Pretty good movie in my opinion. I went on the avatar ride in Disney's Animal Kingdom a couple of years ago and it was incredibly beautiful. I couldn't help but to think of STO when I saw the Nav'i and their colorful vibrant world. This movie just shows how destructive and self serving greediness is, pretty much showing STS acts. It also shows how even someone on or working for the STS side could switch to STO once they see that side.
Pretty good movie in my opinion. I went on the avatar ride in Disney's Animal Kingdom a couple of years ago and it was incredibly beautiful. I couldn't help but to think of STO when I saw the Nav'i and their colorful vibrant world. This movie just shows how destructive and self serving greediness is, pretty much showing STS acts. It also shows how even someone on or working for the STS side could switch to STO once they see that side.
Just saw the sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, and was spellbound. If you enjoyed the first Avatar I guarantee you will enjoy the second.
I really enjoyed the first movie, so of course hearing there were several sequels coming out I was nervous about it being used as another culture war battering ram. I was nervously keeping my eyes and ears out for reviews, good or bad, on here. Since I didn't see anything I volunteered to throw myself into the volcano first and I was pleased to find that the movie did not contain any obvious and obnoxious "woke" elements at all. There may be some on a deeper level though, which I cannot bring up without spoilers (see below).
The world of Avatar seems to connect with people on a deep level, I find, as a window into a sort of Edenic pre-fall paradise. The ability to speak with the Gods and to commune with the dead was also a feature of many ancient stories about the mythical Golden Age. The fictional world of Pandora has enough scientific elements to not turn off materialists, while still containing enough fantastical elements to keep it fundamentally about the human experience of being a part of a greater cosmic world permeated with life and intelligence, where truth, love, and beauty are fundamental to our human experience.
In terms of esoteric themes, it seems like the story inverts the elements of the traditional Pangaian mythical structure (with heaven being associated with order and intelligence, and the ocean or "waters below" being the place of chaos, sea monsters, serpents, leviathan, and the like. In the story of Avatar 2 God (or Eywa), the fount of intelligence, is in the ocean itself, and evil or chaos is from the sky (in the form of humans coming to slash-and-burn, conquer, and colonize). So from the beginning the intelligence of the ocean (Eywa) is pitted against the intelligence of the sky (the destructive and greedy humans).
Unlike in Avatar 1 water is the main driver of this symbolism, and even notions of life before birth or after death, is explicitly conflated with the metaphors of water in the story, albeit in a form that is watered down somewhat to appeal to materialist sensibilities. From what I can tell this is just window-dressing though. This is shown most strongly with the character Kiri, who is a Na'vi girl with an unknown father who was born from the hybrid avatar of Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver's character from Avatar 1, who also voices Kiri). She is somewhat of a shaman/witch archetype, having a deep connection with Eywa and who seems to be able to speak to or control animals without having to physically connect with them like the other Na'vi.
The Sky People want to permanently colonize and make a new home out of Pandora. This civilizational mode of living is at odds with the intelligence of Eywa and the biosphere. In a way it resembles the STS hierarchy, cut off as it is from the divine, attempting to impose its own will on the world, with the Na'vi and their connection with the animals and Eywa being the means to oppose that.
When Jake Sully and Neytiri's family leaves their forest home to live among sea peoples, one of the first things they must learn how to do was hold their breath under water for long periods. The chieftain's daughter ends up teaching a character (and the audience) how to do deep belly breathing and to slow the heart down in order to be under water longer. Aside from the obvious scientific truth to these facts, it is interesting symbolism that getting into a parasympathetic state is a precondition to connecting and working with the creatures of the ocean, which are the manifestations of the biosphere's intelligence. (Do your breathing techniques, folks!)
There are echos of the story of Kantek in the Avatar series as well, although in a mixed fashion. The sky people (humans) are from a dying world. The Na'vi inhabitants of Pandora are very tall and strong blue humans (which was how the Kantekkians were perceived to be when first coming to earth, to which Indian mythology can attest). Kantekkians were also said to be connected to power centers, which in some ways reflects the ability of the Na'vi to tap into the intelligence of the biosphere around them, and even speak with their God or the dead in certain circumstances.
Some technical nitpicks about plot. If I was forced to nitpick about somethings, one would be that in spite of having distinct characters I had a hard time remember the names of many important characters in the plot. The movie takes place over a decade after Avatar 1, which doesn't seem like enough time for an interstellar armada to be assembled from the expelled colonists, regrouped, and relaunched.
Toward the climax of the story the scope tends to zoom in on the struggles of Jake's and Neytiri's family, and the sea tribe which has been behind them and supporting them the whole time just sort of vanishes from the screen for twenty minutes.
I could forsee some people complaining about Neytiri and the newer female contagonist Ronal being extremely fierce fighters. Personally I tend not to see this as an instance of "Ruh Ruh Girl Power" (a trope where a slight woman takes down tons of experienced male fighers much stronger than she is); firstly because it is shown that hunting for a living is just a part of life there; secondly because it is never done as a foil to highlight the incompetence of males around or in relationship with those women; thirdly because they go to war and fight specifically because their children are in danger, instead of just doing it for their own egos or some sort of abstract cause.
The plot conflicts often dealt with the notion of hybridity and difference, as Jake and Neytiri's children are considered hybrids and not fully Na'vi by some, and even the forest Na'vi themselves are racially quite different from the sea Na'vi (the former being coded as Native American while the latter are coded more as Afro-Caribbean). Kiri, having an unknown father and what amount to magic powers, is also somewhat of an Enochian Nephilim character, like the Wizard Merlin.
This hybridity does butt heads with the traditions of the Na'vi tribe that take Jake's family under their wing. One of Jake's sons Lo'ak doesn't adjust well to his new surroundings, and ends up befriending a whale-like creature who is also rejected by his own tribe of whales. They end up communing together through their neural connection, which is treated as some egregious sin by the sea people tribe, but does not come with any actual major consequences, and ends up helping to save the day in the end. Kiri is also picked on for being different, but of course she ends up saving the day so those who ridiculed the strangeness were put in their places. Most instances where the tradition goes against some of the new strangeness the family brings shows the tradition to be wrong or harmful.
I would have liked to see a few instances of people obeying their ancestors and tradition in a way that actually helps deliver them from some evil, instead of just being a plot device that gets dispensed with. But I also have a feeling that may cut a little too close to home for some people. Native peoples have tons of traditions and customs, and they have those for a reason; for example I am sure many tribes would have had something to say about allowing a very pregnant Neytiri to be off hunting by herself. I think, to some audiences, any realistic depiction of confronting the realities of living with the elements of nature immediately strips the scene of its Edenic overtones and puts them back into civilization again, which is the sort of thing people watch movies like Avatar to try to escape from.
Of course, it could be argued that "nature" as such doesn't really exist in Avatar the same way it does on earth, being mixed as it is with divine and heavenly elements.
In the grand scheme of things these critiques are quite minor.
In spite of some (very minor) nitpicks, the movie still hits all the right emotional notes in a way that is quite nourishing for the soul.
Just saw the sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, and was spellbound. If you enjoyed the first Avatar I guarantee you will enjoy the second.
I really enjoyed the first movie, so of course hearing there were several sequels coming out I was nervous about it being used as another culture war battering ram. I was nervously keeping my eyes and ears out for reviews, good or bad, on here. Since I didn't see anything I volunteered to throw myself into the volcano first and I was pleased to find that the movie did not contain any obvious and obnoxious "woke" elements at all. There may be some on a deeper level though, which I cannot bring up without spoilers (see below).
The world of Avatar seems to connect with people on a deep level, I find, as a window into a sort of Edenic pre-fall paradise. The ability to speak with the Gods and to commune with the dead was also a feature of many ancient stories about the mythical Golden Age. The fictional world of Pandora has enough scientific elements to not turn off materialists, while still containing enough fantastical elements to keep it fundamentally about the human experience of being a part of a greater cosmic world permeated with life and intelligence, where truth, love, and beauty are fundamental to our human experience.
In terms of esoteric themes, it seems like the story inverts the elements of the traditional Pangaian mythical structure (with heaven being associated with order and intelligence, and the ocean or "waters below" being the place of chaos, sea monsters, serpents, leviathan, and the like. In the story of Avatar 2 God (or Eywa), the fount of intelligence, is in the ocean itself, and evil or chaos is from the sky (in the form of humans coming to slash-and-burn, conquer, and colonize). So from the beginning the intelligence of the ocean (Eywa) is pitted against the intelligence of the sky (the destructive and greedy humans).
Unlike in Avatar 1 water is the main driver of this symbolism, and even notions of life before birth or after death, is explicitly conflated with the metaphors of water in the story, albeit in a form that is watered down somewhat to appeal to materialist sensibilities. From what I can tell this is just window-dressing though. This is shown most strongly with the character Kiri, who is a Na'vi girl with an unknown father who was born from the hybrid avatar of Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver's character from Avatar 1, who also voices Kiri). She is somewhat of a shaman/witch archetype, having a deep connection with Eywa and who seems to be able to speak to or control animals without having to physically connect with them like the other Na'vi.
The Sky People want to permanently colonize and make a new home out of Pandora. This civilizational mode of living is at odds with the intelligence of Eywa and the biosphere. In a way it resembles the STS hierarchy, cut off as it is from the divine, attempting to impose its own will on the world, with the Na'vi and their connection with the animals and Eywa being the means to oppose that.
When Jake Sully and Neytiri's family leaves their forest home to live among sea peoples, one of the first things they must learn how to do was hold their breath under water for long periods. The chieftain's daughter ends up teaching a character (and the audience) how to do deep belly breathing and to slow the heart down in order to be under water longer. Aside from the obvious scientific truth to these facts, it is interesting symbolism that getting into a parasympathetic state is a precondition to connecting and working with the creatures of the ocean, which are the manifestations of the biosphere's intelligence. (Do your breathing techniques, folks!)
There are echos of the story of Kantek in the Avatar series as well, although in a mixed fashion. The sky people (humans) are from a dying world. The Na'vi inhabitants of Pandora are very tall and strong blue humans (which was how the Kantekkians were perceived to be when first coming to earth, to which Indian mythology can attest). Kantekkians were also said to be connected to power centers, which in some ways reflects the ability of the Na'vi to tap into the intelligence of the biosphere around them, and even speak with their God or the dead in certain circumstances.
Some technical nitpicks about plot. If I was forced to nitpick about somethings, one would be that in spite of having distinct characters I had a hard time remember the names of many important characters in the plot. The movie takes place over a decade after Avatar 1, which doesn't seem like enough time for an interstellar armada to be assembled from the expelled colonists, regrouped, and relaunched.
Toward the climax of the story the scope tends to zoom in on the struggles of Jake's and Neytiri's family, and the sea tribe which has been behind them and supporting them the whole time just sort of vanishes from the screen for twenty minutes.
I could forsee some people complaining about Neytiri and the newer female contagonist Ronal being extremely fierce fighters. Personally I tend not to see this as an instance of "Ruh Ruh Girl Power" (a trope where a slight woman takes down tons of experienced male fighers much stronger than she is); firstly because it is shown that hunting for a living is just a part of life there; secondly because it is never done as a foil to highlight the incompetence of males around or in relationship with those women; thirdly because they go to war and fight specifically because their children are in danger, instead of just doing it for their own egos or some sort of abstract cause.
The plot conflicts often dealt with the notion of hybridity and difference, as Jake and Neytiri's children are considered hybrids and not fully Na'vi by some, and even the forest Na'vi themselves are racially quite different from the sea Na'vi (the former being coded as Native American while the latter are coded more as Afro-Caribbean). Kiri, having an unknown father and what amount to magic powers, is also somewhat of an Enochian Nephilim character, like the Wizard Merlin.
This hybridity does butt heads with the traditions of the Na'vi tribe that take Jake's family under their wing. One of Jake's sons Lo'ak doesn't adjust well to his new surroundings, and ends up befriending a whale-like creature who is also rejected by his own tribe of whales. They end up communing together through their neural connection, which is treated as some egregious sin by the sea people tribe, but does not come with any actual major consequences, and ends up helping to save the day in the end. Kiri is also picked on for being different, but of course she ends up saving the day so those who ridiculed the strangeness were put in their places. Most instances where the tradition goes against some of the new strangeness the family brings shows the tradition to be wrong or harmful.
I would have liked to see a few instances of people obeying their ancestors and tradition in a way that actually helps deliver them from some evil, instead of just being a plot device that gets dispensed with. But I also have a feeling that may cut a little too close to home for some people. Native peoples have tons of traditions and customs, and they have those for a reason; for example I am sure many tribes would have had something to say about allowing a very pregnant Neytiri to be off hunting by herself. I think, to some audiences, any realistic depiction of confronting the realities of living with the elements of nature immediately strips the scene of its Edenic overtones and puts them back into civilization again, which is the sort of thing people watch movies like Avatar to try to escape from.
Of course, it could be argued that "nature" as such doesn't really exist in Avatar the same way it does on earth, being mixed as it is with divine and heavenly elements.
In the grand scheme of things these critiques are quite minor.
In spite of some (very minor) nitpicks, the movie still hits all the right emotional notes in a way that is quite nourishing for the soul.
Not me. I felt like I just finished reading a great romance novel. I think those people need to realize they *are* in the Avatar universe ultimately-- they just don't know it. I think that is a knowledge and understanding that must be "paid for" in some way.
Not me. I felt like I just finished reading a great romance novel. I think those people need to realize they *are* in the Avatar universe ultimately-- they just don't know it. I think that is a knowledge and understanding that must be "paid for" in some way.
I guess they find out that there is no such thing as 'pure escapism'. All art is a reflection of the world in which we live. In this case, the world of Avatar contrasts with the empty reality which is sold to people outside the cinema.
even the forest Na'vi themselves are racially quite different from the sea Na'vi (the former being coded as Native American while the latter are coded more as Afro-Caribbean
If indeed the forest Na'vi (Omaticaya) seems to be inspired by some native north Americans, the seaboard Na'vi (Metkayina) seems (to me) obviously inspired by Maori people, for Pacific ocean islands. Look for instance at their (face) tatoos.
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and I was pleased to find that the movie did not contain any obvious and obnoxious "woke" elements at all. There may be some on a deeper level though, which I cannot bring up without spoilers (see below).
