"Terra Nova", is this "Avatar" for TV?

I'm not that impressed with the new TV series that premiered on September 26, 2011 called "Terra Nova". One of the stars is none other than Stephen Lang, who plays a similar character to his role in the movie "Avatar". The compound in the world the lucky citizens of the 22nd century are sent back to 85 million years ago is somewhat reminisicent of the compound on the planet in "Avatar" that's being mined for an energy source that will help an Earth also on the verge of envrionmental collapse as is the 22nd century Earth in "Terra Nova".

Copy Wars: China P88 vs Apple iPad, Dark Void computer game vs Avatar movie

You may have heard about the Chinese company, Shenzhen Great Loong Brother, that's threatened to sue Apple over some kind of claim that Apple's iPad is a clone of their product, the P88, which apparently has been on sale in China for the past six months. This Wired magazine article points out some of the silliness around the Chinese claim.

James Cameron's movie Avatar has also had its share of accusations of third-party influences, one the most interesting coming from those familiar with ayahuasca, a drug from South America that supposedly gives its users the illusion of being connected with the natural world. In Avatar, the Na'vi people of the planet Pandora achieve this feat through a direct physical connection by plugging the end of their hair braid into not only their Tree of Souls, but also into some animals. This Globe and Mail op-ed piece by Canadian filmmaker Richard Meech compares Avatar's symbiotic connection to the drug-induced, imaginary one of the Amazon "vine of the soul."

Now comes the computer game from Capcom called Dark Void. In Episode 1, Chapter 4, after falling through a long hole in a mountain, the hero (you) end up at the bottom and in a landscape that looks suspiciously like the floating Hallelujah Mountains of Avatar. In the movie the Na'vi use flying beasts to fly around and in Dark Void the heroes use rocket packs.

Avatar movie opinion

Finally saw Avatar in 3D. It was a rainy New Year's Eve afternoon, so I'd expected a much bigger crowd. Got there in plenty of time and had a relatively close seat but the screen was set well back. I wasn't that impressed with the 3D effects and glasses were required. Wearing glasses on top of glasses is a pain and you don't really want to move your head for fear of losing some of the 3D aspect.  The movie is a love story combined with a cowboys versus Indians, humans versus alien, technologism versus primitivsm, science versus pantheism, the last a false dichotomy if ever there were one. The planet Pandora, a moon of a gas giant whose atmosphere is unbreathable to humans, contains the unlikely named mineral unobtainium, worth $20 million a kilo (I can't remember if this was a kilogram or a kiloton). The mineral has some kind of energy properties that will alleviate a crisis on Earth. This might explain the floating Hallelujah Mountains. The indigenous Na'vi humanoid species stand in the way of human exploitation of their planet's geological treasure. The humans use biological robots called avatars and coffinlike immersion chambers  to control the avatar and interact with the the Na'vi who regard the avatars as demons. When the human agents are out of the immersion chamber the avatar itself is essentially unconscious. The setting, life forms, art direction and attention to detail in Avatar is indeed like nothing you've ever seen before in a science fiction movie and James Cameron has once again raised the bar in that genre. The story, however, leaves a lot to be desired because it is so heavyhanded, moralistic and prejudiced against human behavior. Would we really squandor the opportunity to fully interact with our first contact with an intelligent alien species, no matter how primitive they appear to be?

You can find many more details on the Internet Movie Database about Avatar.