‘Avatar’: Film Art as Cultural Suicide
by Noel AnenbergLet me see if I’ve got this straight.
Under the aegis of Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century-Fox, a zillion dollar corporation with over a billion in annual box office, James Cameron makes a movie, Avatar, about an average, avaricious, American corporation backed-up by a Marine garrison which is out to exploit or destroy a forest full of “fly-bittin’ savages” who listen to voices from trees for precious “Unobtanium!”
Reality check: if you wish to assay the true value of “Unobtanium,” try getting a return call from James Cameron or a movie deal with 20th Century Fox!
Gee whiz! I grew up believing that Earth would be taken over by a Blob, or an “Invasion of Bodysnatchers,” or a “Brother from Another Planet!” Now, according to Cameron we, you and I, are the space menace! We’re the Romulans! Since when did the United States of America become a member of the Sci-Fi Axis of Evil? Where are Captian Kirk, Spock, and Bones?
Can anyone explain why Cameron and the Hollywood Industrial Complex is hell bent on characterizing our great nation as the embodiment of evil? Could it be that ticket sales overseas in general and in Muslim-tottering regions of the world grow in direct proportion to the level of self-flagellating anti-Americanism in American films?
Heinrich look!
What is it, Brunhilda?
Again zoze krazy Amerikaners are making fools of zemselves!
As a matter of fact, if I were a radical Iman with a Mosque in London, Paris, Hampsterdam, or any of the other capitals of the future Eurabia where political correctness trumps national security, I would screen “Avatar” in my Mosque’s main sanctuary every night with matinees daily during Ramadan.
“You see my little Fakhir? This ‘Avatar’ movie provides proof positive that the godless American Infidels have depleted their lands and are now secretly having their way with the gentle people of Pandora just as they have been raping our sacred lands for centuries! That is why we jihad! Do you understand?”
“Yes, Inmam.”
“When Allah, praise be he, reigns supreme, when a Fundamentalist Islamic Republic controls all the world’s natural resources, corporations, governments, and peoples only then will the tribes of Pandora and the tribes of desert be out of the Infidel’s reach.
“But Imam, I think ‘Avatar’ is but a fairytale. Didn’t the Americans liberate Iraq? Enfranchise tens of millions of Muslims with the right to vote? And aren’t they about to do something about that madman running Iran?”
“Do not speak such blasphemy again, Fakhir or by shariah I shall be obligated to gouge out your eyes and slice out your tongue!”
It doesn’t have to be this way! If this writer had a $500M budget to make a movie about Omaticayians flying Banchees to protect their Hometree and the Unobtanian beneath it this might be the log line:
Avatar: US Marines liberate the Na’vi from an oppressive Muslim regime as a American business leader helps them to mine Unobtanium so that they may defend their forest nation, feed their Mountain Banshees and nourish their Tree of Souls.
Why is Cameron’s film, Avatar, an act of cultural suicide?
We humanoids, at least the vast majority of us, possess a region deep in the brain called the Limbic System. There, our feelings, thoughts, and actions are in large part processed instantaneously. When you pick up the handle of a hot frying pan, drop the pan, and swear, the combined reflexive response is a product of the Limbic System. The overwhelming majority of Hollywood auteures have lost touch with their Limbic Systems and may therefore be referred to as “Limbeciles.”
Limbeciles are unable to discern that walking off a cliff, shooting yourself in the head, or spending an hour listening to Bill Maher will probably result in death or severe brain damage. That’s why they make films which due damage to the free society and economy which pay them to do so. Is there really a difference between say drilling for oil in Iraq and selling Paul Blart: Mall Cop to unwitting audiences in Kampala, Sanan’a and Dhaka?
Question: What do you call people who benefit greatly with little or no sacrifice, are hateful of the very place and people which have showered them with almost absolute freedom of expression, adoration, and riches, and refuse to accept responsibility for their art and actions?
Answer: Adolescents!
Grow up Hollywood!
Is there a solution? Of course:
A) Americans who love their country could stop buying tickets to movies that defame it.
B) Hollywood Limbiciles could suffer a crisis of consciousness and begin making movies that cast less of a dark shadow on their blessed nation.
C) Or we could scotch tape an I’M STUPID – KICK ME HERE sign with an arrow pointing south onto Lady Liberty’s derriere.
Until that time perhaps we should watch reruns of Buster Crabbe playing Flash Gordon in “The Purple Death From Outer Space.”
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252 Comments
I thought the concensus was in that the Left think it is the right that has a limbic brain disorder. At least that is what Garafalo says.
Ah the joys of conflicting "science"
Um. The words "America" and "United States" aren't mentioned anywhere in the film.
I get it. The whole point of this website is that you guys argue that only "conservative" culture can succeed in the marketplace. I would imagine that the Billion dollar plus box office of Avatar sort of pokes a hole in this thesis, let alone the idea that a bunch of internet cranks can economically destroy the politically unapproved in Hollywood.
Cameron is lousy screenwriter who writes paper thin plots and cyphers for characters. That's why I'm not seeing it, not because of the "anti-American" wolf crying from our friends on the right.
People want to see 3D effects, Moron.
Regardless of the fact that this movie has done a billion world wide, if witless Hollywood didn’t spit in the eye of 60% of America it might have done three billion by now. The “success” of this movie has as much to do with voyeurism as it does great cinema, and the lack of competing product with two weeks off, around the Christmas holidays.
I nevr pay for movies, good or bad. When the library gets their copy, I may or may not check it out.
There is no point in arguing, it's a know fact liberals are born without functioning brains.
I've said it elsewhere, I say it here again: that the film might be anti-american is just a superficial problem with which so many of the conservative reviewers get stuck with for whatever unfathomable reason. Neither the film nor the scriptment itself provide any information on the national or political structures back on Earth. People get lost in ranting about 'anti-americanism' in Avatar, but the true problem of the movie is that it is, in the end, <anti-human and anti-civilization. Until conservative and independent reviewers adress these two points, they will always get the "you're crybabies"-rebuttal from Hollywood and the Left.
Criticism needs to dig to the core of the problem. BH has a score of people who have adressed this movie already, so why doesn't this author or John Nolte or any of the others actually take that one additional step and adress Avatar not from the POV of an American conservative, but from that of a human with a good portion of logic and common sense. Such an approach would go a long way to withdraw the criticism from the partisan periphery to affect the mainstream.
The true problem is that the movie is 'anti-civilization'? I respectfully disagree with that assessment. Derivative plot, sure. That other stuff. No.
Return of the King didn't make three billion, by your Avatar logic does that mean that somehow Return of the King also spit in America's eye?
Let's face it, the BH mission of equating box office with cultural politics seems to have a pretty major outlier with Avatar.
So, even if you support the movie, you won't support it with your actual dollars?
Actually, the film tanked because for several reasons. 1) The source novel of Starship Troopers didn't really have a huge base audience to drive the initial ticket sales.(not to mention Heinlein's rather fascist tendencies especially in that book didn't help either) 2) There wasn't a single name actor in the cast 3) It had a dreadful marketing campaign that gave no sense and emphasized that awful Blur song in the ads more than the actual plot 4) It was poorly made, and the reviews mostly flogged that point.
But, no. It had to have been ONLY politics that drove the box office there.
That's what I'm saying! When will they just come off it?
Oh! They didn't mention the 'United States' or 'America'! Well, that's different then. It wasn't explicit enough for you. So, if one of the Navi said, "Man, America sucks, they're all greedy corporate shills, and their military are blood thirsty monsters who rape the sinless, noble peoples of the world. They should look to the trees for true wisdom." Would that have been specific enough for you? Have you heard of allegory, metaphor, hyperbole, satire, or propaganda? Have you been in a cave for the last 40 years and not seen the hundreds of films slathered with dripping gobs of leftist values? Not to mention everything else on television, music, the news, the public schools? My guess is that you have been in a cave – one of your own making. You soaked up their ideology like a sponge; so much so, that you think leftist values are normal, even enlightened. I'd say you prove that the whole endeavor has been a glorious success. Good for you for thinking for yourself caveman.
Personally I can sift through the leftist drivel if there’s a good plot, and well made, most cases I could care less about politics, not any more, we are at war for this great Republic, the very thing that enables so many in Hollywood to be unappreciative jerks.
Avatar is all sizzle, no steak, an exercise in blind banality, however brilliantly filmed. On the other hand, the LOTR is a strong story and Peter Jackson had to build the movie around the book. The story moved the scene, the converse is true of Avatar.
Since as you said, “The source novel of Starship Troopers didn't really have a huge base audience to drive the initial ticket sales,” that make’s ‘Heinlein's rather fascist tendencies’ are irrelevant.
Star Wars didn’t have ‘name actors’ either, but I’m sure Alex Guinness was big draw for the under twenty crowd.
If marketing is all it took to make a film success ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ should have failed.
Poorly made? That’s subjective. But of the reviews I’ve re-read, ‘poorly made’ as a phrase didn’t appear one.
Taxes dollars support libraries, so of course bill-tb supports it with his money, but against his will.
beating it?
i'd say jumping up and down on it till the gunk bursts out.
(yes the imagery is intentionally disgusting)
I've ranted enough about Avatar over the past couple of weeks to get it all out of my system.
Now? Carefactor= 0 +/- 4db
Having been in Germany for the two weeks leading up to the Avatar opener, seeing gobs of advertising including a full "Avatar" makeover at Berlin's iMax at the Sony Center and other adverts all over the place, the German's themselves picked up the anti-Capitalism vibe first and foremost. In fact they like Cameron for his "Capitalism is the root of all evil!" specifically and in every movie he's used it.
With every European I met convinced that American greed was the sole reason for the global economic meltdown, if a movie takes an "avatar" of American capitalism and hurls it stylishly through a plate glass window, it will succeed in Europe. In Avatar's case, the proof is in the makeup of sales itself.
Domestic: $360,209,452 33.9%
+ Foreign: $702,942,307 66.1%
= Worldwide: $1,063,151,759
I'm with you…..
This is getting so old….
It's also suggested reading for everyone in the Marines. Any Sci-fi nerd worth the name loves the book, but is ambivalent at best about the movie.
The movie failed because the only things that it kept from the source material were the title, the names of the characters, and the existence of "bugs."
Starship Troopers was an obscenity, a great big gob of spit on the grave of Robert A. Heinlein. The book was (and still is) a delightful novel and full of ideas and concepts that everyone should read.
The director (whose name I will not utter here) created a fascist state complete with long black leather coats for the SS — er, sorry, the scientific community — who experimented on the bugs. The book was designed for young adults so they made the film over-the-top violent with an "R" rating, so kids would never see it.
Contrast that with Star Wars, where the one scene that gave it a PG rating (the severed arm in the bar in Tatooine) was put in afterward because Lucas didn't want a "G" rating.
I despise the moronic dreck they made out of Starship Troopers. Like the re-ordering of the Chronicles of Narnia by the publishing industry, it is a deliberate attempt to subvert the message and ideas so crucial to guiding young people towards freedom and individual liberty.
Hey, Noel. Thx for the piece. I am in agreement.
What is with Hollywood and their obsession with this tired, worn story line? "Free-living, completely peaceful world is ravaged by oppressive techno-culture."
If it weren't for those big, mean, thuggish progressive civilizations… the universe would be simply Edenic. All creatures would lock arms, and sing of love and butterflies.
*sigh*
And… I still laugh at the irony: If these great artistes (Cameron, & Co.) were to actually live in these idyllic societies, which they so roundly defend against the marauding techno-civilizations… these artistes would be castrated and bastinadoed for being heretics and infidels. How weird.
People like you have thought that for years. People like you have watched anti-American movies, read anti-American books, and put your kids in schools and universities where they are taught that America is the greatest evil in the world.
Today we have a generation and a culture that is committing suicide by inches, and you couldn't care less. It isn't your fault, you just like watching movies and reading books and can't be bothered with what is being taught to your children.
That's why we're here, at this website. To wake up people like you. To see if you can look beyond pretty colors and gee-whiz graphics and see the poison that is being dripped into your system. Can't you see it? Don't you care?
Strato is right as rain here. You have in effect a Canadian making an American film which is anti-Capitalist/anti-Expansionist which itself is a VERY Canadian theme. Why the all surprise in that? Also why the surprise in that exact message being so popular in Europe? They are themselves a decade (at the very least) ahead of North America in high quality renewable products, green energy for what its worth and keeping in Germany specifically what amounts to the cleanest cities I've ever seen. Avatar IS EXACTLY the movie they, meaning the EU, would have made for themselves but will never have to with Cameron around.
The lone mitigating circumstance here is the future ability to throw "Avatar" back in the faces of the people on the left the next time they start whining about how much of an evil fascist Rupert Murdoch is for creating Fox News.
Rupert & Co. are basically in it for the money, whether it's the film subsidiary or the news division, and they (and most of the other Hollywood studios) have come to believe a big special effects movie with anti-American overtones (if you say someone's a Marine in the movie and you're James Cameron, you're not insinuating he's a Bosnian to the folks in the audience) can make their costs back in the overseas markets, which the current box office numbers are proving out. And the same thing applies in the news division — if the other networks are too egotistical/stubborn to see that there's ratings $$$ to be made in a new outlet that doesn't follow the herd and leans right, that's their own stupidity at play.
How about this, “What are you willing to die for?” That message is dealt with in classroom at the beginning of the film. I don’t see that as moronic, but interesting.
LIberals- they are highly likely to be authoritarian followers. They are highly submissive
to established authority, aggressive in the name of that authority, and conventional to
the point of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide. They are
fearful and self-righteous and have a lot of hostility in them that they readily direct
toward various out-groups. They are easily incited, easily led, rather un-inclined to
think for themselves, largely impervious to facts and reason, and rely instead on social
support to maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their in-groups, have
thick-walled, highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double standards in their
judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times, and are often hypocrites.
But they are also Teflon-coated when it comes to guilt. They are blind to
themselves, ethnocentric and prejudiced, and as closed-minded as they are narrowminded.
They can be woefully uninformed about things they oppose, but they prefer
ignorance and want to make others become as ignorant as they. They are also
surprisingly uninformed about the things they say they believe in, and deep, deep,
deep down inside many of them have secret doubts about their core belief. But they
are very happy, highly giving, and quite zealous.
It´s a movie. Get over it.
Noel they aren't Marines. What part of that are you unable to comprehend? Yeesh.
All these aericles do is put Avatar in the news more and make more people go see it.
Noel you and your fellow writers, and this site, have done nothing but drive thousands more people to the theaters to see what the controversy is about. Big Hollywood has probably contributed to an extra couple million dollars in sales. Granted, it's impact is largely irrelevant, but you're not accomplishing anything other than coming off as whiny conspiracy nuts with a victim complex.
Tinfoil hat much Dave? Put down the Ann Coulter and try to think for yourself.
Name one university Bonnie. You can't because that's total nonsense. The message of this film is protect your property. If a foreign power invaded your property and destroyed your house would you happily accept it, or do you think you would have a right to protect it?
It's not anti civilization. The Navi were civilized, living sustainably with their environment. It's very pro civilization.
This is officially the most moronic article I have ever read.
Noel please tell me you didn't honestly propose this is an alternative story line
"Avatar: US Marines liberate the Na’vi from an oppressive Muslim regime"
Are you really that much of a blatant bigot? That's really hard to believe that BH let that go to print.
The movie failed because the only things that it kept from the source material were the title, the names of the characters, and the existence of "bugs."
It wasn't really "keeping" things from the source material, not so much. It was more like somebody at the studio read the book and thought, "Boy, this sounds an awful lot like that script we've been passing around. We'd better buy the rights and sprinkle in a few references — hell, it's cheaper than being sued."
One wonders exactly how much of that $1B has trickled all the way back up to News Corp.
William, I just checked Box Ofiice Mojo. You're right. $121M worldwide on a $100M budget. Really surprised me. STARSHIP TROOPERS is one of my all-time faves. I thought it rocked the box office! At least enough to make its money back. For the record, I am a contributor here and have spoken out may times against lame politics in film. Can ruin even the best film.
All that said, I totally disagree with your interpretation of ST. I thought it was hardcore conservative all the way. No f*ing around. Kill the enemy before they kill us. Sound familiar? But even the girls were all bad news. I dunno. I guess you take out of it what you take into it. But I beg to differ on ST. That AVATAR made ten times the money as ST does not make it a better movie. IMHO.
So they're Blackwater instead of USMC. Like this makes any difference to Cameron.
If the writers here have the reach to drive more than a couple dozen people to the theater, it would be a miracle.
This is entertaining. Embracing America by suppressing freedom of speech. (Don't speak out against America, even if you think its acting wrongly — if Americans had taken that attitude, we'd still be a British colony.) This rhetoric aligns with dictatorship, where government cannot be questioned, not democracy.
Define civilization for me, please, because stone-age hunter-gatherers aren't one.
Mark, I see that you're feeling highly submissive to established authority. It is good for people to spend some time alone, clearly writing down the things they actually believe in, and the logic/reasoning they have used to come to those solutions. Then they can find the errors in their belief structure, and become a person whos beliefs are not simply the results of the social circles/in-groups they find themselves in.
I do not think the criticism of this film has to do with being conservative. I have not seen the film, nor will I in the near future. From what I have read, the hypocrisy of the film speaks for itself. This film was not created for a US market. It was created for a world market and its simplistic message, designed for a five year old mind set, is designed to penetrate the mind of anyone not American. Cameron knew exactly what he was doing with this film and so did the "conservative" 20th Century Fox. This kind of a creation is designed to influence minds while at the same time making lots of money. I ask my fellow Americans what kind of message do they want left wing film meisters spreading throughout the world regarding the US? If you do not care whether those messages are negative or not, then what do you care about? if you agree with simplistic left wing political agendas, just because you agree with them does not make you immune from them. You will be hated equally by the rest of the world, along with the rest of us.
Mr. Simpson, Somehow the fact that I loved ST was lost in the translation of my thoughts to the posts, and I do love the film.
You made the point that ST was hardcore conservative, and in regard to the media establishment, that element was the ‘terminating’ liability. But at least, the political element wasn’t lame. All guns were blazing.
Interestingly, I'm currently reading Harlen Ellison's side of the making of City On The Edge Of Forever.
Nice behind the scene story of the trials and tribulations of writing scripts for Hollywood. The version of the script that aired was considerably different than his first draft. I can understand why some of the changes were done, to cut down on the number of actors they needed to hire and such. But it also cut the heart out of the story by changing Kirk's actions to a stereotypical TV hero.
Regardless of your opinion of the spat with Roddenberry, the book is an excellent read.
I was listening to NPR this morning and their review was basically the same thing, great images, fantastic photography, lame story.
The even went so far as to use some of the same arguments made here at BH, lame remakes of Dances With Wolves and Disney's Pocahontas.
It's a pretty safe bet they aren't arguing it's too liberal or not conservative enough.
I'd like to see a show of hands from all the conservative actors: Who would like to have had the lead role in Avatar?
Maybe that's the "superficial" part of it… the lack of exploration of what living a primitive life is actually like for the people who live it. From the sounds of it, the Na'vi weren't *real*. They seem to be idealized in an unnatural way but one that appeals to people of a particular ideological persuasion. This living in harmony thing. Only people who are utterly divorced from the natural world could view living in harmony with nature as something other than unforgiving brutality. There is no compassion in nature. None. That doesn't mean that the natural world is not magnificent in her destructive power or wondrous in the pure tenacity of life itself to conquer it all. It's just not anything resembling *peaceful*. Death is peaceful. Life is not.
"Question: What do you call people who benefit greatly with little or no sacrifice, are hateful of the very place and people which have showered them with almost absolute freedom of expression, adoration, and riches, and refuse to accept responsibility for their art and actions?
Answer: Adolescents!"
I know you are but what am I?
I know you are but what am I?
I know you are but what am I?
I know you are but what am I?
I know you are but what am I?
On a more serious note when did the LA Times editorial department all get erections from Notle's Big Hollywood slam downs. This notion that anything was "turned on it's head" because of Avatar proves your point Noel.
Take the USA back from the adolescents. Take your children away from them.
Just like TV, if you don't like the article………………………………………don't read it.
If people want to air thier grievences about somehthing they can.
No, you get over it.
What poll are you using to guage public opinion…..oh right it must be the same one the MSM uses to judge the popularity of the Dems policies.
Actually I would say your post is.
Yeah because all corporations call their security forces MARINES. Turn the Moron mirror around there buddy.
Yeah because all corporations call their security forces MARINES. Turn the Moron mirror around there buddy.
I don't feel as if this is a commentary on America specifically but on acts of genocide all over. Sure there are some clear references to the destruction of the Native American community but I think there are also a lot of correlations to the acts of genocide in Albania, Rwanda and Sudan. These things are happening now. So hopefully kids see this and think, "That's terrible what they were trying to do to the Na'vi." And then they will grow up and not want to go to war for silly things like oil.
Great post. Over at http://www.WeHaveBeards.com, we've only been discussing the quality of the film. It's nice to talk about the subtext.
Red Beard
"Or we could scotch tape an I’M STUPID – KICK ME HERE…"
Or how about this: Consider my comment here a scotch-taped sign on YOUR BLOG saying that YOU ARE STUPID!
True to form, you are dissembling.
The point is that Avatar's marines are corporate marines…e.g. dogs of war. Not to be confused with our noble professional military. Even though this blog deliberately tries to confuse the two very different types of marines.
The fact that you don't know anti-American propaganda is the norm at most US universities is laughable at best and shows that either 1) you are part of the propaganda producing organism, or 2) you haven't stepped onto a university campus since the 1960's. For 2) I can forgive your ignorance somewhat. That only means that you've not spent significant time absorbing any media except that produced by The Hive. My guess is you decided to comment on BH because you saw this article mentioned on a tweet referenced by paragons of objectivity like DailyKooks or maybe HuffingandpuffingPost.
Have you never heard of professors like Ward Churchill? Maybe Cornell West? What about that patriot Howard Zinn @ Boston University? The list of currently teaching hate-America Marxists in US universities is so long and so well known, it's silly to even have to mention their names.
You're not speaking of the movie itself when you point out such. Just the mechanism of advertising which is part and parcel of the entertainment industry itself. You might as well be railing against those on the left for not switching to home cultured bees wax candles in place of the evil electric light bulb run from fossil fuel devouring generators or ecosystem altering windmills and solar farms for that matter. Sure its hypocrisy at its finest but these days pick a position anywhere on the board that isn't in some measure.
And yet it spawned multiple video sequels and a cartoon series, if I recall. I suspect it officially has made it into the black, just as Waterworld eventually did, it just took a while.
It's just that it's the same article over and over. But using "Avatar" in the title probably increases search engine hits, thus increasing traffic to the site, so expect them to run for a while longer…
I disagree totally. A giant American flag waving extravaganza would have tanked in the EU which as I've shown elsewhere is where the majority of its earnings come from. I guess Boxoffice Mojo needs to change its site to include the native currencies of each movie's screenings to make understanding things like this easier.
Jeanene can't speak… she barks
Everyone except me I guess. That's what you're saying right. I imagine the irony and hypocrisy is over your head a bit.
Pretty smart of Bill to use his library card for movies if you ask me. Since we all pay for our libraries we should all use them frequently to get some of our hard-earned cash back. That way… we could see movies and screw movie companies.
Tinfoil hat much Poppy? Always playing the victim and whining will get you nowhere.
Point very well made Synova.
However, I sincerely doubt Mike or Mark will read the responses to their inane comments. They, like thousands of other socialist web trolls, simply respond to their daily marching orders as doled out by DailyKooks, etc., in exchange for a few sheckels. Lefties have to make a living somehow when they can't bring themselves to work for the earth-plundering, aborigine-oppressing, for profit corporation.
Given the way everything is divided up it's not that much. Half goes the theaters, a bunch to Cameron, and then there are a bunch of third party investors.
Brilliant comeback
It's anti-capitalism and anti-expansionism. Civilization itself is too broad a brush. The "living harmoniously with nature" thing is a fallacy from way back. It's almost laughable trying to equate any sort of lofty teachings with the mechanisms of the entertainment industry. At the end of the day its all just a Canadian director's well presented spin of a old theme drawn from a seriously colorful palette containing shades we never knew existed. Regardless, just forget the reason for setting them off and enjoy the fireworks.
Very astute Mike. Right wingers embody almost everything they complain about.
Its always just an exercise in perspective. Nice to read something well thought rather than merely reactionary. Also amazing in that comments here, in what would be a conservative blog, are far less censored than on io9 or other such sites pitched as being "forward thinking" and open to debate.
Are you aware the movie is fiction? That means "not true", in case you missed that lesson in 3rd grade.
Only a conservative, or Islamic terrorist, would have his ego crumbled and feelings crushed over a fictional movie. And this isn't a movie that is fiction based on real events, its like science fiction with cartoon characters and everything!
You don't read much do you? zing!
Mark didn't even make any reference, not even indirectly, to public opinion.
It was not just different from the book, it was a parody or rather a travesty, for Heaven´s sake. It could have been titled "Space Nazis 2000".
It was the liberal judges on the Supreme Court who decided Kelo vs City of New London. If protection of property is important to you, vote Republican.
No, it makes even less sense in real world terms. So this corporation is somehow the only "unregulated" American corporation? How come they are the only ones getting access? Where are the others? Are they the only ones with spaceships? Where are the lawyers and "diversity officers"? The media, the busybodies, Congress, the UN, the Chinese, the scientific community, diplomats, ANYBODY?
For the director´s convenience, everything takes places on an empty stage, just like your simpleminded world view.
I thought that the title should have been "Ken and Barbie Kill Bugs". I am a huge Heinlein fan. ST was the second RH book I read (the first was "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"). I thought the movie was intentionally over the top and enjoy watching it every time it comes on TNT, even though they edited out all the good parts.
Just look at the science involved and the staff's obvious lack of comprehension employing it remotely well. I'd lean towards former high school hall monitors and that school itself as being some form of Special Ed. facility where "ball throw" is considered a sport.
I liked it.
I didn't take it as an indictment of the military-industrial complex. I took it as a classic adventure story in which the good guys defeat the bad guys. Last I checked, liberals haven't evolved invent biological USB plugs that connect them to the planet, and until I've got one I won't be worshiping any living planets. Its a made-up planet, a made-up alien race, a made-up goddess, a made-up company, and a made-up military unit. Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves are both FAR more anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-military, and pro-real life pantheism.
The good guy saves the planet BECAUSE he is an American soldier. If ending up as a prince or king or tribal chief of an exotic people you save is some sort of storyteller crime, a lot of stories and movies are guilty.
Any time I see a movie that offends my delicate sensibilities (or a chick flick), I just watch the first 30 minutes of "Full Metal Jacket" and I feel much better.
Me too Gail though for the same old reason I love films, "dazzle me"! I want to be impressed by the craft of storytelling, I reach for a book every time. Just once however it would be nice if advancement in technology to the point of interstellar travel and DNA synthesis included targeting a weapon… just once.
Someone may have posted this link already, but in case not I think this article contrasing AVATAR and ATLAS SHRUGGED may be of interest:
http://townhall.com/columnists/NickRizzuto/2009/1...
indeed it was
At no point in the film is USA or America mentioned. The film is about the rape of the natural world and the hell that mankind's abuse of the worlds natural resources can leave us in. The Conservative sense of entitlement that you all are squawking about is one of the central points of the film. The film is about humans feeling we have the right to take and abuse whatever we want and those who disagree are leftist traitors. We need to learn how to share and cherish our world before we destroy it and kill our mother, that is the message of the film and it is a good one.
yeah because contrary oninions equals supression of freedom of speech
"Conservative sense of entitlement . . . " Is that different from the "liberal" (i.e., State-fellator) sense of entitlement? That is, "I'm entitled to your money"? Just wondering.
Starship Troopers is the single greatest movie ever made about killing giant space grasshoppers.
Please. The liberal knee jerk reaction to the Obama Joker posters alone undermines your argument. Link below:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northam...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/politics/new-an...
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/03/la-weekly-w...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchins...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/0...
The irony is that a liberal Democrat created the poster:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/0...
This man cannot possibly be this stupid, but viewing some of the people agreeing with him, I guess the bottom of the barrel has more people in it than I thought. Oh did you notice the good guys are American, actually nobody said the corporation is American.
“But Imam, I think ‘Avatar’ is but a fairytale. Didn’t the Americans liberate Iraq? Enfranchise tens of millions of Muslims with the right to vote? And aren’t they about to do something about that madman running Iran?”
Speaking of fairytales. You're just a font of bs ziocon propaganda, aren't you?
“Do not speak such blasphemy again, Fakhir or by shariah I shall be obligated to gouge out your eyes and slice out your tongue!”
I have no doubt if someone caricatured Jews as savagely as you just caricatured Muslims that you'd be among the first to scream anti-semitism (thereby losing the argument).
Avatar may or may not be meant to characterize the motives and actions of the US federal government or big US (actually international) corporations as evil. Unlike you, though, I don't automatically identify with either as the essence of the American nation. Many American patriots have been critical of the federal government and the malign influence of rich and powerful special interests on it.
What 2-3 hour movie doesn't make simplifications? Complexity does not equal intelligence, or accuracy. Your additional nuance and detail doesn't really change anything. Sometimes the simplest things represent the most direct truth.
"Only a conservative, or Islamic terrorist, would have his ego crumbled and feelings crushed over a fictional movie . . . "
You know, because the Left NEVER uses popular culture for agitprop purposes, and never will!
But seriously . . .
If you're pro-freedom (unlike, no doubt, PieceACandy), is it "crushed ego" to object to collectivist propaganda? Odd.
Give me a break. Cameron is CLEARLY trying to say that the US Marines are the lap dog enforcers of corporate america. To try to obfuscate with the 'corporate marine' loophole is simply intellectually dishonest.
No, obviously a lot is over your head. Here let me simplify it for you.
NO LIKE ARTICLE, NO READ ARTICLE.
There goes Mark again with his simple mind rhetoric.
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