The Magnificent Seven

Two things I can't believe:

1. The fact that I didn't make a Patrick McGoohan reference, given the title of my previous post. (In the word's of the Notorious B.I.G. If you don't know, now you know.) Also acceptable would have been any form of Anti-Escape Orb joke.

So here that is, a little delayed:



2. I went on and on (and on) about the recycling programs set up for the 3d glasses used when watching movies like Avatar, and didn't even think to comment on the message of the film. Which is that, um... trees are good. Or something.

I will try to keep this spoiler-free, as there doubtlessly people among my several-hundred-million-strong readership who have yet to see Avatar. (I mean, just look at that followers list, it's pretty out of control.) But then again, who hasn't seen Avatar yet?

Alas, that is not the point, I will keep this spoiler free on principal, as people who spoil movies sit comfortably between Pol Pot and Idi Amin on the list of detriments to the human race.

So the basic plot of Avatar is this: it's FernGully, except in space and with blue-cat/lizard people.

A more in depth analysis is this though:

About 150 years in the future, a human mining corporation has set up a colony on a recently discovered moon called Pandora, where they are attempting to mine (I shit you not) unobtainium. Despite being the most idiotically named mineral ever, unobtainium is apparently quite valuable, so this mining corporation is willing to do anything to get there hands on it, including wiping out Pandora's indigenous population of Native American stereotypes. The Pandoran natives, called the Na'vi, are the blue, half-cat, half lizard (all sexy) people that I referred to earlier. They have a communal bond with the flora and fauna of Pandora, believing in the existence of a mystical spirit running through all of creation.

So a quick recap: Evil mining corporation vs. Nature-loving Na'vi.

You can guess where it goes from there.

The theme of the destruction of nature at the hands of mankind runs deep throughout the film. It really is, despite what the clumsy romance may lead you to believe, the crux of the narrative. It is a story about the clash of two completely different worlds, and the harsh consequences that can come to be when those two worlds don't operate in harmony. Like a Prius.

The parallels between the corporation's quest for unobtainium (I swear to god I thought it was a joke too) and our own quest for oil are clearly drawn. The manner in which we have ravaged the earth's environment to make way for everything from oil fields to livestock grounds is directly alluded to with the corporation's propensity for bulldozing Pandoran forest.

And by bulldozing, I mean blowing up.

Because in the future they don't have time for bulldozers.

And while the message of the film is an important one, it is one that we have heard so many times before.



Again, this is an valuable moral that writer/director James Cameron is trying to get across, and clearly, a lot of people are being exposed to it, so it's redundancy should not be judged too harshly. What should be judged harshly is the ham-handed way in which it is delivered. (I'm looking at you, dialogue and plot contrivances!) But that is neither here nor there.

I appreciate that such a widely viewed entertainment phenomenon is actually packing a good message. You don't see that very often, if at all. So bravo, Avatar's marketing team! You did a good job exposing this movie to the world. It's an amazing film, with a great story about the dangers of destroying environment, so if you haven't seen it, go do so. Lord knows it needs all the money it can get at the box office.

Just don't go thinking it's well written. WHAT THE HELL WRITER'S GUILD!?!?!?!