Avatar was stunning in its imagery and social commentary. Mr. Cameron deals with a long known skeleton in the closet for most western people – colonialism.

From Wikipedia - 

Marxism views colonialism as a form of capitalism, enforcing exploitation and social change. Working within the global capitalist system, colonialism is closely associated with uneven development. It is an “instrument of wholesale destruction, dependency and systematic exploitation producing distorted economies, socio-psychological disorientation, massive poverty and neocolonial dependency.” ^[4] Colonies are constructed into modes of production. The search for raw materials and the current search for new investment opportunities is a result of inter-capitalist rivalry for capital accumulation. Lenin regarded colonialism as the root cause of imperialism, as imperialism was distinguished by monopoly capitalism via colonialism.^[5]

My little brother said it best – “its a cowboy and indian movie cept the indians win.” Yep that’s right.Mr. Cameron nails it on the head by manifesting a “new” culture of native people whom are obviously pulled from several native peoples across the globe. He then portrays the earthlings, obvious westerners, as the industrialists just looking for a buck -with no care for the native people or the environment that surrounds them. Most people would think that this movie is a rallying cry for the environmental movement, I disagree with this statement. I believe that you cannot separate the idea of the native people from the environment. This mis conception is at the heart of why most westerners do not understand native peoples and their connection with the earth. This is why they are so often called primitive people or savages – when in fact the westerners were/are the savages. 

For some reason these colonialists/industrialists always feel that the native peoples need to be “civilized” by feeding them their medicine, clothing, technology, and religion. Mr. Cameron touches on all these things simply and easily by using archetypical characters in a very standard almost formulaic story format. What makes this film a great accomplishment of story is that he doesn’t just rely on the formula or archetypical characters to carry it – he uses it as a strong base in which he can weave his theme. This allows the audience to have a strong sense of comfort while watching something that visually could be very disturbing to the audience – realistic human like beings.

And the Nav’i were realistic. Brilliantly so. The visual effects in this film are so unbelievably well done that you are lost in the world almost immediately. The motion, facial and body was so believably real and well executed that I had no sense of the uncanny valley at all while staring at awe of this technical achievement. This movie illustrates in the best possible light why realism in CG should be achieved and developed. Mr. Cameron gets it – unlike Mr. Zemeckis.

Thank you Mr. Cameron. I enjoyed it.

amazing brisket. wonderful potatoe latkies. and snowball fights. my brother mike got it in the face from his nephew.

my youngest nephew had a real blast with his super push and flash sit on airplane.

The site will be undergoing maintenance this weekend to update to a new look. So if you happen to pop by while it is under development you might see some pretty weird goings on… stay tuned for the final look.

J