Why are people offended by the movie Avatar?
Offline I read this article on how Avatar is another movie about "white guilt":
http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar
WTF is wrong with this bitch? I am an atheist of east Indian originand I loved the flick. My ancestors were hindu and were oppressed by British colonialism. I can make comparisons of the Na'vi to east Indians, their faith to pantheistic hinduism, the evil corporatists as akin to the evil white British rulers and Jake Sully to Rudyard Kipling. And I would then tell myself to fuck right off!!
The story was cliched and formulaic but to make such stupid comparisons totally misses the point of going to these films. It's to walk away fantasizing about fucking a nice large Na'vi chick right? And also the special effects, great battle scenes, etc..
I've seen similar reviews of flicks like Lord of the Rings ie. good guys are white and bad guys are dark skinned orcs. These PC ridden nitwits need to stop writing such self-righteous garbage and simply enjoy life.
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People in that mindset would just find something else to be offended by if Avatar wasn't out.
Paul and the Duke Leto are described 'olive-skinned.' He wasn't really white. He was a brown-skinned Greek. The bad guys in Dune are all white and the good guys are all brown. The evil Emporer is a red head and the Harkonnens are white. The Sardaukar are described as being blonds. SPOILER:Jessica is white because she is a daughter of one of the senslessly depraved white Harkonnens. One thing that bugged me about the movie and the miniseries was that all of the actors were white Americans and British people. I really don't know how an alegory for the Middle East has an all anglo-saxon cast. Is is really that hard to find brown-skinned actors?
But I suppose that the "Dune" universe doesn't fit into the author's racist whining. So he pretends that Paul is a white hero. As a white man, let me say: brown skinned Greeks aren't really white. I know that they are caucasian. But I think that there is a consensus among real white people that brown skinned caucasians don't qualify as 'white.' Deconstruct that, hippy.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
You think that's stupid??
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/19173
From the article:
I see the point that the author of that article is trying to make. (The quoted line made me laugh. It sums it up. The history where all these atrocities did not happen is indeed unobtainable.) It is a condescending and sentimental type of neo-racism to go around and be "sorry" for what happened to all those fine nature-people and shit like that. Or to be extra nice to black people because they were slaves - when in fact no living black man or woman has been a slave on any plantation; they have different problems - long term consequences of actual, racial segregation that actually happened - to battle with.
But of course... at the end of the day we are all individuals, and the act of assuming (or projecting) a group identity really is an insult to the integrity of the individual. Various permutations of the "us and them" thinking has never really lead to anything good, anywhere, anytime.
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
http://www.kinkspace.com
I was under the impression that the movie was a pretty bad retelling of Disney's Pocahontas with very few plot changes. I wasn't aware that anyone saw the movie for the plot.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
(rolls eyes) "unobtainium"??? for real??? jesus christ, was there also a character named "everyman"?
the public is so fuckin' impressed by pretentious, obvious shit. the same kind of people who are impressed by something like "unobtainium" ten years ago were the people who thought it was "deep" that god was played by alanis morissette in dogma.
(it was awesome, however, that lady aberlin from mister rogers played a nun who renounces her faith.)
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
One can pick holes in virtually any narrative, individuals can and will react in different ways to various plot points and devices.
What matters to me is whether it takes much conscious effort to get into the 'world' of the story and experience it for the duration, or do I get drawn in, how many times does some setting or event tend to take you out of it because it doesn't quite 'work', and so on. I try to go into such things with minimum expectations or pre-conceptions, to give it its best chance to wrk on me.
As a story, I found it comfortably engaging.
With a movie, there is the visual experience itself in addition to the story, and hopefully complementing it, and this was very impressive.
I never saw 'Pocahontas', as I am not in general attracted to Disney style story-telling or animation, at least the older traditions. You could make such somewhat pointless comparisons about any story, there are after all only so many broad story outlines possible. It is the details that count.
You can react to the name of the mineral various ways. There is nothing particularly unusual to me in fanciful names for new elements, especially in such a context.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Most of the storyline did seem pretty shallow but the part that kept drawing me in was the neural-networked style ecosystem. To be able to tap into a planetary network of an almost infinitesimal amount of shared memories would be a god of sorts.
The internet would like a word with you...
What Would Kharn Do?
Yeah yeah, but you'd have to admit that that's not quite the same thing. The internet may one day approach something like that in the movie but the possibilities it presented extend way beyond what we have today. Although bypassing the optic nerve for a more direct connection sounds a lot like the matrix I guess. I think it was the idea of linking living things together as in almost one mind that got me.
Did people make this kind of outrage over Dances with Wolves too?
Haha my roommate actually made that comparison on our way out of the theatre after seeing Avatar. He said it was a modern day Dances With Wolves, including the length of the film.
I don't understand why people get so upset over these things. It's a movie! Go, eat some popcorn, enjoy the special effects, come home and GO ON WITH YOUR LIVES!!!
that was precisely my reaction to the da vinci code when it came out (i mean the novel). i was actually a christian at the time, though a pretty liberal one. my fellow believers would waste whole evenings giving seminars on why the da vinci code is wrong, and i always said, "it's just a freakin' NOVEL, and not a terribly well-written one at that. if you ignore it, and not tell your congregation not to read it under any circumstances, it will go away!"
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
well everyone can see my pic im african indian and i see no problem with the movie
i did not even know that people made a scene on Lord of the rings too
also what race aren't we all humans what white race are they talking about ?
What Would Kharn Do?
the pic is funny but why do people quick to jump on the racist band wagon
same thing with resident evil 5 the game
boy are people stupid
Actually... thats precisely what that photo was created for.
edit;
Im like Steven Colbert, i dont see race... i dont see a white man killing a black zombie... i see something killing something else, and thats all that really matters...
What Would Kharn Do?
The movie was pretty blatantly anti-military, anti-American, anti-capitalist. Ironically made with American capitalist money and technology.
What was really wrong was how they portrayed one side as good(the natives) and one side as bad(the invading capitalists) and tried to say this the same as our present situation.
Islamic militants are not peace loving people living in harmony with nature that just want to be left alone, so this comparison is completely false.
There is no ecosystem or species that does not seek to expand at the expense of other ecosystems and species. There has never been some group that lives in harmony with nature. Suffering, death, poverty, hunger, disease and conflict are the means by which all species do population control, until this changes, this living in harmony with nature is a bunch of crap.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
And that is precisely why it's a bad thing.
Sure, you could go and watch the movie (I'm going this weekend and intend to keep an open mind) and just enjoy the spectacle but how many mouth-breathers are subliminally accepting the broad statement that whitey is bad?
How can not believing in something that is backed up with no empirical evidence be less scientific than believing in something that not only has no empirical evidence but actually goes against the laws of the universe and in many cases actually contradicts itself? - Ricky Gervais
With your call here, EXC, but I did wonder if those troops were mercenaries rather than a sovereign force. I also wondered what a colonel was doing in charge of an invasion of a whole planet. WIth a lot of U.S. troops in the field in wars they did not start, dying for causes that are ill understood, I thought targeting troops and exalting in their deaths was a bit hard to take, given there is no pandora and no aliens - just us on this little blue ball. I'd be speaking japanese if it weren't for US troops and my dad supported the US Marines at Guadalcanal in the second war flying out of henderson field. Not too keen on blurry insults of grunts while the govt behind it is ignored. I liked the movie though and had a pretty strong crush on the blue rake by the end of it. One thing I wondered was why the blue folks didn't link their ponytails when shagging. That could have led to some seriously cool shit.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
So I read my school newspaper today during a break in between classes. There was a two-page long rant about how racist "Avatar" is. It wasn't an op-ed piece. It was the school newspaper's official review of "Avatar." People need to settle the hell down. It is just a movie. It isn't a proclamation of how great imperialism or white people are. The character that these whiners claim is the symbol of white privelege is an uneducated, poor and crippled man. That's hardly a fantasy about how perfect the whites are. But they'll misinterpret it intenitionally; just for an excuse to declare their opposition to (imagined) racism.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
It wasn't invasion of a planet. It was a company looking for a desirable resource. Think about what a mining company will do in a low-tech ill-equipped nation sitting on billions of dollars of gold. It happens very often on THIS planet. Mercenary groups are hired to remove people from the land, and kill stragglers. Sometimes they don't even try to move them, they just kill and take.
By the way, this is obligatory in this thread:
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Who would think about fucking a massive blue pussy? That doesn't sound appealing at all to me, and I love variety.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Your avatar will be hung like a mallee bull...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
That's funny because that's exactly what I thought of leaving the Imax...
dances with wolves in space..
"Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such."
Homer Simpson
Doesn't sound that bad to me. We already have sex with people of different skin colors anyways.
Essentially, they're just humans with blue skin, big ears, and a tail, right? And I bet we could do kinky stuff with those tails.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
...I went to see Avatar, and I was mostly just unimpressed. The effects were good as far as it goes, but the 3-D, in my humble opinion, was wasted on the equivalent of snowflakes. As for gays being represented, ehh...that would have been nice in some respects, but I'm not going to get up in arms about it. The same applies to the ham-fisted technologically-advanced-society-as villains-and-technologically-disadvantaged-society-as heroes plotline.
I can see where there certainly was spectacle in the movie; I just didn't see anything that screamed "the wave of the future in movies" to me.
Conor
Ahhh me too because to be honest i enjoyed killing those Africans
They were just trying to make some extra money to make up for the higher taxes required to pay for universal health care.
I agree some capitalist behave this way. We don't tax natural resource usage, we tax hard work, innovation and investment. So these people see a way to get wealth without work. The right wing bitches about welfare being wealth without work, then support land and mining rights that enable this to occur.
While the left want to tax the shit out of anyone that has money. Ignorantly grouping all investors and investment as greedy exploiters. Some capitalist could invest in the development of 'unobtanium' alternatives that are not as environmentally damaging. But these 'capitalist pigs' are discouraged from doing this through high taxes on income and profit. Plus they want to give welfare to people with giant families so we have population increases resulting in even higher demand for resources such as 'unobtainium'.
So there is pleanty of blame on both the left and right. They all just want something for nothing. Everyone's got their 'rights' at other people's expense.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
I for one enjoyed the movie. Of course the plot was transparent, but just because you know the ending of a story it doesn't mean you can't be entertained by the telling of it.
Technologically I thought it was a masterstroke. The 3D wasn't over-used at all and was most expertly put into giving depth of perception to the viewer of Pandora rather than bothering with "IT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES" trickery (although those touches were also nice). What I found most impressive was the ease with which the actor's natural faces were put onto the cgi. I sat for a few minutes entranced thinking "christ on a pogo stick that's actually sigourney weaver, but blue and tall (and also younger)".
Visually the film is a treat and the story is enjoyable if you're willing to go along and just enjoy the experience rather than demand some high literary, genre defining moment.
Also the racist tags are bullshit.
EDIT: Colonel Hardass, or whatever his name actually was, was by far my favourite thing in the entire movie.
Forget Jesus, the stars died so that you could be here
- Lawrence Krauss
Me too, where you from exactly? And where do you live now?
Actually they are claiming it stole from a 1957 story called "Call Me Joe".
I'm just regurgitating what I have heard, I haven't actually read this story, and also Pocahantas was based upon an actual historical figure, and the legends and historical events that surrounded her. Although Disney did take some liberties with the original telling, she actually went Christian in the end.
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs
And it seems pretty accurate to me. I'm guessing that they stole from a bunch of different sources.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
" Stole from a whole bunch of different sources" ;.. gee whiz that sounds like the bible. do yeah think it ?
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
It wouldn't surprise me in the least. James Cameron stole the idea for Terminator from Harlan Ellison, and settled a court case about it. When Cameron later failed to give credit to Ellison in the ending credits of a version that aired on TV, which was a condition of the settlement, he violated the settlement, and Ellison was no longer bound to keep quiet about it. I saw an interview with Ellison about it on Prisoners of Gravity years back, where he described his contempt for Cameron in his usual acerbic manner.
Cameron's a hack deep down. A very successful hack, but a hack nonetheless.
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Saw it at the IMX in Universal Studios Hollywood
Visually impressive 8/10
Script/acting 3/10
Get there early, the line started forming over an hour before the picture was slated to start. You really need to be in the middle of the theater for the best 3D effect.
How can not believing in something that is backed up with no empirical evidence be less scientific than believing in something that not only has no empirical evidence but actually goes against the laws of the universe and in many cases actually contradicts itself? - Ricky Gervais
Colonel Hardass was great.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
The cup of coffee with his genocide was brilliant, in my opinion.
At the Broadway cinema and it was chocka (the air conditioning seemed to have failed lending realism to the sweaty jungle scenes) and what was interesting was how quiet the full house was - kids and all. By the end of the movie Colonel Hardass was getting laughs. He was unstoppable. The cuppa scene in the chopper was classic.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Apparently people are getting suicidal too
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html
Yeah, I'd question that.
They say they are suicidal because they want to "experience Pandora" after watching it?
I want to see some proof. Show me mass suicide attempts caused by their longing for a fictional world.
Also, lol about people looking for a "rebound" movie.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
Ya know...It's surprisingly common these days.
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"Human Nature"
.... which is, of course, somewhat over-rated.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)