Avatar – It was alright…1

So, I am not the only one who didn’t like Avatar. But damn it, peer pressure almost made me crumble. My sister especially, claiming that I just didn’t “get it”, that part of the brilliance was the fact that the planet was called Pandora – a reference to Greek mythology… She didn’t put it quite so succinctly, but I got her point. I didn’t have a ready retort for her however because, well it would have been the same answer as what I gave five minutes before, right after the movie finished – “It’s not new, it’s not different, it’s been done before”. Though I couldn’t think of any examples there and then. Also, I think as a self-professed movie buff & Empire worshipper, she’s biased, and therefore easily pleased. Me, I’m a difficult sumbitch, and as it would seem, I don’t react well to what I’ve now termed ‘Overhype’.

Overhype, for me, is the Number. 1 reason I didn’t completely enjoy Watchmen as much as I could have, and was pissed off at Public Enemies. I was left with the same feelings and thoughts at the end of those movies as when I finished watching Avatar: “Is that it? I thought there’d be more…” “Why do I feel cheated?” “What is this hole that still remains inside me after that.” “Why is everyone else smiling?” “WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?”

The answer to the last of course, is “Nothing”. I thought that maybe some more screen time and hence insight, into the lives of the Na’vi people might be what I needed… but then the end of The Matrix Revolutions left me feeling similarly bereft, though I spent a few hours in Zion alone, and I still count it as being in the Top 4 trilogies of all time, and Top 3 if The Godfather goes without saying.

** SPOILER ALERT**

No, I think what did (or didn’t do) it for me, was that I thought the story line was incredibly simple and predictable. Americans go somewhere foreign because it’s got something they want and think they need, and the locals and rightful owners of said unobtainable item are predictably less than pleased at the intruders. Chaos ensues.

I thought that the animals (and trees in my opinion), should have been enlisted in the war sooner. Common sense, if they’re all ‘connected’. I had visions of that Pocahontas’ song in the Disney classic whilst standing on that cliff, or was she running through the land, I forget. Oh, and another point in the Pocahontas theory (the plot is the first link), the blue people were referred to as “savages” by the Americans, almost definitely by the Duke Nukem-like Colonel. I liked him, he made me laugh. Apparently I’m not the first to notice a link with the Disney film though. STW to find out more.

Finally, I thought that the visually stunning 3D graphics and imagery were what all the hype should have been about. If the hype had been done properly, it wouldn’t have become Overhype, and I wouldn’t have gone in there with such high-hopes. I enjoyed the beauty of the scenery, and the pretty life-like movements of Avatars and animals alike – my favourite was the little firefly type insect with the red and yellow fan-like wings. The whole land was like Nemo, but not on Planet earth, and not under water, and probably a few more millions worth of graphical magic. I even enjoyed the collective rocking of the Omaticaya when (praying) to Eywa, it reminded me of a TV advert or something, but I can’t find proof/clarification online.

All of which points to the fact that the movie was a whole list of borrowed ideas, clichés, puns (before the movie came out, to those in the know, an Avatar was basically a graphical representation of a human being in a virtual world), basic one-liners, and predictable Hollywood cheese, well laid over a typical happy ending (where’s Tarantino when you need him?). And all the things I’ve just listed do not take 10 years to make, except if, I guess, you’re on an alien planet where the Oxygen balance is not at all constant from day-to-day because of stupid idiots with guns.

Still, maybe I’m just bitter because I saw all this coming when I saw the trailer, but I still took the bait.

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