The clash between doing what is right and doing what we are told to do is an old one. It also makes for a great story.
The 2009 movie, Avatar, is at heart, the story of that internal struggle.
Former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic. When his brother is killed, Jake takes his brothers spot. His brother was preparing to travel to the distant world of Pandora. The Na’vi, the native humanoid like species has called Pandora home for generations. In return for spinal surgery, Jake goes along with the plan of industrialist Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), whose intentions are less than noble.
Gathering intelligence on the Na’vi, Jake goes undercover. But things become complicated as Jake begins to integrate into Na’vi society and forms a relationship with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), the daughter of the Na’vi chief.
As I have stated in previous posts, I’m not a fan of movie makers using special effects to move a story along because the screenplay is weak. What director James Cameron knows how to do very well as a film maker is to special effects wisely. While most of the movie is heavily reliant on special effects, it is not used a stop gap where plot holes exist. Essentially, the story can be boiled down to Dances With Wolves set in an alternate universe. The overarching theme that Cameron is making is that we need to respect the environment and we need to respect our traditions. It is easy to throw them aside when the opportunities for personal and financial gain come our way. It is much harder to restore that environment and those traditions that we have previously destroyed.
I highly recommend this movie.
Writergurlny 