Avatar was more than I could have dreamed of. Native American history being one of my favorite reading subjects and my cousin working within this movie, Avatar rang deeply for me. But I will tell you how watching this movie with a TechCrunch audience differs from watching it on a weekend evening with a wider demographic.
The stereogram effects make us act geeky, or faux-geeky shall I say. With the opening credits shooting at us in 3D, the mostly male, young and modern ooh-and-awe to rippled laughter. Sigourney Weaver's Dr. Grace Augustine character wearing a Stanford T-shirt caused some home plate laughs. Colonel Quaritch's bellicose character was interpreted as obvious mockery of the Bush administration to parodic chants of "USA! USA!" I felt the audience's deeper appreciation of the motion capture technology used to create this movie, and many approached Michael Arrington of TechCrunch to thank him for helping to arrange this free screening.
Here's a picture of Mr. Arrington and I after watching the film. Given that I had initially approached him as the theater lights dimmed, he was a really nice guy and listened to my rapid-fire self-introduction. Proof that not everyone who attended this TechCrunch screening was a techie, the lady we'd asked to take our photo using my iPhone didn't know which button to press!
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