Avatar—a cinematic experience of a lifetime

A V A T A R

I had first heard the name way back in 2008.Read somewhere that James Cameron was making a film adaptation of Ramayan.I was amused. Why would a man who made Aliens and Titanic be interested in Indian Culture in the first place? My curiosity was aroused.

One fine day in June 2009 Rajeev Masand presented us with the first look of Avatar. Didn’t have any idea the film will be such an epic movie,back then.I had almost written it off thinking it would be just another sci-fi.

Cut to November 2009

The Internet is filled with images of a blue man who claims to be humanoid from some alien planet. The stunning visuals of the teasers catch my attention and i take the bait.I gotta watch this movie.

December 18 2009

The history will be indebted to James Cameron because he dared to dream.He visualised this epic way back in 1995 but did not have the technology to bring his dream world of Pandora to life. The wait of one and a half decades surely reflects in the film.His effort,His creativity,his zeal makes me get out and start living my dream.The film belongs to Cameron and Cameron alone.

The story is simple and told a numerous times before.But not in the manner in which Cameron wishes to show us.

In 2154 AD,humans are engaged in the colonization of Pandora, the lush moon ofPolyphemus, one of three gas giants that orbit Alpha Centauri A, 4.3 light years from Earth. Pandora is filled with incredible life forms, and is home to the Na’vi, an indigenoussentient humanoid race who are considered primitive by human standards, yet are more physically capable than them. The Na’vi are tailed, slender creatures with sparkling blue skin, standing three meters tall. They live in harmony with their unspoiled world, which the humans have found to be rich with unobtainium, a valuable mineral that is essential to remedying an economic and energy crisis that is gripping Earth.

Humans are unable to breathe the Pandoran atmosphere; in order to interact with the Na’vi, human scientists have created genetically engineered human-Na’vi hybrid bodies called Avatars, and use them to interact with the natives and gain their trust for a relocating operation. A human who shares genetic material with the avatar can be mentally linked to it, allowing them to control its functions and experience what it experiences, while their own body sleeps. The story’s protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a former U.S. Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. His twin brother Tony was a scientist working on the Avatar program; when he is killed, Jake is extended the opportunity to take his brother’s place, as he shares Tony’s genetic material and is therefore compatible with his avatar.

Jake travels to Pandora, and assumes control of his avatar body, delighted at being able to walk and run once again as a whole being. Sent deep into Pandora’s jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora’s beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), who teaches him the ways of her people: the Omaticaya clan of the Na’vi. Despite having originally been sent to gain the trust of natives, and convince them to abandon their Hometree, which sits above a large deposit of unobtanium, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and his love for his adopted home and people. He is forced to choose sides as the humans grow increasingly violent in their mining activities, and the oppressed Na’vi rise up to protect their home, resulting in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire race.

The beauty of Pandora will entice you.The trees,the flies,the 6 legged dog like creature or the rhinos and horses….each and every creature will make your love for nature shoot a hundred times higher.This film reminds me of Wordsworth’s poem’s line : “what man has made of man”. In our quest for conquering everything we have in turn destroyed all that we had
.It is time we returned to the folds of nature,realised that “This is our Land” and do whatever it takes to protect it.The electromagnetic forces of Eyka,the synapses,the connections between the riders and the horses, the ability to communicate with the dead….whoa…cameron gives Biology and Metaphysics a whole new meaning.This film inspires me to work for Science more than ever

Although indirectly but Cameron uses the medium of this film to trash America’s war for democracy in Iraq and exposes the futility of colonialism.The eternal struggle of Independence irrespective of cultures gets a new dimension with the epic war scenes during the last half an hour of the movie.

The age old War between good and evil will continue for all eternity…it us who have to choose sides.

Salute Mr James Cameron…for dreaming…for you “impossible” must be just an error with two extra letters……..