The Avatar Experience

One. I opened the REAL-D glass at exactly five minutes into the movie to see things look without. Screen looked exactly like how Doordarshan did back in 80s when a strong afternoon wind moved the rooftop antenna from its perfect alignment with the "tower". Two or three able bodied men would immediately rush to the roof, one person with better eyesight than imagination would keep staring at the screen down. There would be back and forth communication between the two groups till the exact alignment is restored, evident from a 'good picture'. Only if we had these cool 3-d glasses back then.

Two. The major problem with a perfectly shot 3D movie is the new way to deal with who I call the popcorn pirates. These folks probably have perpetually bad toilet at home and find theater popcorn more gourmet than anything at French Laundry. In normal movies you can strategically maneuver your legs as they pass through the tiny isle to hurt them real bad. In such well executed 3D, it's indeed confusing to figure out whether these creatures in front are Popcorn Pirates or just a few oversized folks from a different planet.

Three. My wife keeps stalking Abhishek Bachchan in Twitter et al. She'd told me Abhishek thinks Avatar is a lot like Hindi movies. I was still looking for a Johnny Lever among Na'vis who would ape humans, or a veteran Omprakash - modern Aloknath type Na'vi who would want to hand over the planet to humans with no axe to grind. Hint: Na'vis were mostly arboreal. Not Na'vi as in Navi Mumbai!

Four. Stephen Lang (the nasty colonel) is 57. Seriously? Or, his muscles came from the same data center Na'vis' tails did?

Five. During the climactic fight, I was literally Wii-ing my hands to punch the colonel or take out a couple of planes. It was, to paraphrase Gulshan Grover, 'a bit more than games, a bit less than classic'.