BELLAMYBUDIMAN

Really? Did I just say that? Yes, I did and I have my reasons. I’m not saying that we are lacking creative people in the country, not at all. I know a handful of creative people that could probably be the savior in our constantly dissipating country and they do fucking good works. But here’s my reason of why most Indonesians are probably stupid enough that a monkey who can count from 1 to 5 can be called as a genius:

While Hollywood is gazillion light years away from our movie industry, depicting off-world life in the epic world of Avatar with breathtaking visual effects, here we are having our “Televisi Pendidikan Nasional” airing a blatant yet sucky copy of James Cameron’s latest creation that looks like a demonic elf on crack with cheap make ups. In fact, I don’t even need to watch the bloody show to be able to mock it to bits.

Educational TV station you say? Because in Indonesia, education dictates that if you can’t make one, just copy it. No, seriously, copyrights, creativity, and brain does not matter. Brains you say? Who needs ‘em? And in fact, I could probably train a group of land turtles to be more creative than these bozos.

Photo credit by Deon.

We finally did it, we watched Avatar before the year ends, and I can say that it’s probably the best 3 hours that ever happened to me in the cinemas. Despite of me having a mild headache from the prolonged 3D exposure, despite that only God knows why James Cameron used the Papyrus typeface, and despite that the movie had a recycled story line—I believe we all remember Dances with Wolves or Pocahontas—I think this movie is the pinnacle of the great sci-fi movies this year. Yes, Star Trek was amazingly astounding, simply something that you can expect from J.J. Abrams, a reboot that was needed to salvage the downfall of the Star Trek saga. District 9 was disturbing yet awesome, a budget movie with spectacular results and a bang to your head on racism. But on the top of the list, Avatar is the creme de la creme of sci-fi movie making. Period. James Cameron is nuts, in a good way, you can’t expect less from the man who brought you the Abyss, Terminator, and Aliens. This is a man who knows shit on making good sci-fi movies.

PS: Michael Bay on the other hand is just, well, nuts. Good job on Transformers, Michael. You just ruined our childhood. Yes, I just had to let that out.