LiamScheff.com — The Conspiracy Realist

Avatar – An Early Non-Review

Yes, this is it – the moment all the world has been held in hushed silence for! The streets of Iraq will burst into safety and joy, Afghanistan will bloom green and poppy-free, and Detroit will burst into 4 part harmony on every street corner!

Yes! It’s HERE! it’s James Cameron’s approximately 450 million dollar (300 for the movie, 150 for the marketing) anti-war, pro-war, anti-imperialist, pro-imperialist, anti-capitalist, pro-money-money-money interstellar nativist pro-tribal land-rights demanding hot interspecies sex-travaganza.

It’s got it all. The most expensive movie ever made, and probably , ever to be made, (at least until Jesus returns to Earth with gold boullion for everyone). Did I mention, “The most expensive movie ever made” …at a time when some 10% of my fellow Americans don’t have paychecks coming in. But, if it entertains, then what the hell! Right?

And no, of course, I haven’t seen the movie yet! (And I won’t, ’till its on DVD, when I probably might, eventually, maybe). But, be excited, because I have seen the extended High-Definition preview. And you know, they give everything away in previews. Here goes:

A wheelchair bound future-marine is given a second chance to search and destroy by becoming the driver of an AVATAR – a living, breathing, blue amphibian-bird-man, lithe with big yellow eyes, and wearing almost nothing, (the cad).

His job (the marine in alien video-game-controlled body) – to interact with the locals (the real blue-bird-gecko people of planet whatever-it’s-called), who live tribally (read ‘natively’ (read “American Indian”)), and to infiltrate and undermined them. Why and for what?

It happens that these “savages” (that’s what the big, bad military commander calls them) are sitting on top of a veritable gold mine, that is, not a “gold” goldmine, but a mineral vein of substance ‘very important thing,’ which is valued at a million dollars a kilogram, because it’s most certainly used for something important. (Damned metrics! That’s about 2.2 pounds, just in case you wanted to convert).

The hitch: Avatar-soldier-boy falls enamored con una chica blue and lithe and yellow-eyed and alien sexy, and so… he… takes on the battle for… ready?

Native land rights!!!

And so it’s WAR! And it’s 3D WAR! Glorious 3-D WAR!!! All sorts of alien rhino-elephant pterodactyl creatures versus super tank gun ship go-bot super (cool!!) vessels, that make your inner boy nerd squeal with girlish delight.

And so, whatever-the-hay else happens and the battle ensues and I’m sure a cursory character dies meaningfully, and the hero learns a lesson, and gets a deep groovy CGI kiss from his bluegirl-friend, and the movie ends happily, and you walk out of the theater and somebody blows something up in the Middle East. But, it’s important that we remain there. And that we went there. And who cares? That movie was ‘cool.’ 3-D too!

Now, that was worth 450 million dollars, wasn’t it?

James Cameron is a visionary, to be sure, one who has really created an entire genre of film – the space-borg-action-blow-out. A visionary, though, we must admit, one of middling and conflicted aesthetic values. The highs and lows seem to be in conflict…

But, I give him immense credit for knowing one thing about people: We like stories, much, much more than we like reality.

Here it is: