Friday, January 8, 2010

Avatar: beyond the bandwagon

Avatar:  beyond the bandwagon

A Critical Analysis.

I was wondering why the name Avatar first, checked Wiki and got this as an explanation, In Hinduism Avatar or Avatāra (Devanagari अवतार, Sanskrit for "descent" [viz., from heaven to earth]) refers to a deliberate descent of a deity from heaven to earth, and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation", but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation". 1
In the movie however the Blue humans were considered as humans and Humans were like Gods from Above Earth. Hilarious but acceptable.

Then I checked Avatar on Google on its uses. The proliferation of avatar’s second meaning can be traced to Second Life, a multiplayer online virtual world, where players fashion their own online personae called avatars. Yahoo! implores instant messengers to “Express yourself with Yahoo! Avatars” (barely customizable icons) — a synonymy of online personae has emerged.2
Now here we have James Cameroon imagination coming to reality on celluloid as Avatar.
Yes most expensive film ever made, and most talked film of the decade perhaps the century.
Jim became the God. However for a movie which lacks the thrill, punch lines and above all a nice story. Anyways none of the previously released movie of Cameroon has a great story. He relied more on technology and always believed in pushing its limits. And he has done a marvelous job by doing Avatar.
Avatar is not an animated movie, as assumed by many. But its graphically made like 300,Harrypotter series and many… so what was new here, nothing even the hype was same like before a little more glorified.
The entire world crashed for Bandwagon effect.  I also read some critics saying that “Avatar” story is too simple, one Gujarati critic Jay Vasavda wrote that the story was kept intentionally simple so that the audience can be visually mesmerized instead of getting diverted with the complexity of the story. It means that he wants to convey the message that James Cameroon is not smart enough to handle a complex story with visuals as great. Either one has to take a back seat. Poor Jim.
I consider Jurassic park and Matrix for bringing cult status by technology. Avatar is just an extension with extra hype. I don’t have to visit movie theatres to see technology and no story. Jim tried to put the Navis expressions in the frame but again it was too plastic and digital that it lacked passion and yielded too many yawns. A kid will surely enjoy the movie for its action and adventure. T2 was a masterpiece and so was Titanic. Avatar is obviously better than piranha’s II, Abyss, and true lies.
Increasing heights, changing colors and decreasing few fingers can convert a human into navis. The funny part is that you have a tail and a plug-in like tentacle. The plug like is like a male multi threaded pin plug which you can plug into horses, UFB(Un identified flying birds). To tame anything even plants all u need is to pull and plug. The glowing jungle looks mesmerizing but is kept too dark and bluish.
The philosophy of transmogrification looks so insipid that you may feel a sense of easy imagination adding some extra masala off your kitchen self. Calvin’s transmorgnifier box was only better to scare Hobbes, but we are not stuffed toys.
The Human chief looks very ill and too inhuman in the actions. There was a clear antithetical between good and bad, Humans were not humans and the non-Humans were like Humans. Jake was the link between these two worlds, fevicoled by a bollywoodish love story. Guy meets gal in the jungle. With his childish calm and naughtiness win over her heart then fight with the world to win over gal’s society. DDLJ rings the bell. Not exactly; but a bell is a bell and it may sound akin.

Overall a half star for the graphics and 3D.
*

1 comment:

Saish746 said...

ll talk about some of the goof ups done by so called filmy God, Jim:
Pandora, the planet full of chlorine ammonia and methane, would make the whole planet extremely flammable. However the main character were shown making fire for light using matches, also contradictory to the fact that Pandora has no oxygen. Also as shown in the movie claimed as epic, the humans do not react to the toxic atmosphere of Pandora correctly. They breathe like asthmatics (trying desperately to get sufficient oxygen - long gasps) rather than like being poisoned (short, panicked breaths). Also, their eyes would begin to burn and tear up immediately, and their noses would run profusely. For more pls visit http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/goofs3

References:
1 Wikipedia and {http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6JXUoWeZ7Q}
2{http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/magazine/10wwln-guest-t.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=avatar&st=cse&oref=login}