Avatar

Today, Rebecca took us to the movies. That's a rare experience for us. I think the last time we went to the movies it was to see Lord of the Rings. Today we saw Avatar. This is another fantasy movie, much more so, and in 3-D. There's plenty to like, even to get very enthusiastic about, in this movie. It has a strong ecological message, that all living things are interconnected and it's perilous to ignore this reality. I liked the name of the rare mineral, unobtainium, that humans space-traveled to this planet (Pandora) to extract and thereby enrich themselves.I liked the evocative name of the planet, reminding us of the legend of Pandora's box and all the troubles of the world that were let loose when the box was opened. I didn't catch their name, but I liked the tall, graceful blue-skinned humanoid inhabitants of this planet, and I liked their tails -would have really loved it if these tails had a major role in love-making as they did in a science fiction novel I read about 40-50 years ago. The screen-writers missed a wonderful opportunity there, though I suppose that may have been a step too far for the timidly prurient American censors. Some of the other living things on Pandora were beautiful and aesthetically pleasing too, and the scary nasty beasties were suitably scary without being outrageously so. The humans were mostly villainous and at least two were downright evil. It was a nice touch to have the most evil villain of all killed by two arrows through the heart, not by the human/avatar hero but by the graceful blue skinned heroine. I'm not sure I followed the symbolism or mysticism that came after that in the last few moments of the movie but overall it seemed a satisfactory ending to a generally enjoyable and worthwhile experience. Thanks, Rebecca for taking us to see it. I believe there's soon to be another 3-D movie, a new adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Maybe next time we'll take R&R...