Notes on a Scandalous Life

Since I talked up my excitement about Avatar the other night, I think it's only fair that I share my thoughts about it - post-movie. Personally, I loved it, even though there were a few holes.

The goods:
- Strong female characters not relegated to mere romantic interest roles
- Slight gender ambiguity among the natives of, uh, whatever-planet-that-is. I don't mean that you couldn't tell which ones were male and which were female, but, rather, that they all served similar roles in their culture - very egalitarian.
- Really, really well-played and imaginative special effects.
- Sigourney Weaver with a tail.

The bads:
- Several gaps in the story. Personally, I felt like I just got dropped in in the middle, and then had to find my own way from there. I had a lot of questions that were left unanswered - even though the movie was long as hell.
- The anthropologically-correct moral of the story (that indiginous people are not necessarily "primative" - just different) was a little overplayed, and made a lot of obvious references to American Indians. Not that that's bad... but sometimes I felt like it was being pushed on me a little bit.
- Not enough Michelle Rodriguez. Per my previous post, this may be due to some personal bias, but... c'mon.
- The whole "mating for life" thing. While I'm not opposed to mating for life, I kind of thought that an indiginous tribe, so in-touch with nature, might be a little more, you know, promiscuous. But then, maybe I'm just being too liberal here. Penguins mate for life, after all. Maybe they're like penguins. Just not quite as cute.

Overall: excellent moie. Especially in 3D. I hated Coraline in 3D, but this movie totally utilized the technology to make the film really jump out at you. My final verdict: go see it!