The Bluetiefull People
By John Esther
Watching the trailers for Avatar, 20th Century Fox gives off the impression that an American Armed Force is under attack and the only thing to do is stand tall and fierce in the face of big belligerent blue people and their fellow monsters. It is a nice trick to get the testosterone target audience into the theaters for a mouthful of American P(r)i(d)e. Fortunately and surprisingly, writer-director-producer-editor James Cameron's long awaited follow up to Titanic offers up a better feast.
Conceived before that prime example of poor taste -- by the public and AMPAS -- Avatar is set in the wonderful world of Pandora, a moon orbiting a gas-giant planet called Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri-A star system. Pure in deed and need the atmosphere is too toxic for 22nd-century humans so they created the Avatar Program. The Avatar Program is a quasi-Matrix (there are plenty of overlapping agents with the Matrix film trilogy in Avatar) system where human "drivers" link their consciousness to a DNA-engineered biological machine which can survive on Pandora.
It is crucial humans can survive on Pandora because there is a buried natural resource called Unobtainium in the planet which the human beings need to solve their energy crisis back on earth.
The latest driver/mercenary is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a marine who lost his walk. He has been assigned to befriend the natives of Pandora, learn their culture and language (subtitles in 3D!) in order to gain their trust and persuade them how it is in their best interest to relocate away from the land of rich natural resources or suffer the consequences a la pick your indigenous peoples displaced throughout history.
More of a man than your typical corporate cog greasing the wheels of colonialism, thanks to a native, Neytir (a superb Zoë Saldana), Jake begins to learn and appreciate the ways the inhabitants live in harmony with their environment. They only kill enough to survive, acknowledging their four-legged victims for their sacrifice (there are no abattoirs on Pandora). They do not waste on Pandora. This in turn has given them peace -- plus physiques and facial structures of modelesque magnitude.
The ethical and physical superiority of the natives fascinates Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver, who starred in Cameron's Aliens) while reminding businessmen like Carter Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and "fight terror with terror" Col. Miles Quaritich (Stephen Lang) of their own inadequacies once outside the money and might mantra. Will people like Carter and Colonel tear down this distant land, too, in the name of finite energy? Will Jake obey orders or go rogue?
A classic tale of invading ignoble savages getting rebuffed and refuted by noble native "savages" (when you make or take the war over there, you give your opponent home field advantage) magnified by some groundbreaking special effects, Avatar is a grand film, offering fun, entertainment and perspective in a world largely in denial of its pissing-on-the-poor past and its highly probable future of continued want and wantonness.
