I tried to sit through Avatar. I really did. But I just couldn't do it. Large soda and large popcorn in hand, I walked out. A smile broke over my face as the door to that auditorium closed behind me. As I nervously scanned for any ushers when I snuck into Sherlock Holmes, I joined the "Yeah But" crowd."Yeah the special effects were good but the story...well that's another story."
What really bugged me, to the point where I could no longer suspend disbelief, was there was no point to making the movie. I am not saying the story had no point. It follows the monomyth: hero is given a task, ventures to a strange land, engages in conflict, and emerges with what he was missing. There was no reason for the filmmakers to make this specific story. James Cameron spent over ten years and three billion dollars to make Avatar. Ten years and three billion dollars to essentially remake Dances with Wolves. It is the exact same story of the lost man discovering himself when he joins the indigeous or aboriginal people. Didn't anyone notice this. They had ten years.
As I exited the theater I overheard a grandmother and her ten year old grandson talking.
"Have you seen Avatar," the grandma asks.
"Yeah. IT WAS AMAZING," he exclaimed.
Maybe Avatar is beyond me. I might finally be "too old" to get it. Avatar is this nascent generation's Star Wars. A film that inspires less from the message the hero learns but more from the filmmaker making a world people want to live in.
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