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Among the Intellectualoids
Avatar: No More Rooting for the Cowboys
Whose side are you on?
Remember the old cowboy movies with the Good Guys and the Bad Guys. Sometimes the Indians were the Bad Guys, sometimes the Bad Guys were a bunch of stagecoach robbers. Halfway through the story the Good Guys would find themselves in a tough spot, but somehow they always came through.
Then there was one plot twist I particularly liked. Sometimes a Bad Guy would decide to become a Good Guy. He would have a moment of revelation and change his ways. In the last battle he’d fight with the Good Guys against his old cohorts. It would seem like he was ready to lead the straight life — but then he would get killed. I always enjoyed the poignancy of that moment. It was a good lesson. Life didn’t necessarily reward the just. There was always a fearful randomness. A person could die just as he was getting his life together. It was, I supposed, the beginnings of a sense of tragedy.
I say all this only because it’s worth remembering as we confront the new Gospel According to Hollywood, which is that the Good Guys have become the Bad Guys and the Bad Indians are now the Good Guys. Nor is there any sense of lost opportunity when a Bad Guy becomes the Good Guy, because now he is the hero of the story.
But then you’ve probably seen Avatar already, right? So you now what I’m talking about.
Here’s a brief cast of characters:
The hero: a U.S. Marine. A U.S. Marine? Yes, but not just any Marine. This one is paralyzed from the waist down. That means he’s eligible to be a Good Guy. He doesn’t start out good, of course. Instead, he is part of an American/All World expedition to Pandora, a moon of the planet Polyphemus, in search of “Unobtainium” (nice play on “uranium”), a magical element that the Human Race needs because it has exhausted all its own resources. (Lack of environmental consciousness — bad all around!)
Along with the Marine, there are lots of Army guys led by a few nasty drill sergeants plus one Colonel Miles Quaritch, who is the perfect Bad Guy Marine except he has some weird tribal scars carved into his haircut that make you think he might be a good guy after all. There’s also an assortment of scientists and administrators who eventually become Good Guys because they’re more sensitive than the others. Finally there’s the Female Helicopter Pilot who does her job but eventually proves to have a heart of gold as well. The African-Americans, interestingly, are all on the side of the Army and definitely with the Bad Guys. Maybe it’s because Obama is President, but they’ve apparently become part of The Establishment.
That’s the Human side of the ledger. On the other is the Indigenous Population — a race of Na’vi who are ten feet tall and look like the Blue Man Group decked out as Indians. They are living in the Stone Age but have Powers of Communication with Nature that make them a match for a technological society.
The movie starts well — so well, in fact, that I was fooled into thinking I was watching a mature and intelligent testimony to America’s growing awareness of its place in the world. The sergeants are brutal, the mission business-like, but the rules of engagement with the Indigenous Population remain highly sensitive. This has Iraq and Vietnam written all over it, of course, but the time (2154 A.D.) is far enough in the future so that perhaps we have gotten a little perspective on ourselves.
The scenery — i.e., the complex computer graphics — is almost beyond belief. Creatures that you know are totally synthesized move with a liquid certainty. Mountains hang in the air. People jump on pterodactyls and fly away. After a while you suspend all disbelief and get used to it. Maybe we’ll encounter a planet like this someday.
The desire of the Earthlings to communicate with the Indigenous Population is so intense that the scientists have taken some of their DNA and used it to construct Na’vi bodies into which human volunteers can slip as “avatars.” Jake, the Marine, volunteers and, behold, finds he can walk as a Na’vi. He is chased all over the planet/jungle by dinosaurs and rhinoceroses but soon hooks up with Neytiri, a female Na’vi, with whom — well, you know the rest.
I’m not going to recite the whole plot here. It goes on for quite a while — 2 hours and 40 minutes, in fact. Suffice to say, the Earthlings finally decide they have to have the Unobtainium, which is buried — wouldn’t you know it? — right under the Na’vis’ sacred Tree of Voices. Without even filing an environmental impact statement, Colonel Quaritch leads the charge — and here’s where things get interesting. The Na’vi are completely outgunned. They try to defend the Tree of Voices with Stone Age weapons but their arrows bounce helplessly off the helicopters. It is a poignant moment. There have been many such tragic confrontations between advanced and primitive cultures in human history. Avatar appears ready to take them on in full dimension.
But no, now the movie takes a different turn (and with James Cameron it’s always a long one). The Indians have a chance to survive after all. After all, they have Nature on their side! By the time the Bad Guys come back for their final assault, the Indians have held a huge conclave where hundreds of natives sway in adulation to Eywa, the Mother Goddess, like a Martha Graham troupe going through its paces. When the two sides line up a second time, the Na’vi now have The Force, The Goddess, and everything else on their team.
After falling in love with Neytiri, Jake has gone over to the Na’vi and become one of their leaders. The Scientists, The Woman Administrator, and the Female Helicopter Pilot all soon make the same pilgrimage. (The blacks, once again, stick with the Army.) The battle seems as hopeless as before but now it turns out the Na’vi have psychic powers as well, thanks to the Mother Goddess. The creatures of the forest are on their side. At one point when Jake and Neytiri get separated, they talk from miles away by pressing their fingers to their throats — like those people who hold a little device to their throat because they have lost their voice box. No explanation necessary — they are Close to Nature and capable of all things. In the end, the rhinoceroses help the Na’vi take out a few tanks. How can you lose with the Power of Nature on your side?
I’m sorry, but I was rooting for the Earthlings all the way. Besides my wife, however, I was the only one in the theater. Everyone else was cheering for the Indians. When Colonel Quaritch finally faces off with Jake (just like in the cowboy movies), he plays the final trump card. “How does it feel to betray your race?” he sneers at Jake. But of course that’s not the question. “How does it feel to betray your country, your planet, your world?” That’s what he should be asking. Nevertheless, the whole audience cheered as he took a giant arrow to the chest.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (103) | Leave a comment
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Unemployment Insurance Claims Show Decrease | Baton Rouge Today | Insurance Finance W links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Appleby| 12.31.09 @ 6:56AM
There are three articles today about the hopeless idiocy of the Obama Gang in the face of terrorist threats and warfare. This article goes a long way to explain where that came from.
Tom Warwick| 12.31.09 @ 7:51AM
Ferngully meets Star Wars. Enjoyable neverthe less. The computer graphics kick butt.
Sean| 12.31.09 @ 8:08AM
Threats I can take all day long, Appleby. It's successes that can't be tolerated, and that's why Bush is the idiot. He was forewarned.
Early warning system?| 12.31.09 @ 11:55AM
The bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993 should have made Bill Clinton heed the warnings and protect our country better; he had more than seven years left in his presidency to do so.
Bush was in charge less than eight months before the 9/11 terrorists attacked.
Obama has been in office now for over 11 months. He has been forewarned plenty. So far, his response to terrorism has not been reassuring -- and don't think that our enemies haven't noticed.
Sean| 12.31.09 @ 2:55PM
Bill Clinton warned Bush, Clarke warned Bush, Bush spurned the warnings. Those are the facts..not your feelings about the facts.
Dai Alanye | 12.31.09 @ 6:51PM
In each case the warnings were general, of equal value to invoking an orange threat level. "Look out, because something might happen." There were no specific warnings until later when the "warners" found it convenient to hide their trails and make their excuses.
You shouldn't be so easily taken in by Clarke, the man who let all the little bin Ladens leave the country the day after, before he found it wise to create a cover story.
Helen Donnelly| 1.4.10 @ 2:37PM
Yah, right Sean. Clinton didn't do a damn thing after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and multiple other terror attacks on Americans, including the USS Cole. Those were the warnings that should have been heeded immediatly. The ignorance in not dealing with them went a long way in putting us where we are today.
JimH| 12.31.09 @ 8:09AM
Actually, Unobtanium is an old engineering term for a hypothetical non-existent material needed to build some new device.
jack| 12.31.09 @ 8:18AM
maybe the most boring movie of the decade? found myself looking at my watch at the 45 min mark. Bambi,pocahontas,custer,evil marines,evil corporations throught cheap sunglasses. three hours of my life i will never get back.
when do the morons who cheer this kind of idiocy realize they are the people working for the evil corporations and the same people who work for the evil corporations work for the government who never plays the bad guy in hollywood unless a republican is president. the world has gone mad when a movie like this can make it.
Melvin| 12.31.09 @ 8:44AM
Jack...you mean purple unicorns and fairies don't exist, please let it not be so, I'm must too fragile right now.
Mackjehoff| 12.31.09 @ 8:42AM
When will youse moviegoers learn that Hollywierd cranks out rubbish? Plots may vary,but the message remains the same:white male prosperity is evil,women are the heroes,animals are good. Throw in some gratuitous sex and violence=success at the box office.
Keith| 1.1.10 @ 1:38PM
Where in the world did you get that?? White Male prosperity is evil? well, waitaminute ,after looking back at White history ( cause thats all the teach in schoool), you may have a point.
Kevin Killion | 1.1.10 @ 2:48PM
"White history ( cause [sic] thats [sic] all the [sic] teach in schoool [sic])"
This is so far removed from reality that one has to wonder if "Keith" has any familiarity whatsoever with today's schools! Here are some notes on the textbook used in my son's American history textbook at New Trier High School. Just as a taste, let's look at how it covers World War II. First of all, the chapter is lamely named, "The Nation Fights Another War."
Here is the text's ENTIRE CONTENT concerning Italy in WWII:
"In 1936, Germany signed a treaty with Italy. Italy also
had a fascist government. Together Germany and Italy
called themselves the Axis powers."
Here is the text's ENTIRE CONTENT concerning the war in the Pacific in between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima:
"The Japanese also advanced. They invaded the Philippines
and conquered parts of Southeast Asia. They also took over
many islands in the Pacific Ocean. ... Nothing could stop
the Japanese during 1942. However, in the spring the U.S.
Navy defeated them twice in the Pacific. In early 1943,
the United States began driving the Japanese back."
Here are people, places and events that are NOT MENTIONED AT ALL in the text on World War II:
Eisenhower, MacArthur, Bradley, Marshall, Patton,
Churchill, Chamberlain, Stalin, Mussolini,
Eichmann, Mengele, Himmler, Speer, Goebbels, Goering, Rommel,
Hirohito, Tojo, Brown Shirts, Kristallnacht, Manhattan Project,
Enigma, Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Wake Island,
Doolittle Raid, Corregidor, Midway, Guadalcanal, Warsaw Ghetto
uprising, Vichy, Anzio, Salerno, Luzon, Battle of the Bulge,
Bataan Death March, Rape of Nanking, Mindanao, Iwo Jima,
Midway, Guam, Okinawa
However, this textbook DOES have space to devote a half-page to one Dorie Miller, a black who was a hero at Pearl Harbor. There is a full page on women's efforts on the home front, plus a page and a half on blacks and Latinos during WWII.
ThreePercenter| 1.1.10 @ 3:25PM
This reminds me of a book we got for our son several years ago. It was one of those "Scholastic" books your kids get those flyers for at school. It was on U.S. Presidents. We thought it might be good since our son was showing interest in presidents at the time. When we got it, I turned right to the chapter on Ronald Reagan. It claimed that "trickle down economics" didn't work because very little money reached poor people,and what money did, people just used it to buy (and I quote) "Video cassette players and aerobics classes." So sad it made me laugh. We sent it back with a nice note on where they could stick there propaganda.
Tim| 12.31.09 @ 8:45AM
Cameron is a great technician: too bad he can't write an original story.
Cris| 12.31.09 @ 9:29AM
It's remarkable (or maybe not) how many directors (Cameron, Tarantino) have such juvenile perspectives.
Lazy jack | 12.31.09 @ 9:33AM
There is a story about how George Lucas was told he should create a real religion based on the “Force” from Star Wars. I believe (but alas, I could be wrong about the story) Francis Coppola made the suggestion thinking that L. Ron Hubbard created quite the racket, so why not get in on the action. George demurred, thankfully. What are the odds Cameron is thinking it over right now? Not only is there money to be made, but there are enough angry Scientologists to make a good start.
Best,
Lazy Jack
www.thanksforthelaughs.wordpress.com
S in Severn| 12.31.09 @ 10:55AM
I heard that it wasn't Francis Coppola but Steven Spielberg, that made the suggestion. Thank goodness George Lucas is more of a Methodist with a Buddhist chaser, than a protoge of L. Ron Hubbard.
Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison and Kurt Vonnegut have all worte or talked about Hubbard's comment about "want to make money - start your own religion," back when Sci-Fi authors were getting paid a penny a word when published, somewhere in the late 1940s.
This CGI feature could have been so much more. and Cameron watered it down and gutted it to fit old cliches and liberal myths.
Ekim Yhaclum| 1.1.10 @ 8:39AM
A former Black Panther started up Kwanzaa in 1982 to diminish Christmas. The US Postal Service abetted him by printing stamps that my dopily educated Catholic pals now lick and stick, Jesuitically thinking that makes them multi-culturalists. It could happen!
Roy| 1.3.10 @ 11:03PM
"Jesuitically"? Wow, haven't heard that one in a while(like about 90 years), and in this case I can't even figure out what it means..or is that because the author is a crafty Jesuit?
saberzedge| 1.1.10 @ 1:47PM
James Cameron certianly does have some great first initials to start his own church.
Eddie| 12.31.09 @ 9:52AM
The computer generated graphics were light years ahead of anything I've seen. I sat amazed as many did until the story started unfolding. It ruined the entire experience. I began looking around to see if Al Gore and Greenpeace members were in the theatre. Apparently I wasn't the only one as I overheard many people bitching about the eco story that was shoved down our throats as we left the movie. Oh well, it isn't the first movie to do this and it won't be the last.
Peter McGrath| 12.31.09 @ 10:00AM
OK, fine, the demographic Cameron was required to shoot for was 12 - 18 year olds and, geez, for the mutton heads who bury their minds in digital toys this kind of fare surely has its appeal.
Any ADULT raving about this film needs to get out a little more often, though.
For Gawd's sake, couldn't Cameron have hired a decent writer to say something original about the pretty pictures on his tiresome slide show? How about some nuance, character development (other than pubescence to early adolescence), or even a little plot twist (to reduce squirming)? Naw - can't take ANY chances on a $300 million budget. Nope - here we get the standard Hollywood line, from stem to stern.
Is there anyone, anywhere, who gave a tiny rat's rear end about any of the neato cartoon action figures or, for that matter, any aspect of the inane plot? Wow, what a stunner, the mercenary (former, of course, so as not to offend) marines are the bad guys who are out to exploit the goony aliens (ten feet tall, COOOOOLLLL!!!) who are as morally pure as the driven snow (YAWN) and as innocent as Forrest, uh, Forrest Gump.
Imagine Hollywood depicting male military types as bad guys. Haven't seen that in a while (well, since the last time I turned on my TV).
What really galls is all that utterly wasted technology. It's outrageous, really, that one of the most visually arresting films of the past decade is so utterly devoid of meaning. I've had epiphanies sitting on the toilet more enduring than anything I learned from this shiny, noisome trip to the land of the purple ferret people. And, just imagine that some nincompoop actually got paid to "invent" the language of the Nervies. Boy, that effort sure helped suspend disbelief, in between efforts to check my watch.
It must be nice to wallow in one's adolescent wet dreams and get paid boatloads for your trouble. It's just too bad, though, that Cameron's legacy here won't have anything to do with worthwhile cinema. Maybe, just maybe, next time he'll try creating something for thinking adults that's a tad more worthwhile.
keith| 1.1.10 @ 1:41PM
ITS A MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
koczani| 1.1.10 @ 11:04PM
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!ITS PROPAGANDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tom| 1.4.10 @ 4:57PM
My 12 year old grandson saw through this pretty $500 million propaganda project. It was the gee whiz old story, again, apologizing for greedy man getting the world dirty in pursuit of capitalism. Yawn.
PolishKnight| 12.31.09 @ 10:56AM
This film is a copy of Pocohantas (the modern Disney version) except the turncoat hero stays with the princess.
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Utah Jazz v Minnesota Timberwolves Live (NBA) | Minnesota Timberwolves NBA Announcer links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
L. Ross| 12.31.09 @ 11:09AM
Mr. Tucker, excellent article.
My biggest gripe is that Cameron can make some really terrific movies, and this one just didn't measure up. T1, T2, Aliens 2, The Abyss, True Lies, these are all sci-fi classics for the ages. Then we get this drivel. Looks fantastic, but really, a very crappy finale. I'm so tired of the military being depicted as either totally evil, or totally pure. I would like to see us portrayed realistically. Like people with a job to do. That would be nice.
AllenG| 12.31.09 @ 11:12AM
I think almost all conservatives have this wrong. When you're going to see "THE Block-Buster Movie of the..." (Year, Decade, whatever): Check your brain and your politics at the door if you want to enjoy it.
Watch the pretty pictures. See and hear things go "boom," and feel good when the hero gets the girl.
If you wanted a poli-sci primer, go watch something else.
Geeze, can't we just have some mindless fun any more? You're like the liberals who think little boys shouldn't play with toy guns, just from the other direction.
Doug| 12.31.09 @ 12:48PM
I think you're missing the point here. A lot of people are sick and tired of getting a "poli-sci primer" that shoves politics and "your society is bad" themes down their throats in the name of "entertainment" which is thinly disguised anti-US propaganda.
Keith| 1.1.10 @ 1:45PM
Give me a break!!!!!. Guess what people, we are not always right. I get so sick and tire of those types who think if you have anything critical to say about how america does things, your anti american. we need to get over ourselves
ChuckD| 1.1.10 @ 4:29PM
"I get so sick and tire of those types who think if you have anything critical to say about how america does things, your anti american. we need to get over ourselves."
Did you just fall off the turnip truck? Chomsky-ites spend all day, every day blaming the US for everything. That's what we get sick and tired of- liberals who blame America for everything all the time. Even when 3000 innocents at the WT C get killed, it's America's fault.
I am not against self criticism that is constructive and balanced. I am against Chomsky-ites and Soros lap dogs like Van Jones who refers to America as the Enemy of Mankind and Ward Churchill who called the victims of the WTC "little Eichmanns". Remarks like that are seditious and vulgar.
AustinG| 1.4.10 @ 3:23PM
For a movie to be rewatchable though you don't want to make a movie that paints those that watch it as the "bad guys". As a business decision it is foolish because it hurts DVD sales and turns off a segment of your customers.
Its not as if that same political statement hasn't been made before. Beyond that acting like we have used up all of our resources in a little over a hundred years is nonsense and agenda driven in itself.
ChuckD| 12.31.09 @ 1:37PM
I've never found anything entertaining or enjoyable that requires me to check my politics or my brain at the door.
"All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescabably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda."
— Upton Sinclair
Seek| 12.31.09 @ 11:13AM
Last night I saw "Nine," a witty deconstruction of Fellini's "8 1/2," based on the Broadway play. A terrific film -- and a rebuke to those who seek to cherry-pick a handful of films in order to "prove" the alleged perfidy of Hollywood. Gee, I suppose "The Blind Side" is anti-American, too.
If there is "rubbish" spewed out these days, it's in the head of the Culture War Right. Consult Michael Medved for future listings for your supposedly moral films.
BG| 12.31.09 @ 11:15AM
Well, guys and girls, what did you expect from a wet-nursed, branded wanna-be like James Cameron?
He's got no game.... only good to recyle the "worst," dressing it up with computer graphics to fill the seats.
Go elsewhere for a good story line, because liberals can't think or create story lines by themselves, can they? They just repackage and spew their propoganda thinking they're the KINGs of CINEMA.
Give me Copla's work everytime..... Anyone seen anyone like him lately?
I'll give Cameron an "F" for this one, especially because it's all fluff and no substance, and though the computer graphics were great, they were made to dress-up and carry the garbage of others that are undeserving. That's unforgivable..... Beauty should no serve evil.... So what else is new?
dcd| 1.1.10 @ 5:58AM
The liberals may not be able to come up with an original story line but at least they are doing something. If there is a huge untapped conservative market for conservative message movies then set up a studio and make some movies.Hollywood is a buisness and way more interested in making money than anything else.
Anthony| 12.31.09 @ 11:36AM
"Lord of The Rings", this movie is NOT. Multi-millionaire, cushy, Hollywood socialist, James Cameron, presents us with another infantile leftist morality play about the rapacious, greedy and amoral human race, (read conservatives) as they plunder and corrupt the pristine world of the children of nature.
Cameron, like most lefties, is quick to condemn the very system that has provided him with immense wealth and a life style beyond belief; yet this same sickening hypocrite has no problem with a international burger conglomerate paying him $millions to ride the wave of this childish piece of crap. No bovine CO2 flatulence concern for ole Jimmy, not when there's millions to be made.
Shame, as Joe Biden would say, is a four letter word, ment for others, not us!!
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DD| 12.31.09 @ 12:28PM
In case it hasn't been pointed out, Jake is pushing on a human communication device when he's talking to Neytiri. He one to Neytiri, Tsutey and Trudey before the final battle so they can communicate. It's like a walky-talky embedded in the necklace. If you google avatar there should be a picture of Neytiri in war paint looking around a tree. You can clearly see the necklace and its a human device.
Thom| 12.31.09 @ 12:51PM
Cameron has been one of my favorite directors for some time but there was a disturbing undertone in most of his best movies (Bad Corporation, Bad White Men, Bad Technology, Bad Military etc) and now all this and more is rolled up in Avatar. I won’t waste my money on this eye candy masquerading as a meaningful plot. The young adults I’ve talked to about this CG spectacular don’t seem to get the overall message of the movie and how political that is. They don't understand they are writing a check to the very same leftist causes they might not agree with. They are typically overly impressed with the technology parade (Good Technology I presume when Cameron use it) and unable to see the same downward message of the movie you’ve seen in other of Cameron’s works. Cameron is a very good technician as one poster put it but his leftward slant isn’t even hidden in this movie despite the inability of younger minds to see the movie for what it is. Such a waste.
Road Kill| 12.31.09 @ 1:00PM
Put a different spin on the movie. The corporations and the military industrial machine want your property to build a mega shopping mall because your pitiful trees and property just ain't bringing in the property tax dollars that a mall could. After all, Pelosi, Reid, UN, et al, view us as primitives who wear breech cloths, believe in spirituality, are intellectually even with Na'vi cave men, and have no right to what is justly ours. In the real world, though, we just get kicked off our property for the greater greed.
Tim| 12.31.09 @ 1:27PM
The sequel will feature a landing by a saucer full of ACORN workers who register all of the Na'vi, their dinosaurs and trees to vote. Pandora will be divided into congressional districts featuring huge public works projects like bridges between the floating rocks .
In act II, Mexicans begin landing to do the jobs Navis won't do...
Road Kill| 12.31.09 @ 11:04PM
The third installation will feature taxpayer funded health care for all the Na'vi, but treatment and costs must first be approved by Big O at Corporate HQ back on earth, and since the Na'vi have some taxatainium under da' tree they're toast. Na'vi Tea Parties erupt on all the floating rocks, they send negative comments inscribed on animal hides to DC which inflames PETA, and the Na'vi take to wearing breech cloths that question Big O's birth place. In the final scene Mu'slamofacist, from the neighboring planet Slamo, launch sucide attacks on important Na'vi grass hut installations. Big O in the meantime searches for similar instances during Flash Gordon's presidency while Pandora is vaporized.
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Sullivan County Real Estate: 800 Pound Gorilla Weighs in on Gas … | Sullivan County N links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard L.A. Schaefer| 12.31.09 @ 4:20PM
I believe it was philosopher Eugene Fontinell who warned that the elevation of the valuing of physical nature and animals would inevitably result in the lowering of the valuing of humans. The most barbarian example has been Peter Singer's brutal musings that an animal like a cow might deserve more human respect and care than an unborn or just born human; and his defense of the killing of newborn humans up to a certain length of time. Robert George is in charge of the teaching of Natural Law at Princeton partly because of alumni revulsion at the Singer misplaced values that led to the institute at Princeton that George favors. Robert Bellah and Michael Barnes outline the progression from primitive religion (worshipping nature) through archaic religion (gods like humans) through historic (monotheism) and modern (monotheism plus better science). Sadly, one version of modernism chooses atheistic science and one ends up with only nature, though eventually some of it drifts into the old primitive pantheism, particularly among the environmentalists.
ccd| 1.1.10 @ 6:04AM
Better science minus monothsim seems to be in accord with your historical progression of diminishing superstition. Why is this outcome sad?
Margie| 1.2.10 @ 6:22PM
"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen."
Rms. 1:24&25;.
Steve Hansmann| 1.3.10 @ 4:02AM
Margie,
What in hell can your submission possibly mean? Surely you realize that for those not adherent to your cult, this looks like the gibbering of someone with a sever head injury? Please, grow up, get a life, and stop believing ancient and evil nonsense.
Margie| 1.3.10 @ 1:58PM
My reply was to Richard Shaefer's post. Perhaps if you were really as smart as you act, you'd see the connection.
If anyone belongs to a cult, it's you. You believe in the ways of the world, do you not? The Bible says the whole world is in the power of the evil one. 1 Jn. 5:19.
You call the Bible ancient and evil nonsense? Sir, you are the one with the head injury, not me. And apparently, you'll never "grow up."
Margie| 1.3.10 @ 2:15PM
Oh, and so are in in agreement then with Peter Singer, Mr. Hansmann? He belongs to the cult of lowering the value of humans, and that animals ought to have more worth?
Or do you still not see any connection, either to Mr. Schaefer's post and my reply?
Judging by your additional post below, I doubt you have the slightest interest.. just sheer hatred for anything remotely resembling the truth.
davelnaf| 12.31.09 @ 4:20PM
The whole point of intelligent film making is to create compelling images that transcend dialog and plot, creating in turn a movie that is greater than the sum of its parts. This is what brings a movie to life in the mind of the viewer and Avatar almost completely lacked it.
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Dustoff| 1.1.10 @ 12:44PM
I took the movie for what it was, just a good CGI and no more.
Yet I do agree we (humans) are always the bad guys, in the movies.
It's the lib's way of thinking, what can I say. We don't have John Wayne anymore. )-:
Michael Tomlinson| 1.1.10 @ 1:29PM
Thanks for the heads up not going to waste my time or money on this crap.
saberzedge| 1.1.10 @ 1:43PM
Well, I am now totally convinced that I will have to find a pirated copy of this flick at the local flee market for a couple of dollars. Good pirates, bad capitalist movie makers. Since that’s in the spirit of Avatar, James Cameron shouldn’t mind.
Kris Lepine| 1.1.10 @ 3:59PM
I recommend you see Blind Side instead. It was just wonderful and heartwarming. For a change you can exit a movie theater feeling uplifted instead of crappy. My observation about movies made in the last 20 years or more; I don't care about the characters. They are people I want as friends or enemies. Year ago there was development of the lead characters and you cared what happened to them. You will care about the people in the movie "Blind Side".
A pen| 1.1.10 @ 6:36PM
Going back to the world our ancestors half escaped is quite obvious. What is happening is that we as a race are truly not created equal, we are separated by cognitive ability, rational conceptualization and emotional capacity. There is a delicate balance of human ability required to become wise while an instinct for survival, negating all human traits, remains hidden but at the ready. I think it has become sort of fashionable to fiddle with animal instinct though as it is clearly quite popular to behave as one.
A Discerning Moviegoer| 1.1.10 @ 10:11PM
I was shocked, just shocked at the appalling lack of Jar Jar Binks in this smurftacular movie.
Roy| 1.3.10 @ 10:59PM
Lol!!
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Mike Giles| 1.2.10 @ 2:14PM
I always wonder why the writers of this type of crap are so technologically illiterate? The evil corporations have enough technological expertise to reach another planet and genetically engineer life forms, but they're not sophisticated enough to find a substitute - or another source - for "unobtanium"? Any other rocks floating around this solar system? What? They haven't perfected solar energy in the next one hundred years? Oh yeah, and what kind of a commander is going to send his troops into hand to hand combat, whern he has the ability to wipe out the enemy from orbit? On earth did they fight backwards natives with bows and arrows - or machine guns? This movie is simply the fantasy of someone who really doesn't understand, or like, how technology actually works. And who doesn't have a clue about the military.
Steve Hansmann| 1.3.10 @ 3:58AM
Sweet Jesus,
Tucker is a hack at best, but no one as woefully ignorant of science fiction and fantasy should ever, ever be allowed to review any movie like Avatar, especially one as good as Avatar. One example; Tucker mistakenly calls Colonel Miles Quaritches head scars some tribal marks, ignoring the fact that the character himself, clearly, states it was from an attack by an indigenous predator and he left the scars to remind him of how dangerous Pandora is. Typical, right-wing, smarmy, self-righteous, ignorant, deliberately stupid dreck from someone who hopefully hasn't reproduced.
Roy| 1.3.10 @ 10:58PM
Wow. What a piece of substantive criticism.
Or, as someone might put it, typical, left-wing, smarmy, self-righteous, ignorant, deliberately stupid dreck from someone who hopefully hasn't reproduced.
See how easy it is?
Fist of the Fleet| 1.3.10 @ 12:00PM
2154 and he can't walk ? I thought stem cell research was the answer that would have him walking in no time !
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Jed Skillman | 1.3.10 @ 11:21PM
Just saw Avatar today. I was prepared to love the 3-D photographic technology and disdain the story.
Yup; for a while it looked like a Leftist movie, but then one of the characters said something straight out of Ayn Rand: If you have something those in officialdom want, they'll declare you to be an outlawl so they can take it away.
From that point on I viewed the movie as an Inter Galactic Tea-Party: The message of stand up, defend what's yours, don't let them take anything away form you came through loud an clear. This was a cosmic re-enactment of The Kelo decision in New London, Connecticut a couple years ago.
I know this may not have been what the film makers intended, but watch the movie with that in mind and see what you think.
Other than that, Avatar was a visual stunner.
LCM| 1.4.10 @ 3:25AM
Avatar was extremely entertaining. I wonder if Cameron got his inspiration from the late Merian Cooper's aborted project War Eagles. There are some uncanny similarities between War Eagles and Avatar with primitive tribes, flying giant birds, invading evil-doers etc:
[Modern adventurers discover a lost tribe of Vikings in a secluded valley. These vikings have survived amidst some pretty fearsome wildlife, including dinosaurs and giant prehistoric eagles. As they reacquaint themselves with the modern (1930s) world, they learn of an imminent invasion of New York by Nazis in zeppelins and altruistically take to the skies on their tamed War Eagles to engage in a huge airbourne battle over the streets of Manhattan.]http://roberthood.net/blog/index.php/2008/03/26/will-the-eagles-fly/
cufflinks | 1.4.10 @ 9:44AM
Excellent film!
I was not particularly interested in seeing the film - it was the girlfriend who wanted to watch it.
However i found to my amazement a very entertaining film.
Tony in Central PA| 1.4.10 @ 12:05PM
I guess I'm getting old because this movie looks so stupid I wouldn't want to watch it unless somebody paid me. A recent review described it as being " so green it even uses a recycled plot ". Ugh.
Bill| 1.4.10 @ 3:59PM
Never saw the people of Earth as good guys in this one, profiteers, and all. The good guys were the ones on the planet to begin with. Your analysis is a little of a stretch in my mind
Liberty or Death| 1.4.10 @ 8:21PM
I love science fiction, so I might be a little biased here... I too saw the same libtard storyline -at some points the film got downright preachy with its message. The main character practically turns to the screen and rants about the "dead" world he comes from because the people, "killed their mother."
That aside, this was a pretty good science fiction movie. The technology was light years ahead of Lucas' lame prequel attempt. The aliens were living, breathing, dimensional characters. I completely forgot they were computer generated within moments of their introduction. They even ran like live-action, human actors would have, if cast instead. It was incredible!
That being said- James Cameron is an idiot if he thought his message would resonate as some kind of lightening rod among the people, against American agression in foreign lands... He failed miserably because the majority of Americans do not view Iraq, or Afghanistan etc., through his Hollywood elite, narrow-minded, liberal worldview. Most Americans do not believe America went to war in Iraq for oil, as the liberal template goes. They do not believe our soldiers and military are inherently evil, raping and pillaging the countryside like a gaggle of wanton savages.
If there is an allegory to be made here, it would probably be closer to the forced relocation of the American Indian. The storyline pretty much follows "Dances With Wolves," a proud, indigenous, people forced off of their land by an over-bearing, advanced civilization who seeks to take said land for __________ (insert reason here).
Take what you will from the typical, liberal interpretation of THAT historical event.
By the end of the movie, I was literally expecting a Na'vi tribesman to yell out from the top of some huge, cliff rock face, "Dances With Wolves. I am Wind In His Hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?"
Cameron is a hack with his storyline in "Avatar." He has made some good sci-fi movies in the past (Terminator, Aliens, et al), and I'd consider this film, taken as purely entertainment, a pretty good sci-fi, nothing more.
We are a looooonnnnnnggggg way from expecting anything conservative coming out of the Hollywood cesspool.
Iso7x | 1.4.10 @ 11:05PM
Cowboys have become the thing of the past. It is the new generation. This is the time of super heroes.
Dante| 1.5.10 @ 2:38AM
AVATAR is basically the usual Hollywood crap for thirteen-year-old minds. But, safe for the youngest in your family... no blood, no cu of dying (that is not fixed by magic white string thingies), no cursing, and no sex.
The 3-D continues same old problems of ghosting on horiz. movement. Strange seemingly intentional out-of-focus of items near the camera that would be normal if real lenses were used. Also, has a couple of lens reflections.... are these things there to copy real filming?
Major problem of all-- script does not solve the fact that the lead Avatar must drop off to sleep whenever the cripple human counterpart comes out of his coffin. Oh James, we now expect more.
Regards, Dante
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Jer| 4.14.10 @ 11:41AM
Human beings are bad guys. We are the foulest thing in the known universe. We murder, cheat, destroy, and defile everything in our path for profit. Was the story simplistic? Of course. However, I like it anytime powerful organizations get kicked in the balls whether it is fictional or in reality. I love it when humanity gets its ass kicked. We deserve it. As for fairy tales, is not basically all religion one organized, political/bureaucratic fairy tale?
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GEOM| 2.15.11 @ 12:21PM
Isn't "secular religion" an oxymoron? One that's getting pretty old now too?