Well, this edition of techblog has not much to do with technology. This is about a posting that I found in a website.

Before I discuss about the same, let me give some background information. Cameron’s Avatar was premiered on December 10 (2009) and released internationally on December 16. Many big-shots in Hollywood attended the premier in London. Few critics were also there at the premier venue.

The event lured much of media’s attention and almost all international publications published stories about it.

Six days after, the movie was released internationally. Later we saw many issues pivoted around this movie (like ban imposed by China).  But the movie received good critical acclaim from eminent critics. In my opinion, this movie certainly asserts that even when it comes to the technological side of film making, Cameron is as good as Spielberg (who mesmerised us by his ‘Minority Report’). But I was not that impressed by the art value of the picture. I did expect a lot more from Cameron.

Later many reviews where published about the movie. Let me summarise some of these data in a table:

If you look at the date of publication in each case, you can find that they wrote the review after it was released (‘obviously they have to see the movie first!’, you might say; but hold on).

Now look at the date on which Time of India (TOI), a leading daily in India, published this review – 15th December. A day before the movie was even released!

If the review is genuine in nature, then the only option is that this critic has visited London and attended that premier. I tried to find who this critic is and unfortunately I couldn’t find any good reference! This may be because the search engine I used wasn’t good enough

There are critics like Kirk Honeycutt who might actually visit London for viewing this picture and he may have enough contacts that might help him to get a pass to attend the venue. He might even be able to watch the celebrity parade, in blank point range.

But, what about this critic of TOI? Well, even if we assume that the critic had actually flown to London for the show and even got a pass for the same, there are many questions that are left unanswered.

Why did she wait till 15th?

This forces us to find some other reason. Let’s do a speculation -

Viewing from the POV of this critic, she might think:  “The movie is going to release on 16th of December. So people (from India) would find it ‘useful’ if I could write a review about the movie and publish it (before the release). This review will even popup when people ‘google’ for ‘avatar movie review’ – which most people do before watching a picture. Given this case, TOI will publish this review.

Anyway, Kirk Honeycutt had written about the movie on 10th itself. He also included the synopsis of the plot. In India, we don’t treat plagiarism so seriously. Let me give it a try?”

Hmmmm…..

Someone please illuminate me……..