Saturday, January 26, 2013

The familar

I think it is interesting that throughout life there have been stories that have transcended time, and despite the changing of characters, some slight changes to plot there remains an outline for some stories. Such as the guy and the girl getting together after the he rescues her from some fate, there are a million ways to tell this story, and once you hear a rendition you are able to guess where the rest of the story is going. Another platform for a story is the one where somebody new has some gift or is special in some way, and they are the ones that save a town, a country or a civilization. They are all the same and yet all so different.

When I watched Avatar it was exciting because it was supposed to be this new world, this groundbreaking work where everything was new. Yet as I sit here and watch it the parts of the plot are easy to pick out and the story goes the way you are pretty much expecting it too, there are no surprises, except that for once an indigenous tribe wins their fight for freedom. Jake Sully, in the form of his avatar comes to these indigenous people. Right away he is picked out by their deity and for reasons they don't understand and he definitely doesn't, they cannot kill him.

So he is taken under their wing and learns their ways and in the end he ends up being their savior. He is the one that is able to bring all the other tribes together and create a war strategy that gives the indigenous people an advantage. This 'savior' character has been seen before, and it wasn't hard to see that even though Jake is not one of their kind and does not even hold the same body that he can save them. It is also clear from the beginning when he ends up with the 'princess' of these people, she is the one who teaches him, she is at his side the whole time and ultimately it becomes clear that they will end up together.

I just find it fascinating that even though this movie is groundbreaking and it introduces this new planet and takes the meaning of Avatar to a new level it is a story that we have seen many times before. It is interesting that even though we have seen it before we still find emotional attachment to the story and find it easier to follow since we know how the story goes. 

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