Avatar, The Movie

My first entry of 2010 is about a movie which I'd watched last year. Why? Being quite busy & stressful lately, I didn't have the time & energy for my blog. However, I just couldn't let that movie go without writing about it because that movie is AVATAR! And it's FREAKING AWESOME! Not writing a review here coz there are too many out there already & I'm not qualify to do so. What I wanted to put down are more for my own memory of my personal experience & insight of the movie. While watching the movie, I noticed a flaw, quite unnoticeable to many when I brought up the matter. There's this inconstancy in scale. Most obvious is the differences in scale of the human to the Na'vi. In some scenes when human & Na'vi(or the avatars) are together, the Na'vi look gigantic & in another scene, they seem smaller. I assumed it was due to the CGI rendering of certain sections of the movie were handled by different teams & they don't merged up too good in perspective of scale in the final production. Other than the scale issue, in my humble opinion, James Cameron had done an impressive job. Avatar is one of the best movies I'd ever watched so far.

Avatar

The human interlopers

The indigenous locals

And the quarrels between them


It seems strange(to the Asian culture/society) that as a female, I love sci-fi movies & had watched many. And to top off the strangeness, what I love most in many sci-fi movies are the hardwares featured. The machinery or what's known in Japanese anime, mecha. In Avatar case, it's the spaceship, the shuttles, the choppers & the fighting suits.

List of machinery:
ISV Venture Star ~ Interstellar transport using antimatter propulsion systems to enable interstellar travel. The ISV Venture Star is one of twelve similar ships travelling between the Sol and Alpha Centauri A systems, commissioned by the RDA as mineral carriers.
Valkyrie ~ A space shuttle-like transport which delivers cargo and passengers to the surface. It has VTOL capability by swiveling its fusion engines, and like the C-130 Hercules was adapted as a bomber to drop daisy cutter bombs out of the rear cargo ramp.
AMP(Armored Mobility Platform) suit MK-6 ~ A combat vehicle that is worn and controlled as a large "mech" motorized suit.
Samson ~ Ducted fan VTOL utility aircraft similar in appearance and role to the Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey or contemporary UH-60 Blackhawk.
Scorpion ~ Heavily armed gunship counterpart to Samson. Similar in role and appearance to the AH-64 Apache or Hind gunships.
Dragon Gunship ~ Large four-post ducted-fan VTOL heavily armed transport and gunship which can deliver AMP suits through drop doors.

ISV Venture Star, Valkyrie & AMP suits

Samson, Scorpion & Dragon Gunship


Other than the mecha, what caught my attention when the movie started was, Avatar is one of the very few sci-fi movies till date that featured a moon as habitable & Earth-like instead of the planet. Avatar offers truly beautiful breathtaking landscapes & the floating mountains are like OMG! WOW! Astonishing!

Beautiful Pandora

Captivating Landscapes

The Unbelievable Floating Mountains


Beside those, what really intrigued & awed me is the amazingly incredible flora & fauna, a hint of an alien ecosystem. I believe this is the first time it was done in a frictional movie. Come to think of Pandora life forms, I have a question, why is it that all Pandora animals have 6 limbs & yet the Na'vi have only 2 pairs? Can anyone answer that?

List of flora:
Helicoradian (Loreyu) ~ Carnivorous plant that has red spiral-leaves. The plants are up to 3-4m tall and, when touched, they curl and collapse into themselves instantly.
Obesus rotundus (Rumut) ~ A tree that looks like a puffball tree.
Pseudocycas altissima (Tsyorina’wll) ~ Plant that looks like a tall Earth cycad.
The Hometrees (Kelutrel) ~ Giant trees great enough to house hundreds of clan members. The trees are honeycombed with natural hollows and alcoves in which the Na'vi sleep, eat, weave, dance, and celebrate their connection to Eywa. Adult Hometrees are more than 150 meters tall, and roughly 30 meters in diameter.
The Tree of Souls (Ayvitrayä Ramunong) ~ A tree where the Na'vi are able to communicate with the biological network that exists throughout Pandora.
The Tree of Voices (Utral Aymokriyä) ~ The most important tree to the Na'vi after the Tree of Souls. It is smaller but its appearance is similar and it too is illuminated.
Woodsprites (Atokirina’) ~ Seeds of the "holy tree", appearing similar to airborne jellyfish.

Flora of Pandora

Weird Creatures


List of fauna:
Prolemuris Blue ~ Hexapod creatures based on Earth's lemurs.
Hexapede (Yerik) ~ Hexapod deerlike creatures.
Hammerhead Titanothere (Angtsìk or ’angtsìkä in Na'vi) ~ Large hexapod herbivore with a head shaped like a hammer.
Thanator (Palulukan) ~ A large hexapodal land predator.
Viperwolf (Nantang) ~ A hexapod nocturnal carnivore.
Mountain Banshee (Ikran in Na'vi) ~ Airborne predator who lives in mountainous territory on Pandora. Na'vi warriors attempt to bond with a Banshee, a dangerous and required rite of passage. A Banshee bonds to a Na'vi warrior for life.
Great Leonopteryx (Toruk) ~ An airborne predator native to Pandora.
Direhorse (Pa'li) ~ A bioluminescent hexapod equine-like animal.

Strange Critters

Freaky Beasties

Native Air & Land Transports


And in a sort of fan service after watching Avatar, Axel, a Flickr friend of mine decided to turn me into a Na'vi. The creations below were what came out of his freaky mind! =P
Fortunately he didn't do me in Pandorean Blue which would be horribly disastrous! LOL! xD
These pics of his, including an animated video of me, are featured here in appreciation of his fabulous works & in respect of his creative imagination. My sincere heartfelt thanks, my dear Otaku Axel!

Na'vi Hengbok! =P

My Avatar & Me

Love Yourself