Avatar Again

My sister and her husband are here on a rare visit from the Midwest, and to celebrate, I asked them to see Avatar with our mother and me. It was to be my second viewing of the film, but I had wanted to see Avatar again so I could study it and have something to say about it in this blog.  I knew my sister and her husband would love it, because they’re both gamers and science fiction fans.

However, we got a late start. We had to wait for Mother to show up, and as usual she was running late.  Very late.  Over an hour and a half late, she finally showed up with several bags of odd, unneeded stuff from the Dollar Store.  Why had she spent so much time shopping when her daughters were waiting on her?

My mother and my sisters and I have a running joke.  Whenever we get distracted by something during a simple shopping errand, and find ourselves spending an hour or three at someplace like the “wall mirrors” section of Big Lots, we explain it all by looking at one another and saying the same two words, usually in unison: “Pretty!  Shiny!”  That’s because these two features in any one object are all it takes to grab our attention and hold it for ridiculous amounts of time.

And true to form, our mother had stopped at the Dollar Store for who knows what stupid little item—I think it might have been potato chips (I know, a bad idea) —and something pretty and shiny had gotten her attention at 3:00 pm and the next thing she knew, it was 4:30 pm.

We rushed through dinner and then got to the theater, picked up our 3D glasses, and watched the film.  As I predicted, both my sister and her husband were amazed, entranced, and they loved Avatar.  My mother and I still loved it, as well.

So what can I say about Avatar for this blog entry?  I had plans to analyze the color palette and talk about the quality of light and its continuity through the rising and setting of the several planets in Pandora’s sky.  I was also going to check the credits for listings of painters and what part they played in the making of the film as far as live action or CGI effects.

But you know what?  For the second time I fell headlong into the world reaching out from the screen and flew with those giant bird-lizards (who strangely enough remind me of my hawk Tennerin), caught my breath again at the luminescence of the forest plants and the seeds from the Tree of Souls, watched the irises of the Na’vi glow with emotion, and the changing hues of their skin, marveled at those lizard’s mottled scale patterns that seemed to shift through the colors of the rainbow as they soared between floating mountains…

And I have nothing of any substance to report.  Once again I was completely distracted by the beauty of Pandora.  It was all so pretty, and so shiny!