First off, Avatar isn't a revolutionary movie. Yeah, the effects are great, but it doesn't change the way we view movies. In other words, Cameron hasn't given us the paradigm shift that many thought Avatar would be. In fact, I found that the film seemed more like an amalgamation of a few different sci-fi movies from the last two decades, some of them Cameron's own. Case in point, the walking mechanized suits the soldiers wear is straight out of Cameron's Aliens, and the many of the plot points, even down to (the bomb being dropped on the aliens' sacred place) were reminiscent of The Abyss. Beyond these fans of the genre will find similarities to Dune, The Matrix, and District 9.
Like District 9 was to apartheid, Avatar's plot tries to give viewers another perspective of what the American Indians must have experienced when the Europeans came to North American. The plot goes a little something like this: Humans have traveled to the planet Pandora for the specific purpose of mining a special ore found there. This ore though is not easy to come by as Pandora is a very dangerous place covered in dense jungle filled with dangerous creatures. Among these creatures are the human-ish Navii: 10 foot tall blue bi-peds whose religion holds all things on Pandora sacred to their Earth mother deity. The Navii can plug themselves into plants and animals and share and link with them, which makes it all the more ironic that the humans find a way to plug themselves into the Navii. This occurs when a group of scientists looking to study Pandora discover a means to use a machine to download their minds into Navii bodies. These scientists are desperately trying to find a diplomatic means of moving the Navii off of their land so that the corporate types, that fund all the work on Pandora, can get their grubby little hands on the ore that they so desperately covet. Long story short, and unlikely marine, Jake, who has lost the use of his legs, is sent into one of these Navii. He intends to spy on them to make their inevitable confrontation with the human military more of a massacre than a fight. But, as Jake immerses himself in the Navii culture, he begins to question were his loyalty truly lies. The majority of the movie is about acquainting the viewers with Pandora and its inhabitants, while the final 30-45 mins or so come across as a single high octane action sequence.
If this description seems long, it's because the movie itself is quite a marathon; clocking in at 162 min. But in this time, Cameron manages to create a believable second world on Pandora. The culture, the animals, they all fit into the "go green"message that seems so popular during our current global warming crisis. More than that, they manage to gel together to make an ecosystem, for lack of a better word, that fits together logically like puzzle pieces. Viewers can almost sense how the inhabitants of Pandora evolved together and that sense gives the aliens depth.
I can't mention the believability of Pandora without talking about the special effects of the movie. The CGI was seamless, blending the actors real features with animated ones. What amazed me the most, had to be the 3-D. What truly made it spectacular was the tiny details which were added to the foregrounds. For example, while in the jungle, gnats and flies buzzed in front of the characters; just as during a scene featuring an explosion small pieces of ash floated down by them. Yes, the wide expansive panoramas were breathtaking, but these small details made the scene seem so real that there were moments when it almost seemed like I was watching a stage play going on, rather than a flat image on a 2-D screen.
Let me just close this lengthy post, by saying that Avatar wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen. In fact, I don't know if I'd even put it in my top ten. But, for a summer blockbuster the movie was quite entertaining, especially for a younger person who might not be familiar with Cameron's other works. Despite, the length and some of the heavy handed messages embedded in the plot, I'd recommend this film to anyone looking to sit back and kill 3 hours without having to think too much.
