My thoughts on James Cameron’s Avatar

Since my post about the Avatar trailer was popular, I might as well say something about the movie itself. If you’re afraid of SPOLERS, stop reading.

First off, whoever made the trailer to Avatar deserves a big Christmas bonus. Because I hated the trailer so much, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the movie. One day later though, there’s not much that stands out to me, in stark contrast to my experiences with Terminator 2, Aliens and The Abyss. The best praise I can give Avatar is that the 2.5 hour run time didn’t bother me (which, I’ll be honest, does say a lot for how good James Cameron is at keeping things moving), and that after a while I got over how much the color scheme owed to badly airbrushed vans.

From the trailer I also pointed out how much Avatar looked like Ferngully. It seems a lot of people agree with me. Here’s a list of all search results that brought people to my website over the course of one hour, just two days after Avatar was released.

After seeing the movie though, I think Avatar is really much more like Dances With Wolves.

The Na’Vi, Avatar’s indigenous population, have a lot in common with Native Americans, while the invading, technologically advanced humans bear a striking resemblance to the U.S. government. Because of this, many people claim Avatar is anti-American.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Avatar is actually deeply anti-Native American.

In Avatar, the Na’Vi defeat the humans because their God is real and helps fight against the helicopters and mech-suits. But in American history, the Native Americans lost. Which, by Avatar’s logic, means Native Americans believe in fake Gods or else right now they’d be playing Blackjack against European immigrant run casinos.

That’s a pretty harsh message James Cameron is selling, but I guess that’s what happens when you give your movie an ending as unrealistic as the Titanic sinking an iceberg.