News
I may be the only knucklehead who hasn't weighed in on one of the most important topics meriting our attention at this moment in time:
How I feel about the movie, “Avatar.”
Like most of us, I thought this was just a movie, but au contraire. Little did I know that it would be an experience I can't wait to tell anyone and everyone about, eliciting responses like, “Huh. That's interesting, ma'am. Paper or plastic?”
The richness of the movie's thematic content alone is worth a conversation, but I'm finding not everyone shares my enthusiasm for this or the potential for possessing a tail.
What's not to love about a future that shows us we can have an alter-ego that is taller, more agile, a beautifully reflective blue? We might even add braver, imbued with a social conscience and more in tune with nature.
We get to be all of these things in the year 2154, vicariously thrilling our way through “Avatar,” as Na'vi-people-in-training leap from tree branch to tree branch, suffused with penguin-like monogamous love and enough truth-seeking neurons to bring down an entire army of heathens hell-bent on destroying the true humanitarians.
The experience is ours for just a small amount of cash.
Do you like irony? Then this movie is for you, because the Na'vi are more human than
the humans.
Humans are portrayed as having lost their way (again) due to greed, providing us (again) with a cautionary tale of what will be and what can be.
The Na'vi protect the planet and her natural resources, while the Homo sapiens seek to drain the very sustenance of all living creatures.
How do you not leave that theater without purchasing another ticket and FedExing it to an influential politician, along with your end notes?
The historical references abound. How can we not watch the Na'vi, as they prepare for the grand attack being waged by the military, and not think of Native Americans? They honor their mother planet and family through rituals, reminding us to preserve traditions that empower and connect.
It is through the cathartic synthesis of the character, Jake, that we are experience hope exemplified by the evolution of a warrior and, thus, the expansion of the term.
Emotionally shut down by his own loss of mobility and the loss of his twin brother, Jake is seething with potential. Ultimately, he develops into a caring, warrior-steward of all living creatures, rather than a warrior waging destruction against anything that cannot be bullied into submission.
I've got to admit to a dirty little secret here. I'm a sucker for a good love story, but I'm even more of a sucker for the symbolism related to trees, so they had me with the first scene in the tree.
When Jake and Neytiri are standing on the branch of Hometree and she says, “You shouldn't be here,” there is obvious interspecies attraction there. Gulp!
And then there's the “Tree of Voices.” Wow! Be still my heart. Cap that off with all of the meanings related to trees — tree of life, trees manufacture oxygen, trees exhibit seasons, representing growth and transformation. I may need to go hose myself down.
While I'm admitting things here, I'm also a lover of dictionaries. So when I looked up the word, “avatar,” I confirmed the technological meaning we're all used to these days, “a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet.”
But I love the older definition that relates to Hindu mythology, because it provides me with yet another layer of the movie to ponder: “The descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god.”
Let's face it. In any time, for any reason, a movie that can lift us up, make us feel large, even engender a bit of spirituality and feel some hope in the bargain, now that's worth the $4 dollar, unrecognizably flavored beverage.
Diane Dean-Epps is an author, teacher and comedienne. She can be reached at mswrite10@yahoo.com.
How I feel about the movie, “Avatar.”
Like most of us, I thought this was just a movie, but au contraire. Little did I know that it would be an experience I can't wait to tell anyone and everyone about, eliciting responses like, “Huh. That's interesting, ma'am. Paper or plastic?”
The richness of the movie's thematic content alone is worth a conversation, but I'm finding not everyone shares my enthusiasm for this or the potential for possessing a tail.
What's not to love about a future that shows us we can have an alter-ego that is taller, more agile, a beautifully reflective blue? We might even add braver, imbued with a social conscience and more in tune with nature.
We get to be all of these things in the year 2154, vicariously thrilling our way through “Avatar,” as Na'vi-people-in-training leap from tree branch to tree branch, suffused with penguin-like monogamous love and enough truth-seeking neurons to bring down an entire army of heathens hell-bent on destroying the true humanitarians.
The experience is ours for just a small amount of cash.
Do you like irony? Then this movie is for you, because the Na'vi are more human than
the humans.
Humans are portrayed as having lost their way (again) due to greed, providing us (again) with a cautionary tale of what will be and what can be.
The Na'vi protect the planet and her natural resources, while the Homo sapiens seek to drain the very sustenance of all living creatures.
How do you not leave that theater without purchasing another ticket and FedExing it to an influential politician, along with your end notes?
The historical references abound. How can we not watch the Na'vi, as they prepare for the grand attack being waged by the military, and not think of Native Americans? They honor their mother planet and family through rituals, reminding us to preserve traditions that empower and connect.
It is through the cathartic synthesis of the character, Jake, that we are experience hope exemplified by the evolution of a warrior and, thus, the expansion of the term.
Emotionally shut down by his own loss of mobility and the loss of his twin brother, Jake is seething with potential. Ultimately, he develops into a caring, warrior-steward of all living creatures, rather than a warrior waging destruction against anything that cannot be bullied into submission.
I've got to admit to a dirty little secret here. I'm a sucker for a good love story, but I'm even more of a sucker for the symbolism related to trees, so they had me with the first scene in the tree.
When Jake and Neytiri are standing on the branch of Hometree and she says, “You shouldn't be here,” there is obvious interspecies attraction there. Gulp!
And then there's the “Tree of Voices.” Wow! Be still my heart. Cap that off with all of the meanings related to trees — tree of life, trees manufacture oxygen, trees exhibit seasons, representing growth and transformation. I may need to go hose myself down.
While I'm admitting things here, I'm also a lover of dictionaries. So when I looked up the word, “avatar,” I confirmed the technological meaning we're all used to these days, “a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet.”
But I love the older definition that relates to Hindu mythology, because it provides me with yet another layer of the movie to ponder: “The descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god.”
Let's face it. In any time, for any reason, a movie that can lift us up, make us feel large, even engender a bit of spirituality and feel some hope in the bargain, now that's worth the $4 dollar, unrecognizably flavored beverage.
Diane Dean-Epps is an author, teacher and comedienne. She can be reached at mswrite10@yahoo.com.
