Avatar

Well instead of whining around about my Xbox, I decided to do productive things. Well actually, I spent like 2 hours clearing the Brecilian Ruins in Dragon Age with my unbelievably fast Duncan-looking rogue with maximised attack speed *Bssh Bssh Bssh*, but back to the topic about "productivity" ...

I watched Avatar! on DVD of course. I didn't get to watch it when it was at its peak in popularity. I don't know why either. Anyway, I finally got the chance to catch it, albeit on the Sony DVD player in my living room, which is laggy at times, and some of the subtitles fail to appear and the screen is unnaturally pale ... YET ...

I thought that it was absolutely awesome! You know that a movie has made its mark visually when you are just awestruck by the scenery even though its not in 3D and its pirated nature makes it look pale. I can just imagine what it would have looked like in cinemas.

Again, I would like to reinforce how amazed I was by the various creatures, the Na'vi, the forest and so much more. Of course, my absolute favourite would have been the Hallelujah Mountains, the floating mountains in the sky with the beautiful waterfalls. And the all the night scenes with the bioluminescent flora and fauna, just WOW.

The story was very powerful as well. The prideful and greedy human race attempting to claim the precious element unobtainium( a pun geddit? ) by force, destroying the indigenous Na'vi and all that is dear to them in the process. The victimised Na'vi race, united by the protaganist Avatar, show the foreign invaders that they won't be pushed around and drive them out of Pandora. Amazing.

Yet, behind all this, I feel that there was a secret message. The classic conflict between the needs of mankind and nature itself. One line by the protaganist Jake Sully just really really struck me. At the Tree of Souls, he told "Eywa" (the deity of the Na'vi),

" These people killed their mother. And now they want to kill ours."

Obviously referring to the natural plight of Earth. Is this a foreshadowing of what is to happen to Earth? James Cameron allowed us to see how amazing nature is at her finest, and what we will do and have already foresaken to fulfill our material needs. Pandora, in its essence, is somewhat of a naked image of nature and biology and more importantly, a common visage of that ideal world that we all wanna be in. ( At least, for me ). Maybe if we wanna make Pandora a reality, we should just stop in our tracks in mitigate the degradation of our Earth itself. I'm certainly gonna do more to save the Earth now.

One of the things I didn't really LOVE was the villanous aspect of the movie. I, for one, find the villains and antagonists of any entertaining medium, be it games or movies, to be really integral to the overall experience. Unlike most people, I always try to understand the motivations of these villains so that they appeal to me as not just one-dimensional characters. Take for example, Saren from Mass Effect 1, a top-Spectre gone rogue. Sure he blasted the head of one of his fellow Spectres Nihlus on Eden Prime, but by the end of the game or if you've read the novel Revelation, you'll find that all he did, he did so because he thought that he was protecting his beloved universe. For me, this made me sympathise with him and thus he struck me as a powerful villain.

Here, the villain comes across as, and is epitomised by the tough-as-nails Colonel WhatsHisName. Well, I just really hated him. Lol. He just came across as the loser who doesn't understand how precious the environment and life is. "Well, well ,well , I just like to blow things up and shoot people who get in my way," seems to be his life motto. I don't know, I just could not sympathise with him in any way! So I hated him! Edward Cullen has a new contender!

By the way, can I just mention how the movie also has some kind of "Hell Yeah/ That was bloody awesome" aspect? I think that the part where Jake Sully tames the Turok, the crimson red alpha giant winged beast, really appealed to the fanboy in all of us.

Well there it is. Its 5.59 a.m. in the morning and I'm getting tired. In all, a visually outstanding, breath-taking movie with a deep and powerful narrative. I really loved it and I know why all of you do too :)