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After the gross depiction of aliens in countless and forgettable Hollywood movies they were first made to look believable by the quintessential story teller Steven Spielberg in ‘E.T’. Unlike the blood thirsty inter galactic traveller of the yore E.T was almost human, loving, happy and sad in equal measure. It still gives me goose bumps when I remember his lingering cry to go home. James Cameron has made a huge attempt to take this concept to a whole new level.
Without any knowledge of the story I was pretty intrigued by the title of the movie which is an integral part of the Hindu belief. The story per se is not really novel. The conflict between industrialisation (growth) and the inhabitants it usually displaces (is resettles politically correct?) is what one reads about in newspapers in different parts of the world everyday and which gives the likes of Brinda Karat and Arundhati Roy something to wail about in their free time. However it’s the execution of the vision that sets apart Cameron from rest of the pack. The scale of the movie to understate the obvious is colossal. Set in the year 2154(who chose the number and why could be another story) we are taken to a moon called Pandora (very appropriate name for the number of tricks in its bag). The humans are led by an abrasive corporate honcho in charge of mining operations for something called ‘unobtanium’ which sells on mother earth for $20 million a kilo. Even after adjusting for 145 years of inflation that’s far more than humans would happily kill for. The honcho has a security chief who looks suspiciously like GI Joe to carry out the dirty tricks. And Sigourney Weaver, who turned a brunette for the movie, returns as a scientist engaged in a project to understand and connect with the local inhabitants. The locals are called the Na’vi , blue skinned and all of nine feet tall. Sigourney’s project involves usage of human and Na’vi DNA to reengineer a hybrid Na’vi which can be mentally controlled by the human whose DNA has been used. A new avatar, so to speak. Sam Worthington plays the main lead of a paraplegic former marine who is reluctantly allowed in the Avatar programme by Sigourney. Once admitted he finds a new world where he can walk, run and love.
Despite the fact that the story is set way into the future in a place four and half light years away the perennial human emotive conflicts, the greed for more, the compulsive desire to subjugate the weak, the irrepressible retaliatory spirit of the brave forces one to think that the more we change the more we remain the same. A pressing need of the awareness of preservation of environment which cannot come too soon finds a voice in the hopeless cries of the original and genuine and well, the primitive inhabitants. The love interest is unorthodox and endearing but does not catch the intense rapport of Jack and Rose in Titanic. It’s even unfair to compare the two but then Mr Cameron has spent half a billion dollars in making a flick replete with advanced digital imagery and the effect is spectacular. Shall I take my hat off to him ? Okkk, yes, but, he scores and he misses.
A movie which costs as much as advertised ought not to have even a hint of what’s seen or heard in the public domain. “I see you” is a greeting by the Matable tribe in Africa and the bush men of the Kalahari. The emotional connect between the warrior Na’vi and the colourful raptors they fly are strongly reminiscent of similar relationship of dragon riders of ‘Eragon ‘. It looks great in the movie but faintly disappointing. He has spun a believable yarn and was almost there but not quite. Maybe the proposed sequel is better.