The Avatar
Though it may just be a quite coincidence that the world-wide release of the Movie was synchronized with the World Earth Summit of Copenhagen, 2009, the movie still made news for its technical brilliance and its 3D rendering. Avatar is an epic movie that borrows scenes and even the story-line from various other movies and incidents that happened around the world, upgraded them with brilliant 3D projection systems and delivered it on the silver screen like never before. Perhaps this is the reason for such a grand success of the movie, and the world that has been created for the movie - The Pandora - makes us to explore more of it. I would agree with the person who sat next to me at the movie hall that he felt as if he was back on earth once the movie was over.
There is nothing much to mention about the story though as it is just a re-hash of so many other Hollywood movies that came and went, showing us jaw-dropping technologies that we saw in other Hollywood movies. Avatar the movie creates beautiful world or rather a moon called Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vis, a Paleolithic species. Na’vis are 12 feet tall, tailed, blue skinned humanoids who live in harmony with Nature and worships their goddess called Eywa. These aspects of the Na’vi’s give them an Indian touch with the Na’vi themselves resembling our monkey-gods as also the culture of worshipping female goddess.
The story is about a handicapped US Marine, Jake Sully(played by Sam Worthington) who has been genetically engineered to control his Avatar. His Avatar has been transported to the Moon Pandora as a spy, infiltrating the clan Omaticaya to be specific. His main objective is to induce the native Na’vi’s to migrate from Pandora so that Earthly humans(or rather US) can get their hold on the mineral unobtanium, a valuable mineral which costs up to a million dollars for a kilo. Once inside the clan, Jake falls in love with World, its customs and of course the beautiful Princess Neytiri(played brilliantly by Zoe Saldana). It is this love that ultimately inspires Jake to fight against his own people and save Pandora from humans who are ultimately driven away.
The story has been immensely inspired from other Hollywood flicks. The theme of controlling one’s virtual-self through minds have been shown to us through the Matrix Trilogies and the battle scenes remind us of Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars. Perhaps the biggest inspiration for this movie has been the Kevin Costner classic’Dances With Wolves’ where an injured US Marine trapped within a tribal clan gets drawn to the culture he was initially fighting against. Along the way, I found that the movie is an implicit criticism of America’s lost cause in the Vietnam War as also its War on Terror.
All this apart, Avatar is a movie that one should watch and one should let their children watch, for the simple reason that the movie carries a message - A message that we as part of the nature should respect and love it, and we destroy it and our fellow creatures at our own peril. So watch this classic, enjoy it, and applaud its brilliance in the end, because that is why we all go to see the movie in the theatre. It just won’t disappoint a wee bit
Dir: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Signourney Weaver, Giovani Ribisi