Avatar: The World's most expensive screen-saver

What was in James Cameroon's mind when he had hit upon the idea ?

- 'Dances with the wolves' meets 'Call me Joe'

The timing of the movie release can also be drawn to many parallels in our current world,

- The Copenhagen summit ( Environmental destruction )

- Petrodollar War ( Big Brother attacks Oil rich Gulf )

- Religion ( The concept of God and Religion)

If Cameron hadn't hit the idea of making a spectacularmovie with his US$237 million budget ( currently, the fourth most expensive movie ever ) he could have at least given us an educative documentary.

Avatar, which ploughs through 'Pandora' for an impossible 162 minutes, requires more patience than watching his previous commercial success Titanic.

The motion-capture 3D visuals deserves applause for a technical achievement, but frankly the film did not surprise me. The Religious rituals of the Na’vi made my mind to draw parallel of our own world and then there was a kiss scene - "hey wait, so the aliens kiss too !", although Charlton Heston kissed an Alien-ape in the 1968 movie, the relatively-intimate scenes can be matched to some Animal behavior that you get to watch on any science-channel, it wasn't even close to be called romantic.

The climaticbattle scenes looked like mix of Terminator/Matrix series and the LOTR if they were fighting each-other. Maybe that’s a little too harsh, but certainly Cameron apparently does nothing new with digital warfare that Peter Jackson created in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (To be noted that the complete 10+ hour trilogy-epic-drama was done for a budget of US$285 million), still on a lesser budget spent on Avatar.

Perceptions may vary, but to my eyes, Avatar looks like mixing old wines and serving it in new bottle.

Making a note of years-in-the-making opus in reality has shaped up to divide the fan-camp, with one group calling it the most awe-inspiring sensory experience ever to grace a movie theater, and the other finding it somewhat lacking in areas like story, character, pacing, dialogue, and acting… you know, the ingredients that used to be considered the basic building blocks of a master-piece.

So how is Avatar any different than a hundred other special-effects spectaculars over the past several decades? The technology may be ever-changing, but the central idea remains the same, except that Cameroon had to invent a new language for the movie, introduce Religious material into a commercial entertainer ( Though, already tried in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' )

The story doesn’t quite surprise you either, especially if you’ve seen Dances with Wolves.To put the Plot in simple words : It’s the twenty-second century and we’ve long since run out of oil, but luckily our boys in space have discovered a powerful energy source called unobtanium (not again !) on the distant moon of Pandora. The Lame 'Call me Joe' Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is the one of the agents to obtain this material; with his consciousness  synchronously installed in a genetically engineered body resembling the native Navi.

Jake appears to earn the trust of the locals and help negotiate a peace-deal for both the Earthlings and Locals benefit, but in secret Jake is infiltrating the enemy quarters for information on these Aliens' strengths and weakness, as overseen by the comic-bookish stereo-type Villain, is to, if necessary, motion a Holocaust of the Navi, who are blocking the way of progress.

 Jake, rather than spying falls for the Navi tribal-princess Neytiri (wait, wait again ! that's  Pocahontas).

The lame guy must choose between his Evil-Earthlings and his new blue people.

Predictable isn't it ?


And to end my blog-post; In the movie-theatre there was a little fella' who had come with his dad and I understood Avatar isn't a children's movie and if you were to take your children, the pattern of questions may be as, some of them below:

"Dad, how are they gonna poop with their tails on"

"What is jelly-fish doing in his hair".

"Dad, i don't understand a thing".

"Is there gollum in this movie too ?"

Frankly, Avatar can be put into a category for Guinness-records for the world's longest and most expensive Screen-Saver

Enjoy the movie for its Visual-Fx and Music, otherwise, there is nothing new to say. 

:)

- Peace