Movie Review

Saw Avatar over the Winter Solstice.

Short version: Graphically stunning, but a first class WallBanger plot-wise.

Long version: The movie is a horribly preachy piece of white guilt and Greenpeace propaganda with all the subtlety of a stampeding herd of rhinos. My mother called it the most colorful black-and-white movie she ever saw, and she's right. Never since Atlas Shrugged have characters been this Purely Evil™ or Purely Good™. In fact, compared to this movie, the characters in AS are faceted and deep. Seriously.

There are many, many things wrong with this movie, for example the blatant racism of the writers, but I'd like to focus on the issues I had during the movie in the theatre.

First, the reason why the white man wants to wantonly destroy the peaceful and harmonious nature of Pandora: „It's all about the oil!“ Oh, sorry, my bad, it's not actually oil, but a metal(?) the writers actually had the nerve to call „Unobtainium“. The only reason given why the evil white man wants this Mineral MacGuffin is that it's pricey. No mention of what it's good for. Ever. In a three hour movie, they could not find the time to drop a single line explaining why the stuff is so gorram desirable. Of course, if the evil white man wanted the Unobtainium for anything but greed, it could make him appear less than Purely Evil™. We don't want that, do we?

Second, the lesson that life could be so perfect and wonderful if we could only find it in our hearts to learn from these Noble Savages and live in harmony with Mother Gaia. The blue aliens (called Na'Vi) are depicted as the perfect society. There is no war, no crime, no hunger, no disease, no poverty, not even death. I'm not kidding. When a Na'Vi dies, his consciousness is uploaded into The Great Hive Mind™. Which can, of course, be accessed by the convenient interface jacks just about every living thing on that planet has, to ask for advice and/or miracles. Which, of course, are conveniently granted, but only after apparently being denied for dramatic purposes. Bioluminescence is abundant, conveniently illuminating literally every step a Na'Vi makes at night. The trees they sleep in are even conveniently equipped with naturally-grown hammocks. I could go on and on.

My objection is that living in that kind of peace and harmony with nature may be possible on their planet. On ours, it is not. On Pandora, Mother Gaia has but one objective that she pursues with a fanatical single-mindedness: To provide a long and comfortable life to all her children. Here on Earth, nature does not give a crap when any number of organisms kick the bucket, human or non-human. Disease is abundant. If you find yourself in a forest after dark, it's dark, period. Nature does not provide us with comfy hammocks that are also protected from wind and cold.

On this planet, nature will fucking kill you if you let it, with not even a „sorry for the inconvenience“.