Avatar

See "Avatar": check.



Honestly, I didn't want to see this movie. We saw the preview a while ago and I was like, "Nuh uh."

And Dallin was like, "Uh huh."
And I was like, "Nuh uh."
And Dallin was like, "Uh huh."
And I was like, "Nuh uh."

Anyway, we ended up going for Dallin's birthday.

I guess it was inevitable. I mean, I am somewhat of a movie person. And this is only the biggest (read: most expensive) movie like, ever. It kind of felt like something that almost had to be done. Like death and taxes...with popcorn and surround sound. Except we didn't get popcorn because it's expensive and we saw the movie in 3D so tickets alone were like 25 bucks. For two of us. Sheesh.

Ok anyway, we saw "Avatar." And it was...good. It was better than I was expecting it to be. I thought the graphics would end up looking cheesy, and I'd already heard from various people that the story was a thumbs down.

But the graphics were actually pretty incredible. They didn't look cheesy or fake at all, and I didn't even get a headache from the 3D-ness. AND the blue people thing did not bother me as much as I was sure it was going to. They didn't look too fake either...except for the fact that they were, you know, huge and blue. Someone really took their time on this one. I'm not an art or computer person by any means, but I totally enjoyed looking at this movie.

That being said...the movie relied pretty much entirely on those amazing graphics. The story was pretty, um, predictable. Observe:

A guy thrown into a new world with the natives' chief's daughter as his guide. Guess what's going to happen? If you've seen "Pocahontas," you know: they're going to fall in love to the dismay of both of their native groups.

The guy starts out collecting information about the blue people for the humans, who are trying to get the blue people to leave their tree home because it sits on a pile of insanely valuable minerals. Whose side do you think he's going to end up on?

The humans have divisions amongst themselves: the politician is there for the money, the military guy seems to be there for the sole purpose of ruthlessly killing as many blue people as possible, and the scientists are there to peacefully explore the world, hug the trees, and become BFFs with the blue ones. Which group do you think will be vindicated when all is said and done?

See? Not hard to guess. Throw in a few deaths of the most beloved characters and a lot of futuristic weapons, and you got yourself a movie.

Oh, and don't forget the political agenda here. Embrace nature, participate in weird tribal chants and spiritual ceremonies if you can, and accept everything and everyone. Oh and scientists never have ulterior motives. But don't accept anyone that has anything to the military, because they are just iron pumping, macho fools who crave the death and destruction of any civilization that is not their own.

Obviously.

"Avatar" is not a terrible movie, but I think it's more eye candy than anything. It's cool to watch...and hey, if you get lost as far as the story goes, you can a) get back in pretty quick because it's so predictable, or b) just forget it because it's lame anyway. Don't you love having options?

p.s. The estimated budget of this movie was $280,000,000. That's a lot of zeros. And each CGI created frame (not second...frame) took an average of 47 hours to complete. I'm not crying "Waste!" here, but...c'mon.