quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: One thing about the article, though, is that I don't remember in Dances with Wolves that the white guy whose name I can't remember actually becomes the leader of the tribe-he does, however, become the guy in charge of advising on how to deal with whites. In that story, at least, the white guy becomes an actual member of the alien society.
That's not even necessarily true. Costner gives the Indians guns so they can defend themselves against another Indian tribe that is on the way. He gets captured by soldiers when he runs back to his post to retrieve his journal. He is saved by men from the tribe when he is being moved. He then decides that it will be worse for the tribe as a whole if he remains and so he leaves with his wife forever. He doesn't actually lead any battles between whites and Indians, doesn't advise them either.
If there is one theme that runs through most of Cameron's movies it's the concept of the military industrial complex co-opting legitimate scientific research and destroying everything that make us human including our lives. The only more encompassing theme I can think of is, "Science is a miracle but if we are prideful enough to believe we can control it, we will destroy ourselves."
Spoilers,
Terminator 1/2: military weaponizes AI and we get the Terminators.
The Abyss: military takes over an underwater laboratory and uses their tools to launch a nuclear weapon targeting the aliens/soviets.
Aliens: Weaponizing the aliens themselves.
The theme is about as prevalent as the dysfunctional father figure in Spielberg movies.
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edit: I don't agree that the true form of racial guilt in these Whites manifests itself as a need to not just become one with the oppressed race but to lead them.
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I'm open to alternate explanations, but there has to be SOME reason that these movies keep getting made. I actually can't think of that many of the top of my head where the white guy becomes a leader (which I consider a good thing, since that was the only real objectionable part IMO) but it's still a pretty clear archetype that must have some basis.
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To stray from the race issue, was anyone else pissed when Michelle Rodriguez died? she had to be my favorite (if minor and largely unrepresented) character, they could have atleast given us a better look at her Na'vi adorned chopper.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I'm open to alternate explanations, but there has to be SOME reason that these movies keep getting made. I actually can't think of that many of the top of my head where the white guy becomes a leader (which I consider a good thing, since that was the only real objectionable part IMO) but it's still a pretty clear archetype that must have some basis.
But we don't have enough case studies. I think Dances with Wolves doesn't actually work as the White guy does *not* become a leader. He even marries another white woman. He leaves the people.
Tom Cruise does *not* become the leader of the Samurai, he becomes absolutely loyal to the leader of the Samurai rebellion and rides into battle with him. You could perhaps argue that with all the samurai dead and only Cruise alive to return to the village that perhaps he becomes a leader. He stays with the people.
In Pocahantas John Smith doesn't become the leader of the "savages" either. He simply jumps in front of a gun that was firing at the leader. He leaves the people so that he can get medical attention.
In Fern Gully, Zak helps fight Hexxus, but he isn't the one who leads the troops or defeats the bad guy. He is returned to his normal size at the end and says goodbye to Crysta. He leaves the people.
In Avatar Jake permanently becomes one of the Navi, and likely the next chief. He stays with the people.
There just isn't enough consistency in the plot elements for me to say, "There's too many movies like this..." I feel like these critics are you using "lazy memory" where they vaguely recall those movies and think, "Wasn't the white guy always the leader in those movies? I remember Kevin Costner fighting white people, Tom Cruise riding into battle, and I see Sam Worthington leading the troops so yes yes they are all the same."
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Oh God, I just realized how screwed up the history of Newton Knight and his rebellion against the confederacy during the Civil War is gonne be once Hollywood finds out. I wonder if anyone would claim that a movie about the infamous freedom fighter would be considered "white guilt" seeing as his second marriage was to the slave and mother of his cousins children. I hope the entertainment industry never ruins that bit of history too.
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I didn't spell this out well enough, but I mentioned that I realized most times the guy in question doesn't necessarily become a leader. Which does help to eliminate the "white guy fantasy about become leader of natives" element, but I don't think it eliminates the "white guy fantasizes about having done the right thing in times of extreme racial tension," which is the part that stems more from the White Guilt thing.
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It does seem interesting to me if you cross-compare film tropes between cultures. What you would think is the equivalent trope ("Chinese guy fantasizes about having done the right thing in times of extreme racial tension") is almost completely missing from Hong Kong cinema.
The closest parallel that comes to my mind is "Rich/powerful/arrogant guy becomes poor/powerless/humble in order to achieve enlightenment/humility and fights back to his original place."
So the article does help explain the appeal of the trope for me.
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Cameron wrote this stuff something like 14 years ago. Given the half-life of originality in what we can effectively market to movie audiences, I'm surprised it wasn't even more reliant on war-worn tropes than it was.
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I was relieved that they did not show them entwining tentacles as part of their mating; I was sure that was where that was heading and it would've been an eyeroller for me.
The visual effects were stunning and that was enough for me. I saw it in 3D and will probably return to see the IMAX version. I don't necessarily mind a predictable plot (I enjoy lots of romantic comedies, for example), but I did get a bit bored and irritated with the same old PC message being rammed down my throat. Primitive cultures are pure, wise and noble and the developed world (especially the Americans) are epitomized by the brutish Colonel. Yadda yadda.
I have to admit that I was fidgeting in my seat and well aware of the length of it by the end, but part of that has to do with the fact that I'm always bored by the combat scenes. I absolutely loved the pterodactyl flying scenes. That's the main reason I want to go see it in IMAX. And I thought the actors did a good job.
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If you look only at well-known American blockbuster movies, its easy to make this argument sound reasonable because most well-known American blockbuster movies are made by white people. However, a quick look at stories from other cultures or times makes it rather obvious that this plotline is common across many different cultures, and is thus not unique to people feeling "white guilt".
One could even look at the Bible: Moses was brought up in royal Egyptian culture, but when he is cast out, he ends up becoming leader of the Hebrew people and leads them to freedom against the much more powerful Egyptians he once called his family. This story, true or false, was considered powerful long long before any "white guilt" ever existed - and yet it follows essentially the same course that the author of this article is speaking of.
So, I'd think we'd have to conclude the "hero leaves dominant culture to join minority culture and ends up leading the fight against the dominant culture" plot stems from something a lot more fundamental and universal than simply "white guilt".
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I'm open to alternate explanations, but there has to be SOME reason that these movies keep getting made. I actually can't think of that many of the top of my head where the white guy becomes a leader (which I consider a good thing, since that was the only real objectionable part IMO) but it's still a pretty clear archetype that must have some basis.
Simple- this is a trope older than films, radio, or books. As much as Hollywood can and does cynically exploit the literary device, it continues to be used because it is highly appealing to audiences, readers, etc.
Basically I think it is appealing to writers because it enables them to explore an "alien" way of life through the eyes of someone the audience can relate to. The work is ostensibly about glorifying a native (read: "real" or "authentic") culture and deriding the social alienation of the dominant culture which has lost touch with the natural world. Even better if the hero has been himself damaged in some way specifically by modern society, and can only be healed by the more naturalistic lifestyle of the native culture.
The damaged hero going native is almost universal:
Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai is an alcoholic, and stops drinking as he explores Bushido.
Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves nearly loses a leg in the civil war, and comes away from the experience traumatized, and seeking solitude from the insanity of the war, only to find his place in a native culture.
The main character in Avatar is paralyzed on duty in the marines.
Add to this that eventually the vanity or ethnocentrism of the audience is eventually served by the representative hero teaching the natives something of value, and leading them against their oppressors, establishing that should he so choose, a person of the dominant culture is worthy of understanding and being master of any other culture as well. Generally transgressors in the other direction, people of the native culture who serve the dominant culture, are villains and cowards with pretensions of sophistication. Cultural transgression is only rewarded when a member of the dominant class humbles himself to learn from the natives, yet retains his natural superiority.
Ultimately I think the various expressions of this trope in modern times, perhaps dating back to Robinson Crusoe and its ilk, are morality tales about protestant work ethic. The hero's duty is to learn from the natives and use their tools to save them, but to remain himself morally superior, and the only truly complex and dynamic character in the story.
So it's not really racism, I think, it's just a road to a story that appeals to a large audience.
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I think Tresopax's point about Moses is interesting. If people can find a few more older (pre-European dominance) examples I may change my position.
Orincono's post mostly confuses me though - almost everything he says supports my original statement. Saying "The damaged hero going native is almost universal" and then citing three movies made by white Americans within the past 15 years isn't very compelling, especially when all three movies were already discussed at length here.
And then there's:
quote:Add to this that eventually the vanity or ethnocentrism of the audience is eventually served by the representative hero teaching the natives something of value, and leading them against their oppressors, establishing that should he so choose, a person of the dominant culture is worthy of understanding and being master of any other culture as well. Generally transgressors in the other direction, people of the native culture who serve the dominant culture, are villains and cowards with pretensions of sophistication. Cultural transgression is only rewarded when a member of the dominant class humbles himself to learn from the natives, yet retains his natural superiority.
Ultimately I think the various expressions of this trope in modern times, perhaps dating back to Robinson Crusoe and its ilk, are morality tales about protestant work ethic. The hero's duty is to learn from the natives and use their tools to save them, but to remain himself morally superior, and the only truly complex and dynamic character in the story.
immediately followed by:
quote:So it's not really racism, I think, it's just a road to a story that appeals to a large audience.
Bwuh? You just went into detail about how the main character, who is from the dominant culture, is clearly depicted as more fully developed and is appealing the ethnocentrism of the (presumably) primary audience. That's pretty much by definition racist.
If 90% of my audience is white and I make a bunch of movies where white people are heroes and black people are villains because I know that will sell, that is racism. Not hiring black waiters because you're afraid it'll drive away your primarily white clients, that's racism. You can hide behind market forces and business sense but that fact is, by doing so, you are encouraging a broken system and dealing continuous damage to the minority group and the only way it'll stop is if the people making the economic decisions stop doing it.
Now, telling a story about foreign people through the eyes of a character of the dominant culture of your target audience... that's a literary technique, designed to introduce a society bit by bit so the reader has time to absorb it without throwing it all at them at once. By itself that technique is not racist. And Avatar is the only movie I can actually think of where the white guy literally becomes the savior (Maybe El Dorado? Except in that one the main characters literally end up with nothing and the El Dorado-ians don't have a very "noble-savage" vibe at all).
So I'm not concerned that this type of movie is particularly bad (although in the case of Avatar it was very simplistic, mediocre storytelling). But I do think white guilt plays into their prominence in the past few decades. I don't think the Moses story quite counts, because Moses actually WAS Hebrew, and the part of the story where he's Egyptian is less than a page long.
Mucus pointed out that in China, the equivalent trope is "rich guy because poor and is humbled before eventually getting back his wealth." I'm curious if anyone else can think of non-European examples. My suspicion is there are elements of the trope that ARE universal (in particular the basic gist of "arrogant guy being humbled and then becoming a good person"), but the specific motif of "dominant culture raping a native culture and natural world for resources, until one guy realizes they're wrong" is something that emerged after the rise of Europe as a world power.
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(Technically, Hong Kong cinema. I'm much much less familiar with mainland cinema, though I suspect that relatively the difference would still be more or less true.)
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Bwuh? You just went into detail about how the main character, who is from the dominant culture, is clearly depicted as more fully developed and is appealing the ethnocentrism of the (presumably) primary audience. That's pretty much by definition racist.
If 90% of my audience is white and I make a bunch of movies where white people are heroes and black people are villains because I know that will sell, that is racism.
Well, we're just using two different definitions of racism. If your definition of racism is the act of catering to ethnocentrism, then yes, it's racist. But to define my own terms, racism is the belief that racial characteristics in human populations go beyond superficial variations, and that races are therefore definitively useful in characterizing individuals in relation to each other, based on that concept of race.
So, for instance, I don't find the gratuitous use of the "N-word" to be racist in and of itself, because I think the term "racist" has been misappropriated to be more closely synonymous with "non-PC." Ostensibly PC language is meant to reflect non-racist attitudes, but in actual fact PC language can and is as easily used to advocate deeply racist ideas as non-PC language.
So, I don't think these particular movies advocate the actual racial superiority of white people, but I believe they are ethnocentric in the cultural sense. Basically, that the cultures of white European descended westerners are inherently superior, and that these cultures are represented through race as more a matter of convenience and common practice. White = Western European = Cultural Apex. Does that explain what I was trying to say? I should have been clearer in my terms.
Thinking of it now, I think it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, and that this *is* in fact based in good old fashioned racism, but I think overall, and in the longer run, cultural superiority is the message that is appealing to audiences, rather than racial supremacy. Just ask one or two of our resident conservatives what they think about hispanics or blacks, and they will (and have) talked about all the black and hispanic people they know and like who conform as closely as possible to the dominant culture, and are "whitewashed" for lack of a better term. To them, it is a condemnation of ethnic minorities that racial or cultural transgression (being "white washed") is a source of animosity among minority groups. Rejection of the mainstream culture is seen as a defect, and incomplete transgression, such as with racially mixed people or foreigners of more recent extraction embracing American culture, is seen as affectation, and a sign of low self image and feelings of inferiority or weakness, or a lack of real identity. I think *most* of that is about culture, and race is the visible supertext for it.
quote: And Avatar is the only movie I can actually think of where the white guy literally becomes the savior (Maybe El Dorado? Except in that one the main characters literally end up with nothing and the El Dorado-ians don't have a very "noble-savage" vibe at all).
The Passion of the Christ (a little different)
Medicine Man (closer)
The Last Samurai (bingo)
Pocahontas (ohhhh man)
Many episodes of McGuyver, Quantum Leap, and Star Trek,
Dances With Wolves (purdy much)
Gran Torino (complete with self-sacrifice)
And let's not even mention Speaker for the Dead (not a movie, but a clear example of the device)
Just a few off the top of my head, all with varying degrees of the trope, granted. The fantasy of inhabiting a native culture for a short while, and then quickly rising to lead that culture beyond its former potential is stock standard in Hollywood, and for that matter outside of Hollywood as well. It's appealing to the mainstream for obvious reasons. As you can see from the list, the formula can be worked from all sorts of angles.
I was expecting the story, no real surprises there. I actually found a lot more depth to Sigourney Weaver's character than I expected at first sight.
They set her up as the botanist who cares more about plants than people, so to see her genuine affection for the kids in her school and her respect for the Nav'i people was refreshing. She also was a scientist with some brains in areas beyond her own expertise. She was smart enough to have a backup site for her research further away from the corporate control.
Also, thank you Cameron for NOT having the marine completely fluent in Nav'i in three months. Yes, he could communicate, but when he needed to really get something across he used a translator. (I know that was more about letting the audience hear his stirring speech in English first, but I still was happy.)
All in all, it was better than I expected. Yes, it was chock full o' tropes, but few movies aren't these days. It was still deliriously gorgeous to watch, and had a few other redeeming factors that made it worth the money to see in the theater.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Bwuh? You just went into detail about how the main character, who is from the dominant culture, is clearly depicted as more fully developed and is appealing the ethnocentrism of the (presumably) primary audience. That's pretty much by definition racist.
If 90% of my audience is white and I make a bunch of movies where white people are heroes and black people are villains because I know that will sell, that is racism.
Well, we're just using two different definitions of racism. If your definition of racism is the act of catering to ethnocentrism, then yes, it's racist. But to define my own terms, racism is the belief that racial characteristics in human populations go beyond superficial variations, and that races are therefore definitively useful in characterizing individuals in relation to each other, based on that concept of race.
So, for instance, I don't find the gratuitous use of the "N-word" to be racist in and of itself, because I think the term "racist" has been misappropriated to be more closely synonymous with "non-PC." Ostensibly PC language is meant to reflect non-racist attitudes, but in actual fact PC language can and is as easily used to advocate deeply racist ideas as non-PC language.
So, I don't think these particular movies advocate the actual racial superiority of white people, but I believe they are ethnocentric in the cultural sense. Basically, that the cultures of white European descended westerners are inherently superior, and that these cultures are represented through race as more a matter of convenience and common practice. White = Western European = Cultural Apex. Does that explain what I was trying to say? I should have been clearer in my terms.
Thinking of it now, I think it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, and that this *is* in fact based in good old fashioned racism, but I think overall, and in the longer run, cultural superiority is the message that is appealing to audiences, rather than racial supremacy. Just ask one or two of our resident conservatives what they think about hispanics or blacks, and they will (and have) talked about all the black and hispanic people they know and like who conform as closely as possible to the dominant culture, and are "whitewashed" for lack of a better term. To them, it is a condemnation of ethnic minorities that racial or cultural transgression (being "white washed") is a source of animosity among minority groups. Rejection of the mainstream culture is seen as a defect, and incomplete transgression, such as with racially mixed people or foreigners of more recent extraction embracing American culture, is seen as affectation, and a sign of low self image and feelings of inferiority or weakness, or a lack of real identity.
I think you can legitimately describe ethnocentrism and racism and catering to either for economic benefit as different things, but they ultimately amount to the same thing. Our culture has made it dangerous to be "obviously" racist in the traditional sense, but that leaves us with a situation where nobody wants to be seen as even remotely racist so when you try to address problems that perfectly well intentioned white people are causing, they get all defensive and try to make the discussion about how it's not their fault or it's not technically racism instead of how to actually fix the problem.
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quote:Originally posted by BFD: Avatar rips off Speaker for the Dead.
I don't really think so. Superficially, a human outsider arrives on a planet with violent, sentient beings and proceeds to understand the aliens better than the humans who were professionals in the field ever did. The outsider then takes the aliens side more thoroughly in the inevitable conflict.
The principle difference between the two works is that Card's aliens have a culture that is alien to us because of biological differences and fear of contamination prevented the Xenologers from asking the piggies how is babby fromed?
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I don't think it's nearly even that close. The Pequeninos were waiting for Ender to come. When he got there, they were willing to tell him things that they'd tell no other person, and he did understand them in a way that no one else did.
On Pandora, the Na'vi only allowed the human into their midst on a lark. They weren't waiting for a human to bridge the gap, but there is a slight similarity in that he saw things that one else did. I really think that trying to make the connection is reaching pretty far out there for a similarity that doesn't readily exist.
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I was thinking more along the lines of "OMG giant talking trees that are somehow connected to non-tree-creatures!"
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I seriously doubt that Speaker for the Dead was the first book to do that. And while cool, it's not a particularly creative idea either.
I liked the movie, but didn't love it. The acting was average and D9 had more convincing cg to me. It says something when you only remember one character's name at the end, though I thought the scientist's actress did a really good job and had the best performance of the movie with the badguy coming in second.
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Kids not recognizing Sigourney Weaver makes me think kids these days wouldn't know a good movie if Aliens dropped through the ceiling on `em. Though I suppose that's old-guy code for 'makes me feel old', heh.
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Hey, I recognized Sigourney Weaver and I'm of the age generally recognized as "kids today". In fact, I was glad to see her, because I thought she gave some weight to the plot. If her character had been played by Just Another Good-Looking Actress, instead of a really excellent sensible-looking actress I think the movie would have been much sillier.
You can tell who is a good actor, because they make the trite re-trodden lines work.
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I saw it in 3D and liked it a lot! I also thought it was one of the most predicatble movies I've ever seen. But is was still an amazing worthwhile experience anyway.
SPOILERS: . . . . Like as soon as they mentioned that someon had previousley rode the big dragon thing it was obvious Jake would at some point. And when they showed Grace being carried to the tree it was obvius Jake would be transformed in the tree as the last scene in the movie. As soon as Jake's girlfriend got flattened under the animal, it was clear at the last second she would escape and fire the bow at the angry bad guy. But I pretty much thought she would do that as soon as she got her father's bow. It didn't spoil my experience at all, but a little less forshadowing for each major even would be nice. i feel like there was even more moments i'm just not remembering this minute.
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I assumed from the second I saw the preview that at some point Jake would permanently get into the Na'vi body, I just wasn't sure how.
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I didn't recognize her, but I thought she was great in the movie so I looked her up. She has an awesome name, too.
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Wow, I thought I was young. But then it would be easy not to be familiar with her since she hasn't appeared in a big budget movie in around ten years. It's fairly impressive for her to even have household name recognition at her age, as most 60 year old female actresses do not. This part would never have gone to a woman of that age had it not been specifically for her working relationship with Cameron- which is really too bad, because far too many female parts go to women who either look too young, or are too inexperienced to play them. You'd think from watching most movies that there's no such thing as a healthy vibrant middle aged woman.
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She is indeed, in fact I think she may be 61. But dude, think about it- Alien was made 31 years ago, and it's not like she looked like a kid in that movie. She's one of those rare actors that stay in a weird ageless sweet spot for a majority of their careers- sort of like Brad Pit, who has been playing characters in their early thirties for like 20 years, and he's 46.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I was thinking more along the lines of "OMG giant talking trees that are somehow connected to non-tree-creatures!"
Also, trees used as a conduit to preserve life/transfer to another body, ala Jane in Children of the Mind.
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I had the lovely pleasure to see it with Katharina, and we concluded it is a very entertaining, limbic system movie.
You gotta admit, James Cameron knows how to appeal to a large demographic. Considering the pace of Avatar's ticket sales, it will most likely at least surpass LOTR III to become the second-highest grossing movie ever. I'm not sure what I think about the two top-grossing films of all time belonging to James Cameron. Posts: 293 | Registered: Apr 2000
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Well, considering that some budget projections placed the development, production and advertising costs at half a billion dollars, this movie had to make a billion dollars just to become profitable, since the studio doesn't start making a profit before the cost of the film is payed back twofold in ticket sales (theaters keep half).
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I thought it was excellent. I saw it twice, and loved it both times.
And I found some interesting reviews/analysis of the movie and the reception it is getting worldwide. The first is an entertaining bit of speculation. The second is a interesting analysis of the movie and our brains. The third is a political analysis coupled with a review.
quote:The Na'vi have no common morphology with the rest of the planet. Sig even comments on it in a Youtube article. Why do they exist? How is it that they speak a recognizable language, and have genes close enough to human that it's possible to MIX IN HUMAN DNA with the Na'vi? How is it that the Na'vi have built in neural interfacing equipment that can instantly domesticate the larger animals and even predators? Wouldn't evolution make such a thing impossible?
The answer is that the Na'vi aren't a natural race. Eywa made them. They're close enough to human that the humans can communicate with them and think they look cute and cuddly (Ewya may have been slightly confused here), and alien enough that they can survive in the local environment. If that wasn't enough, Eywa provided with some elevated sudo privileges, so they could take advantage of the local fauna without Eywa being directly involved.
quote:At its core, movies are about dissolution: we forget about ourselves and become one with the giant projected characters on the screen. In other words, they become our temporary avatars, so that we're inseparable from their story. (This is one of the reasons why the Avatar plot is so effective: it's really a metaphor for the act of movie-watching.*) And for a mind that's so relentlessly self-aware, I'd argue that 100 minutes of self-forgetting (as indicated by a quieting of the prefrontal cortex) is a pretty nice cognitive vacation. And Avatar, through a variety of technical mechanisms - from the astonishing special effects to the straightforward story to the use of 3-D imagery - manages to induce those "synchronized spatiotemporal patterns" to an unprecedented degree. That is what the movies are all about, and that is what Avatar delivers.
quote:As a host of critics have noted, the film offers a blatantly pro-environmental message; it portrays U.S. military contractors in a decidedly negative light; and it clearly evokes the can't-we-all-get along vibe of the 1960s counterculture. These are all messages guaranteed to alienate everyday moviegoers, so say the right-wing pundits -- and yet the film has been wholeheartedly embraced by audiences everywhere, from Mississippi to Manhattan.
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Considering the quote, the last headline should be "Why DON'T Conservatives Hate...". The answer, of course, is because people are not the stupid stereotypes the writer of the article wishes they were.
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Yeah, I know. He picks certain extreme conservative critics that he clearly doesn't like, but I still found the article interesting. Like this one:
quote:John Podhoretz, the Weekly Standard's film critic, called the film "blitheringly stupid; indeed, it's among the dumbest movies I've ever seen." He goes on to say: "You're going to hear a lot over the next couple of weeks about the movie's politics -- about how it's a Green epic about despoiling the environment, and an attack on the war in Iraq.... The conclusion does ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency. So it is a deep expression of anti-Americanism -- kind of. The thing is, one would be giving Jim Cameron too much credit to take 'Avatar' -- with its ... hatred of the military and American institutions and the notion that to be human is just way uncool -- at all seriously as a political document. It's more interesting as an example of how deeply rooted these standard issue counterculture cliches in Hollywood have become by now."
The movie is very environmental/treehuggerish (I think of Fern Gully in space) and anti-corporation and anti-military. I wished that the head military man wasn't so gung-ho one-dimensional. The corporate-leader seemed to have some conflicting feelings, but didn't really act on them unless he was cornered. And it did end with the humans going back to their planet to presumably die.
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I'm perplexed why people read so much into this movie.. How does this ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency? *eye-roll*
Sometimes people just need to relax, eat popcorn and enjoy the movie.
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quote:Originally posted by Matt Schillerberg: I'm perplexed why people read so much into this movie.. How does this ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency? *eye-roll*
Sometimes people just need to relax, eat popcorn and enjoy the movie.
Especially since the movie essentially states that all soldiers on Pandora are contractors working for a private corporation. While many veterans are in their ranks, they are not active duty US servicemen.
If some foreign country had super huge corporations that were doing what they do in the movie over here in the US, these commentators would say the Na'vi are taking a page from our founding father's book and banding together to evict a common enemy.
I had the lovely pleasure to see it with Katharina, and we concluded it is a very entertaining, limbic system movie.
You gotta admit, James Cameron knows how to appeal to a large demographic. Considering the pace of Avatar's ticket sales, it will most likely at least surpass LOTR III to become the second-highest grossing movie ever. I'm not sure what I think about the two top-grossing films of all time belonging to James Cameron.
Please note that when adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is still the all-time leader. In fact, Titanic doesn't even make it in the top 5.
Posts: 1295 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Does that take into account both the differences in dollar values and the differences in ticket prices? I'd think it should also take into account number of movie screens and the level of disposable income as well.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I was thinking more along the lines of "OMG giant talking trees that are somehow connected to non-tree-creatures!"
Also, trees used as a conduit to preserve life/transfer to another body, ala Jane in Children of the Mind.
And this just occurred to me, but I don't believe for a second that Eywa just coincidentally sounds like aiua.
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quote:Originally posted by Matt Schillerberg: I'm perplexed why people read so much into this movie.. How does this ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency? *eye-roll*
Sometimes people just need to relax, eat popcorn and enjoy the movie.
Especially since the movie essentially states that all soldiers on Pandora are contractors working for a private corporation. While many veterans are in their ranks, they are not active duty US servicemen.
If some foreign country had super huge corporations that were doing what they do in the movie over here in the US, these commentators would say the Na'vi are taking a page from our founding father's book and banding together to evict a common enemy.
edited for grammar.
Exactly. Besides, you've got examples of ex-military that go both ways (fight for both sides) by the end. Sure, one is a bit more over the top than the other, but still. (I commented to someone that if this were an anime series, some of the characters wouldn't have felt quite so exaggerated.)
What I find funny is that I saw this movie with my brother, who IS an American soldier. He's a pilot in the AF. He loved it! He certainly didn't feel like the audience was about to turn on him if he declared his profession in the middle of the theater.
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