1217-Film-Avatar-movie-review_full_600

Most people I talk to really enjoyed this movie. I know that this movie isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but when you ask most people about what they thought, you get this wide-eyed response, “wow” it was amazing. Despite it’s “amazingness,” it does have several flaws. It’s incredibly agenda heavy. The story isn’t bad, but it’s not incredible by any means. The plot is predictable. If you remove all those things from the conversation, you’re left with the thing that truly makes this movie spectacular. The scale of CG that looks so incredibly real is mind baffling. The movie is essentially a 3 hour cartoon, but not a cartoon like you’ve ever seen, you feel like it’s a place you’ve been to. When coming out of the theater, I was thinking about the last time I had so much fun at a movie, where I so thoroughly enjoyed myself, I didn’t want it to end. For me it was probably the Lord of the Rings as they were so well done and I’d been anticipating the movies for so long (I saw the midnight showing for all three).

Here’s why this is important. It’s estimated that 500 million was spent on this movie. The studio claims to have only spent 230 million, but outside funding and even funding from James Cameron himself got the total cost up to 500 million. Epic! More notably, after just 4 weeks in theaters, Avatar has brought in $429 million. Not only is this movie going to be profitable, it will go down in the history books. After only 4 weeks in the theater, it just passed “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” as the 7th biggest money making movie of all time. Unheard of to do so well so quickly. Titanic sits at the #1 spot at almost 700 million. If any movie’s going to dethrone Titanic, Avatar probably can. Due to Avatar’s success, we’ll probably see more like it. More studios will rally toward success and rethink the way they make movies. This will inspire creativity in new ways. It’s a game changer.

We’ve seen other game changers. Three years ago when the Wii came out, it totally changed video games. Xbox and PS3 are making modifications to catch up with what Nintendo did right. Apple did it with the iPhone. For three years, no other phone has been able to do what the iPhone could. I think iPhone’s reign over the phone world won’t last too much longer, but to remain in that spot for three years with not significant contender? Amazing, they changed the game.

When I look at ministry, I see some game changers out there. Not a lot, but some. A decade ago it was the purpose driven movement. I was only part of a purpose driven church for a short time, but the purpose driven philosophy greatly impacted how I do ministry. There’s no doubt that Orange has been a game changer. I think ministry was beginning to look at what to do with family, but it was Reggie’s vision and leadership (and experience has he’s been living this out for a very long time) that rallied children and student pastors from around the world.

Game changers are never predictable. That’s what makes them game changes. If you had to guess though, what do you think is next?