Of Gorgeous Sceneries and Giant Lizards

(Spoiler alert from Khalil: Do not read this post if you haven't watched Avatar yet. Although quite frankly, you probably already guessed how the scarcely-existent plot goes.)

When I went to watch Avatar — yes, in 3-D — I was surprising myself but was smart enough not to expect anything tremendous. I don't think I'm the usual type of film enthusiast. In my book, 2012 scored 1 out of 5 stars while the likes of Transformers and Star Wars . . . well, they aren't even in my book to start with! I prefer a good storyline to mind-blowing special effects and think that character development is a must while car chases are plain boring.

So why go watch Avatar then, you ask? I told myself I was just going to see what the hype was about. And when you watch the movie, you do realize what the hype is about. It's not about the plot (is there one in the first place?), it's not about the director (I wanted to die while watching Titanic), and it's only in part about the special effects (is it just me or are the Na'vi like giant humanoid lizards?). It's all about the jungle of the alien planet, Pandora. It is quite something. The Pandora jungle is brightly colorful, as opposed to our increasingly grayish world of concrete. It has mountains and cliffs instead of high-rise buildings and more high-rise buildings. And it is filled with animals that are so artistically creative that you have a rough time figuring out how and why they've evolved in the way they apparently did. Darwin would have been perplexed.

I will admit that I enjoyed the first one and a half hours of the film. The surreal jungle was enough to get me hooked for more artsy scenes. Plot-wise, the hands-down triumph of the humans over the Na'vi looked very appropriate. Heavy guns and bombs against wooden bows and arrows — I mean come on! And a victory for the humans seemed particularly fitting too. It reflected the destructive powers of humankind without any conscience or second thoughts about other living things or the environment. Forests were cleared, the Na'vi (who reminded me of the Aborigines in Australia) were forced off their homeland while humans destroyed everything on their way to getting some sort of valuable mineral from the planet. What we, humans, did to our own planet was being, albeit in a dramatic way, portrayed in Avatar. For a Hollywood megaproduction, I thought this was pretty philosophical!

But the pure unrealistic Hollywood spirit of good wins over evil every single time and a happy ending eventually took over. The last one hour of Avatar was alas predictable, tedious, and quite frankly bewilderingly stupid. The bad guys (humans) lost to some flying dinosaurs and more spears and arrows (COME ON!). Antagonist personified military muscle-man died in a mostly one-on-one combat against Na'vi-lover protagonist while being on the verge of winning on more than one occasion. And the said Na'vi-lover protagonist became an actual (flesh and blood?) Na'vi, so that he could branch his USB-like fibers with her USB-like fibers. Love is indeed blind, isn't it? Avatar took a whole hour to show what I have summarized in a paragraph.

Having said all this, I wasn't surprised that the film received a standing ovation when it ended. I actually joined in, though only for the fun of it and perhaps for that first part of the movie. Avatar is like one of those computer games which require the latest graphic cards and other expensive hardware. It's pretty, and that's about it. It has nothing to offer apart from great virtual scenes and big lizards running around on trees.

I feel a good question to ask ourselves is: why do we go and watch the artistic but virtual world of Avatar (that's what the hype is about, right?) when we can watch our own beautiful planet Earth and all its wonders through the eyes and narrations of a David Attenborough documentary?

Now, feel free to bash me.

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