My friend Kaustubh Mote observes that the audience completely lost the message of 'Avatar' in the jungles and images of Pandora. He hints at a few parallels between the reel and real worlds that, I feel, are worth pondering over.
One of the main issues addressed by Avatar is that of destruction of nature as we see it. The ethics behind infiltrating into other species' ecological territories are explored from the different viewpoints of the biologist and the army general. The search for Unobtainium in Pandora has striking similarities to that for oil in the Gulf and Iraq. Large scale deployment of men and women, arms and ammunition; an initial appeasment policy followed by a rap on the knuckles and a bloody war to make the avatars stand in line and behave... haven't we seen glimpses of all this over that last decade or so?
Such sensitive issues seem to have disappeared in the complex, mind-blowing visual and 3-D effects. Talk of the snake biting the charmer!
Thanks Mote, this post is entirely due to you.
One of the main issues addressed by Avatar is that of destruction of nature as we see it. The ethics behind infiltrating into other species' ecological territories are explored from the different viewpoints of the biologist and the army general. The search for Unobtainium in Pandora has striking similarities to that for oil in the Gulf and Iraq. Large scale deployment of men and women, arms and ammunition; an initial appeasment policy followed by a rap on the knuckles and a bloody war to make the avatars stand in line and behave... haven't we seen glimpses of all this over that last decade or so?
Such sensitive issues seem to have disappeared in the complex, mind-blowing visual and 3-D effects. Talk of the snake biting the charmer!
Thanks Mote, this post is entirely due to you.
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