Avatar

2009-12-21 03:29:00

Artie and I went to see Avatar over the weekend. Since the movie is such a leap forward in movie making magic I thought it deserved a post.

The movie is being offered in 3-D and regular screens. Be sure and see it in 3-D for this gives you the full experience. You will feel as much like being there as is possible in a movie to date.

The story wasn't quite as good as the Titanic, also by James Cameron, but the visual was as interesting as the sinking of the ship, but instead of 5 minutes of great special effects you had two and a half hours. Don't get me wrong, the story was good, but the main draw will be the experience. You go to this movie for the same reason you go to Disneyland. You go for the thrill more than any other quality.

This is one of the few movies I would give four stars out of four. There are just a couple things that went against my grain. The first is that the enemy were evil capitalist business people. This follows the mindless lead of almost every movie that comes out of Hollywood. In their movies the villain is either an out-of-control businessman, an insane Christian or a conservative politician. Just once I would like to see the villain be an environmentalist, a left wing politician or government. I think Dirty Harry was the last movie that made fun of the left wing to any degree.

The second thing was the military turned out to be the bad guys. This doesn't send a very good message of supporting our troops.

The third thing was the hero couldn't get replacement legs because he couldn't afford them. Obviously they didn't have full socialized medicine yet.

Fourthly, in the next century when the movie takes place the earth is dying because of reckless environmental policies implying we did not do enough about global warming and other items and capitalism reigned supreme. The people of earth overall were portrayed as great failures seeking to make the same mistakes on another planet.

This attitude of the Left is real as illustrated by environmental protests of the last experiment we did making an explosion on the moon to find water. They claim we are spoiling a pristine environment there. Like one more very small crater on the moon is going to hurt anything.

Unfortunately, the Right has to put political discrimination aside to enjoy most of the movies today for the majority of them try to sneak in some agenda items form the left.

If you are from the Left then the agenda items will only add to the enjoyment, but those on the Right will still be fascinated if they just go with the flow for a couple hours.

One specific thing I found fascinating was the vision of how the computers of the future will work and look.

Rather than repeat what has been said many times I have clipped several well stated comments from other non professional reviews. Here they are:

"Jake Sully, is an ex-marine, bound to a wheel chair. He seeks to make a fresh start on the moon Pandora where his brother worked. The moon has a military run mining colony. The business has brought humans into contact with the local natives, tall blue dudes, called Na'vi. The Na'vi inhabit a part of the moon under which lies a large deposit of valuable minerals, and the humans are trying to get them to relocate. Colonel Quarich who runs the operation, ask Sully to go under cover as a Na'vi, to learn the secrets, to give the humans an advantage. If successful, Sully will get his legs back. The magic of future science and 3-D effects give Sully a handsome genetically engineered Avatar body, and he embarks on his mission. Once on the inside however, his loyalties to the humans start to turn when his heart gets lost to the Na'vi princess Neytiri. Is he willing to fight on the blue side now?"

"I am very happy that the trailers didn't give the full story away. Lots of emotions are waiting for the viewer, laughter and tears also. Cameron was very smart keeping the teasers as teasers, nothing more... as the full movie will take your breath away."

"You will practically not notice that you are watching a non-existing world, it is sooo real. Attention to detail is superb. You computer geeks will know what I am talking about. This move was not rushed in the making. No wonder it could not have been done before - not having the proper computing power."

"The wild life, the jungle, the animals, the Na'vi-s, or the dragon-like flying creatures are all so life-like, they almost pop-off the screen (and in 3D they actually do."

"The sound effects were so well done, that when I saw at the credits that Skywalker Sound was behind it, i could only think of "yessss... now THAT makes sense." Cameron is a visionaire - and again, he delivers, with full blast."

"A certain character says in the movie that Pandora (the planet where the story takes place) became his real world. My advice to you: let Pandora become YOUR real world for two and a half hours, let it make you completely forget about your life and problems, let it entertain you, move you, let it carry you away."

"Because THAT is what I expect as an exchange for my ticket."

"And a few hours ago I got tens of tickets worth of that."