[ExI] Avatar: misanthropy in three dimensions

Lee Corbin lcorbin at rawbw.com
Sun Jan 10 00:06:00 UTC 2010


Max More wrote:
 > Avatar: misanthropy in three dimensions
 > http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/earticle/7895/
 >
 > -- Comments from anyone who has seen the movie? (I haven't yet.)

That reviewer is more like me than I am!

I thought I was "way out there" in siding with the
Japanese bureaucracy and modern gatling-gun toting
imperial forces against the unruly, backward,
primitive, and fighting-is-all-they-know samurai,
in the movie "The Last Samurai".

But I humbly bow to the reviewer *Steve Bremner*
who wrote about Avatar:

"By the end of the film, this reviewer felt like rising to his feet and cheering the final human attack on the Na’vi. Indeed, much 
of the audience seemed ambivalent - we were clearly dazzled by the spectacular 3D effects and the beautiful rendering of the alien 
planet, but the unrelentingly bleak portrayal of humanity left everyone more than a little despondent as we left the cinema to 
celebrate the New Year."

Wow. Incredible. Even *I* was on the side of the
Navi by then.

Perhaps my relative lack of offense, compared to
good old Steve here, is that I'm probably a lot
older than he is, and have just been resigned for
far more decades to the inevitable depiction in
Hollywood movies of modernity as evil, and the
glorification of the noble savage.

I liked the film very much, notwithstanding that
every word Steve writes is true, absolutely true
(so to speak). People like Cameron are nothing
short of hypocrites, if you have the sense to
follow Steve Bremner's clear insights and
conclusions.

Well... high time I read all the rest of those
posts following Max's and see if I'm just echoing
the chorus or not.

Lee

P.S. The reviewer did not mention that all the male
characters of the Navi are *warriors*, and you
can't get to be a warrior unless there is a lot
of war going on. Again, so much for the glorification
of the hunter/gatherer/warrior.



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