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Avatar, Has Sci-fi Found Its Heaven's Gate?
brumgrunt writes "Den Of Geek wonders if James Cameron's Avatar is heading for a fall, and if it will even be a science fiction film, off the back of the previews shown last week. It writes: 'It seems in Avatar that all this gee-whiz science is merely there to draw the "old crowd" in and provide some kind of rationale for a brightly-coloured fantasy-world which reflects the most emetic of the artwork plastered over teenage girls' MySpace pages.'"
I learnt about Avatar the other night, when I saw an ad for it. I looked it up on Wikipedia, read it over, and I thought, "This looks like Dances with Wolves in Space." I was curious whether anyone else made that analogy, so I googled "avatar film dances with wolves."
..."
The first hit I got was "James Cameron: Yes, 'Avatar' is 'Dances with Wolves' in space
At this point, it would have to be really damn good for me to see it. I don't need blue aliens telling me how bad White Manifest Destiney was in the United States. But I definitely don't need the overtones of insert-enlightened-human-here going in and saving the tribe^H^H^H^H^H by becoming it's leader, which is what the director was talking about.
Just say'n.
While I'm very interested in watching the movie, at this point Avatar looks like it's going to feature the same old contrived storyline featured in sci-fi over the last decade: humanity and industrialization are evil and nature and those connected to it are good. There's been this tendency to depict humans are awful, uncaring monsters.
It's reminiscent of District 9 where humans and the multinational corporation central to the story were so over-the-top evil it was almost comical. I will add that I did very much enjoy District 9 as far as favorite sci-fi movies go for me it's near the top of the list. I can appreciate the point of the message and liked the impact, but I would have preferred it to not be so simplistic in it's worldview. There are multiple sides to every story and I'm fairly certain that in this day and age there would be a lot of outrage to see extraterrestrials being treated this way.
Basically, my point is while I do think we need to be reminded of the problems of the world I would prefer movies sophisticated in it's presentation. Sometimes I feel like these people in Hollywood are conflicted about the lavish lifestyles they enjoy and are trying to foist their guilt trips on us.
Cell phones in shanty towns do exist now. In fact, there is a company in Kenya marketing ones that can be recharged by solar power. And even in the third world, EVERYONE has bad ass cell phones. Maybe not shoes, running water or electricity, but they have that.
And they do prefer animals for precisely that reason; gas is expensive, grass is everywhere.
Sometimes, weird developments actually occur in the real world, so why not in imaginary one?