Guess Who Went To See Avatar? No, Not Gene Siskel! He’s Dead! No, It Was Actually ME! by K.L. Arno
Even though it’s “Tis The Season” (Christmastide) and we should all be thinking hard about presents, candy, “nog,” and trees, the word on everybody’s lips these days is AVATAR.
So what in the heck does it mean? As it turns out, it doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s just a name made up by James “Captain Kirk” Cameron when he was trying to think of a title for his new visionary film entitled, appropriately, AVATAR.
Already famous for being the third most expensive movie ever made (after Legend Of Zelda: The Movie and Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman), Avatar sure has a lot of hype to live up to. Just how much hype? Well, imagine if President Reagan said he was coming back from the dead and making a movie with Eddie Murphy featuring the music of Aerosmith and you’ll start to get some idea!
So how about it? Does Avatar deliver? You’ll find out in my chronological timeline review below! After all this movie is too big and long and time-consuming and extensive to cover like any other!
CHRONOLOGY OF THE TIME I WENT TO SEE A SPECIAL SCREENING OF AVATAR FEATURING MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE MOMENTS I EXPERIENCED, BROKEN UP INTO 15 MINUTE SECTIONS:
00:00 - 00:15
So I get to the theater and pay for my ticket and the girl tries to give me some glasses. “No thanks,” I say, pointing at my peepers (eyes), ”20/20 all the way!” You see, my eyes are in great shape thanks to good genes, exercise, and regular brushing/flossing. Most of the rest of the audience opted for the specs which makes me wonder about the state of optical care in this country. I know glasses can be expensive but c’mon!
I settle into my seat and watch my favorite part of the movie-going experience: the previews. There was an exciting ad for a movie I didn’t catch the name of but it looked like a cross of Star Wars and Return of the Jedi (with just a touch of KRULL). There was another one for a comedy starring Ben Stiller (just writing his name makes me laugh a little) and of course a sneak peek at the final installment of the Frankenstein series of blockbusters. Looks like he finally gets his revenge on those villagers! and Stalin!
And then the moment of truth. The screen goes black. The music starts rumbling. A big orange letter explodes onto on the screen. A! The music gets a little louder. A green V appears! A burst of flame up in the left-hand corner! Another A, purple this time! A skull flies across the screen, cackling horridly. In its wake, a brown T! As the strings and bongos build to a mad crescendo, a silhouette of a dancing lady pulsates for an instant, resolving into a yellow letter — another damn A! (What’s with all the A’s?, I wonder.) Finally, out of the cockpit of a roaring jet airplane pops the final letter: a pink R. And then I get it. The letters form a word. ‘AVATAR’ HAS ARRIVED.
00:15 - 00:30
The beginning of this movie (after the heart-pumping title sequence) is mostly talking and therefore a little slow. We find ourselves on Lunar Moon Base Fresno IX, in the Pentax System. The main character, Sgt. Torp Flakstreem, is undergoing extremely rigorous training, battling robotic creatures in a controlled environment (shades of Barry Lyndon?). But he halts the exercise to talk to his commander, Cmmndr Helen Guillaume, about the events of the past 9,000 years or so. They discuss how Earth was blown to bits in the late 1990s and how the few survivors who had been stationed on the sun found a habitable planet approximately 50 million light years away, a barren world called Reggie.
It’s a lot to take in, but there’s more. It seems Cmmndr Guillaume is wanted for space-sabotage and so they are all part of a fugitive military unit on the run from a certain Admrl (short for “Admiral” but pronounced “Admrl”) Klore, who is hell-bent on destroying as many planets as he can before the Unified Alliance of Incorporated Space Planetary Governments outlaws the destruction of planets.
Torp explains that his training has to be put on hold so he can take a space jet off to this one planet so he can rescue his girlfriend. Cmmndr Guillaume disagrees and they argue about that for a while.
But don’t worry, much excitement is right around the corner!
00:30 - 00:45
Not yet, though. This section was also more talking. Torp and the Cmmndr take a meeting with the Prime Minister of the UAISPG. A new character, Gypsy Al, is seen teaching his self-made robot how to dance. Hilarious scene. I ate so many M&Ms!
However, fear not! Much action awaits!
00:45 - 01:00
The next part of the movie expands on how the UAIPSG system works, going into much detail about the checks and balances built into the Galactic Constitutional Resolution and how the various races interact via representative government and email.
But then! Holy moly! Right at that moment when Senator X’llohnson is about to call the hearing to order a huge arrow strikes him in the chest, causing his heart to fly out of his back!
This is more like it!
01:00 - 01:15
After the Senator’s assassination, Cpt. (short for Calportoff) Mentske brings Torp and Lydia (Cmndr Guillaume’s “silesian” name — she’s an alien!) to the jungle planet Lancome. Our intrepid heroes build a fort which is soon destroyed by a race of NINE FOOT TALL CAT-LIKE BLUE ALIENS WHO SHARE A DREAM OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND NATURAL HARMONY. These strange creatures escape into the thick rain forest and are never heard from again.
01:15 - 01:30
This next section is a flashback to 1941 where we discover that back on planet Earth, President Roosevelt has built the first spaceship. He flies it to Reggie and plants a bomb set to go off 4,000 years in the future.
01:30 - 01:45
Gypsy Al and his robot track down their friends Brian (Torp’s “looamoalitian” name — he’s an alien!) and Lydia on Lancome. The foursome brews up a plan to find Roosevelt’s bomb and throw it at Admrl Klore’s star-frigate. Then there’s a love scene.
01:45 - 02:00
Gypsy Al dies when he dives over a waterfall to save his robot, who can’t swim — a really emotional scene, made even more poignant by Prince’s beautiful score. It’s unclear what happens to the robot, and a quick jump to another love scene is a bit jarring.
02:00 - 02:15
Sigourney Weaver finally turns up as the Lancomian goddess Gre’gg. She tells the heroes they need to build a giant radiation shield to save the planet from deforestation/being blown up. She grants Lydia the power to speak to water molecules (which will come in handy later, as we’ll see) and Brian is turned into a flying mythical beast called the Hugeosaur. I was hoping for another love scene, but no dice (yet!).
02:15 - 02:30
The movie builds toward its climax as the rebels from planet Reggie invade Lancome in search of its mines of precious spice (called “cumin”) which they ingest in order to travel through time and dimensions. They are defeated by an army of native buffalo, who are able to infect them with a virus that renders them incapable of pronouncing hard c’s or k’s.
02:30 - 02:45
Luis and Oro (Brian and Lydia’s adopted Fenglarian names — they’re different aliens!) return to Lancome with a newly-powered radiation shield which they offer to the Tree People Of Lancome. The NINE FOOT TALL CAT-LIKE PEOPLE WHO ARE BLUE IN COLOR AND WHO LIVE TO PROTECT AND SHARE THE LAND WHICH GIVES THEM LIFE return in a van to declare a treaty with mankind, represented by Brian/Torp/Luis/Gypsy Al (it was him all along!) and Oro/Lydia/Cmndr Guillaume/The Robot (it didn’t drown after all!).
As the humans and BLUE-ISH, FELINE-ESQUE RACE OF NOBLE WARRIORS exchange peaceful handshakes and sign documents, one of the REALLY RATHER TALL BUT ULTIMATELY SERENE AND AT ONE WITH PLANT-LIFE creatures rips off a rubber mask to reveal a human face! And not just any human face — the angry human face of actor James Woods!
James Woods, now revealed to all as the sinister Admrl Klore (the other Admrl Klore’s twin brother), murders the remaining humans with a laser-powered axe given to him by Gr’egg in an earlier scene I forgot about until now.
Horrified at this “species-treason” (the original title of Avatar was Species Treason, which tested poorly so they changed it), and confused by the plot-twist, the TOWERING CERULEAN EMBLEMS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE STRIVING TOWARD THE COMMON GOAL OF ENDING GLOBAL WARMING AND LITTER all agree to mark James Woods with the J’y’h’l’xx’t’X’ian Brand. Which means they’re going to eat him.
02:45 - 03:00
Peace reigns at last on the planet Lancome! Joyous music plays as all the rhinos, buffalo, bears, pterodactyls, dogs, costumed dwarfs, various ethnic minorities, caribou, and radiation shields gather for a sumptuous feast and much laser-dancing. James Woods is eaten and heartily enjoyed amidst much laughter and story-telling. I, for one, got a little misty at the sight of all these characters I’d grown to love and cherish over the past few hours finally getting some down-time.
03:00 - 03:15
In a sort of mini-epilogue, Gen. General Gnrl Draaperson (mighty leader of THOSE TALL GUYS) delivers a stirring eulogy to his fallen friends, Brian and Torp. He shoots an arrow into the sky in their honor, which (unbeknownst to the mourners) travels back in time to become the very arrow that felled that one Senator earlier!
03:15 - 03:30
In an eerie post-epilogue, a phone rings in a quiet office. A lone figure sits at a desk, smoking. The lone figure’s hand reaches for the phone, which is covered in alien-blood. “Hello?” the figure answers. “IS GYPSY AL THERE?” the caller asks. “This is him,” the lone figure says. “HOW ARE YOU?” the caller asks. “I’m fine. Who’s this?” Long pause.
“CAROL MADDINGTON. FROM SPACE!”
Cut to black! Totally chilling! I suppose we’ll have to wait until the sequel to find out what that means. But there’s more…
03:30 - 03:45
Oh wait, no there’s not. Just the credits. Pretty boring, though it’s interesting there were so many people working on costumes for this movie. They weren’t THAT impressive.
03:45 - 04:00
Hold up! It’s a good thing I dropped my pager on the floor and spent so much time looking for it! (I found it though, so relax!) Because after the credits are over there’s one last bit of AVA-xcitement! And what is it you ask? Well, SPOILER ALERT! If you don’t want to know what happens at the very, very end of the movie then by all means don’t read below!
Last chance to stop reading!
Ok here it comes!
Ready?
Ok! The very very ending is:
The laughing skull from the opening credits comes flying out of the screen right toward the audience — or seems to, because it starts out small and gets bigger and bigger until it’s pretty big! I almost started crying it was so frightening! And then, just when you think it can’t get any more heartbeat-raising, a great big tan question mark materializes! I swear: this was the greatest ending to any movie ever.
FINAL ANALYSIS:
Good movie!
