Louis Proyect wrote: Reviewed here: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/avatar-star-trek/
[Alert: some of this main be a spoiler.] Avatar is a good flick, just as Louis said. The Nav'i reminded me not just of the Native Americans but also of the victims of the European colonization of Africa (especially because of the rain forest setting). The gigantic bulldozers of the multiplanetary corporation and its mercenaries also reminded me of Israel plowing down Palestinian houses and Rachel Corrie. The airborne attack on the Nav'i was straight out of "Apocalypse Now"; though the music wasn't "the Ride of the Valkyries," the big ship was named "Valkyrie. " At the start, was like one of those old Westerns where some of the Indians were good and some bad (with the leading lady's presumptive future spouse as the bad'un) and some of the settlers/invaders/cavalry being good and some bad. Sigourney Weaver's character was a good'un, along with the hero and others. (I love her!) Of course, by the end the internal divisions in both camps were ended, with the Nav'i ending up as the good guys. As a sometime SciFi fan (who's fully cognizant of Sturgeon's law that 95% of _any_ genre is dreck), I was disappointed that the Nav'i were so human-like (unlike all of the other animals on their planet). Though inter-species love is always interesting, it was also a let-down that the Nav'i kiss the way we (Euro-Americans) do. Sometimes they even cry tears the same way, too. I did like the way that there was a high-tech basis for the Nav'i religion. However, it was a let-down that an Earthling ends up as the Prophet/Hero of the Nav'i. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
