If setting a new standard, platform, and precedent for movie making was James Cameron’s goal with Avatar, he did just that. Cameron’s latest film recently beat out his 1997 movie, Titanic, as the highest grossing film of all time and has been capturing the attention and hearts of moviegoers everywhere with computer-generated imagery and a simple love story.
Set in 2154, humans have depleted Earth of most of its natural resources and are looking to take materials from a planet called Pandora and their large, blue cat-like natives, the Na’vi. The story centers on Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington), a paraplegic and former marine who has taken over a mission from his slain twin brother.
After being frozen for years, Sully awakes and is thrust into a scientific community headed by Dr. Grace Augustine (played by Sigourney Weaver) but is controlled by a corporate enterprise.
Sully, Augustine and others in the science group use avatars, bodies created in a lab that combines human and Na’vi DNA, in an attempt to study the planet’s inhabitants.
After being saved from Pandora’s wildlife by an
attractive Na’vi woman named Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldana), Sully is told by the film’s villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch (played by Stephen Lang), that he has three months to learn all that he can about the Na’vi and earn their trust so the humans can successfully take over Pandora and obtain its natural resources
Under Neytiri’s tutelage, Sully learns the Na’vi
language, the importance of their culture, and their deep and spiritual relationship with every single inch of nature surrounding them. Over the course of learning, Sully
begins to empathize with the natives.
The epic battle of the Na’vi versus humans represents how precise Cameron’s vision was, with the help of the CGI effects and the creativity of everyone who worked on it whose efforts went above and beyond. Cameron expertly created a magical world filled with fantastical creatures (imagine dreamy jellyfish and a rhino/shark combo) in otherworldly jungles that glow in the dark and pulsate with life.
A month since its release in theaters, many viewers have admitted that they are feeling a bit “blue” that Pandora does not really exist. What is there not to love about a world where the colors of everything surrounding us are so vibrant and everything on the planet is respected and filled with splendor?
After a 12-year span between Titanic and Avatar, four and a half years of production on the film, and close to $300 million spent (double the amount spent on Titanic), Cameron made sure that this was the product he wanted. A movie filled with beautiful blue beings, a green message, and a silver lining amidst times of destruction make it a must-see for every human on this planet.
