SCI FI PI

Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi
Directed by James Cameron
Rated TBA
Released Dec 17

It's hard to imagine a more pointless task than writing a film review for Avatar in a Sci Fi blog. Even if you're unconvinced by the trailers, the featurettes, the images, the hype and the raves already posted online by film critics, you're still going to see it to find out what all the fuss is about.

If you managed to avoid the brunt of the hype and footage, and know relatively little about Avatar, you're amongst the luckiest people in the movie-going populace.

You'll go into this fresh, and you'll enter the world of Pandora like Jake Sully - wary, but ready for adventure.

The film has been made to be experienced in 3D and on the big screen, with big sound. You don't just see Avatar, you experience it.

That is all. Just go see it. Avatar is a Sci Fi cathedral.





For those who want to 'get into it', here's a little more about the film, with some pros and cons about what you may or may not have heard about it.

One of the common statements that directors make is 'I want to create a whole new world". Never was that more true than of James Cameron's Pandora. From the opening shots of a well thought out space craft over a perfectly thought out alien planetary cluster, you know that you are in the hands of someone who said 'this is how it should look like" and didn't stop until it was right.

Some people have used the phrase 'Dances With Wolves meets Aliens". Frankly, Dances With Wolves won The Best Picture Oscar. It's a great story.





Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Aliens are considered some of the finest (if not THE finest) Sci Fi action films ever made. Expecting failure from James Cameron with Avatar is a poor position to put oneself in.

The last time lots of people expected failure from Mr Cameron, the end result was the best picture Oscar and the highest grossing film of all time.

Yes. The film does have similarities to stories and characters that we've seen before, but it is that very similarity that creates the film's magic. It is a favourite tale retold - that bedtime story that you enjoyed hearing over and over again - it is a mainline to the campfire stories of our ancestors, and is filled with the archetypes that people who can hammer on about Joseph Campbell and The Hero With a Thousand Faces will tell you about. You can use 'stock' and 'archetype' as interchangeable nouns - it's just the quality of film that decides which is more appropriate.

Whether the 3D and CG convinces is up to you. Claims that the CG is rubbish are, however, widely inaccurate. Shots of the Hallelujah, or Floating Mountains, are breathtaking. Pandora's luminescent forest is a sight to behold. The sky, filled with the gas giant Polyphemous, is exactly what a Sci Fi fan needs on the big screen. The Na'vi, with their own luminescence, wrinkles, crow's feet, sweat and facepaint, are extraordinary.





The key point about Avatar is the execution - every moment, every line, every story beat is there for a reason. Every shot adds to the film to the Sci Fi fan looking for a good Sci Fi movie. It seems perfectly obvious, but when you see a movie, looking for faults, and you don't find any gaping wounds, the end result is uplifting. When that film transports you successfully to another world, the sensation is like no other. In 3D, with big sound, the experience is immersive.

The world of Pandora will linger with you for days after the film. The film and the planet are physically beautiful. We're not just talking sexy blue cat-like aliens, we're talking about a lush jungle where the strange creatures and plants bear resemblance to things we may have seen or heard about on earth, but have that extra twist. It is 'recognisably alien', just like the customs and culture of the Na'vi.

Had the place and people been 'realistically' alien, rather than metaphors for the human experience, you may have had a scientific achievement, but not a movie. Avatar, after all, is a movie. It may have its story roots set deep in the traditions of Sci Fi literature, appearing many times before, but after all is said and done, it's a big popcorn movie. Just like, say, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. When put into this category, the quality of the film becomes immediately obvious, even without seeing it. No giant robot balls in this one.

The visual impact and immersiveness of the 3D experience may very well have a lasting impact on young people watching the film, in very much the same way that a hoary rehash of familiar story themes did in 1977. For Avatar, just like in Star Wars, it is the execution that counts. The worlds we see and the universe behind them seem to have been going on long before the audience came along. The 'pew pew pew' aspect may not be as easily assimilated (as it's not many little boys that want to be the Indians in Cowboys and Indians) but the message of 'hey, let's not rape the planet for cash' may be the film's most important legacy to children growing up in a world where they may live to see blue skies turn grey, and wonder what the hell their parents were thinking.





The film's message may be a pretty obvious one but it's a message that has never been so relevant and timely.

By using a wide variety of influences, from indigenous American cultures to the dancers of Indonesian islands, the natives of Pandora will be people you recognise, and may even have met on your travels. Their attachment to the planet goes beyond a tree-hugging ethos into a tangible (and literal) connection. If you're somewhat wary of airy-fairy hippy behaviour, you'll find that the Na'vi just as 'down to earth' as any normal person. In fact, more so. They are connected to their environment in a real way, whilst the humans are unable to breath the atmosphere. They are as in synch with their environment as the marines are theirs.

A dark reality back on Earth is hinted at, harking back to the decaying society of Blade Runner. Jake's brother is murdered for 'bits of paper' and this attitude to money continues throughout the film, as the price of 'Unobtanium' ($20 million per kilo) makes bulldozing Pandora and shifting and slaughtering the native population acceptable. Shareholders hate bad press, but not as much as a poor quarterly result. It's a theme easily recognisable to fans of James Cameron movies.

It may seem heavy handed, but within the operatic scope of the film, it works. It's a hardened heart that can ignore the story and not get involved with the film. As Jake Sully takes flight in this strange new world, so do we. It's a stylishly executed grand fantasy, encompassing a story thousands of years old within the latest technology.

No major blockbuster can be released in anything other than 3D after Avatar. It is 'The Jazz Singer' of the 3D age.