Well, gosh, how much has the extreme left's opinion of America changed in 15 years? And who knew that Cameron came up with the phrase "shock and awe?"
Re: Avatarthe But as you say in another post, imperialism isn't uniquely American either. I can see how one can say neither "Firefly" nor "Avatar" is a commentary on contemporary society, or both are, but not really how one is and the other is not. At least, not without more than is apparent on the face of the works. I'm guessing none of those complaints are unique to the U.S. federal government either. And of course, there was a limit to what the show could do in 14 episodes plus the movie, all while to maintain an mandate to be entertaining. And if the complaint is that RDA doesn't always respect the rights of outsiders and will put its welfare above them when the stakes are high enough, that's also descriptive of not just every government and corporation, but probably every group entity. I would say you're wrong on two counts. The corporation head does show at least some empathy and moral restraint. He doesn't want to kill innocent people. The movie shows him letting Jake and Grace back in their avatars and giving them an hour to have the tribe they had been with evacuate. Someone without a conscience wouldn't have bothered. At the end of the day, though, when it comes down to the corporation's profits or the welfare of the Na'vi, he chooses the corporation's profits. Second, history has shown us time and time again actual people showing a similar lack of empathy and moral restraint when it comes to acquiring resources. The main difference is in the real world, such forces as religion, racism, ethnocentricism and national pride played a role. In the movie, it mainly seems to be about the balance sheet, although the corporate head does talk about "savages" and "blue monkeys" enough to suspect that racism is a factor on Pandora as well. I would say both are insane. He is going to remember the planet's hostility regardless of whether he has the physical scars to show it or not. And in terms of preventing the protagonists from warning the Na'vi, it would have made more sense to scramble a couple choppers and shoot the first one down. Secondly, what does he care about the Na'vi being warned, based on what he knows? They already know that the sky people are coming. The Na'vi are (as far as he knew) completely incapable of repelling an attack. As I said above, he clearly has a moment or two of "humanity." He sides with Grace at least once during the movie and tries to play peacemaker. He gives the go-ahead for Jake and Grace to try to evacuate people. The colonel has to pitch the plan as using gas and trying for minimal casualties. And in those centuries of conflict and negotiation, many people thought as the corporate character did, and many people thought as the colonel did. The reasons why other outcomes didn't occur to anyone was in part due to the factors stated above. In some cases, Americans did respect the rights of Indian tribes. In others, they decided that when push came to shove, Indians had few rights that they were bound to respect. I don't see it as far-fetched that humans would act the way portrayed in Avatar if the situation came up. The movie never makes clear the nature of the negotiations between the Na'vi and the corporation at all. Extrapolating from what was depicted in the film, the Na'vi see everything as connected in one system of energy. Even though tunnelling and such might not have disrupted the Na'vi directly, it would be impossible for the major operation to exist without disrupting wildlife and thus Eywa herself. Thus, the Na'vi wouldn't have supported any mining operation, no matter how little it affected them directly. Eh. I don't think it would change the central points all that much. It's not a radically different movie if the Ribisi character said, "And with the unobtainium on Pandora, we'll be able to bring warm hugs and puppy dogs to millions back on Earth who are now going without." I think that plenty of people would -- if we were in that same situation -- argue that the actions of the corporation aren't evil. If it's us vs. them, suddenly people start thinking about the survival of the fittest, the fact that the Na'vi can relocate some other darn place, etc. etc.
Re: Avatarthe America isn't imperialist. But this movie repeats the tired leftist lie that it is. I'll try once more. If you intend to competently critique someone or some institution through allegory in a movie, the viewer of the movie must be made aware of your target. You do this by inserting similarities which are highly specific to the target and which, in totality, cannot really be anyone/thing else. If told you I wrote an allegorical story that involves a capitalist society with powerful military technology that steals resources by force from less developed countries, WHICH COUNTRY WOULD YOU AUTOMATICALLY THINK OF? Even if you don't agree with that critique (and, of course, I don't), it's obvious. It's so obvious, I'm not sure how I could make it more blatant. Read any dozen reviews of 'Avatar' by top grade reviewers and you'll see most of them GOT IT. I'm not alone out here with my interpretation and I don't think you have to be a film school graduate to understand where I'm coming from. I can only evaluate what the film/series says based on what it actually says. It's irrelevent what the Alliance could've been/might've been/were intended to be. What matters is how they are shown. And when I look at the Alliance, I see generic big government. When I look at Avatar, I see the United States. That's so universal, it's not useful to make the allegory. Now, what if I tell you the Alliance is dominated by big corporations and that their foreign policy is really about controlling resources? Then they start looking the part of the U.S.A. If I really wanted to beat you over the head with the idea, I'd make their flag red, white, and blue and have it contain stars and stripes. Whoopty-do. He lets Jake give the Nav'i a last chance to unconditionally surrender. Generous to a fault. As all cartoon capitalists must. Especially the ones who control a military. Of course. Our cartoon capitalist has to be guilty of all stereotypical crimes lodged against capitalists. Sigh. As depicted, the character is not insane. He's cartoonishly hateful, but not insane. If he's insane, so is everyone who follows him. Many people on BOTH sides chose conflict. But in the film, only one side is aggressive and warlike. Funnily, it's not the tribal people. Oh, no. You can't do that. You can't imply ANY good comes from the capitalist's actions. That would morally complicate your cartoon. When you pretend that capitalists are cartoon characters who operate out of greed, it's easier to whip up the audience's emotions against them. Where Avatar fails is that this kind of complexity is missing from the antagonists. The Nav'i are just oh-so-perfect and the Americans are just so black-heartedly evil that I can't take it seriously. Sigh. I didn't post that clip of his review to prove I'm right, merely to rebut Nick's assertion that my ideas about the film were "dumb." I was showing that a Pulitzer Prize winning film reviewer who is widely regarded as foremost in the business saw what I saw. The difference is: Ebert didn't mind; he's a liberal. I'm not. He says mercenaries in the text I quoted for you. So? I make no claim that Roger Ebert and I agree 100% of the time. Okay, Raoul. I'm sure when Jim Cameron wrote the scene where Americans hungry to control some natural resource launch high-tech weapons against an indigenous foe and use the term "shock and awe," that he had no inkling that someone might perhaps see this as allegorical of current events.
Oh, shut up, ya two. What matters about this movie is how it draws you in! One hour in, I realized that I was having a good time, AND I was understanding the alien culture! I actually wanted to be one of them, to see their world for myself! I wanted to know more about their culture, their connection to the planet, everything! It was amazing to see a whole world before me, and it was even better to get an understanding of it in only 3 hours! I loved this movie for that. Not for the flat villains, or the been-there-done-that plot. The acting was superb, the visuals incredible, and the feelings portrayed... wow. It was great. 9/10 at least.
I personally love how Paladin states how offensive the movie is in its obvious references to current political situations...by pointing out how different the situation actually is. The movie makes a repeated point that diplomacy has been tried for years by this point, it's not neccesarily a corporation full of evil people, but they have eventually been forced to evil actions. I found very little to suggest that this is a criticism of cyrrent US policy, but it is a perfect example of attitudes that did exist and still exist regarding the native humans of various lands. Scenes showing how the mineral was helpful on Earth were unneccesary because the story isn't about humans or Earth. Does any WWII movie with Germans in now need to show how at home with their kids the German soldiers were good guys? Should any movie that features the Pearl Habor attack need to establish that the Japanese were becoming starved of neccesary supplies? Hell, should Independence Day be criticized for not giving us any insight into the aliens cylture and why they needed Earths resources? edit: Also, given that the film was originally planned to be filmed for release in 1999, exactly how is the whole idea behind it meant to be a big commentary on Iraq/Afghanistan?
I have? I thought American soldiers destroying less developed people in order for capitalists to steal their resources is both (1) the plot of Avatar and (2) a common critique of the U.S. by the left. Am I wrong? I see that diplomacy has been tried, but I saw nothing that indicated the Americans were being forced to evil actions. I did hear a tired old line about "creating an enemy so you can steal what's his" though... To each his own. I can only tell you what I saw and point out that I'm not the only one. Other than the mineral being valuable, I don't recall ANYTHING about the mineral's purpose on Earth. And if the mineral was urgently needed, why wouldn't the idealistic Nav'i allow the humans to mine it? No, but that's a different story: the Germans were undeniably the bad guys in World War II. If it depicts them as bombing Pearl Harbor simply to advance their evil imperial aims, is that a balanced view? No, because we're supposed to be 100% against the aliens. The problem is: the aliens in that film aren't representative of anything other than cartoonish evil. The "Americans-wage-war-on-weaker-countries-so-capitalists-can-exploit-them" meme is a lot older than 1999. And anyone who knows anything about movie-making knows the script is undergoing constant change even during filming. I can pretty much guarantee that the "shock and awe" line--included to make you think of the invasion of Iraq in 2003--wasn't in any 1999 draft of the script.
Would you have found this movie less offensive if they had gone all Star Trek and had more foreign accents among the mercenaries?
Re: Avatarthe Well, no, that wouldn't change the premise much at all.... but imagine if the unobtainium was a rare ingredient in a medicine that would save 6 billion earthlings from a terrible death? ... and the Na'vi, after continued heartfelt pleas, remained unmoved and refused to help us out... Would that change your opinion of the actions of Selfridge? Colonel Quarich? Jake Sully? It certainly would change my opinion. Not that it would justify the actions of the corporation, but I certainly don't think many would fault them. ...and that, IMHO would be nothing more than moral equivocation when it's left as the pursuit of profit. When it's a matter of life and death... namely relocate these people here, save billions of lives there, the stakes are different.
No matter what the humans needed the mineral for, the Na'vi would be completely justified in saying no. Humans come up to them and say "hey, we've ruined our planet and stripped it bare, but you can totally trust us to not damage your environment with our intensive mining operations." The Na'vi are far from perfect beings, they can be jealous and petty and obviously have a good understanding of concepta like war. They do understand the planet though and there is no way that the human operations could go on without damaging it.
I'm trying to grok the alien culture part. WHAT alien culture? They are native americans with cooler toys. There was nothing AT ALL alien about them, only an allegory for previous human cultures. Between that and the complete lack of exploration of the science fiction elements - you know, a little time on the Avatar process, the 'glitches', some imaginative cross pollination in how the technology could have been used.... This film was a gorgeous visual feat but failed on so many other levels. And floating mountains? Did I miss any attempt at explanation at all for that? Oh, and I'm tired of the bad guys (in this case, the humans) being stupid. The premise of the fight at the end was completely and utterly absurd. Here's an idea. You want to bomb the holy site, how about flying ABOVE the floating mountains. Gravity bombs still work, right? Or how about using that spaceship you've got... I just started laughing at the 'kill the humans' speech when he united the tribes. Silly and disappointing. But really pretty. Tree-porn.
Damn, that was fast. There's an interview with Cameron on his ideas for Avatar 2 which is in preproduction already: [YT="Avatar 2 concept"]7MAYrF1PDks[/YT]
Out of curiosity, were there any minorities at all amongst the bad guys or were they all white, American, ex-Marines?
Now that I think of it...most of the "bad" Americans (and they ALL seemed to be Americans) were white, but the small number of "good" Americans included an Hispanic woman (Michelle Rodriguez) as the only "good" marine, and a black dude.
Jenette Goldstein, who played Vasquez, is an amazing chameleon of an actress. Recognize her from the following? Janelle (John Conner's foster mother) from T2: The Enterprise-B's science officer from ST:GEN The Irish mommy from Titanic: Some additional trivia: She was considered for the Security Chief part on TNG (when it was written for a latin woman). She appeared on ER twice as two different characters; the producers didn't realize she'd be on before when they hired her for the second role!
There were several ex-marines that were black and hispanic... I believe Michelle Rodriguez was the only minority defector.
Man, and I thought the douche bags on another board who were trying to claim that the Nav'i language was "real" were pathetic.
Political discussions aside (I have yet to see the movie but probably will this weekend) it looks like Cameron is still the King of the World and will have the clout to continue to make movies on his terms because Avatar will easily pull in over $1-billion worldwide.
Wrong. There was an african-american scientist who was on their side but stayed behind to provide the defectors "intel" from the inside.
I laughed at the first post, but the rest quickly turned from "funny" to sad/disturbing/pathetic. It's amazing how many people can't seem to find any meaning in their own lives or experience any wonder at the actual world they live in.
Its also depressing to think that if they spent the same amount of effort(or even slightly less) that they're putting into "keeping the feelings inspired by Avatar alive by drawing and writing poems, etc." and put it into bugging Congress for more money for NASA, learning one of the sciences, or similar, they'd stand a chance of actually seeing some of the tech in the movie be realized. Instead, they're going to wind up spending large portions of their lives running around in blue costumes.
