We arrived around 645pm for the 7pm show. The theater was packed. But we were able to find two seats at the end of the aisle on the 2nd row. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but sitting in the middle of the theater tends to make me claustrophobic. I don’t like crawling over people’s knees to stumble out to the bathroom.
There was an actual theater attendant who had to seat people as the minutes ticked closer to the show. I’ve never been to an IMAX experience, balking at the higher ticket prices. But having been sucked into the hype and seeing the amazing trailers, I wanted to see it in the biggest screen I could find.
There were so many pre-movie commercials I felt like I was watching the Superbowl. I didn’t mind the commercials simply because there was such a large crowd, you want to keep them distracted. One commercial came on and the audio disappeared midway, you should have heard the catcalls and the ominous rumblings that ensued!
You don’t want to rile a sold out show.
Then they started showing previews of movies that will be coming out in 3D in the future. “Shrek 4“, a cute children’s movie, “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Hubble 3D”. On the last NASA shuttle flight to fix the Hubble telescope, IMAX cameras were on board to record the mission. From what I saw in the previews, I will want to see this documentary. When did I ever want to go see a documentary on the big screen? Never.
Avatar, despite the previews of aerial fights and aliens, had a lot of down time. They were building a story and letting you see all the cool stuff that they had thought up and brought to the screen. I for one enjoyed that sort of thing. I could have sat there and watched the 3D holographic computer displays they had for days. I loved how you can just pluck out a display and walk off with it.
They were telling a story, not all the characters were fleshed out, but then again, you just wanted to go and explore Pandora, the alien world. I won’t comment on all the fuss about how this movie had a message, I just wanted to see a cool heavily FX-ed movie.
But this I will say, I never had an opinion about the term ‘tree-hugger’, but after seeing this movie and reading some of the internet comments that referred to it, I find the term offensive. I understand as a human being on this planet with my own personal and vested interests, with my own trigger points and anger levels, how wars can happen. But I don’t have to like it. I hate that men and women have to die. But if we have to wage a war, I think we should go back to swords and knives and make the generals and leaders also go into battle. Then they can understand the exact price they need to pay when they have to face someone and watch the light of life escape from their eyes as they kill each other.
War by techno-proxy just seems like efficient murder.
That being said and off my chest, I absolutely support every man and woman on our armed forces who are out there today doing their jobs to protect our vested interests and I only wish them and their family the best because it is a thankless job they do. We cannot possibly imagine what they have to go through and our disdain for the Vietnam vets is a tragedy that never needs to be repeated.
It may seem that I have run out to left field with the past paragraphs, but it's what resonated through me after seeing Avatar. We do run the risk of killing Mother Earth. As much as we say God put us on this planet, he also gave us Earth. We have just as much responsibility to care and tend for the planet as we do for each other. Not that we treat each other as well as we should.
From a purely selfish standpoint, Earth is a finite resource, without it we die. How can we not think of caring for it? How can we leave the future generations with nothing but ruins, testaments to our selfishness and greed?
There are scenes in Avatar that was just stunning, you could feel the tension in the movie theater, for there was a silence that can only be described as awe.
It wasn’t a perfect movie, that was “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”. But it was a movie perfect for a generation who will grow up on HDTV and 3D movies and hopefully, use technology to benefit humankind, not fall prey to it’s enslavement.
Now I have to go read a book on my iPhone while I listen to my music on the iPod and have my chair massage me in my hyperbaric chamber with my anti-bacterial hand wash.
PS. It's just a USB link.
