Monday, January 18, 2010

Avatar the movie, being Primal or Star Wars

Avatar the movie, being Primal or Star Wars


Recently I watched the movie Avatar, which many people find a great refreshing movie after Star Wars. For me it succeeded in taking me to land of dreams(where I want to go also) like Star Wars A New Hope and Star Wars Revnege of the Sith, and Lord of the Rings.

The main appeal of movie is the Primal versus moderm conflict, which is the conflict present in every urban person. Human are instinctively primal but are now accustomed to technolgy(what happens when humans are put to survival tests really and not like discovery channel?)
The attraction being breaking free from Urban finally and becoming what you really are the Primal like Jake at the end of the movie.


Jake himself says that he may not be ok for riding the horses ( or if you prefer Direhorse (Pa'li in Na'vi language) ) but he is born to fly the flying predator bird (or Mountain Banshee (Ikran in Na'vi language) ). This is a subtle hint of his Psych how he is not ok for a paraplegic human working for avatar program of his greedy masters, but instead he is born to be one of Omaticaya(and not a genetically mixed mind controlled dream walker duplicate) permanently. And the greatly interesting part of the movie was to see Jake ultimately becoming "Toruk Makto" riding Great Leonopteryx (Toruk in Na'vi language) from a outcast.

Many people have pointed out as yearning for transformation as its main attraction but I see resistance to transformation as a basic trait of Humans. Instead avatar is a way back to the hidden primal self which is waht we truly are at core.

The part I like most in the movie was the extremely satisfying ending (as compared to District 9 which was extremely unsatisfying like look we are going to make a sequel) and how the whole movie led it to that one highly desirable ending, the viewer even silently paraying at the end that Jake be transformed. Being a writer I appreciate this strong point of whole story.


Avatar is a good concept that needs to be developed more(though arguably I donot see Star Wars or LOR like longevity and draw in its material for now). I read that James Cameron is willing to explore the other moons in sequels, which I am waiting eagerly to see.

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