Avatar was racist. History’s highest grossing movie had the same plot as Dances with Wolves: a white guy saves indigenous people. But what do I know? I’m the movie-goer who started chanting “Iceberg! Iceberg!” after enduring Titanic’s titantically boring first half. So what of the new Citizen Avatar watches? Let’s start with a simple question . . . [No compensation for links.]
How do you pronounce Leonpteryx, the flying creature who gets pride of place on the new Citizen Avatar watch? Is that a silent “p”? Silent “t”? Do you pronounce the “y” as an ‘i”? Leontearix? Leonpearix?
I know! I’ll watch the trailer to find out! The things we do for love. Here it is, and yes, this will be my first time pressing play on Katniss Everblue.
The trailer reminds me of the Star Trek movie where Kirk and his arthritic crew shuttle to the new Enterprise; we get ten reaction shots of them gazing at the vessel with wonder and awe (as we gaze with wonder and awe at Shatner’s rug). Avatar‘s whatever-they’re-called are as in love with the special effects as the audience is supposed to be. Quick digression . . .
Why isn’t there isn’t a single fat Na’vi (yeah I looked the name up)? I reckon the interlopers could have defeated the natives and obtained their unobtanium simply by getting them hooked on Little Debbie Nutty Buddy wafer bars. Sure, it would have taken a couple of generations for diabetes to decimate the tribe, but what’s the hurry? It took James Cameron 13 years to make the Avatar sequel.
Anyway . . . there’s Avatar’s Leonpteryx on a ginormous (46mm) Citizen Eco-drive dive watch.
The image is a blatant rip-off of the phoenix rising from the ashes meme. SPOILER ALERT! Leon’s metaphorical wings-up re-birth jibes with Avatar’s plot: the Na’vi recover from the devastation wrought by imperialist robots, then kicks their *ss with arrows and weird-looking whales.
Hang on, is the bird-like thingie pooping? Or is it carrying some kind ordnance to drop on the Na’vi’s monochromatic enemies? A bottle of the local tipple perhaps? What is that thing coming out its *ss?
Meanwhile, watch people will notice that the bird’s wings are arranged just inside “happy hands” (the traditional watch-prettifying position). The actual hands are arranged at 10:10. When those horological hands go walkin’, they’re gonna walk all over legibility.
On the positive side, the all by myself date window must be incredibly easy to read, the Wave watch is water-resistant to 100m and the PC bi-color case ring emulates a splashing waves. Apparently.
“This women’s watch features a ‘Tree of Soul’ print on the dial,” watchpro.com tells us, gender-assigning a 36mm watch, “which is said to be the closest alliance to Eywa on Pandora.”
I have no idea what they’re talking about. As a former body surfer who’s been stung by a Portuguese man O’ war, I’m a little leery of the jellyfish motif. And pretentious cinematic drivel using pagan mythology to appeal to disaffected Christians (a sin also visited upon Jesus-loving audiences by the Marvel cinematic universe).
And so we come to the best of all possible Citizen Avatar watches. What makes this 42mm watch unisex? Tackiness knows has no a-gender! And I’m not joking: this is The Avatar Watch to Rule Them All.
It’s a completely unabashed fanperson memento that reminds its wearer of the joys of identifying with really thin blue people who spend their lives at the mercy of a deity who never met a fluorescent color it didn’t like, and read way too many Mills & Boon bodice rippers.
A watch collecting Avatar fan would do well to NRFB this bad boy. It’ll be worth serious money in another thirteen years, when the 81-year-old director releases Avatar, the Way of The . . . Nurse! Where Are My Meds?