By EMMA BRAND

“Avatar”
— Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana.
— Directed by: James Cameron
— Studio: 20th Century Fox

Recently, the movie-making industry has released a new film that is creating a lot of talk. It is called “Avatar.”

“Avatar” is about an ex-Marine who suddenly finds himself thrust out into the many hostilities found upon the alien planet Pandora. As an avatar — a human mind inside a crazy, 9 foot tall, blue, catlike body — he is agile and brave. But as a human, Jake Sully is stuck in a wheelchair and has no scientific training whatsoever for the situations he finds himself in.

Jake Sully, the avatar, finds himself taken in to learn the ways of the Omaticaya, the native tribe found on Pandora. But as he becomes closer to the tribe, he realizes that his loyalties lay with them rather that with his own kind.

The movie incorporates new CGI technologies that will change the exotic environment and bodies of the indigenous into incredible photorealistic 3D imagery. So incredible and accurate looking in fact that the movie and ideas have taken over 10 years to formulate. Though the technological level of the movie is quite amazing, the storytelling portion was somewhat cliché, the story line resembling quite a few others.

The movie has also been hit with a rip-off controversy. Though “Avatar” claims to be of James Cameron’s original work, it appears to be extremely similar with a 1957 sci-fi novella written by Poul Anderson entitled, “Call Me Joe.”

However, the general public, and a wide range of audiences, seem to have enjoyed the movie, and it has been quite a box office hit, raking in over a billion dollars.

— Emma Brand is a student at Friday Harbor Middle School