Wow. That really sums it up. Wow.
I know everyone is probably sick of hearing about Avatar, but we went to see it today, so you get to hear about it one more time. It reminds me of Terminator 2 and The Matrix, in that it took ideas that weren't really new and put them together in a new way with spectacular visuals to create something that feels ahead of its time. Remember when you saw the morphing effects in T2 or bullet time in The Matrix? These are old hat now, but at the time they were revolutionary, and they both changed the future of movies. That's how I felt leaving the theater today. I feel like I saw something special and that everyone else is going to spend the next few years trying to catch up or copy the style.
Was the plot the most original? No, not really. Some of it might even be cliched. You've probably heard some of the comparisons by now: It's Ferngully. It's Dances With Wolves. It's 90% of all undercover/spy movies ever. Those are all valid comparisons, but Cameron builds on these familiar themes, constructing a mille-feuille of layer after layer of world building, character, emotional investment and visuals far too stunning for me to even try to describe here. The end result is something pleasingly familiar, yet altogether foreign.
Yeah, "wow" pretty much describes it.
