@Arly: I’m not going apeshit, god. I seriously can’t sound annoyed or aggressive in the slightest on the interwebz without someone getting their feelings hurt. Stop taking everything so personally. You said Sherlock Holmes was better, and criticized Avatar for its “cliche” plot. I pointed out that the Sherlock Holmes featured a far more cliche plot, one that’s been told for hundreds of years since detective stories first became prominent (read: when newspapers became available to the masses).
I’m not going to lie. I really am annoyed with some people in this thread. So much of the criticism comes from people who looked at the movie far too shallowly. For instance:
“Man comes to appreciate the indigenous tribe and then witness how utterly evil and materialistic humans are.” A4Noob says this despite my explanation on the SAME F’ING PAGE explaining how it’s not that simple. It’s about imperialism. IMPERIALISM. This is not about humans or even capitalism in general. This is about imperialism.
“It’s imperialism, not ‘humans being super evil.’ As a member of what was the largest empire during the years of traditional imperialism, I’d expect you to know more about it. Imperialism was led by corporations like the one in the movie. They did what the corporation in the movie did to the Na’vi and Pandora to the native people of wherever and that land. See: Seminole Wars, West/East India Companies, Colonial Africa, etc. It’s something that still goes on in less direct ways (i.e. Iraq, Vietnam, etc.), and it’s something that most of us seem to accept pretty easily. What a lot of the stuff in this genre (Avatar included) tries to do is get people to see how wrong what’s happening is.”
I posted that 5 posts above his. Does he bother to even consider that he might have misjudged the movie? Never.
It’s not just your traditional imperialism-focused story either. It raises interesting questions about modern times. Throughout the movie there are constant references to traditional imperialism, but at the same time, there’s references to modern day stuff like Iraq (“We will fight terror with terror”) and Vietnam. In effect, it’s questioning whether such wars are, in effect, indirect forms of imperialism. Anyone with even an inkling of knowledge about world history and current events should be aware of such issues, but apparently making such connections is beyond most people.
So, no, Arly, what I was trying to do with that post was not to make you feel that Avatar was better. I was instead trying to show the flaw in your argument (and thus criticism of Avatar), in hopes of you considering you might have misjudged the movie. There’s nothing that can change the way you received the movie the first time. Hopefully, if you see it a second time, you’ll approach it differently and pick up on more of its fine points.
Edit: Before anyone tries to say condemning imperialism is some leftist message, go read a history book. It was some of the worst treatment of man by his fellow man in our history. All of it for money, too.
@Arly: Notice I never said Sherlock Holmes was bad, either. I thought it was pretty good regardless of its “cliche plot.”