Avatar, 2009

Avatar, 2009. Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana (voice of Neytiri), Sigourney Weaver





Stage: Colloseum, movie Theater. Technique: 2D

In short: A paraplegic marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home


Pre-expectations/Preps: A sudden rush/herdes of people massively moving to slovenian theatres, crowding the box office windows. When you have that sheep-ish instinct of going because everyone else is and all without exception urge you to go, because it's the greatest thing lately and worth seeing in 3D. Even though you need to invest approx three hours in seeing this. A new masterpiece, expected to win approx 50 globe awards and oscars, mostly on effects and less on cast and scenario. The trailer is amazing, takes you somehow to two oldies - Labirynth mixed with Neverending Story. And of course, avatar as the symbol of the new era. Who doesn't have a sexy avatar? Who wouldn't want it? Well, in this world you cannot exist without it.


Reality: The tickets for the 3D are long gone. Again, made the mistake of assuming they would somehow be available. With the sheep-like rush of the people at the time of seeing the movie, pretty naive of me. However, I was glad not to be standing in a special queue just to get the glasses (and pay for them separately - only god could probably assume what those weird managers in theatre were thinking when organizing this)

Why see it?
Avatar amazes with its scenes, photography, costumes, all the technical details I expected to burn my brains. I am missing a pre-scene /or lets say background. What year is it that this is happening? why don't we see where we stand on earth at that moment? The action is pushed to the moment of landing on the moon and then proceeds in a stampedo of battles that are determined to be lost.

The story

Range of associations come with the scenario. Similar to Gorillas in the mist or Dances with Wolves, maybe some ideas from Stargate (the transfer to the avatar for a person is brought through a tunnel, quite similar to that one they used in Stargate to come to another world)

So why is the story, compared to technical aspect of Avatar, so poor? You have "brave" and greedy Earth people (ok, american people :) ) that land on a rich land, property of someone else. And if they cannot get the goodies free of charge and by friendly persuasion, why not just blow the natives away and just take everything away. And the battle, (how american really), if it's done with heart and soul, some help of gods, the battle for the natives cannot be lost (and in this case they surprisingly win). The scenario obviously isn't what thrilled me anyway. The story is too much of a cliche to pour in my veins effectively.


However, the perfect avatar world, the amazing scenes that were created up to the last detail, hanging mountains and a big tree that hosts so many users, the idea that you can be born as an avatar and create another reality, this is actually the thing worth seeing. This is where the movie has its lungs. The creators made an impressive dreamworld. So good, that it sucks the main character fully in and makes him change his reality, switch sides, determine good from bad. Interesting also from philosophical perspective. If you dislike your real world, you can live in this alternative. Gain legs, if you don't have them, create romance under flashing blessed tree you never get to see in your real life, you can fly, catch dragons. Sounds excellent, right? All the stuff you only get to do in video or PC games.

It's not really believable for the spectator, that we would have only a few boxes and only a few people that could be transferred into Avatars - even though it is a government/military secret. Unless you think of this Matrix - like (if you remember, there were newborns/cocoons in bubbles, grown only to feed existing persons in sub-reality of Matrix). In this sense we would probably have numerous Avatars just being in some boxes stashed somewhere on Earth, wired to the electricity and connected to an Avatar world they would probably choose for themselves - and I mean probably all population on Earth would go for it. Who wouldn't at least for some time, live in a fairy tale he could create by himself? Everybody, of course. And this could easily be sold at a very high price, so I guess from marketing perspective it's an idea worth putting on a market, if it could be developed. That's why it is not very likely or believable, when you watch the movie.


How about the main flow of the movie?
I think that the main idea I see in the movie can be narrowed to the thought main character made just as he realized that he's really living the Avatar life (the dream) and doesn't really want to turn back to his real life outside the box.

Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream.

The "love" in this world. True or false?

Maybe a practical dilemma .. ever imagined that an avatar falls in love? At least when you are plugged in :) Here the love scenes somehow remind me of a Disney cartoon (for instance Pocahontas :), but they are also used to show the spectator beautiful scenery the creators draw and is really worth seeing. The hurt, deriving from frustrating thought, that you can fall in love with a person you can not be with for real and exists only as a plug-in choice, that's something new for this genre. And, also a benefit - if you ever get fed up of this person, you can just plug yourself out and make the world dissappear for as long as you please. Also some liberating feminist thoughts occur in my mind when seeing supremacy of a woman, fighting, jumping and flying better than at least half of other Navi's or earthlings. Very modern.


My personal rating: 8,5 (you will enjoy it for sure, just don't expect too much of the story). I thought of going on another occasion to see it in 3D. I didn't. I have at least three hours of reasons :) But it is a movie I will see again on an occasion.



p.s. IMDB peak: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/
other interesting articles on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(disambiguation): Avatar is the graphical representation of a user.

Official Avatar site: http://www.avatarmovie.com/