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“hollywood often brags about free thinking but yet is often the most closed minded lot of the country.â€
I agree that Hollywood tends to be closed minded due to their emphasis on monetary gain, to the extent that they sometimes cut off their nose to spite their face. A lot of innovative TV series bit the dust before their time because of this. Max Headroom and Twin Peaks come to mind. Remember them? But I don’t think that Hollywood has the corner on closed mindedness.
The Scientific community, for example, also prides itself on its apparent open mindedness and free thinking ability. But try to present something that might be against their pet doctrine, the Theory of Evolution, and see how open minded they really are.
Look at the “discussions†among the overly denominationally minded Christians if you want to see closed mindedness. Satan’s greatest trick against believers has been to get them to accept the denominational thinking that has led to the current denominational state of Christianity. “We are the true Church with the true canonized doctrines given by Jesus Christ†or “we represent legitimate Biblical truthâ€. Christians today are generally incapable of practicing any kind of unity other than denominational unity. Doesn’t do any good to argue against Christian fundamentalism with that kind of mindset. Christianity has managed to take what Paul spoke against in 1Corinthians to an extreme, to its ultimate conclusion. Not just division within an ekklesia, but division expressed as if each division is, not only the true ekklesia exclusively, but exclusively in a universal sense.
Cameron didn’t imply that all Corporations or all militarized elements or all concerns that deal with the environment are inherently evil. Rather he brought out that certain mindsets are not necessary to their purpose. Something not generally noticed is how the leader of the scientists is portrayed as initially believing that one has to be a fully educated scientist in order to be able to effectively use an avatar. Something proven to be wrong by Jake. But it reflects a certain educational mindset, a bias that often leads to snobbery among the educated.
Corporations that can’t see beyond monetary gain, military that is used to conquer indigenous populations for monetary gain, and those who harvest resources in a destructive manner for monetary gain. As a Christian and an American, I fully agree with Cameron on these issues.
The hero of the Avatar story is Jake, a military minded man. As was the security chief, the anti-hero of the story, a military minded man. The anti-hero was never presented as being particularly more evil than the hero. He was presented as being very loyal to the Corporation and to earth. That would be patriotic, if it was in relation to a nation. He was presented as being, not only very good at his job, but good at achieving quick results. He was genuinely caring toward the people under his command. And he was presented as being just as capable of thinking for himself as was Jake. There were no stupid people in this movie, not even among the Na’vi, who were seen as ignorant by the humans. And according to the movie, Cameron was also against this mindset because the seemingly ignorant won the battle and sent their opponents packing. Even if it was with the help of something apparently supernatural.
Cameron, like Lucas, brought a supernatural element into the movie. Actually, that says something positive about the world. That mention of the supernatural in some form is still an element allowed and even acceptable by so many. And if opposition to the way the supernatural is presented, presents itself, all the better because it helps to sell the movie. Remember how a mediocre movie called “Jesus Christ Superstar†gained fame through the actions of the opposition? And let us recall a more recent example of how “The DaVinci Code†gained fame through the efforts of the opposition. A movie more deserving of fame in the sense that it was at least a decent mystery. As was “Angels and Demonsâ€. Well directed by Opie, I mean Ron Howard.
While some Christians might be against such movies because the supernatural isn’t presented in a Christian light, that should be expected because most of the world does not follow Christ. And neither does Cameron and Lucas. And that is why a distinction must be made between man-made stories and the reality portrayed in the Bible. Not that Avatar is a mockery of Christ, but that the portrayals are distinct because they are different from one another. Neither Christ nor Christianity was mentioned or alluded to in Avatar or in the Star Wars saga. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone because they are writing Science Fiction. Christian ideas only crop up as similarities necessary to the story in Science Fiction. Science Fiction writers are as a rule very free thinking.
Note that the humans in Avatar had no religion. Only Jake was persuaded through experience to take the religion of the Na’vi more seriously. We’ll never know if the chief scientist would have eventually come around. She was at least more tolerant than most. And that too may be a comment against a certain mindset. Cameron is neither for nor against a particular religion. But he has shown himself to have an interest in the supernatural according to his latest endeavors, even though his conclusions may not be strictly Christian. And that is to be expected in one who obviously is not walking according to the Spirit of God.
Cameron was being pretty even-minded in his presentation of militarism, as well as the other issues that he dealt with, in my estimation. It could have been a typical scenario wherein the Scientist is constantly having to overcome the stupidity of the military or the police (city military in a practical sense). Cameron did bring out a tension between science and greed (head scientist against the planetary head of the corporation). As it happened, the military was loyal to the corporation. But Cameron went against type when he didn’t make the chief scientist the hero. I wonder if Cameron got the idea for a hero with an impediment (physically crippled) from the movie “Charly†(mentally crippled) with Cliff Robertson. Remember that one? A very well told story, in spite of the sad ending.
Avatar had a good cast, but two out of four main characters died. The chief scientist and the anti-hero chief of security. That, together with the inordinate length of the movie, gives me the impression that Cameron did not originally intend to make a sequel.
Worthington and Saldana may have been the hero and his girlfriend sidekick, but it was Lang as head of security and Weaver as the chief scientist who gave the movie character. It was all of the actors together that made the movie sing. The planetary background was an added attraction. So what if Cameron wasn’t very original by utilizing previously used ideas. And the unimaginative weren’t able to get past that. That doesn’t take away from the fact that Cameron as writer is a good story teller. And Cameron as director is quite capable of bringing together the story elements in an aesthetic fashion, visible and otherwise. Admittedly, the aesthetics of the Alien saga and the Terminator trilogy were much darker. In that sense, Avatar is an improvement.
Here’s something that may reveal a bit more about the militaristic element in the movie. They’ve just come out with a directors cut version. The theatre version was three hours long. This version adds fifteen or twenty more minutes. And there is included in the special features thirty minutes that ended up on the cutting room floor. That’s more than enough for a movie and its sequel right there. If Cameron actually makes a sequel, Avatar will become a trilogy.
JamesG
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