Be warned; there are spoilers ahead.
So, I went to see Avatar today, driven on by curiosity. I’d heard all the hype, watched an entire Bones episode that had been devoted to promoting it and since the theatres were still full after two weeks —in my city, that is huge; even The Return of the King looked slightly empty after two weeks— I wanted to know what made Avatar so special. Yes, I knew that the special effects were going to be spectacular, but special effects do not a piece of cinematic art make. The newspapers were all gushing about it, saying how this movie was going to make people feel more aware of the environmental problems that we have in our world and motivate them to do something about these problems. Really, can one movie do so much?
I believe in the power of film, of course. One film changed my life. (Unfortunately, that film was not very popular with the western world and therefore no one treated it like the masterpiece that it is.) But to affect so many people? I suspected that the film itself was overhyped. Still, overhyped or not, it was worth a look. Read the rest of this entry »
