I went to see James Cameron's movie, Avatar, soon after its release, the day after Christmas. I am not a huge sci-fi fan and went to the movie kind of grudgingly. But I loved it. The 3D technology is amazing. I had to hold my hand out a couple of times to make sure that I really couldn't touch the fluffy things falling around me in the Pandora rainforest.

The indigenous characters are totally lovable even though some critics have likened them to sophisticated smurfs. The storyline has made some angry but I'm not sure why. No, what I really want to say is " come on, get a grip"!

The film is set on the planet of Pandora where humans have an outpost to mine a rare mineral that is solving an energy crisis on Earth. Genetically engineered hybrids of human and the Na'vi (Pandora's natives) have human drivers so they can infiltrate the Na'vi to make sure that the natives are not an obstacle to the mining program.

Once the hero human-Na'vi hybrid, Jake Sully, infiltrates, he falls in love with the peaceful and sustainable culture of the Na'vi. He joins them and leads a battle against the greedy mindless humans, who are bent on destroying everything on Pandora in their single-minded pursuit of extracting the rare mineral.

Does the film have an environmental message? Yes, no question about it. Have we seen it before in other movies? Yes, but none with this kind of uber-cool technology or wide appeal.

By wide appeal, I mean that in 27 days, the film has grossed $1.35 billion – the second highest grossing film of all time. Internationally, the film is now the biggest ever released in Russia and had its biggest release globally in China.

Does the movie teach eco-terrorism, as some suggest? Not anymore than other movies with battle scenes teach people facing injustice to fix it with violence. And there are plenty of them. Do a quick search for "battle scenes in movies" and you get hits into the millions.

What Avatar does have the ability to teach young and old around the globe, is that no commodity is worth destruction and disruption of innocent beings whether they are lanky blue aliens with much to teach us or big majestic trees with interconnected magical powers.

I don't want to overstate the significance of a mainstream movie with a cautionary green message, but this movie has the ability to do what no enviro-documentary could ever do: bring us all together around saving the Na'vi, er um, I mean, saving humans and every other living thing on the planet Earth.