Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: wiseup on 04/01/2010 08:13:32
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All the reviews of Avatar I’ve read seem to miss the real value of this visually stunning movie set on the fantastically alive planet of Pandora. While aspects of the plot are predictable, Avatar offers some powerful messages for our time once you scratch beneath the surface.
For those who are not firmly entrenched in our mainstream culture’s cynicism and denial the movie, Avatar, is a powerful opportunity to sharply see and feel our current situation as a species that has lost its way. As we experience the lives of Pandora’s indigenous people our own predicament comes into contrast. We become visible as a species that has become trapped within its own culture and system of domination and control... now driving us over the cliff of climate change.
It is surprising that a movie with some of the messages of Avatar could even come out of the corporate dominated “homeland” that the USA has become. I wonder how many of the people walking out of the cinema really get it... that we, the consumers (no longer citizens) of industrial civilization are on the side of the baddies in this film. Not just occasionally, randomly bad... not just a few bad eggs such as the cold-hearted leader of the mercenaries on Pandora, Colonel Quaritch... but that our whole way of life is portrayed for what it is... inherently, pathologically insane.
When Quaritch declares “We’ll fight terror with terror.” he is speaking for us. We are the culture which for centuries has crushed all opposition to our vast insatiable resource demands. And now we are destabilizing the planet’s climate with our industrial outputs. The Pandora native, Neytiri, speaks of their efforts to enlighten their would-be human “educators” and in one line says it all, “We couldn’t save them from their insanity.”
That the writer and director, James Cameron, was given the freedom to convey his messages is probably due to his prior huge financial successes with Titanic and Terminator II. And, of course, he still had to include the requisite action and romance components for Avatar to receive the US $400 million in funding he needed.
In the movie, the planet itself finally strikes back against the humans attempting to destroy nature for their short-sighted short-term gains. Some may disagree, but I see that there is symbolism intended here. Outside the movie, our own planet will also strike back. Perhaps not in as visually dramatic a way as on Pandora but most likely in even more deadly terms over the time frame of the next 100 years according to the science on climate change. (For those still confused by all the hot air on the subject of climate change read the facts in Poles Apart: Beyond the shouting who’s right about climate change (http://www.amazon.com/Poles-Apart-Climate-Change-Debate/dp/1869790456)?)
James Cameron is no fool. He could have just made a blockbuster. Instead, he is using one of the few remaining effective means of communicating with the masses in an age of information overload to say “wake up, look at the path we are on and get off it while we still can!” For we are, in fact, facing a perfect storm of six global threats (http://www.transitionwise.org) of which climate change is but one.
But unlike in Avatar, we don’t have another planet to flee back to.
Mitch Lawrie
Transition Strategist
www.TransitionWise.org
Wise Up To The Great Transition
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What's the question you are putting forward for discussion?
Could you do two things for us?
1) Edit your post title above so that it is phrased as a question and
2) consider modifying the post above so that it opens up a debate.
If you don't do this then there's a very real danger that:
a) your post will be completely ignored
b) a moderator will think you've posted just to place a link to your website (which apears to be trying to sell things) and as a result they'll brand you a spammer and delete your entry. Which you're not of course, are you?
Cheers
Chris
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wise - You wrote: "...Avatar, is a powerful opportunity to sharply see and feel our current situation as a species that has lost its way."
I do not see evidence the human species has lost its way. Quite the contrary. I see almost nothing but human progress and will list them.
1) Planetary population not only will stabilize but will likely contract in this century.
2) Wars of planetary catastrophic consequences ended with the fall of the Soviet Empire thirty years ago.
3) For the time being, at least, ALL planetary catastrophic diseases have been either entirely vanquished, or reduced to anecdotal episodes. For instance, the native populations of The New World were nearly made extinct by Small Pox alone. Now Small Pox has been extinquished. And does anyone really expect a recurrence of Midieval Black Plaque of Death. Forget about polio, cholera, typhus, diptheria or malaria in any of the G8 nations.
4) Only man-made famine still stalks the land. MILLIONS have died of natural famine over the millenia. Why is this no longer the case? If you don't know, you should not post on the subject.
I reiterate. WE HAVE NOT LOST OUR WAY. The only thing lost IMHO, is any sort of comparative education that would normally be curriculum in Seventh Grade. I bet you don't even know the UK exported wine during Roman Times.
Geeze. "I get my historical education from animated motion pictures!"
5)
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I'm going to see AVATAR in 3D at the London IMAX..so there !!
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neil
I love IMAX but have none near me. Only saw one in 3D. Made me ponder what an IMAX porno film might be like. Maybe I don't need to know.....
I look forward to your review of Avatar. One thing for certain, it is going generate ticket sales that rival the national budgets of more then one small nation. Already grossed more the One Billion Dollars. That used to be big money!
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I'm going to AVATAR in 3D at the London IMAX..so there !!
I've heard the effects are so good that some people upchuck. You might want to wear a big barfbag.
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neil
I love IMAX but have none near me. Only saw one in 3D. Made me ponder what an IMAX porno film might be like. Maybe I don't need to know.....
I look forward to your review of Avatar. One thing for certain, it is going generate ticket sales that rival the national budgets of more then one small nation. Already grossed more the One Billion Dollars. That used to be big money!
YAYY !!
Thanks Chum......last time I saw an IMAX film it was "300" and that was spectacular.
LOL..Imax porno....Climax Porno !!
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I'm going to AVATAR in 3D at the London IMAX..so there !!
I've heard the effects are so good that some people upchuck. You might want to wear a big barfbag.
Oooh !!..I'll make sure to eat a bean vindaloo just before then !!...
Seeiing it on the 22nd !..had to book it over 5 weeks in advance to get some decent seats in a respectable time slot !
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neil - Wow. Five weeks in advance. Must be some sort of cultural phenomena. I have heard the film causes some people to become both depressed and suicidal. I am not making this up. Accordingly, we are all hoping for a thoughful review.