(Is Avatar Racist?) When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?

How much cooler if Cameron used the same imagery to tell a tale of humans and aliens who don't make the mistakes of the past, showing how such a situation as our settling of America could be learned from. Imagine if this were a tale of humans exploring the planet, trying to work with the aliens, and, I don't know, another alien race or SOME humans and SOME aliens were the antagonists. That would make for surprsing drama--what if the conflicted hero sympathized with BOTH aliens and humans, isn't that much more dramatic than having him see his side as "bad" and just switching sides?

Bravo! bump

...what if the conflicted hero sympathized with BOTH aliens and humans...

You might like Speaker for the Dead

interesting.. I always got the Misguided scientists out to destroy the world part but not the Che part.

thanks for pointing that out. Thanks for pointing out a lot of things.

What would the criticism have been if there were no African American or Native American actors in the entire movie? He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Why can’t everyone just get over themselves for awhile (2 hours and 40 mins to be exact) and enjoy a good movie?

I’ve never seen it. I watched 5 mins in the middle of it and before I read the posts here I knew it was a White Man’s Guilt type movie. Just wanted to see what you guys thought.

Burn down more trees for some futuristic oil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re so terrible.

So sad. Kids eat these movies up. And that all contributes to the wimpifing of America.

Drill, Baby, Drill.

It was an extremely well done movie with a good story and a satisfactory ending. It was a story about powerful people moving in to take from powerless people their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and ending up getting their asses thoroughly kicked. It was a movie about the triumph of good over evil and choices people have to make to fight with the good, even if it meant possibly giving up something they're really yearned for--like the Marine being promised new legs if he did this one little thing.

Whoa dude; are you James Cameron?

Anyone exercising a drop of intellectual honesty can tell it was nothing more than a rip off of "Pocahontas."

Save your money and rent "Night of the living dead, bikini, cheerleader vampires."

It was an extremely well done movie with a good story and a satisfactory ending. It was a story about powerful people moving in to take from powerless people their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness and ending up getting their asses thoroughly kicked. It was a movie about the triumph of good over evil and choices people have to make to fight with the good, even if it meant possibly giving up something they've really yearned for--like the Marine being promised new legs if he did this one little thing.

Whoa dude; are you James Cameron?

Anyone exercising a drop of intellectual honesty can tell it was nothing more than a rip off of "Pocahontas."

Whoa, dude. Are you able to do more than engage in unthinking, knee-jerk reaction?

Anyone who has any knowledge of the history of literature and story-telling can tell that there are universal underlying themes that different people in different places and even in different cultures use to create compelling stories--friendship, self-sacrifice, betrayal, redemption, overcoming adversity, loyalty, the self-destructive nature of evil.

These story elements have resonance because they are virtues that are part of human nature and a more fundamental part than the vices that have become a part of human nature. Whether it's a Marxist or a Jesuit or a pagan telling the story, these elements are always present. To reduce this to "anyone exercising a drop of intellectual honesty can tell it was nothing more than a rip off of "Pocahontas"" is to miss the bigger picture entirely in favor of engaging in small-minded, political, sneering contempt.

It would be very instructive for you to look through the history of those who habitually engage in the ploy of "It's only..." "It's nothing more than..." "It's really just..." to uncover their motives for debunking. One good place would be in the section of The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis where the John, the main character, is being held in prison by the Spirit of the Age (the debunkers):

Every day a jailor brought the prisoners their food, and as he laid down the dishes he would say a word to them. If their meal was flesh he would remind them that they were eating corpses, or give them some account of the slaughtering; or, if it was the inwards of some beast, he would read them a lecture in anatomy and show the likeness of the mess to the same parts in themselves--which was the more easily done because the giant's eyes were always staring into the dungeon at dinner time. Or if the meal were eggs we would recall to them that they were eating the menstruum of a verminous fowl and crack a few jokes with the female prisoner. So he went on day by day. Then I dreamed that one day there was nothing but milk for them, and the jailor said as he put down the pipkin:

"Our relations with the cow are not delicate--as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions."

Now John had been in the pit a shorter time than any of the others: and at these words something seemed to snap in his head and he gave a great sigh and suddenly spoke out in a loud, clear voice:

"Thank heaven! Now at least I know that you are talking nonsense."

"What do you mean?" said the jailor, wheeling round upon him.

"You are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung."

"And pray, what difference is there except by custom?"

"Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?"

"So Nature is a person, then with purposes and consciousness," said the jailor with a sneer. "In fact, a Landlady. No doubt it comforts you to imagine you can believe in that sort of thing;" and he turned to leave the prison with his nose in the air.

"I know nothing about that," shouted John after him. "I am talking of what happens. Milk does feed calves and dung does not."

"Look here," cried the jailor, coming back, "we have had enough of this. It is high treason and I shall bring you before the Master." Then he jerked John up by his chain and began to drag him towards the door; but John, as he was being dragged, cried out to the others, "Can't you see it's all a cheat?" Then the jailor struck him in the teeth so hard that his mouth was filled with blood and he became unable to speak: and while he was silent the jailor addressed the prisoners and said:

"You see he is trying to argue. Now tell me, someone, what is argument?"

There was a confused murmur.

"Come, come," said the jailor. "You must know your catechisms by now. You, there" (and he pointed to a prisoner little older than a boy whose name was Master Parrot), "what is argument?"

"Argument," said Master Parrot, "is the attempted rationalization of the arguer's desires."

"Very good," replied the jailor, "but you should turn out your toes and put your hands behind your back. That is better. Now: what is the proper answer to an argument providing the existence of the Landlord?"

"The proper answer is, "You say that because you are a Steward.""

"Good boy. But hold your head up. That's right. And what is the answer to an argument proving that Mr. Phally's songs are just as brown as Mr. Halfways'?"

"There are two only generally necessary to damnation," said Master Parrot. "The first is, "you say that because you are a Puritanian [or James Cameron]," and the second is, "You say that because you are a sensualist.""

"Good. Now just one more. What is the answer to an argument turning on the belief that two and two make four?"

"The answer is, "you say that because you are a mathematician.""

It's still Pocahontas in space. If it makes you feel better you can call it “dances with smurfs.”

"Night of the living dead, bikini, cheerleader vampires" was better made and had more believable characters.