Avatar
Big buildings need strong foundations and Great Movies need strong convictions. Buildings with great design become monuments and movies become magnum opus because of great ideas. Cameron has Strong Convictions and Great Ideas. Titanic, among the all time top 10 movies was a historical magnum opus and Avatar is a futuristic magnum opus. It has the same old ‘quest of mankind’s search’ kind of story, but then stories in sci-fi movies are not so important. The important things are Concept, Execution and Presentation. Cameron, maker of top rated movies is definitely a master of all these.
The story of one of the top rated movies has been set in the year 2154. Science has made many new advancements but humans can still find places like Pandora and people like the 10 feet tall, blue skinned Na’vi’s who worship Eywa, their Mother Goddess and are without the modern technologies but have minerals like Unobtanium which the earthlings need.
Avatars are actually the hybrid bodies, much like the Na’vi’s but are kept under control via mental links. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigoumey Weaver) who is in charge of this operation recruits scientist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) and a former marine Jake Sully (Sam Washington) for conducting research to find unobtanium on Pandora. While collecting samples on Pandora in their Avatar forms, Jake is attacked by a thanator (predator). In his attempt to escape, Jake gets separated and is rescued by a female Na’vi, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and taken to her tribal home, Hometree, where he meets, Eytukan (Wes Studi), the tribal chief and father of Neytiri and her mother Mo’at (C.C.H. Pounder), tribes spiritual leader. Under the Hometree, spread over hundred of miles on Pandora are deposits of unobtanium.
Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), head of Sec-Ops and Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), leader of the RDA colony on Pandora force Jake to part with information about the tribe and Grace gets to know this. They relocate themselves and Jake gets intimate with Neytiri and is initiated in the tribe. Parker orders destruction of Hometree killing Eytukan and many Na’vi’s. On learning of Jake’s mission, Neytiri leaves him. Jake and Grace are imprisoned by Quaritch and their Avatar forms are unplugged. While escaping, Grace is wounded by a gun shot fired by Quaritch.
Jake requests Mo’at to heal Grace when he finds the tribe near the Tree of Souls but Grace succumbs to her injuries. Jake urges the new chief Tsu’tey (Laz Alonso) to recruit more Na’vi’s from nearby tribes and finish-off the RDA colony. The Na’vi’s, under the leadership of Jake pray to Eywa for victory and are able to defeat and expel all the humans from Pandora. The tribe prays to Mother Goddess Eywa and Jake is permanently transformed into an Avatar. The ending shows him wearing the Omaticava leader’s dress.
It being one of the top rated movies is a love story with many twists and villains and finally the good prevailing over evil. The message is clear but the way this message is conveyed to the viewers is what makes directors like Cameron, the master story tellers. Like great magicians, such great story tellers make use of technical gadgets to present their shows in a dazzling fashion. Now stop reading and rush before the house of the top 10 movies gets full and it is going to remain so for many months to come.
