::A Geek in Korea::

Some friends of mine bought tickets to the 3D version of Pocahontas, who Dances with Wolves in Ferngully and is also the Last Samurai Avatar that was showing at a theater in town. They made the reservations a few days in advance, guaranteeing a good ticket for us. I’m too lazy to get to a theater to see a movie about blue cat people, but if someone else does the work I was willing to go see it with them. That being said, I’m glad I went. That movie in particular was only really worth seeing projected in 3D in a theater. It was beautiful, well made, and stylistically cool, despite starring giant furries. If I was a kid today, this is the movie that would make me a fanboy for science fiction.

The story was a well done take on something you’ve seen half a dozen times. How they packaged the story, the scenery of the world was presented in a novel manner thanks to the special effects and 3d. You weren’t there for the story, but the spectacle of it all. The bomb dropping left and right in the battles were heavy handed metaphors, but they blew up and looked so pretty! I had a hard time remembering that some it CGI some of the time, which is  rare. In 20 years time, when all movies look like this and are in 3D, people will laugh at how bad this movie is, but this is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and that’s worth seeing in the theater.

I felt that the most interesting part of the entire premise was the technology they absolutely skipped right past. There was a vat grown creature linked to another that could somehow connect via a giant body coffin, allowing one wheelchair bound marine to become a capable furry cat guy. That was the entire premise of it being called “Avatar”. They don’t explain why this is possible, but the entire story builds off the idea that people infiltrate another society by wearing their bodies, learn their culture, then exploit their sympathies to gain their resources. Sometimes I feel that I am training people to do exactly that as a teacher. Not only that, but the entire planet had a symbiotic relationship, and creatures could control each other by linking minds. That was a fascinating concept.

The whole “got to get the resources that happen to be in a inconvenient place” aspect was only there to create the conflict. Any society with the level of technology the humans displayed would have been able to extract the resources without disrupting or alerting the alien culture to their presence. I have to give credit to having the balls to call a plot device “unobtainium”. Why didn’t they just call it “MacGuffinaium” instead.

The idea of wearing someone else, being able to replace your body with another, the idea of leaving yourself and acting remotely? All of that has been done, and better, by Dollhouse. While I was coming home on the subway, I watched the third to last episode of that stellar program (Title: Getting Closer). Avatar was gorgeous, with lots of spectacle, but the only thing that floored me, or made me say, “OH MY GOD!” in public today was the mind blowing twists on Dollhouse this episode. It doesn’t take 3D or blue cats to make me happy. All it takes is a well written and executed story with a good twist or two.

Holy shit, Dollhouse is being cancelled. There are only two episodes left, but it’s going out on top! I haven’t seen a show that has warped my mind as much as this one has for a long time. The twists in Dollhouse make Battlestar Galactica’s lame ending all that more infuriating. BSG had a stronger, longer run, but absolutely fell apart at the end. The poor ending made me think the less of the entire show for all the broken promises. You can’t have “…and they have a plan” in the credits for 4 seasons and not pay it off! The more you learn about “The Plan”, the more you want to punch all the Cylons in the face for being idiots. The mythology of BSG gets lessened the more you find out about the motivations of the characters. Up until the end of the show, this wasn’t true.

Dollhouse might have taken a few episodes to find its legs, but damn it kicks like a mule. Joss Whedon blew me away this past episode. Damn I’m going to miss it when it is gone, but at least it will go out telling a good story.