Avatar

Alright, guys, I'm sorry to take a bit of a departure from the usually humorous tone of this blog, but there's some stuff I really have to say, here. I will try to put some comic relief in every so often in case you feel your eyes might bleed from reading such a long-winded rant.

So, Tommy and I went to see Avatar last night, after hearing much hype about it. Some people I respect said that they really liked it (namely my grandparents, some aunts, and a couple of friends) so I figured it had to be at least OK. Definitely worth going to, since we had a free movie pass.

The theater was packed, just about to capacity. And we didn't even get into the 3-D IMAX showing. Those were all sold out. We just saw the plain ol' regular movie.

The first half of the film I really liked, except for the cheesy one-liners coming from all of the military guys (including and especially the main character.) Dumb ass phrases like, "Git 'r' Done!" said without any hint of humor or irony by all of the military "bad guys." I was disappointed at the outset by how one dimensional the military guys were. They seemed to have no problem going to this planet and just destroying it, which seems ridiculous to me. I think that quality "bad guys" have to be multidimensional, or hell--at least original--in order to be believable. It's kind of insulting that the U.S. military faction had to be depicted as so stereotypically cold-hearted and unintelligent. Frankly, if I was in the military myself, I'd be kind of offended at the portrayal of how their missions are conducted.

The second half of the movie particularly infuriated me. It's definitely possible I could be taking it too much to heart, but did anyone else notice a shit-ton of 9/11, Iraqi/Muslim, "tree-hugging" Democrats/"slash and burn war hawk" Republican references? I feel that the narrative got intensely political at the end, and I don't know if it's because politics are so deeply embedded in our national consciousness, or because the media is trying to propagandize through feature films now. The images and dialogue that alluded to these things were rampant.
Just as a quick recap; the bombing and burning of "Home Tree" could definitely parallel 9/11 and the falling of the Twin Towers. I didn't even notice this until Tommy pointed out how similar the (now archetypal)images seemed with the wounded Navi People walking among falling ash and burning debris. Also, there was a mention by one of the main characters of "fighting terror with terror," which seemed as if someone poured an obvious cup of bullshit buzzwords into the script. Oh, and did anyone notice how the Navi all fall before the ancestral tree and start singing and kind of, well...praying? I don't know, it looked a lot like devout Muslims praying to Mecca to me.

At face value I can see why people thought Avatar was a cool movie. I also really enjoyed the scenery and graphics, I thought the tribal customs were neat, and the idea of transferring one's nervous system/brain responses into a different body is awesome! But I just can't escape how it makes me feel when I notice totally unnecessary, biased "real life" parallels spun to make some sort of a simplified point to get people pumped up. I feel like this movie had an agenda that wasn't primarily to entertain and wow us, which is typical, and makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Either way, I would love it if you guys would go see this movie and report back about how you felt, even if you totally disagree with me. I want to see the film in a different way if possible, so let me know your thoughts.