In response to Chelsea’s post earlier this month about Avatar.
Firstly, if you have not seen the movie, only see it in 3D.
I wonder how seriously we should be taking this film in the first place. It seems to me that in 20 years our kids are going to be seeing this movie and laughing at the goofy special effects and how it’s all about ‘going green.’
To:
“Reality and fantasy are too intertwined to actually send the message of embracing a “new lifestye.” We will constantly be asking ourselves what is the best way to be humans–and this is a good thing–yet the movie is offering that the best way is a way completely other than our own…He completely renounces his humanity. I argue that this is fundamentally different than our struggle to discover the best way to live as humans and has a tragically hopeless and irresponsible undertone.”
I respond that Mike gave a sufficient (literary) answer, saying that indeed the Navi are more human than the humans in the movie. I don’t think that Joe Plumber on the street is going to go out and try to become a blue monkey.
The movie is creative, yes. I have a hard time considering this movie as great art since it is primarily a sugar coated piece of propaganda, a mere analogy. It has potential in its appeal to myth and heroism—Avatar brings up questions of heroism, the human heart in conflict, and the good life, but more like Disney’s approach to Heracles or Robin Hood.
The movie is creative and has novel artifice, by which I mean that the special effects are never-before-seen, well rendered, explosive, and inventive. But I do not think that the movie approached any level of profundity at all. The tragically hopeless undertone that you were sensing Chelsea, is what I took to be the movie’s [not so] hidden message: Jake says something to the effect of “We destroyed our mother (earth).” I guess that means we as humans today seeing this movie ought then to save the earth from being destroyed. Trite—we all picked up on that.
Artistically irresponsible, yes. Worth making a big deal about, perhaps.
Why is it that Avatar was the straw that broke the camel’s back? There have been many artistically irresponsible movies than this in the past. If this is simply a smaller piece of a larger irritation, Chelsea, I would like to know what that is. Can you flush this out a bit more?
