Avatar - Worth Every Cent!

It was definitely worth the eight hundred odd Rupees I spent on four tickets and I was obviously not the only one who thought that way, because at the end of the movie there was a very spontaneous and very loud round of applause! If you're wondering whether clapping at the end of a movie is a Sri Lankan tradition, it's not; I've been watching movies for close to thirty years now, and this is the first time it's happened. Of course people applaud a good performance at a live event like a cricket match or a stage play, when the performers are actually able to hear the appreciation of the audience for a job well done, but I think this was just a 'thank you' to all the people who made it possible for us to spend almost three hours on Pandora, and the fact that Mr. Cameron and team couldn't hear us clapping was immaterial.

Will it get a permanent place on my favourite movie list like Contact, Blade Runner, The Matrix and 2001? I'm not sure; guess I'll wait a few years and see. The idea of Eywa was pretty cool, like the sentient ocean of Solyaris or Foundation's Gaia but with some actual pointers on how it could conceivably occur somewhere. The Na'vi will also keep me questioning what environmental factors could have influenced a few of our ancestors on earth to make us like them instead. I think it's mostly the questions a book or a movie ask that keep me going back to it, but in this case it could just be to relive the audio-visual experience!

A the start of the movie I told Sharm that I still remember how it felt to see the Brachiosaurus stand up on it's hind legs to pick a few leaves off a tree right at the start of Jurassic Park (incidentally at the same theater, just 16 years ago) and was hoping this would be just as good. In Avatar there were so many moments like that, I have to say it's without a doubt the most amazing movie I have ever seen!