seeing "Avatar": truly an experience

I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll start with going to Chapters (I took a taxi to the mall because the buses don't run on Sundays), which I did first thing: a book that I'd been waiting for had just been released (after having the publication date pushed back several times), so I bought it and a DVD of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. However, I was so caught up in the moment that I forgot that I had a $25 gift card in my purse that I could've used (I only remembered it after the movie).

Since it was early enough in the day, I couldn't resist going to Starbucks (which is at the back of the bookstore). I got a tall Skinny Vanilla Latte. Delish.

At that point I decided to head over to the movie theatre (which is directly across from Chapters) even though I still had about half an hour before show-time.

After buying my ticket and getting a pair of 3D glasses, I went in, took one look at the screen (which was almost as big as the one that I saw Turandot on), and chose a seat in the back of the theatre, which was a very good choice.

Then I went back out and bought cinnamon pretzel bites and fries (I wanted some sort of treat, but I didn't want popcorn).

The "pre-show" seemed to go on forever, but eventually a sign came on that basically said, "glasses on!"

The 3D was less intense than I expected: I thought it would be very "in-your-face," but it wasn't. And of course I had to take my glasses off a couple of times to see what the movie looked like without them. The result: it would still be watchable, but it's not as fun (of course).

It took me a while to figure out what the "avatar" thing meant: it's not like a body-suit. The human is inside a casket-like thing (that's the best I can do at describing it), controlling the avatar (though they hear, smell, and feel everything).

The scenery is magnificent, and I can't remember seeing a movie with colours as intense as the ones in Avatar. By the end of the movie I kept thinking, "I wanna go to Pandora!"

This is one of those stories where there are hardly any unimportant moments: everything matters. If they'd shoved anything else into the plot, it would burst at the seams.

Several times I was reduced to tears, either because of the beauty of Pandora or, close to the end, the destruction of the moon (Pandora isn't a planet--it orbits a planet that looks like a blue version of Jupiter) by the sky-people (i.e. humans), which brings out the worst in our species (the colonel who's in charge of the mission has no respect for the fact that on Pandora everything is connected).

Avatar is one of those "great" movies--the kind that I thought they didn't make anymore. I think it's even greater than the LOTR movies, and those are really good.

And one more thing: if you still haven't seen this movie, PLEASE DO!!