Avatar - 10 things I learnt

Q: What do you do after you have made the most successful, highest grossing, movie in history?
A: You will wait 12 years and make another movie that in all possibility will surpass the last one.

Well not you, or me. We would retire to some nice island and drink cocktails. But, we are talking about James Cameron.
Take a look at his resume:

• He created the “Terminator” series and with the first movie, gave the world Aah-nuld “I’ll be back” Schwarzewhatever.


• With Terminator 2, he brought back Aah-nuld (this time as a hero with his one liners “Come with me if you want to live”, and “Astalavista Baby”), and created a brand-new metallic villain who could take any shape.


• He re-invented the classic “Alien”, by creating “Aliens”, and showed the world how to make sequels. (Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan are grateful.) Who can forget Ripley fighting the Alien queen at the end?


• He worked on “Rambo 2”, which eventually got made by someone else.


• He made “The Abyss”, which made use of stunning special effects, and Dolby surround sound. The ending wasn’t worth it, but the rest of the movie definitely was.


• With “True Lies”, he had a muscular Jamie Lee Curtis dancing for an even muscular Governator. The Governator then kills everyone else in sight.


• And then he made “Titanic”. This movie went on to break all records and create history. It grossed about 1.8 billion, won 11 Oscars, and traumatised migraine patients with Celine Dion’s crooning. It also gave a reason for women of all ages to cry out loud, “Leo, Leo!” And it had men all over the world overusing the pause button during the painting scene.


• Taking a break from movies, he went on to create a TV series about a bionic woman, and suddenly the world came to know about Jessica Alba
  


• After all this, I'm assuming you either don't know, or don't care about his older turkeys. I mean Piranha II and Xenogenesis.
  

One would have thought, having a resume like this would compel anyone to retire and drink Pina Coladas on a Hawaii beach, and rehash the same franchise again and again. Case in point, George Lucas, who has milked the Star Wars cow so much, that it has even the hard-core fans pleading, “Please don’t milk Star Wars anymore. It’s not a cow, it’s turned into a bull.”

But not James Cameron. He had his eyes set on something even higher. Something the audiences had never seen before. Copying a concept from Hindu mythology (along with the colours of Hindu deities), the 80 page draft of Avatar was written in 1994, and planned to release after Titanic. But considering that technology had still to catch up, Cameron shelved the plans for 10 years.

After inventing new cameras and refining special effects, Cameron was back at the helm of Avatar. He also had a new language invented just for the movie. The film turned out to be the most expensive in movie history, and once released, it destroyed everything in sight and earned 1 billion dollars worldwide in just under 3 weeks.

It does look all set to break the records that Titanic had set 12 years ago. It doesn’t matter if the movie resembles like a mish-mash of Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Apocalypto, and just about any other movie. Despite all the criticism, and racism allegations, the Avatar juggernaut is rolling on, crushing everything in sight.

If you haven’t seen it, trust me, you will eventually see it. After all it is not just a movie. It is an event. It is an experience. It is how films should be made. And when you do go watch it, make sure you see it in I-Max. You’ll come out wishing you were born on Pandora instead.


(Image source: io9)


SPOILERS follow ahead. DO NOT read further if you have yet to see the movie.


10 things I learnt from AVATAR:

1. The advanced technology of 2154 can create an entire alien body, which you can inhabit using just your consciousness; but it can’t create human legs for an invalid. Or maybe it can, but it’s just more expensive than an Avatar.


2. In the future, you still push the wheelchair. Stephen Hawking beware.


3. Walking in the Pandoran forest makes you feel like you are in the “Billie Jean” video.


4. If your Avatar body gets switched off in the jungle, none of the wild animals will eat you. But they will come for you, if you are just talking a walk.


5. If some element is called “unobtainium”, why the hell would you even try to obtain it? Go look for something called “maybeobtainium” or “definitelyobtainium”. You might stay alive.


6. All aliens, in every movie, resemble humans in some form or the other. I will celebrate, the day, someone makes a movie with an alien that looks like a blob or a brick or even a football.


7. If you use your security credentials to free traitors, you can still remain as the “inside man” without being caught, or anyone suspecting you, or anyone even looking at the access records.


8. Dragons (and other animals) become your servants if you plug your hair in their antenna.


9. A spirit which is reportedly un-biased, will suddenly wake up and become angry at the invaders, when a human-alien hybrid plugs his hair in the trees’ antenna.


10. If you hide in an area, where the signals are disrupted, laser guided missiles don’t work etc etc; you’ll find that planes & helicopters will work perfectly, and so will two-way neck radios, and webcam chats.

Honourable mention:
Avatar plot observation


(Image source: Fail Blog)