AVATAR review

One might accuse me of following the herd, responding to hype, but truth is, I've been eager to see this movie long before the media blitz got so out of hand. I imagine some folks will refuse to see it simply because of too much media exposure. That said, what drew me from the start was the concept of an avatar (easily reviewed in some of my previous entries on Second Life, etc.)

The film is set in 2154 and by that time technology has allowed us to have complete neurological interface with synthetically grown avatars (a wetware/meatspace version of the androids in Surrogate) only they are still outrageously expensive (realistic). Thus, the avatars are only employed in the film's scope by a very wealthy company that is exploring and exploiting the planet Pandora for some rare natural resource. So it's sci-fi, but like the better sci-fi, it's built on plausible technology. It's not as if everything has changed too radically in 150 years. Well, we have somehow managed space travel (kryo for 5 years to travel to this planet).

Annoying to me, the one enterprise that currently spends the most on R&D, the most on technology--that is, the military--was using tools from today. That would be us using civil war weaponry. Surely in 150 years there's been much more advance in weapons technology! The only bells and whistles in that realm were the exo-suit giants some soldiers were driving....and I've seen that before many times (though it never gets old and yes I want to operate one).

Physically, the People of Pandora did have feline characteristics that were engaging to watch, and they had a cool neural connect to nature through something like a ponytail. (Too bad for those who might rather have shorter hair, eh?) Their culture, however, was less creatively developed. They were essentially taller, bluer Native Americans, right down to the war whoops.