Avatar

Yes, I know, I am very behind on my movie list. I have just seen Avatar on my flat screen TV, medium sized from Best Buy, nothing too fancy, so it was not the all encompassing experience it should have been had I seen it in the movie theater with those 3D glasses. Henceforth, I had the unique opportunity of watching it from the outside rather than the inside. I have to add one more note: I haven't read one review of the movie, yet. So the opinion expressed is all mine, uninfluenced, uneducated, and free of any previous notions. All I know about this movie is by osmosis, and a short glimpse of someone talking about the movie on a talk show long ago. They said something about having cameras attached to their foreheads. That's all I know about Avatar, and the poster. So here it is: After dedicating two evenings to the movie, I arrived at the following opinion: Avatar is Dances With Wolves on acid meeting Star Wars on steroids! You have got to be kidding me!!!!!!!! Ok, I know, many of my friends loved the sensory explosion/experience, appreciated the technological savvy of the animators, and reveled in the beauty of the scenery. I, on the other hand, found myself thinking about fifteen minutes into the movie, WTF, blue Indians with tails riding on weird horses, and John Wayne is a Marine guy on a wheelchair, trying to save who? The Indians? I guess I am not a very sophisticated viewer. I don't get sucked in enough, I can't suspend belief when I sit in my own bed watching the Indians running in the forest and jumping from tree to tree like Tarzan. Can you add more stuff to this movie soup? Yes, indeed. But before I get into this, and remind me if I forget, let me talk a little about evolution and human imagination. Those of you who read anti-god literature are probably familiar with the writings of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and my currently most favorite blogger/biology Professor PZ Myers. Some of the anti-god movement is led by biologists, i.e. people of the evolution persuasion. And they show us where evolution messed up, like Hitchen's description of the human ear and the knee, to prove that if god was so everything he was supposed to be, we would have had a much better designed ear, for example. So here I am, sitting on my bed, thinking, these guys who created Avatar with all the technological wonders available on their magical computers and fantastic programs, all they could come up with was blue Indians with a tail and funky ears? You guys could have come up with an improved version of evolution, show us where evolution could have taken us had god really existed. For example, plant some eyes on the backside of the head, or the top side to see the stars at night, and get rid of the ears all together. What is it with space aliens and ugly ears anyways? And imagine if those space Indians had eyes on the feet or additional arms on the back? I am not an evolutionist expert, but I'm sure there are better ways to be a human-like creature. And the horses, why do they gallop and not float or slide on their side or something? I know, I know! We have to identify with all this crap, so they have to kind of look like us, I guess. Psychology of the masses from movie makers. "But it was so pretty, the forest and those little fairy jelly-fish," I am told. Yup, Disney's been there too. And a Bruce Willis wannabe also gave a Die Hard cameo in the form of a crazed violent commander who refuses to give up until Pocahontas shoots him with an arrow to the heart. Yes, dear movie lovers, I am a total party pooper.

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just found this one: The new ledger and liked it a lot. (8/11/2010)