Avatar (live-action/CGI) (PG-13)
20th Century Studios; IMDb; official website; Rotten Tomatoes; Templeton Gate; TV Tropes; Weta Digital; Weta Workshop; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Disney+; Google Play; iTunes; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

Caution: potential spoilers.

This came out in 2009, and I actually got to see it in a theater at the time. When I first heard of it... well, it was quite awhile ago now, though surely not nearly as long as the movie was actually in development. I mean, it was like 15 years, though most of that time was just spent developing new technology to actually make the movie. But more recently than that, I was a bit worried it could be confused with the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Indeed, when they started making a live-action movie based on that series, they had to drop the name "Avatar" and just call it "The Last Airbender," to try and avoid confusion with this movie. The word "avatar," obviously, has been around for a hell of a long time, and has a number of slightly different uses, so it's perfectly reasonable to expect completely unrelated fictional stories to use the word without there being any confusion or connection. Neither one of them invented the word, after all.

The next point I wanted to make was, because of all the time spent developing new technology, as mentioned earlier, I was adamant that I would only want to see the movie if I could do so on an IMAX screen, which was pretty much impossible, there just isn't one close enough to me. However, friends have told me, including one who also very much wanted to see it on IMAX, that it's totally worth seeing on a regular 3-D screen (which itself is, I think, a fairly recent advance in movie technology; we're not talking the 3-D of the 1950s, you know). So I thought, okay, I guess I could do that. And yet I wasn't sure when I'd find the time. And then, when I was upstate visiting family for Christmas, a cousin of mine, who had already seen it in 2-D (they don't have 3-D up there) wanted to see it again, with me. So I agreed, largely because I just wanted to spend some time with him, since I see him all too infrequently.

I gotta say, there were times when, even on a 2-D screen, some of the scenes looked almost like I could actually see them in 3-D. There are now people who will insist it isn't worth seeing unless you see it in 3-D (and preferably IMAX), though I'm not sure if those people have even seen it in 2-D. Even those who might allow that 2-D is worthwhile still insist that you must see it in 3-D. And I admit, one reason I agreed to go with my cousin was so that I could, hopefully, compare the 2-D experience to the 3-D. Well, I still don't know if I'll get a chance to see it in 3-D, though I really want to. I suppose it won't be the same watching it at home, eventually, but I will say that I won't bother getting the DVD; I'm gonna get it on blu-ray, and I don't even know when I'll have a Blu-ray player, let alone an HD television. So it may be that by the time I buy the movie, there'll even be some new format that's made Blu-ray obsolete. We'll see. In the meantime, I can assure you, even in 2-D, the movie is visually stunning, certainly the best CGI I've ever seen. The movie is worth seeing for the visuals alone. No matter how you see it.

That said, there's more to the movie than just visual awesomeness. So I suppose I should get to saying something about the plot. The year is 2154, and the movie is set almost entirely on an alien moon called Pandora. There's a Terran company that's mining the moon for an incredibly valuable mineral called "unobtanium" (a humorous term which has been used in a number of sci-fi stories over the years). However, there is a native population called the Na'vi, who are blue, mostly humanoid but slightly feline aliens, half again or maybe twice the height of humans. It should also be noted that humans can't breathe the atmosphere on Pandora for long. Anyway, the company employees ex-Marines, but also a team of scientists who try to learn about the Na'vi, and other plants and animals native to Pandora.

The title of the movie comes from the fact that scientists have grown artificial bodies that are mostly based on Na'vi DNA, with some human DNA mixed in. In fact, the human DNA is used so that the person who contributed that DNA can enter a sort of sensory deprivation tank that also provides a mental link to an artificial body. It's as if their consciousness has been transferred into that body, temporarily, controls it, senses everything from its perspective (though when they wake up in their own body, their avatar falls into a sort of vegetative state, until the human consciousness reinhabits it). Anyway, the main character is an ex-Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), whose identical twin brother's DNA had been used to produce one such avatar body; but since he died, and Jake's genome is a match, he is recruited to interface with his brother's avatar.

Of course, by the time Jake gets to Pandora, others have been interacting with the Na'vi for some time, with their own avatars. The main one of these is a scientist named Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the leading expert on the Na'vi and head of the Avatar Program. Another scientist who arrives at the same time as Jake is Norm Spellman, who also gets an avatar. There are surely others with avatars, though we don't really see them in the film. The Na'vi can tell the difference between avatars and their own kind, and they don't really like humans. Grace had even been exiled, or something, though ultimately she's on their side. (I'd really love to have learned more about her time among the Na'vi, prior to the start of the movie.)

Well, Jake, in his avatar body, meets a Na'vi named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). She doesn't care for him at first, but... well. It's kind of complicated. The Na'vi worship something called Eywa, and... it seems Jake is "chosen" by Eywa for some unclear reason. So, Neytiri is instructed by her mother, the shaman of her clan, to teach Jake their ways. Meanwhile, there's a Marine colonel named Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who wants Jake to find out what it will take to get Neytiri's clan to move away from their "Hometree," under which the company has determined there are vast deposits of unobtanium. In exchange for his services, the colonel has promised Jake that he'll arrange to get him new legs when he returns home (Jake, I failed to mention earlier, is paraplegic).

Well. Jake learns there is nothing that could make the Na'vi willingly move away from their home, to which they have a deep spiritual connection. The trouble is, the company considered their relocation to be plan A. Preferable to plan B, perhaps, but not necessary. If they refuse to go, the Marines will simply bomb the hell out of the place, without regard to the loss of Na'vi life. (In fact, it seems like Colonel Quaritch prefers plan B.) Meanwhile, Jake and Neytiri, rather predictably, end up falling in love, and Jake tries to warn the Na'vi, though they really just end up distrusting him because he had lied to them before. Finally, Jake leads a counterattack by the Na'vi, including many other tribes than just Neytiri's (when the Marines threaten the Tree of Souls; there's really a lot about this whole Eywa thing, but I can't really explain it). So, there's a pretty epic battle, with some pretty cool advanced technology (including what anime fans might call mechas or mobile armor), against very primitive weapons and wildlife. Oh, and I need to mention that the Colonel is Bad. Ass. I mean, that dude, he's bad, yeah, but damn... he puts up a hell of a fight, the kind that's usually reserved for a movie's hero. Which just makes it that much more awesome watching the good guys have to deal with him.

Well, the story's not all that original. There've been plenty of instances of people who are sent to infiltrate some group or other, and end up "going native." People have compared the basic plot to things like Pocahontas, FernGully, Princess Mononoke, "Dances With Wolves," and any number of other things. Including real history, like European conquest of the Native Americans (though personally I think it's not specifically allegorical of any one event, so much as representative of pretty much all of human history). But even if it's similar to themes that recur throughout both real history and fiction, it remains a compelling story, and very well told here. Of course, the movie has justly been criticized for its use of the White savior trope, but I do think it's pretty clear that Jake couldn't have saved the Na'vi without the help of thousands of Na'vi saving themselves. Indeed, Quaritch himself is ultimately killed by Neytiri, saving Jake. (Sorry for the spoiler, but I just thought that was an important counterpoint to the white savior narrative.) More than that, though, the movie has a strong anti-imperialist message, which I can definitely get behind. Because the Marines in this movie are depicted as following some blatantly evil orders both from Quaritch and from the company's representative on Pandora (more on him soon). Some people may argue that real life imperialism isn't as blatantly evil as it is depicted in the movie, but I disagree. I'm just disappointed that aside from Jake, only one other Marine joined the side of the Na'vi. The rest all seemed pretty gung-ho to kill a bunch of natives of the planet that humans were invading, and somehow still thought of themselves as the good guys. (I really hope that in real life there would be more dissenters within the military when given evil orders, but I'm sure the number of them would still be horribly few. Which is markedly different from a plot point in my own book, "The Chaos", but I won't bore you with details of that.)

Well, I've left out a few characters, and some of the details of the story (though much of it is predictable, anyway). Most of the other characters I'm afraid we didn't get to know very well, but I should also mention Neytiri's father, the leader of her tribe; and more importantly Tsu'Tey, who obviously didn't like Jake for most of the movie. Other human characters included Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez), a Marine fighter pilot who ultimately ends up helping Jake and his allies, who also included Dr. Augustine, Norm Spellman, and a scientist named Max Patel. The only other person worth mentioning, I think, is Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), the company's chief representative on Pandora (who's technically in command of all the scientists and Marines). He kind of put me in mind of Paul Reiser's character in Aliens but really he wasn't that important to the story.

Anyway, I don't want to say how it all ends. So... I'll just reiterate that it's a good story, and gorgeous to watch. All the plants and animals of Pandora are pretty cool, as are the Na'vi themselves. The technology that's been developed was well worth the investment, and I look forward to seeing more movies in the future that utilize it, in any number of ways.

Followed by "Avatar: The Way of Water"