Do Conservatives Hate ‘Avatar’ for Being Science Fiction With a Brain?

By on December 16, 2009 in News 14

I’m posting part of this idiotic review from Big Hollywood here because no matter how badly the Democrats screw up, Republicans have to deal with voices like this in their Party:

AvatarSet in 2154, Avatar is a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War…

…Visually Avatar doesn’t break any new ground. It looks like a big-budget animated film with a garish color palette right off a hippie’s tie dye shirt. Never for a moment did I believe the Na’vi or the world of Pandora was something organic or real…

So Big Hollywood prefers entertainment that doesn’t question any societal norms or human history … no matter where you go, there you are. What a terrible turn for society for Cameron to have this in mind … let’s listen to the big “liberal” himself talk about his new film on the Today Show:

Science fiction with “thinking” — how strange — that’s what I have always enjoyed about it…

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  • Synapse

    Avatar isn't really a great film, it is just Dances with Wolves/Pocahontas (BUT NOW IN 3D! WITH ALIENS!!) and the characters are pretty much one sided. And like many such films dealing with natives, being a native is idolized so of course we can do anything but somehow a bunch of native aliens walking around in loincloths and sticks and a nature cult have the moral high ground?

    If you want to see fancy graphics and no story, see 2012, if you want to see fancy graphics and the same old story that's been done before and better many times, see Avatar.

    • DavyChuck

      Victims of atrocity ALWAYS have the high moral ground. I know you are not suggesting that indigenous people DESERVE to be annihilated because the wear loincloths.

  • James T.

    Who gives a fuck what Breitbart, or the FNC crew, “think” about anything? They're backwards, America-uber-alles anachronisms. Let them go jerk off to a Ronald Reagan speech and leave the rest of us alone. I haven't seen Avatar yet, I plan to go this weekend. I don't expect it to be perfect, but I think I'll like it. And if it has a liberal theme, good, that's obviously the director's take on it. You want a conservative theme, go watch Left Behind.

  • Word Eater

    I believe James Cameron expected Hollywood to hate the movie but hoped the people would like it. He said this is the movie he's wanted to make, the movie he's had brewing in his head, since he was 8 years old.
    Good on him for being in a position to make the movie he wants to make and not having to bow to the establishment.

  • DavyCHcuk

    The film is a clear allegory for colonialism and it's unforgivable atrocities. Victims are often tricked into thinking they are being helped, but this is not the case. Conservatives speak for power (including the power to colonize, annihilate, and discriminate). Liberals speak truth to power. Conservatives can't handle the truth.

    It comes as no surprise that conservatives would criticize, using the most insulting and dismissive language possible, anything that call out the abuses of power.

  • Heartbeatjay

    The Conservative (Republican) ideology is one of arrogance, narcisism, gluttony, indulgence, patriotism at the end of a gun, me, myself and I screw you and the horse you rode in on!!!
    They truly believe that they are superior to all others and if you have something they need or want, their ideology is to just whoop your ass and take it!!!
    If the Native Americans stand in your way to the resorces of the Americas, stamp them out. If the Natives of the African Continent fight for their land kill them all! So if some blue skinned aliens with a Native American flare (Navi) prevent you from getting their rich world, anihilate them!!!
    Republican Neo-conservatism is nothing more than an inflated egoistic, bully fundamentalist ideology created and nurtured by Leo Strauss who strongly believed in survival of the fittest and wealthiest at the expense of all others.
    Republicans and the Neo-Cons truly believe in Feaudalism, or the Plutocracy. Human rights, worker's rights, patients rights, consumer's rights, union rights, civil rights, the middleclass, freedom and democracy, every thing Lord Vader and the Evil emperor Lord Sidious would be proud of!
    NOW HANDLE THAT TRUTH ALL OF YOU NEO-CONS OUT THEIR!
    Americans to Preserve the American Dream and Democracy

    • Ryan Campbell

      I am a Canadian conservative. I support gun registration, I am pro-choice and all for gay marriage, and I believe in single payer health care because it is more efficient with our money. I have seen what your republican “conservatives” (100 years ago they'd be called democrats!) are all about, and it is disgusting, but don't paint us all with the same brush, please! I loved Avatar, by the way!

    • Lori

      The Liberal (Democrat) is one of ignorance. That's it, just one word to describe a liberal. Jay you wouldn't know a Conservative if it bit you in the ass. Hollywood is good at getting you guys to believe that's who conservatives are, but they have no idea. Most conservatives are self relying hard working people.”They truly believe that they are superior to all others and if you have something they need or want, their ideology is to just whoop your ass and take it!!!” That is a definition of a liberal politician. But instead of whoop your ass and take it, they just tax you to death. Was it the Republicans or the ignorant southern Democrats who treated the blacks in this country like shit for over 100 years after the civil war? And one more thing, we are not a DEMOCRACY!!!

      • DavyChuck

        Why is it ALWAYS Republicans who insist that we are not a democracy? Because it sounds too much like “Democrat” that's why. That's really as deep as people like Lori go. Deluded into thinking that she's a tough cookie and that poor minorities are causing all of her problems. For the record, taxes have not gone up lately and they've been virtually unchanged for generations. The only public discussion of taxes involves how much more (or less) rich people will pay on the money they inherit.

      • Heartbeatjay

        Dear Discus,
        You are right on a lot of things here!
        But you are not using your deeper brain!!!!Think about it for awhile!
        Starting somewhere along the years of the 80s, the Southern Liberal Democrats through the next 30 years gradually shifted over to the Republican Party!
        Bush Senior kicked it along a little further, then W came along and finished the transition!
        Now all of those poor trailer park trash, and Bully, whoop your ass and take it, Redneck, scum sucking racist Democrats, some like the NASCAR scene, some like dually pick-up trucks and Cowboy hats, became loyal Bushies and Tea Baggers. Supporting a Party created by the RICH, for the RICH and of the RICH, who could'nt give a damm about the working masses and 9-5 ers. It's like the mice, rats, and Canaries, are now supporting the cat! 
        However, the wealthiest, richest elites have always been Republicans, and have been laughing all the way to the bank with record profits, bonuses and incomes while all of us struggle to get by!
        Your home work is to find any European and ask him if American parties have shifted polarity!
        I guarantee he will say in Europe the American Neo-Con Republicans would really be Neo-Liberal Democrats and vise versa.
        I used to be a Republican once, (Paleo-Conservative, the old Lincoln style) but when the party was hijacked by the Neo-Cons (Super Libs), I bailed out.
        Now the Democrats seem to have taken some of the qualities of the old style Republicans.
        But they too are not like true Paleo-Conservatives, but will have to do until someday we can get rid of the party system and have candidates run on their own morals and not have party allegences.
        So to your surprise, I am now an Independant!
        But you were also right on one other aspect!
        America is not a democracy!
        Thanks to 35 years of Republican rule (Clinton was a Neo-Con in sheeps clothing) She has been transformed into a Plutocracy, Oligarchy or in a nut shell (Rob the Middleclass, Poor and less fortunate to feed the rich)!
        I bet you were going to tell me AMERICA IS A REPUBLIC?????
        More like used to be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        Thanks for the educated discusion, and not resorting to 4 letter insults.
        Jay (AKA Heartbeatjay just pounding the heart of a truer, freeer America! http://www.apadd.com Americans to Preserve the American Dream and Democracy!)

        ________________________________

  • Michael K.

    I'm a conservative and I hated Avatar. No – hate is too strong a word. Like most everyone else, I was stunned by the movie's visuals. Pandora was everything that the hype had led me to hope it would be. While I had seen a few 3D movies before this, none of them managed to approach Avatar in terms of realism or subtlety. The aerial battle scenes were particularly breath-taking. In terms of acting, Sigourney Weaver delivered a typically excellent performance as an acerbic, scientist; Stephen Lang was chilling as an out-of-control ex-Marine; and Giovanni Ribisi perfectly captured the cringing, amoral corporate exectuive.

    Those are the positives. Unfortunately, the film is burdened with substantial negatives.

    First, with the exceptions listed above, none of the main actors delivered believable performances. Worthington's Jake Sully was particularly bland, while Saldana and Alonso were cartoonish in the roles of the young Na'vi royals Neytiri and Tsu'tey (this is particularly ironic, given that their characters' visuals were anything but cartoonish).

    Second, although the world of Avatar was visually stunning, the setting was slap-dash at best. A few examples – The movie takes place on a mining colony, but we never see a single miner. We are informed that the preposterously named Unobtainium (found only on Pandora) sells for $20 million per kilo on Earth, yet it is never explained why Unobtainium is so valuable. Jake Sully explicitly states that the Avatars are extremely expensive, but the corporation that funds them apparently has no use for the program. The Colonel mentions that Pandora’s gravity is far less than that of Earth, yet objects don’t fall more slowly on Pandora. The primitive Na’vi are remarkably uncurious about advanced human technology and even accept the Avatar program without the slightest bit of confusion – readily identifying Jake Sully as a human in spite of his appearance.

    The characters are simply defined in black-and-white terms. While the Na’vi and the few humans that defend them are unambiguously good, the rest of humanity is portrayed as unredeemably evil. Nor are there shades of gray in the conflict between humanity and the Na’vi; the humans are wrong and the Na’vi are right. Thus, Jake Sully’s treason and his war on humanity is excused as a morally unambiguous decision. For me, the movie’s broad condemnation of humanity in general was a little strange and unsettling.

    Finally and most negatively, the story was boring and predictable. I literally was able to predict 90% of the story's plot twists simply from reading Yahoo's description of the movie and Cameron telegraphed the remaining 10% within the movie's first hour. The plot can be summed up in two sentences “Bad humans exploit good Na'vi. Good human helps good Na'vi fight back.” I'm not suggesting that simple plots are necessarily bad, but Cameron might have wanted to consider whether he needed 2 hours and 43 minutes to tell such a straight-forward story. As it stands, Avatar ends up hammering home the same points over and over again.

    In the end, the biggest problem with Avatar might be that Cameron didn't really set out to tell a story. He wanted to make a visual work of art that sent a political/philosophical message to the audience. Things like character, setting, plot and pacing didn't enter into that equation and so he largely ignored them. The Na’vi are essentially a combination of every positive stereotype that Hollywood has ever invented about American Indians and their appearance is clearly intended to remind us of the native people of this country. Humans are clearly a metaphor for both European colonists and industrialized people in general. Cameron’s message is a PC mash of environmentalism and anti-colonialism that comes off as trite and hackneyed, regardless of one’s political stripes.

    • ratava

      I can honestly say that reading Michael K's evaluation of Avatar was a complete waste of my time. And I so hate wasting my time. The fan base itself is showing everyone what a monumental film this is. I urge everyone to see it. It's truly stunning. Believe me you won't care about the rate of speed that objects are falling out of the sky, nor will you lose a moment's sleep because you didn't see a single miner. You also will not care that we never hear the reason that “unobtainum” is so valuable on earth. I can't imagine why Michael would focus in such unimaginable unimportant minutiae. And if Michael found Avatar to be boring, then maybe he'd be more comfortable staying home where he belongs. Go see the movie and treat yourself to what may be the most stunning cinematic event you'll ever see. And see it in IMAX 3D. Incredible. Michael, you are boring. Stay home!

  • Guest

    It was a good movie. It made some references to the American Military Industrial complex that more people need to know about, like the East Timor invasion by Indonesia, the CIA covert operations in Latin America, the Indian wars, etc. As for the mystery behind the element, I liked how they didn’t go into detail explaining it. My guess was that it caused stuff to levitate, and that’s why it was profitable. I don’t really care about the whole liberal vs. conservative thing. Those terms are mostly used by the media to pit one side of America against the other. I don’t know about the rest of the world. It was a terrific film though.

  • Guest

    It was a good movie. It made some references to the American Military Industrial complex that more people need to know about, like the East Timor invasion by Indonesia, the CIA covert operations in Latin America, the Indian wars, etc. As for the mystery behind the element, I liked how they didn't go into detail explaining it. My guess was that it caused stuff to levitate, and that's why it was profitable. I don't really care about the whole liberal vs. conservative thing. Those terms are mostly used by the media to pit one side of America against the other. I don't know about the rest of the world. It was a terrific film though.