Avatar

The above scene is from a video game based on the film.

The movie is far more visually compelling.

Written 4 January, 2010

Avatar

Sweetie and I saw James Cameron's film Avatar in 3D, and we were immersed.

Thank goodness the smelly lady arrived during the previews so we were able to move without interrupting our Avatar experience.

In a half-empty theater she climbed all the way to the top and, without giving Sweetie and me a chance to stand up, squeezed past us and took a seat beside us in the last row.

Soon Sweetie was wheezing and coughing.

"What?" I asked, and then the smell hit me.

I got up and we moved two rows down, but those seats turned out to be occupied, so we were forced-- FORCED, I say, to move to the front of the theater.

Sweetie will never know how much I had to pay the stinky lady to come sit beside us.

Sweetie, you see, likes to sit in the back row of the theater. That's because, like Wild Bill Hickok, she likes to sit with a wall behind her.

I, on the other hand, like to sit happily forward-- on the first row when I was younger, and on the fourth now-- not so much because my eyes are going but because the screens are so much bigger you have to look up more and you're apt to get a crick in your neck if you're in the front row.

So we were on row four, and the 3-D was stunning-- mostly unobtrusive, but occasionally in your face with, say, circling insects that seemed two feet in front of you. I had to stop myself from swatting them.

Avatar was stunningly filmed, with flawless computer generated graphics and a feelgood Evil vs. the Forces of Good plot. Evil, in this case, was a mining company anxious to dredge the valuable metal unobtanium (I kid you not) from the lush and populated planet Pandora. Good was Pandora herself, and those, human and otherwise, who wished to preserve her. It was very much Native Americans vs. the U.S. Cavalry, only in a non-breathable atmosphere.

I won't review the film here, but for a critical analysis, see here.

Hehe, critical my ass, huh?

The most powerful moment for Sweetie and I was when the Pandoran Neytiri meets human Jake Sully face-to-face (previously she had fallen in love with his Pandoran avatar). "I see you," they say to one another.

That was very much Cheyenne and Sweetie meet in real life. Most touching for anyone with virtual world experience, and especially powerful for those who have taken a virtual relationship into real life.

So, my recommendation is go see Avatar today. See it in 3-D; the visual effects are far from the ax-in-the-hand-of-the-mad-chopper comes-right-out-of-the-screen-to-get-you escapades of the 1950s. You'll find yourself not only entertained, but entranced.

I SEE you.