Avatar

We went to see Avatar last night in 3D and it is the most incredible film in terms of revolutionary technology and imagination - James Cameron has a magnificent ambition. The plant and animal life of Pandora boggles the mind with its luminous landscape and intriguing species not to mention the Na'avi race and their language and body movement. The plot was predictable and many of the roles were stereotyped but for once, everything else overshadowed these let downs. Avatar's indigenous race had such great undertones of African tribal character - the language and dialect invented by a Harvard professor for Cameron.

The scenes with digital creations and real human actors/scenery were so seamlessly brought together its only after you make a point of reflecting on that do you realise how amazing it is.

The film is partly a profound reflection on what countless countries/govts and commercial corporations have done to indigenous nations in the pursuit of money, wealth and power. Native American Indians, Amazonian tribes, Chinese rural villages or even the Tamil people in the NE in some respects. Because it is not politics, legislature or constitution one thinks of as they run screaming from bombs blowing up their village centres, trying to save their families and what little they have.

Anyway, bravo Cameron - though as Lee said, I wish people would realise that we don't need to escape to an alternative universe to see this happening for real.