"There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much." - Dr. Augustine Grace from 'Avatar'
James Cameron's 'Avatar' is probably going to be one of the best movies I've ever watched in my whole darn life. I had heard and read so much about this movie before going to watch it that I was initially worried that I would be disappointed by all the hype it had generated. Well, it certainly didn't disappoint! To quote Jake Sully, it was simply "Outstanding!"
There are so many reasons why 'Avatar' was such a fantastic movie. First of all the cast was fantastic, especially those acting as the Na'vi. I think Sam Worthington acted very well in this movie and there's no doubt that he is in for super stardom. This film would catapult him to the echelons of Hollywood and I think we have just witnessed the rise of a new action superstar. His portrayal of Jake Sully made the hero very likeable, and you feel for him when he faces so many life changing experiences in the movie. Zoe Saldana's portrayal of Neytiri, the Na'vi princess was also fantastic - her flashes of pure joy and anger, her snares, her posture was so convincing that she brought a potentially difficult character to life. Stephen Lang plays Miles Quaritch, the crazy warmongering Colonel with such a single minded determination that its hard not to want him dead, chewed and torn into a million fragments by a dozen Banshees and ultimately passed out into a sea of excrement. Other notable performances by Sigourney Weaver as scientist-mentor Dr Augustine Grace and Michelle Rodriguez as Helicopter pilot Truddy also add solid performances to the fantastic ensemble cast.
Apart from the cast, I was also simply awestruck at the amazing detail and depth James Cameron had invested within this movie to create a universe as realistic as Pandora. The technological achievement is just astounding, the level of creativity simply amazing. Watching the actors performances being fully translated onto the computer generated Na'vi was just an amazing feat of technology that was just awe-inspiring. Every motion was so fluid, every emotion so brilliantly captured that you really don't think that its computer generated at all. And the cinematography, the landscapes were just AWESOME. Seeing those scenes of Jake and Neytiri flying through the amazing backdrop of floating mountains and waterfalls was like poetry in motion. Fantastic!
But for all the technical breakthroughs that the film has managed to attain, I would think that the strongest draw for me is the epic tale that it so seamlessly puts together.
'Avatar' has a relatively simple plot. It is no 'Sherlock Holmes' (another film I managed to catch this week that's quite good, but not as fantastic as Avatar!) in terms of its plot twists and convolutions. It has a very predictable plot filled with characters that have stereotypical personalities and serve their typical functions in such a story. Some would even label it as 'Pocahontas in Space'. But despite its simple plot, I found the movie strangely touching and inspiring; in the hands of a lesser director, such a run of the mill, almost cliche story would appear ridiculous, but in the hands of a master like James Cameron, it became an epic tale with a heart.
The story has so many elements to it, so many layers of depth that it really is a masterpiece. On the surface, its the usual tale of Nature vs Machine: of the importance of respecting our natural world, of protecting the balance of nature and life, of the triumph of mother nature over the corrupted, polluted world of mankind - themes all too familiar to us, the generation that has to deal with the very serious notion of global warming and a dying planet. But dissect it further and you'll realize that its also a story of one man's own desire to free himself from the hopelessness and dredges of a life that no longer has any meaning to him.
Here you have Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-marine with nothing to look forward to with regards to a life on earth, who decides to embark on this project for a fresh start in another planet: and look what at what he gains! A whole new life, one ultimately so much more beautiful and exhilarating that the life back on earth, trapped in a wheel chair; a life that he truly comes to love. Its a story of rediscovering oneself and rebirth, and the scene where Jake Sully first uses his Avatar body and discovers he can walk again has to be one of the most touching scenes in the movie ever - you can almost feel his joy on being able to walk, run, jump, feel with his feet again! It was amazing.
I think everyone out there hopes to have a means of escaping from reality and one of the reasons why 'Avatar' is proving to be so popular is the fact that it provides some sort of escapism that we so dearly desire. Wouldn't it be perfect if we could just plug our consciousness into a mainframe and live our lives in an alternate body in another beautiful universe? Its a twist on the concept first introduced in the Matrix, but in that case, the universe we end up getting plugged in is a form of slavery. Pandora however, is the opposite - it represents a beautiful world of freedom and infinite possibilities, one in which you can fly atop great ferocious flying beasts, prance through beautiful bio luminescent forests or witness stunningly beautiful waterfalls and floating mountains. To be able to escape to such a world, even if its just for 160 mins, is just awesome. I would be willing to watch it another time just to recapture that magic all over again!
"Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream." - Jake Sully from 'Avatar'
I love this quote from the movie. Its true isn't it? Sometimes, you enjoy the world you are in while dreaming, so much so that its a pain to return to reality. And the boundary between reality and dream scape is blurred indefinitely. But ultimately, dreams are just dreams, and we can't live in them for eternity. We aren't as lucky as Jake Sully who was able to transfer his soul from a horrible dream into a Utopian reality. Perhaps one day, we will be able to relive our lives by plugging our consciousness into a new body, but before that day arrives, we have to make do with living in our current realities and re-watching Avatar and its sequels to come, because that's as close to utopia that we can get.
