If you haven’t seen Avatar, you’ve probably heard of it and heard a lot about it from every possible media outlet imaginable. However, this is how the Titanic worship started, only to have rising backlash in the next 12 years, so you never know where this current juggernaut will go. Despite all the hype and good and bad press, I went to see it with my wife and was pleasantly surprised. What the hell does that mean? Here’s the skinny…

The plot goes something like this: Paraplegic war veteran, Jake Sully is brought to a distant planet called Pandora in place of his brother with the promise of getting his legs back if he helps the government on a mission. Pandora is inhabited by a primitive race called the Na’vi and Jake is sent in to learn their ways so that he can help relocate them and the humans can take over to rape the planet for it’s rich natural resources.

Avatar takes us to a spectacular, unseen world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” first conceived the film 15 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not exist yet. Now, after four years of production, Avatar, a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story. I couldn’t help but think of Apocalypse Now as I watched the very Vietnam-era inspired aircraft of the human invaders and my guess is that the similarities there and in the base story aren’t exactly coincidental.

As many reviews have said, Avatar leans heavily on the Dances with Wolves storyline, but the sheer visual feast James Cameron delivers makes the similarities a non-issue. Seriously, the SFX are impeccable and he uses them well. Instead of just shoving them in your face, he weaves them into the story beautifully, and they come off effortlessly as he moves between live and CG actors. Aside from the obvious CG awesomeness and thinly veiled plot lines, Avatar was truly an original and included some very innovative aspects never before seen in a feature film. I highly doubt that Avatar will ever be lauded as a landmark film, though perhaps it will be the new benchmark for all CG work on all films that follow it. Oh and BTW, if you do go see Avatar in the theater, definitely spend a few extra bucks and see it in IMAX 3D as the 3D effect is nothing short of amazing.

I’m posting this a couple of days early for the benefit of my friends and colleagues down under, but nonetheless, Happy New Year to you and yours and here’s wishing all the best in 2010! My final piece for 2010 has been added to the gallery and it’s appropriately titled, Auld Lang Syne. Enjoy

Oh, and you can get this one as a wallpaper here!