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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Latest nerdery

I have been ordered to finish the remaining third of a bottle of red wine, so naturally, the most obvious thing to do in a case like this is to complete the task and then get online and unleash some of my innermost thoughts into the interwebs. Ok, maybe these are not my innermost thoughts, necessarily, but how about some fluffy commentary on Avatar, which we went to see last night? Hmm?

I’ll start off by admitting that, yes, I was a skeptic. I knew it was going to be good, since the critics were giving it above average to good reviews, but I just can’t say I had much desire to watch it. However, you give me 3 straight hours of HGTV or TLC and you would get a resounding, “Hell yes, sounds like a great way to kill an afternoon!” from me. I don’t know, I guess I was just depending on the Hub to be the driving force and say, “We’re going to watch Avatar on such and such day at so and so time” since I figured he’d be in more of a rush to see it, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t until the buzz around the Hub’s place of work finally got to him and he decided we would go see it in 3D.

I’ll cut to the chase and say that the story itself was not groundbreaking, with its themes of being connected to our environment and community. It’s the world of the Na’vi, as well as the people themselves and their devotion to each other and their deity that makes this story so wonderful to look at and intriguing to think about. I won’t go into too much detail, but I will mention that I really liked how even the animals on Pandora play such a major role. They, too, feel a strong connection to their surroundings and act on their instincts to protect their home. Let me just say now, I want an ikran. How awesome would it be to sail above highway 50 on one of those?

The high attention to detail is in every aspect of the film: from the language of the Na’vi to the plants and trees, which were created by actual linguists and botanists, respectively. Oh, and I can’t forget the science labs where Dr. Grace and her hench-people worked, with their sexy glass touch-screens. Yes, not only would I love to go to Pandora, but I’d love to work in that lab too! Needless to say, I loved the movie and highly recommend it to anyone who might have even the smallest appreciation for any sci-fi or fantasy type nerdery.

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