James Cameron has outdone himself. Avatar is everything he bragged it would be and more. Avatar is the improbable tale of the ascendancy of an alien species as the unintended consequence of human greed and lack of understanding. Might does not make right Cameron says, and to prove it he showed us why from every conceivable camera angle.
Normally 3D is designed to hit us in the face. Cameron’s 3D is different. It is like a clever popup book. Usually moviegoers have three choices. Watch any given film is regular definition on a big screen at the theater, watch it on DVD in high definition at home, or enjoy it (if available) in 3D with wild images aimed at our heads. Cameron is the first to transform 3D into a vehicle for delivering 1080HD to our theaters. Rather than having jagged objects fly at our faces, he has chosen to make Real D 3D into movie theater high def. This means we are treated to better spatiality and thus more to notice and awe at than ever before. His team is a group of visual magicians.
The storyline leaves everything to be desired. Avatar is like half and half. Good for an additive but still only half appealing and half bitter. Visually dazzling yes, but it offers weak a weak storyline that makes even the most avid sci-fi fans cringe. A crippled marine arrives on Planet Pandorum which is apparently identical to Earth except for the inhabitants. They are 10 foot tall blue skinned, leopard eyed warriors. These mystical creatures thrive as part of the planetary ecosystem. Every creature is interconnected for its survival. This concept is lost on the marines who eventually attack in a concerted effort at ecological and species genocide. Our crippled marine (Jake Sully) is at first torn. He is asked to report to the marines' commander who is both bellicose and dimwitted, a lethal combination. But his assignment is to use his avatar to infiltrate a local village in an effort to convince them to leave before their homeland is bulldozed. The marines are employed to obtain a certain rock that is sold for $20,000,000.00 on Earth.
An Avatar is a member of the indigenous alien species whose genetics have been fused in a laboratory with human DNA. This makes it similar to the natives and operable by marines or scientists in laboratory apparatuses. Jake Sully uses his Avatar to live among an alien tribe. Gradually he loses all sense of reality and falls madly in love with their race and with his female teacher. Before vowing to protect them, as was his duty, Sully gave the marine commander the necessary intel to stage a successful invasion. When he decides to protect his local friends and his lover, he is killed as a human and miraculously resurrected as his avatar. After a profound and visually dazzling look inside the alien’s culture and way of life, the marines have exhausted their deadline and decide to attack. At first this leads to tragic death and destruction, but ultimately the aliens prevail and seize control of their planet. Being the only survivor from the human race, Jake Sully as aforementioned is turned into his Avatar and lives presumably happy ever after.
The issues I have with Avatar are simple questions. Why did a marine decide to betray the human race in order to become an alien? Is that not genocidal and traitorous? Why were the aliens so accepting and gullible? Why were there only 2,000 aliens on a massive planet capable of sustaining billions of lives? How did the aliens learn English? How long does it take to travel from Earth to Pandorum? What specifically is the 20 million dollar rock? Finally, what makes a bow and arrow so appealing to people but weapons of mass destruction to barbaric? I thought primitive = barbaric. What did I miss?
As you may be able to tell these are merely issues and not problems. I neither loved nor hated Avatar, I walked away happy. There is an old expression. (Paraphrasing) If you are going to be viable, master at least one thing. They mastered aesthetics, they sort of failed storytelling. So be it, I will take the half and half because it is still better than 50% of everything else out there.
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