Avatar world premiere photo gallery

With the gushing reviews starting to roll in, it's fair to say that James Cameron is looking like he's winning his Avatar battle.

Yesterday, he and his team of cast and crew descended on London for the world premiere of the film. And we were on hand to take a few photos for you. It looks like it was a good night all round...

Here's our report from Adam Farina, who was in the press pens...

The stars rolled out in force to usher in Avatar, the ground-breaking sci fi film that uses 3D technology to bring the viewer even closer to the action. Hundreds of fans lined Leicester Square’s blue carpet premiere, aptly decorated due to the main characters in the film being digitally rendered to have the same hue as a smurf (albeit a ‘$300 million more technologically advanced’ hue).

Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang, two of the films more seasoned actors, talked about how London was their home away from home. "I used to live at 351 Portobello Road many years ago as a young man. I have a lot of warm memories of this city," said Lang.

"It’s always great to be here. London and I have a long history. It’s a beautiful and wonderful place to launch such an incredible movie," smiled Sigourney.

Apart from Avatar’s James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana, Giovani Ribisi and Stephen Lang stopping by to say hi, the event also welcomed moviemakers Simon Pegg and Danny Boyle, heavy hitters David ‘Haymaker’ Hayes and Joe Calzaghe, as well as Simon Webbe from the appropriately named boy band ‘Blue’.

Avatar, in case you didn't know, tells the story of an alien world, called Pandora, that harbours an incredible mineral that is worth millions per fraction. This mineral is so valuable that Pandora is plundered by the human race to acquire it. The only thing is the Na’vi, Pandora's native inhabitants, don’t really appreciate the humans' heavy-handed ways and resist the invasion. This resistance takes the form of spectacular aerial attacks, fight scenes and the use of Avatars, a being which is the combination of human and Na’vi DNA that is used to infiltrate the aliens' homeland on a native level.

The quality of special effects in the movie is second to none and when director James Cameron was asked how he now feels about his previous visually ground breaking movies such as Terminator 2 and Abyss, he replied:

"They are snap shots of their time; they were pushing the envelope when they were made and that’s something that I hope we’ll keep doing 20 years from now.’

One man who is pushing the envelope is Avatar’s lead actor Sam Worthington, who plays Jake Sully, a marine who becomes an Avatar. Worthington is a busy man, with last summer's Terminator Salvation, Avatar, and the upcoming Clash Of The Titans remake. When asked how he thought he was doing in the movie business, he replied in a playful, down to earth, ‘next pints on me’ kinda manner with, "Well, we will have to see how this one does."

Avatar opens nationwide on December 17th. Our review is here.