I Really Like Avatar and I Really Like Zhangjiajie
With the hit release of the film Avatar, the fashion of the alien race in the movie—the Na'vi—is quietly rising, not only driving a wave of PS edits that spread rapidly, but also letting many people learn about the real Hallelujah Mountain—the famous scenic spot "One Pillar Holding Up the Sky" in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, China. In the film Avatar, these giant rocks floating in the air are called "Hallelujah Mountain" by Earthlings (also known as MontasVolans...
With the hit release of the film Avatar, the fashion of the alien race in the movie—the Na'vi—is quietly rising, not only driving a wave of PS edits that spread rapidly, but also letting many people learn about the real Hallelujah Mountain—the famous scenic spot "One Pillar Holding Up the Sky" in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, China.
In the film Avatar, these giant rocks floating in the air are called "Hallelujah Mountain" by Earthlings (also known as MontasVolans), and are a major wonder of Pandora. These giant rocks contain a precious mineral: Unobtnium. Unobtnium is a rare room-temperature superconductor with a peculiar magnetic field. Under the effect of Pandora's magnetic field, it produces this spectacular scene of giant rocks floating in the air. The tops of these giant rock islands are relatively flat, while their surroundings are extremely steep, and rivers pour down the cliffs to form waterfalls suspended in the air. They float in the magnetic field just like icebergs drifting in the ocean, and they can even collide with one another. Pandora's indigenous "Na'vi" call these island clusters the "Thundering Rocks" and regard them as an inviolable sacred realm. However, Earthlings came to Pandora precisely to mine the Unobtnium in these giant rocks in order to solve Earth's energy crisis.
These scenes in the film brought Zhangjiajie a great promotional effect, but also some controversy.
Local online media in Zhangjiajie published a report today, saying that Zhangjiajie's South Heaven Pillar (that is, the Qiankun Pillar) was renamed: Avatar's Hallelujah Mountain, and quoted Song Zhiguang, director of the Yuanjiajie Scenic Area Management Committee, explaining that this move conformed to the wishes of the scenic area's original residents and the vast number of tourists, and was absolutely not "fawning on foreign things."
After the news was released, netizens expressed "sorrow" and "indignation" in comments and posts on Huasheng Forum, Tencent News, and elsewhere; this afternoon, the relevant person in charge told an Hunan Online reporter that renaming the Qiankun Pillar was "a spontaneous folk act," not an official statement, but it had been recognized by the local management committee, thereby proving that Zhangjiajie belongs not only to China, but also to the world.
The reporter then discovered that the January 24 issue of Zhangjiajie Daily published a related report, stating that the published content was compiled from representatives' speeches at a symposium held on the afternoon of January 19 by the Municipal Tourism Association on "Using Avatar to Market Zhangjiajie." Those attending the symposium included: the deputy director of the Municipal Tourism Bureau, the publicity specialist of Yellow Dragon Cave Co., Ltd., the director of the Yuanjiajie Scenic Area Management Committee, and the director of the Publicity and Promotion Management Office of the Wulingyuan District Tourism Bureau, among others.
It can be seen that the purpose of the symposium was clear, namely to use Avatar to market Zhangjiajie. Participants also proposed various marketing methods, including "adding Avatar content when all promotional materials are revised," "granting Cameron honorary citizenship and lifetime free admission for his whole family," and so on, hoping to "take multiple measures at once and use the film as an opportunity to adopt various promotional methods; achieve breakthroughs and market Zhangjiajie," and "enter Europe and America."
In fact, the filming location of Avatar is Zhangjiajie. Director Cameron said in an interview with reporters that he had fully learned about the information concerning the dispute over the prototype of the film's floating mountain caused by a remark he made at a press conference in Beijing, China, and acknowledged that the image of Zhangjiajie's Qiankun Pillar shown by the reporter was the prototype of the floating mountain in Avatar." On March 3, 2010, Adrienne Mong, a producer for the U.S. National Broadcasting Company (NBC), made this public statement after completing the filming of a news program on Zhangjiajie's "Avatar Tour." Cameron's position was his first response to Chinese netizens' questioning of his "mistaken attribution" at the Beijing press conference, and also an affirmation that the prototype of Avatar's floating mountain is Zhangjiajie, Hunan.
On December 23, 2009, the American science fiction blockbuster Avatar held a media preview in Beijing. At the Beijing press conference, Avatar director James Cameron said that the prototype of the floating "Hallelujah Mountain" in the film came from Huangshan in China. On December 29 of the same year, private individuals in the Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area of Zhangjiajie, Hunan, discovered that the background image in the film Avatar's promotional posters in various countries looked more like Zhangjiajie's quartz sandstone. After careful verification and comparison, a main mountain peak in the background of the Avatar poster closely resembled the Qiankun Pillar scenic spot in Zhangjiajie (also known as "South Heaven Pillar"). In order to restore the truth, private individuals in Zhangjiajie successively carried out actions to set the record straight, including blasting director Cameron for "talking nonsense," offering a reward of 100,000 to collect a second "floating mountain" worldwide, and even renaming the Qiankun Pillar "Hallelujah Mountain." This caused a national sensation, attracted the "eyes" of media at home and abroad, and also stimulated the "nerves" of the general public. Many geological experts, film scholars, and netizens put forward various pieces of evidence to support the prototype of Avatar's "floating mountain" being Zhangjiajie, Hunan, but none received any response from Cameron himself.
This time, director Cameron acknowledged in an interview with an NBC reporter that the prototype of Avatar's floating mountain is in Zhangjiajie, which in effect corrected his "one wrong sentence" from two months earlier. But why did director Cameron only speak up so late, two months after Chinese netizens publicly questioned him? Industry insiders analyze that while Avatar triggered the dispute over the prototype of the floating mountain, it also boosted attention to Zhangjiajie tourism and boosted Avatar's box office. As Avatar won an Oscar and the time for its withdrawal from the Chinese market approaches, now should be the best time for director Cameron to "correct his mistake" or "tell the truth."
Actually, the internet is like this—where there is praise, there is criticism, and opinions are always mixed, so it all depends on the individual's perspective.