, because what was happening, this was in the late '60s, we were going to the moon, we were exploring the deep oceans. Jacques Cousteau was coming into our living rooms with his amazing specials that showed us animals and places and a wondrous world that we could never really have previously imagined. So, that seemed to resonate with the whole science fiction part of it.

And this was fascinating. But what I wound up doing was bringing space scientists with us into the deep. And taking them down so that they had access -- astrobiologists, planetary scientists, people who were interested in these extreme environments -- taking them down to the vents, and letting them see, and take samples and test instruments, and so on.

But we found ourselves lagging in the mid '90s in the creature and character design stuff that we had actually founded the company to do. So, I wrote this piece called "Avatar," which was meant to absolutely push the envelope of visual effects, of CG effects, beyond, with realistic human emotive characters generated in CG, and the main characters would all be in CG, and the world would be in CG. And the envelope pushed back, and I was told by the folks at my company that we weren't going to be able to do this for a while.

綜合這三次經歷，我們意識到這將是一個嶄新的世界，一個允許影片表演藝術者們使出想像力的嶄新世界。而且我和我的摯友Stan Winston設立了一間子公司。Stan Winston是當時的著名髮型師和化妝師。子公司的名字就叫作"數碼應用領域"（Digital Domain）。子公司的經營理念是，我們將超越成像印表機等的模擬工藝技術，直接步入數字生產。事實上，我們做到了，這在很長一兩年裡給了我們市場競爭優勢。

而且當我回去製作我的下一部影片 《阿凡达》的這時候，我試著應用同樣的領導教條──敬重你的團隊，自己才會回過頭來敬重你。而這一教條確實是發生改變了團隊的生機。我再度和一個小團隊走到了一同，共同趕赴未知的應用領域，製作《阿凡达》，締造未曾存有過的新信息技術。這很振奮人心。

在那之後的40年裡，我在水下度過了大概3000個半小時。其中500個半小時是在浮潛器中度過的。我發現深海之中──即便是潮間帶之中──也會充滿著了更讓人驚訝的心靈，這遠遠遠遠超過了我們的想像。同我們人類文明狹隘的想像覆蓋範圍較之，大自然的想像力是無邊無際的。直至今日，我浮潛時所親眼目睹的一切仍令我深感無比驚訝。我對海洋的愛好始終如一、未曾發生改變。

而當我長大成人，須要擇業的這時候，我選擇了影片製作。在當時認為，這是將我講故事情節的渴望與締造圖象的慾望合而為一的最好途徑。在我還是個小孩的這時候，我經常畫漫畫。而影片製作剛好將圖象和故事情節融合在一同。理所所以，水到渠成。所以了，我講的故事情節都是些奇幻故事情節《终结者》《异性》 和《深渊》。在《深渊》中，我將我對深海和浮潛的鐘愛與影片製作融合到了一同。將三份熱誠，合而為一。

So, you know, here I am now, on the deck of Titanic, sitting in a submersible, and looking out at planks that look much like this, where I knew that the band had played. And I'm flying a little robotic vehicle through the corridor of the ship. When I say, "I'm operating it," but my mind is in the vehicle. I felt like I was physically present inside the shipwreck of Titanic. And it was the most surreal kind of deja vu experience I've ever had, because I would know before I turned a corner what was going to be there before the lights of the vehicle actually revealed it, because I had walked the set for months when we were making the movie. And the set was based as an exact replica on the blueprints of the ship.

而在那種凝聚力下，你意識到最重要的事情就是你與他們彼此間的敬重，你們共同完成了一個難以向別人解釋的任務。當你返回海岸線上，你會說：“我們須要做這個，這個成像纖維，這個電律衰減，還有這個、那個。”各項技術、其中的難度、海上作業的工作效率──這些都是你難以向別人解釋的。這就似的那些同甘共苦過的警員、戰士一樣，他們曉得自己是難以向其別人解釋其中的經歷的。締造一個有凝聚力的團隊，締造一個充滿著認同之情的團隊。

聽起來很瘋狂。但這件事歸根到底，依然是關於怎樣用你的想象力來締造一個現實生活。實際上，我們確實在三個月後締造了一個現實生活──我在北大西洋2.5英哩水下，身處一個白俄羅斯潛水器中，通過一個視口觀望真正的泰坦尼克。並非影片，並非高畫質，而是身臨其境。

So, having done these expeditions, and really beginning to appreciate what was down there, such as at the deep ocean vents where we had these amazing, amazing animals -- they're basically aliens right here on Earth. They live in an environment of chemosynthesis. They don't survive on sunlight-based system the way we do. And so, you're seeing animals that are living next to a 500-degree-Centigrade water plumes. You think they can't possibly exist.

因而在我15歲的那一年，我決定成為一位浮潛員。不過惟一的問題是，我當時住在澳大利亞的一個小村子裡，最近的海也要600英哩遠。但我卻沒有因而而心灰意冷。我反覆糾纏我的爸爸，直至他在芝加哥水大牛市為我找出了一個浮潛訓練班，它就在美加邊界線的另一側。就這種，在水大牛市刺骨的深冬，在天主教青年會的游泳池內，我領到了我的浮潛證書。但在隨即的兩年裡，我卻不曾親眼看見過大海，直至我們搬至了加州洲。

So, here we were making documentary films, but actually doing science, and actually doing space science. I'd completely closed the loop between being the science fiction fan, you know, as a kid, and doing this stuff for real. And you know, along the way in this journey of discovery, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about science. But I also learned a lot about leadership. Now you think director has got to be a leader, leader of, captain of the ship, and all that sort of thing.

But I couldn't imagine what I was seeing out that window. As we did some of our subsequent expeditions, I was seeing creatures at hydrothermal vents and sometimes things that I had never seen before, sometimes things that no one had seen before, that actually were not described by science at the time that we saw them and imaged them.

So, it was this absolutely remarkable experience. And it really made me realize that the telepresence experience -- that you actually can have these robotic avatars, then your consciousness is injected into the vehicle, into this other form of existence. It was really, really quite profound. And it may be a little bit of a glimpse as to what might be happening some decades out as we start to have cyborg bodies for exploration or for other means in many sort of post-human futures that I can imagine, as a science fiction fan.

And I was an artist. I could draw. I could paint. And I found that because there weren't video games and this saturation of CG movies and all of this imagery in the media landscape, I had to create these images in my head. You know, we all did, as kids having to read a book, and through the author's deion, put something on the movie screen in our heads. And so, my response to this was to paint, to draw alien creatures, alien worlds, robots, spaceships, all that stuff. I was endlessly getting busted in math class doodling behind the textbook. That was -- the creativity had to find its outlet somehow.

但在那些探險之後，我對領導者就可以卻是一無所知。即使我還得問他們：“我究竟在做些什么呢？我為什么要做那些事情？我從中獲得什么呢？”那些該死的記錄片根本不掙錢。我們想回本都不難。沒名沒份的。許多人都指出我在《泰坦尼克》和《阿凡达》三部影片之間退居幕後，趴在海灘下面修指甲而已。但實際上我製作了那些影片，那些記錄片，只有很極少數的觀眾們看完。

Something interesting came out of "The Abyss," which was that to solve a specific narrative problem on that film, which was to create this kind of liquid water creature, we actually embraced computer generated animation, CG. And this resulted in the first soft-surface character, CG animation that was ever in a movie. And even though the film didn't make any money -- barely broke even, I should say -- I witnessed something amazing, which is that the audience, the global audience, was mesmerized by this apparent magic.

而且我們從這一切中獲得了什么呢？學到了哪些東西呢？我覺得第一點就是好奇心。這是你所擁有的最強有力的東西。想像力是一種力量，一種能反映現實生活的力量。而你團隊對你的敬關鍵比那個世界上所有其它的桂冠都要關鍵。有時候年長影片編劇會問我：“給我許多影片方面的建議。”我的提問是：“千萬別局限你他們。自己會來侷限你，會為你去劃邊界線，但你千萬別他們侷限他們。千萬別賭他們會輸。要勇於歷險。”