I saw it the other day. Went to the cinema, paid R65 (!) for a ticket, and got some neat 3D glasses. Unfortunately, I had to return the glasses afterwards. They were plastic and everything… =(

Anyway, so people are saying that it's "the best movie ever made" and stuff like that. In a way, they're right. Technically, it looks amazing. The visuals are absolutely spectacular. But with a budget of $250-300 million, that's the kind of thing that should be expected demanded.

The plot, however, is far from the sorta thing you'd expect to see in "the best movie ever made". It's the age old story of a white man - I mean human - becoming a member of a Native American - I mean blue alien - tribe and fighting against his former comrades to save them.

The entire movie's message is basically that these aliens are totally better than us, and yet if ol' Jake the Wheelchair Marine² hadn't joined them, they'd've been exterminated. Interesting message.

A good decent bit of entertainment, and technically superior to anything I've ever seen before, but not breathtakingly original. But I guess the main point of watching it is to enjoy the visuals. Just don't think to hard about:

- Why aren't the blue aliens freaked out by members of their species (very life-like replicas, at least) being remote controlled by humans? I don't know about you, but if aliens started growing humans in tanks and pretending to be them in order to ingratiate themselves with us, I'd be rather unnerved.

- (SPOILERS) So we're told that the bond between blue alien and freaky dragon thing is everlasting and very special and stuff¹. Then Jake has this whole long scene where he gets his freaky dragon thing, and that's all good. BUT THEN he just abandons it in favour of a bigger freaky dragon thing later. What about the freakin' bond?

- Why didn't they think of bringing in the freaky triceratops things in themselves? Sure, they couldn't directly control them, but a bit of prodding, a bit of poking with sticks, and a bit of general provocation and agitation, and those thing's woulda been tearing through the forest, crushing everything in their path. That's what I would've done, anyway.(/SPOILERS)

- Why are the blue aliens such uppity jerks? Sure, the humans were kinda jerks too, but all the aliens wanted to do was carry on living as they always had, sticking their hair into everything and carving spears out of trees, because their culture was apparently "better" than ours. You can't tell me that none of them were the least bit curious about the visiting aliens.

As far as "aliens as a metaphor for non-white races" movies go, give me District 9 over this any day.

Also, once the movie's over, hide the plastic glasses in your pocket and make a run for it.

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1 - A sky bison would be less dangerous to get, though.

2 - I wish movie people would start making main characters I like. This one starts out as a block-headed soldier guy, and ends up renouncing his humanity and becoming a nature-headed soldier blue guy.

F1ak3r