"Despite his broken body, Jake Sully, a former Marine confined to a wheelchair, remains a warrior at heart. He is recruited to travel light years to the human outpost on Pandora, where a corporate consortium is mining a rare mineral that is the key to solving Earth's energy crisis. Because Pandora's atmosphere is toxic, they have created the Avatar Program, in which human "drivers" have their consciousness linked to an avatar, a remotely-controlled biological body that can survive in the lethal air. These avatars are genetically engineered hybrids of human DNA mixed with DNA from the natives of Pandora... the Na'vi.
"Reborn in his avatar form, Jake can walk again. He is given a mission to infiltrate the native alien race, who have become a major obstacle to mining the precious ore. But a beautiful Na'vi female, Neytiri, saves Jake's life, and this changes everything. Jake is taken in by her clan, and learns to become one of them, which involves many tests and adventures. As Jake's relationship with his reluctant teacher Neytiri deepens, he learns to respect the Na'vi way and finally takes his place among them. Soon he will face the ultimate test as he leads them in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world."
***
Well, it took me a month, but The Speculative Scotsman is a difficult sort to tempt into a proper cinema. A 46" series 6 Samsung LCD TV with 5.1 and some massive old speakers see to my particular needs just fine. Sadly, Avatar is not yet available for consumption at home - that is unless a dodgy-quality downloaded cam copy will see to your needs. And readers: you must resist.
If I could only offer you a single piece of advice about this film, it would be to see it on as big a screen as you can feasibly find, and in 3D, while you still can. Then, perhaps, you might like to see it again. More than a decade in the offing, Avatar represents an experience that will not easily be matched in the next ten years - and not in terms of its undeniable aesthetic splendour alone.
The time Cameron and his team have taken to dream up the Na'vi and their planet Pandora has absolutely paid off. Never in my life have I seen a world and a people other than our own realised so spectacularly. From the wonderful interplay of Pandora's ecosystem to more practical concerns such as power and transportation, it seems that every last detail of this fantasy to end all fantasies has been plotted out in some epic story bible.