Avatar

I saw it the day it opened ... in 3D. I mean, how can you pass up a $500 million special effects extravaganza guaranteed to change the way we watch movies? I'm told that director James Cameron spent ten years developing the 3D camera system to produce this whole effect. So ... 3D it is.

The story is hackneyed. You know ... the good sweet gentle simple folk being threatened by the evil military-industrial complex fight back. If you're looking for a moving, intense story line, you're going to be disappointed. It just wasn't that good.

But I wasn't. I was looking for special effects and I got it. The computer graphics were seamless. At times it had me wondering where they found these 12-foot-tall skinny people to play the parts. And I would have really hated to be the animal trainer on this show, what with all the rotten beasties they had to manage. There were scenes of unparalleled beauty in landscape, flora, and fauna. There were wonderful scenes of flying creatures and their friends who flew with them, of floating mountains, and a forest that lit itself at night. There was cool technology in use by the humans on the planet, ranging from in-depth 3D representations of everything on, above, and below the surface of the planet to the premise of being able to project oneself into another body. The movie title is Avatar, which, as anyone who does online gaming knows, is the alter ego gamers get when they play. There need be no real connection whatsoever between this avatar and the user, and often I suspect there is none. But it gives computer geeks the opportunity to trade their pocket-protectored, bespectacled, nerd appearance for a demigod with a sword -- to be something they're not. So when Jake Sully, a Marine in a wheelchair, gets to run around as a 12' tall being from another planet, that is so cool.

It was effects like these that made the movie quite enjoyable. It was the overwhelming propaganda that almost choked off the movie for me. The whole thing was filled with up front, overt claims that all of life is linked together and we need to honor the actual, living mother planet. James Cameron appears to be a Gaia sympathizer. If you're familiar at all with the Gaia hypothesis, you'd know that there are a group of people out there that believe that the Earth is actually a single organism ... ala Avatar. Fine. It's a distant planet. Whatever. But these special effects ... still, we're not done with the propaganda. You see, it's the big, evil corporations trying to strip-mine the innocent little planet that causes all the problem. They are being protected by the big, evil military who is only, ultimately, interested in killing everything. Rotten military. Fortunately we have Jake Sully who turns traitor to fight his own people. Yeah for the hero! Wait ... the traitor is the hero? Yes, of course, because, once again, "Man was in the forest" (ala Bambi).

I'm tired of being the bad guy just by showing up. I'm tired of being the problem just by being human. I'm tired of being told that human life isn't nearly as important as every plant and animal in the forest. And I'm tired of being told that corporations, the military, and Americans in particular are the bane of all existence. That, dear readers, was the unmistakable message of Avatar.

If you're going for a story line, don't bother. If you're going for a message, run! If you don't need a story line and you can wave off the propaganda, this movie is indeed rich in special effects worthy of the hype. The 3D was the best I've seen yet. The computer graphics were flawless. If you would enjoy 2 1/2 hours of jaw-dropping special effects, this film is for you.