"Avatar imaginatively revisits the crime scene of white America's foundational act of genocide, in which entire native tribes and civilizations were wiped out by European immigrants to the American continent."and
"This is a classic scenario you've seen in non-scifi epics from Dances With Wolves to The Last Samurai, where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member."Go here for the full article - I highly recommend it. And for another view try here.
I haven't seen the movie yet. But I do note the brownlee would not be one of the blue ones. Perhaps all of our politicans would do well to ponder this movie, and it's deep and deeper meanings, behind their 3-d specs these holidays.
Hat tip stuff white people do blog
Footnote - It is good to see Rawiri Taonui saying here that 'avatar recycles indigenous sterotypes' too.
5 comments:
As a fan of sci-fi I am constantly disappointed by the filmed versions of sci-fi stories. Alien still stands head and shoulders above any Hollywood efforts of the last 30 years and most international productions.
Avatar was simplistic and obvious and derivative - and I really really liked it. It LOOKED unbelievable; despite Cameron smacking us over the head with his moral it just didn't seem to get in the way of my enjoyment and I didn't notice how long it was. Somehow a simple story told well seemed to win out over all of the cliches.
Also I think it's worth celebrating an aspect of the film that has been ignored in the build up - Sigourney is back in space!!
Somebody else has probably said it but I thought I was quite clever to come up with "Fern Gully for grown ups"
I'm with you country. I too am a fan of sci-fi - generally hard large space opera style - neal asher, alastair reynolds and iain m. banks, although I do love the cyberpunk genre too and movie sci fi is just so bad. If i hear explosions in space again i'll... well nothing really except be pissed off.
What did you think of the 3d? Aliens is a fantastic movie. I was disappointed that they called the moon pandora - that reminded me of my favorite Frank Herbert novel - The Jesus Incident - did they nick some of those references?
'Fern Gully for grownups'is yours now country - keep them coming!!!
Being old and staid I went to see 2D. I'll go to the 3D later. Then I can concentrate on the visuals as I have handle on the complex and convoluted plot;-)
I just figured Pandora was a direct reference. Surely someone would have pointed it out at ome stage. You can't imagine there aren't a good number of scifi geeks among the CGI techs. Going back to mythological references Pandora would be an odd choice, otherwise.
My next question is "sequel?" Given the obvious Native American references you'd wonder how they can leave Avatar there with a outright victory for the indigenous. Perhaps jump to the future after the humans have returned and enslaved the Na'vi?
I suspect cameron has the next few sorted, similar to LOTR - any room for a prequel - might be nice to see original discovery or do they cover that off?
I watched star trek the other night and i was a disappointed - the romulans looked like ferals, spock was a prick - too much bang bang, to be expected by jj I spose but it left me unsatisfied.
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