The Movies "AVATAR": My Impressions

A number of us from church who are avid science fiction fans decided to go see "Avatar" on Friday. There's good news and bad news. The good news is that, for a 2.5 hour movie, it was entertaining enough to keep even you attentive even if you're watching the late showing. It is visually stunning, even in 2D (our theater doesn't have 3D, or stadium seating...heck, I'm happy they don't have the projector sitting on boards across a couple of rows of seats!). The moon of Pandora is exceptionally colorful and the details are so rich that you often forget it's CGI. The melding of the live-action parts and CGI is almost seamless...almost. The acting is generally good, but not as deep as I would like, but given the almost constant action it's difficult to allow much depth of character. I'm normally a Sigourney Weaver fan, but I was a bit disappointed in her performance. If you take the story on the most superficial of terms then you can't help but enjoy what would appear to be a good vs. evil core.

But now for the bad news. This story is loosely based on the story of Pocahontas. That's not necessarily bad. But James Cameron, whose last good movie in my opinion was "The Abyss", is clearly completely sold out to the anti-capitalist, GAIA-loving element. You don't have to scratch the surface of the storyline to see it's really a corporate-greed-plus-military-hating-might-makes-right plot. It also is very obvious that the "our planet is a living being and we are all connected" idea is practically rubbed in your face. I mean literally. The humanoid inhabitants of Pandora literally take their braided ponytails that have an odd mini-tendriled end and connect them to similarly endowed plants and animals to "share" entities with them. That's how they "bond" with them.

Of course, the bumbling military and the greedy corporate types don't "get it" and simply run roughshod over the territory, animals and indigenous sentients to get to the mineral they are there to mine. You learn to hate them more and more throughout the film right up to the inevitable battle royale the ensues at the climax of the film.

So, from that aspect of it, I was completely insulted by the story. James Cameron is a brilliant filmmaker but a doofus when it comes to pushing an agenda.

Also, as someone who actually has a brain and understands real science (unlike all your global-warming enthusiasts out there) I was frustrated by some pretty impossible things in the movie. First off, Pandora is a moon closely orbiting a gas giant planet similar to Jupiter. I have news for you...the gravitational forces alone would make a lush, life-supporting environment such as that virtually impossible. In fact, I can almost guarantee you that it would wreak tectonic havoc with Pandora and what you would see would be mostly earthquakes (Pandoraquakes?) and volcanoes galore. Then you have the "floating mountains". There is no explanation as to what would actually make huge chunks of rock and soil (and, naturally, the trees and foliage) float, nearly in static positions (there are tendrils of plant life that connect between many of these 'mountains') above the rest of the planet. Again, it made for visually amazing sequences, but you have to suspend any believe in geophysics whatsoever. And then there are the big, armed metal exoskeletons the Marines use. Remember the cargo lifter that Ripley battled the Alien Queen with in "Aliens"? Imagine something like that, but faster and more articulate. Again, some of the physics was just not believable -- like dropping six stories inside one and landing on the ground without damaging the machine. Yeah, right.

Okay, a couple of final negatives. THIS IS NOT A MOVIE FOR KIDS. The language is simply unacceptable. It's profuse through so much of the film and the Lord's name is taken in vain so many times, it's just ridiculous. It's not necessary to the plot. Period. And, although the inhabitants of Pandora are completely fictitious and computer-generated, it was like watching an episode of National Geographic. While not in-your-face obvious, the extremely simplistic native trinkets covering the breasts of the females left little to the imagination.

Final thought. I suppose I could make the case that the efforts of the main character, Jake Sully, to convince his Marine boss and the corporate types that they were ignorant and headed down the wrong path, one that would inevitably meet with disaster, is quite similar to the American people attempting to get Obama, Reid and Pelosi to quite screwing around with health care, stimulus, cap & trade, because THEY will inevitably lead to disaster. But, of course, they--and those who support them--ARE ignorant, and wouldn't see that in the film anyway, even if that was Cameron's agenda...which it isn't.

So, if you are an adult and can stomach the language, it's an entertaining film to see. Or if you are a Godless secularist who doesn't care what you pump into your kids, you can take them, too. You probably talk to your kids like that anyway.