Zodiak horse is for a space cowboy
AVATAR: what a beautiful movie to watch. However, from the get-go I had issues with the premise, which only got worse as the plot unfolded. If you haven’t seen the movie yet let me be the first to tell you: It is ANTI-MINING. In your face: mining is a destructive, menace to the universe and miners are ignorant jar heads. The military is in there as well, though I really liked the gung-ho bad-ass commander who is the biggest bad guy hired to protect the mining interests.
This movie, of course, is G-R-E-E-N. Surprised? I was. For some reason, I expected to see a sci-fi movie along the lines of War of the Worlds or Independence Day. Instead, AVATAR is an idealistic, Disney/Sierra Club version of what a perfect world would be like if people got their electricity from the roots of living trees and every one had a perfect body.
The indigenous people are lovely blue with highlights of other colors, really pretty. These people live in harmony with nature (miners don’t). They control and train great beasts like six-legged horses and pterodactyl-like critters to fly them around (I would love that). The people can tumble through the air over cliffs and out of the sky for hundred of thousands of feet and not get hurt because of their very dexterous athletic abilities. (That would be very handy if I had a 6-legged horse or pterodactyl.)
On this planet the people have naturally occurring electricity, which is generated by a magical tree and propagated through the root system of the forest. The climate is always warm. The water is pure. All the people get along like moonies and are oddly uniform. They all have the same opinions, goals, mindset, even hairdoos. No one is ugly, fat, gimpy. There is no disease. All the people are strong, youthful-looking, slim, athletic – even the old ones are terrific looking. Their ambitions are universal for the good of the community. No one is a radical loose canon. There is no individualism. There is no need for hospitals, medicine or doctors because their spiritual tree gives them life – it can even transfer a soul from one dying body into another body. Who would want to cut that down? A mining company of course. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA THE PERMITTING THAT WOULD REQUIRE?? It would totally be uneconomical.
Before I saw this movie, I thought it might be an enlightening movie - one with a message about humanity. I come from a family of indigenous North Americans (first nations people, Ojibwe). Plus, I have worked in Indonesia and Africa with other people indigenous to their area, living in compatibility with a newer, and completely different host-culture. I was looking forward to food for thought and a refreshing point of view. Instead, AVATAR’s message is simply another “green-in-your-face” happy-scenario built on the premise that the indigenous people are victims to technology, in particular, when a big mean mining machine arrives. On top of this, the indigenous people can’t help themselves or solve their own problems – they need one of the European-descent Earthlings (so much like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves) – to save them from the other European-descent Earthlings.
The antagonist is an austere mining company (how contrite) that is harvesting a big hole in the forest for something called, “Unobtainite”. OK, let’s keep teaching our kids to hate and try to abolish an industry they know nothing about – an industry whose quarterly taxes on a county level pay for 90% of their schools and roads and which also supplies all their materialistic needs: mountain bikes, snow boards, cell phones, electricity, heating.
AVATAR the movie is parallel to Kevin Kostner’s self-ingratiating movie, “Dances with Wolves” in that a skinny, white balding guy in his 40’s can penetrate the inner spiritual circle of the ancient ones, and become totally accepted as one of them is fulfilling some kind of vacant place in the heart of maybe our middle class/wealthy elite Americans who are seeking some kind of spiritual path but don’t like their own ancestral heritage. What a fantasy.
Why can’t a wealthy American, bald 40-ish guy (and some of the other wealthy elite women I know) be happy with their own heritage? Bond with your own roots, man. The Europeans had their own spirituality. Why acquire other people’s doctrines? Why not choose to align with the American-Jamaicans culture? American Koreans? Become a Buddhist like the Beatles. Why do the Euro-people in the movie industry look for spiritual connections in other than their own ancestral cultures? Europeans have got those cool Vikings and Neanderthals to look up to.
Anyway, the AVATAR star, Jake Sully, is an Earthling transported into an indigenous person’s body via synapse in the brain and a brain-to-brain consciousness transporter machine (I’ve got one at home. It uses a lot of electricity). Signs from the magical tree disclose him to the indigenous people as The Chosen One (because a European-descended Earthling guy is more blessed than one of their own people, I guess.) As this special visitor, he manages to win the blessings of people although he totally interferes with their culture, breaks up a planned marriage of ancient design between the Chief’s daughter and one of their biggest warriors. That guy (the trounced groom) gets mad at first but by the next scene has accepted the loss of his hereditary birth-rights and is shoulder-to-shoulder amigo with the Earthling-gone-AVATAR-guy, Sully. They are buddies now.
The mining company employs some really hard-core military types. It is not clear if they are missionary-type hired guns, like Wackenhut, or if they are government army guys. However, they are armed! Their military weapons are impressive including a look into the future of robotic warfare. It is cool. They are cool. I would love to have them at our mines but most of the mines I have worked at are “protected” by skinny unarmed (well, they have guns from World War ONE but no bullets), indigenous people in white shirts. No one who has ever protected me has looked like he could pick up a box of core.
So, wouldn’t you expect some juxtaposition of the “natural-peace-loving-way” versus fighting the mine with weapons of mass destruction? I did. I waited to see what the beautiful people would use to fight the army/mining jar heads. Let’s see – flying reptiles, 6-legged horses, lizard-like dogs, OK, I’m watching…. HEY THEY GOT GUNS!! Yup, the Euro-Earthling-gone-native guy, Sully, procures a massive machine gun, grenades, rockets, other weapons probably dropped in the forest by visiting commandos. The indigenous people do ride their ponies and fly their big bats, but they are armed as well as the army guys. It is a fun battle in the air to watch.
So, the message is: when in conflict – arm yourself with weapons of mass destruction and lead your people into combat. Be a martyr. Die in battle for the good of the people. Hmmm, isn’t that what our real world is currently doing? What kind of a resolution is that?
OK, the movie needed an enemy. Why mining? Why not the fast food industry? Why not commercial fishing? How about puppy-farms? Raiders of the Lost Ark revived the terrible Nazis. That was a good choice. They were thinking. For me, the people who really scare me are the uneducated, unauthorized, unaccredited, self-appointed activists — usually trust-funders who never held a job in the first place and who didn’t have to pay their way for anything let alone college that they dropped out of — the NGOs who instigate murder and warfare on behalf of their own, ignorant, warped causes.
Even Dr. Seuss’ character the dreaded tree killing Lorax was described in writing on paper and published into bazillions of books published on paper as the author lived in a wood-frame house in a lovely deforested subdivision. He wasn’t scribbling his thoughts on clay in a cave. Point being: the “green” people in the movie industry are once again way off base in trying to portray what I hoped would be some enlightening alternative to maybe the way people interrelate and cope with the changes in our world.
AVATAR is going to be a tough one to watch if you have a more developed world view than a 10 year old. I saw this movie in Elko and multiple people walked out.
