Avatar and the message behind

I’m not a movie-fanatic but I was deeply moved by the youtube trailer of The Secret which I owe great thanks to Joseph Emmanuel Lansang for giving me the link. I haven’t recovered from the frenzy of The Secret yet when he told me to watch Avatar saying “Watch it and you will thank me more“. In less than an hour I saw status updates on Facebook Livestream talking about the movie and how good it was. ‘Twas not until I read the Avatar review of Rebecca Murray at About.com that I finally found my way to the cinema. My friend Jytjyt Soliva was at first very reluctant to watch it because for her, ‘280 Baht is way too expensive for a movie’. But having convinced by her co-teachers, she ended up on the seat beside me.

As I let my 3D glasses take me to Pandora, I felt I was hypnotized by its exhilarating panorama. The 3D glasses was indeed successful in letting the viewers delve into the world of the Na’vis. It gave me the feeling that I was actually there, a part of their world and sharing with them the magnificent beauty that nature has to offer. Two thumbs up for James Cameron for such an ‘out of the box’ creativity. The cinematography was perfect.

What I liked most about the movie was the love ingredient James Cameron has incorporated. Jake leaving the human world to be one with the alien Neytiri was way too romantic. But despite the grandiose scenes and the magical feeling that runs through my veins, I can’t help but be bothered by the evident message of the movie. One doesn’t need to reach the climax of the story before realizing its connection to the catastrophic phenomena humans are experiencing at present.

According to Murray, “Avatar is set in a future in which we’re able to travel to distant planets and interact the natives.” Here’s my own take on that. Watching the movie was like taking off on a time machine that brought me back to the past, where our world  was like that of Pandora, peacefully inhabited by our ancestors. But humanity’s greed placed our mother land to destruction just like the Na’vis’ tree of life.

How the Na’vis grieved for losing their loved ones and home reflects the suffering of those victims of calamities at present. And the sad truth is that what ruined their harmonious life is basically the same to what destroyed our land right now, technological advancement, literally. Although innovations are necessary for the improvement of life, the inevitable misuse and overuse of these technologies led to various environmental destructions.

The last 30 minutes of the movie showed how the humans were defeated by the Na’vis despite their use of high-tech shields. I felt that the Na’vis were sending us a message, that at the very end when it’s time for mother nature to take its revenge, even the greatest inventions of man cannot save us.