Everyone is flocking to see Avatar. Even though this film has made incredible strides in digital 3D animation, one of the most important components of Avatar is the sound design.

In Avatar, a paraplegic ex-marine is sent to establish a human settlement on the distant planet of Pandora, only to find him battling humankind alongside the planet's indigenous Na'vi

The sound design, like the visuals, is rich and paints an audio pallet of landscapes, animals and humanoids like never before. But how well does the sound design tell the story

Let’s compare it to another 3D space adventure, WALL-E

WALL-E is a about a wide-eyed robot who travels to the deepest reaches of outer space in search of a newfound friend. The year is 2700, and planet Earth has long been uninhabitable. For hundreds of years, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) has been cleaning up the mess mankind left behind while collecting precious knick-knacks in order to stave off the boredom of his dreary routine.

In both films, our lonely hero meets the heroine who introduces him to an exciting new world that the hero must save. As I’ve stated in earlier blogs, the role of the sound designer is to tell the same story the director is telling, only with sound instead of pictures. The first half-hour of WALL-E is a challenge to a sound designer because there is no dialog. Sound is used to help us to get to know WALL-E. The sound of WALL-E is almost its own character, giving WALL-E all the range of human emotion so we, as the audience, can understand both his loneliness and his love for Eve.

In Avatar, a revolutionary system was used that allows the facial expressions of actors to be captured as a virtual camera system, enabling them to see what their computer-generated counterparts will be seeing in the film. This visual system is so strong that the sound almost takes a back seat. The sound design for Avatar supports the environment, but not much else.

Both films had important, challenging tasks, and both had completely different approaches. Which film told their story better using sound? My vote goes to WALL-E.