Andrea and I finally got the chance to watch James Cameron’s latest action flick, Avatar in 3D at Century at Tanforan here in San Bruno. This has been one of, if not, the most highly anticipated movie of this last year 2009/2010 with an estimated budget of $237 million ((http://www.thewrap.com/article/true-cost-and-consequences-avatar-11206?page=1)).
In case you’ve been living in a cave and haven’t heard about Avatar, here’s the official movie trailer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEt3qLG-cAM[/youtube]
Avatar follows the story of a paraplegic former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who agrees to sign on with RDA Corporation taking his deceased scientist brother’s place as an avatar pilot because Sully shares the same genome necessary to use the highly expensive Avatars. He arrives on Pandora after a long trip from Earth to join other former Marines commanded by Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) all hired to provide private security for the mining operation on Pandora led by Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi). RDA Corp. is looking to mine a “valuable mineral called unobatium, worth $20 million per kilogram back on Earth” ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29)). Also working for RDA Corp. is Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) who heads the Avatar program and involved in understanding and learning about the Na’vi, indigenous cat-like people of Pandora who are untrusting of humans after several mishaps. Neytiri (Zoë Saldana), a Na’vi warrior rescues Sully from a near-death experience and is later tasked with teaching him the ways of the Na’vi. From there, the two-and-half hour-long movie is a non-stop action/adventure/love story movie that touches on many topics from corporate greed to love and acceptance.
While I certainly agree this movie was amazing, I’m not sure if I would consider it among the best movies I’ve seen. Here are a few reasons why:
Original Storyline
The story goes that James Cameron began developing the concept and wrote an 80-page script of Avatar back in 1994 ((http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20007998,00.html)) but didn’t start making the movie until 2006 because the existing technology wasn’t available to satisfy Cameron’s vision ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29)).
In Avatar, the indigenous people of the planet, the Na’vi are spiritually connected with the land. They seek not to disturb the balance of nature, taking and using only what they need and leaving the rest undisturbed. Humans (through the RDA Corporation), however, have come from a far distance to seek out a valuable mineral, a majority of which happens to be situated under a huge tree, called the Hometree which is home to the Omaticaya clan. The humans have two choices to obtain the valuable mineral unobatium: through force or negotiation. Through force they would wipe out the Omaticaya clan or through negotiation they would relocate the clan. Either choice would mean that RDA Corp would bull-doze the entire forest to get access to the unobatium that is beneath. Now if this storyline doesn’t sound familiar, I would recommend you read the history of North America, it’s founding, and the Native Americans. The Na’vi’s language and culture seem very similar to Native Americans from their dress, weapons, beliefs, and etc ((http://www.scifisquad.com/2009/12/18/avatar-and-the-culture-of-the-navi/)).
That’s not to say a good or great movie can’t be inspired from an existing story, but watching Avatar felt like watching the history of North America told through sci-fi allegory.
Visual Orgasm
The computer-generated imagery is nothing short of amazing. Watching it in 3D, there were moments where you feel like you can reach out and grab hold of something. While it was hard to tell at some parts what was real and what was CGI, there was so much you could suffer from sensory overload and other scenes where it felt too CGI such as riding on the Ikran. Brings me to my next point.
Better Video Game Than Movie
This might sound like harsh criticism, but this movie feels like a big advertising for a video game. If I hadn’t known better, I would have figured the video game inspired the movie rather than the other way around.
Good vs Evil
Throughout the movie the characters seem too one-dimensionally defined as “good” or “evil” which leads to predictable plots ((http://www.yesnomeh.com/2009/12/avatar-good-vs-evil-aliens-vs-humans.html)) ((http://www.twotalkingmonkeys.com/news/avatar-review-good-bad-and-indifferent-how-about-you-spoiler-alert/)). In my opinion, it would have been more interesting if certain characters, such as Colonel Quaritch, had a less definable evil personality to them. It’s no surprise when we are first introduced to the Colonel that he would be one of the movie’s antagonist. I don’t want to give away too much of the movie, but this much is apparent: Na’vi = good, can do no wrong and RDA = bad, can do no right. Boring.
Conclusion
There’s no question that Andrea and I enjoyed Avatar. It was a very, very good movie and shows the possibilities with film technology and we certainly look forward to the sequels.
Anyone have any thoughts? Agree or disagree?
While the CAO MX2 Robusto isn’t the best looking cigar, it is very well-built without any soft spots when squeezed throughout. Present are some minimal veins that runs throughout the oily sheen maduro wrapper. While most maduro cigars have a maduro wrapper, the MX2 has both a maduro wrapper and binder, thus the MX2 designation, Maduro x 2.
So what does this cigar taste like? Dark chocolate, coffee, and pepper are dominate tastes I get throughout, all of which are quite pleasing to the palate. The Mx2 leaves a nice spicy tingling feel on my tongue each time I take a draw. The unique flavor has to do with the four different fillers blended with the maduro wrapper and binder.
that you can buy. My local store only had two and I chose the better finish in my opinion.
from Cigar Loft and Lounge, it has worked perfectly. Sure, it doesn’t always light 100% of the time, but I’ve never had a lighter that did. What I’ve found with the Zippo Blu is that it’s a different kind of butane lighter. The flint system on the Blu is a bit tricky, but once you get it down, you’ll find it works great. I, too, was hesitant about how well the butane flint system would work, but when people see me using it and try it out, they love it.
, 
, or some other 
The story is about a couple: Micah (Micah Sloat), a day trader, and his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston), a student, who live together in Micah’s house in San Diego, CA. They have a fairly normal life with the exception of Katie being haunted by a ghost. Micah, skeptical, buys a video camera to see if he can record any paranormal activity. The entire movie is presented from the perspective of the video camera that Micah purchases, much like the The Blair Witch Project but without the nauseating shakiness. At some point, Katie contacts Dr. Fredrichs, a self-professed physic, to help them when is unable to deal with the haunting any further and just wants to end it once and for all. He meets with the couple and offers advice along the lines that they should make no attempt to communicate or anger the entity and running away would not help Katie either as the entity would just follow her. Micah dismisses Dr. Fredrichs and his advice as quackery and begins to antagonize the entity who is haunting Katie which leads to some very shocking and disturbing consequences.
I found Will Shekaib (store owner) and “Z”, Will’s cousin, very personable, professional, friendly and knowledgeable especially in helping me, a 
; I selected the Shadow Lighter Dark ($54.95) as the Sable ($51.95) had a plastic cover cheap feel to it. I also purchased a large can of Vector premium refined gas that is “Quintuplus filtered 5+ times” for ~$7, as the cheap butane refill gas that I’ve using are crap and causing my lighters to perform less than satisfactory. A testament to their service, I had a bit of a struggle in filling my newly purchased Zippo Blu and Z took the initiative to help and spent the time to show me how to properly fill it.
Liam Neeson is a great actor who takes Mills and makes him feel like an everyday person despite being a secret agent. Mills is far from rich, he has his flaws, and has no depth to where he would go to save his child from danger. He’s the super-dad without being the Hollywood super-dad where he jumps building-to-building, get shot at but never wounded, or captured. Mills kicks major ass in this movie, fueled by the unstoppable raison d’être to rescue his daughter before she’s lost forever. He doesn’t have an army, special forces, fancy James Bond technology, or even “inside” help for that matter. It’s just one man against many, risking his life to save his daughter.
