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This has been making the rounds of the Internet:
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Nice to see common sense prevail over another stupid attack by a nimrod.
Hello, this is Hollywood! $1.2B as of today! Look, there haven’t been any new stories since the Greeks. I enjoyed ‘Avatar’ immensely, though the story didn’t cover anything I hadn’t already seen. But it hit all the right beats, was very well acted and directed—and the effects were amazing. If I ride a fantastic new roller coaster, isn’t it still a roller coaster?
Do the Pochontas people really think their film was so original. Isn’t this the basis of all white man comes to save the darkies (purple in this case) movie.
Loved Avatar though
Except, except — Cameron is a plagiarist of record, having been caught red-handed stealing the story for the first Terminator from a short story by Harlan Ellison. Ellison threatened to sue, the production company (Hemdale, I think) paid him a bunch of money and added a credit on the film “acknowledging the works of Harlan Ellison.”
My thought walking out was, when will the Republican response be released? Yesterday’s NY Times had an opinion piece by – guess who !! – David Brooks – complaining that the film followed an anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-anti, see this and the terrorists win diatribe. I think every time they call it the party of Lincoln, Abe dies again somewhere in some alternate universe.
How come so many of you liberals can’t get a paragraph out without peppering it with lies? Does it stem from the sense of desperation that comes as you grow up and learn your ideas can’t work, which means you have to lie more and more to yourself and to others to avoid having to admit you’ve been wrong? Or do you just figure it worked out pretty well for your liar-in-chief Clinton and it seems like a good strategy for you? Whatever the reason, lying inevitably becomes second nature to the seasoned liberal, coming as naturally and effortlessly as breathing, as you evidenced here.
Absolutely nothing you claimed was in David Brooks’ article was in there. As a conservative, I would have been angry if it was, so I felt I had to check out the article and see what went wrong. Instead of the made-up nonsense you spewed forth, it did nothing but analyze Avatar as an example of the “white messiah” plot, which he argues is condescending to non-white races. An interesting, intelligent and insightful point that LIBERAL writers have also made! The only thing I would change in his thesis is the race aspect, to industrialized vs. primitive cultures. Because I think you could see the same plotline among any race, for example, an advanced Asian society contrasted with a more primitive one.
The article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html
Eric. S’s point in his second paragraph is accurate, though Mulhern’s point was not so horribly overstated as to require the vehemence of the “correction.” But the first paragraph (“liberals always lie”) is rather nuts. Conservatives love to try to hide their pure selfishness behind a fake, supposedly superior view of reality and human nature. If they’d stop with the conservative selfish junk, perhaps human nature would have a chance to improve a bit?
As Mr Propp found back in 1928: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp
Hard to believe this beat out the likes of such original works such as The Dark Knight, The Transformers, and Pirates of the Caribbean
Did you just call Transformers original??? Maybe the cartoon.
In Michael Bay’s wet dreams, he’s James Cameron…
I think you missed the irony in JWD’s comment.
Regarding the Abyss, yes, a great film. I’m puzzled, though, it seems like a large percentage of Cameron’s work is NOT available in high quality disc formats. Where are the BluRay versions of The Abyss, True Lies, Aliens, and Titanic? Even a decent quality DVD version of The Abyss and True Lies would be nice. Is there a reason why Cameron’s work (other than the Terminators) is treated so shabbily on disc?
Hilarious!
LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ari
Wow! I can’t believe idiots like you still adhere to the whole “Shakespeare didn’t really write those plays” belief. Even his contemporary critics that bashed him back then referred to his works as “Shake-scenes”. Any credibility you might have had went out the window with that. Fucking Plebian.
I merely mentioned that there are doubts about Shakespeare’s (Shakspere’s) authorship and even his existence as we are led to believe. Some of the doubters include Charlie Chaplain, Orson Welles, Charles Dickens, Freud, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many, many others. I guess Mr. joe g considers them all idiots. There are NO contemporaneous comments about ‘Shakespeare’s’ works. Virtually nothing is known about his life but for a few legal documents wills, etc. and none explain anything about his authorship. His notoriety emerged many years after his death. Everything written about his life is speculation. It may be that a man named William Shakespeare existed and wrote what is attributed to him but it will never be proven. There is no historicity there. Anyway, who cares. The work exists and Ovid was better.
Truth in humor…
Avatar…shitty story, great time at the movies anyway.
I dare any directer to have taken avatar and created even half the masterpiece that James Cameron did. This movie unlike titanic did not have a real life trajedy aspect to get ppl to see it. Unlike lord of the rings return of the king Avatar didnt have two movies to prelude it making people wanna see it. Avatar got to this level purely because of the fact that it was an amazing masterpiece that people talked about causing others to want to see this movie. Great job James Cameron! Fantastic movie and completely original vision!
I absolutely give Cameron kudos for his “vision” which he does like no other. But original? Hardly.
Wow, some of you need to get a sense of humor. It’s just a funny bit. Nobody can take away from Avatar’s amazing success. No need to be so defensive. Who doesn’t think the screenplay was the weak point? That’s not being a hater, that’s being a realist.
Putting up this obvious mock up page is nothing more than trying to stir up some controversy because it sells. This magnificent film stands on its own as an historical achievement that will stand on its own in the annals of the film industry for years to come. The bar has been lifted!
About the whole Pocahontas thing, regardless to how many parallels there were between story plots (which btw, Disney completely distorted Pocahontas’ historical story anyway) Avatar, was by far outstanding and will be remembered because of how a simple story line can be turned into a visual masterpiece.
Phenominal job Cameron
“Eric S.” (why don’t you use your name Eric, your FULL name?)
Regarding “caligulahadahorse’s” observation of your “vehement response” being overstated, but saying you ARE accurate that “nothing Mulhern wrote is in Brook’s piece” well, let’s just read a little of Brook’s piece, shall we? With credit to David Brooks, NY Times columnist and Republican geek extraordinaire, defender of Iraq war, which was based on lies (are you so dumb, Eric S. as to STILL be arguing THAT?).
I suggested, in a kind, of, you know, HUMOROUS way, that I KNEW coming out of the theater (I thought it was AWESOME, Cameron is a weak writer, but a tech genius), there would be some ramped up right-winger bozos feeling angry and defensive about the pot line of the movie being indicative of American crushing of indigenous people, and the excesses of the military industrial complex.
Now, read what Brooks wrote, below, and please, tell me that’s not EXACTLY what he’s being defensive about. Bullshit. Please.
But the TRUTH is SO THREATENING to the right-wingers, they FREAK out! Boy, can they DISH it out, but are they COMPLETE PUSSIES when it comes to eating shit and owning up to electing, then re-electing, the DUMBEST PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY – TWICE!! Now, dumb, I can live with. Reagan was no rocket scientist. Dumb – AND getting tens of thousands of people, many of them complete innocents, killed, by lying, violating the constitution, taking NO rsponsibilty for what you’ve done, then letting your Vice President shoot his fat, ignorant mouth off throughout the first year of your successor’s administration? THAT pisses me off. Get the fuck over it Eric S.
Did YOU serve? IF so, thanks. Seriously. I didn’t serve. Except on a sit-com. And plays. And films. Came of age, 21, in ’81, wanted to be an actor, closest I came was signing up for the draft, via Carter’s order of all American 18-21 eligible males, after Russia invaded Afghanistan, in case we countered and needed more than the volunteer military. Never did, so, I never served. My nephew will be in Helmand province – Marine Lieutenant – in a couple months. I support the military, my father served during Korea, and his older brother’s unit in WWII spent more time “on the line” (front line combat) – 198 straight days – than any other unit in the war. So, cool it with the chicken-hawk bullshit that is the hallmark of YOUR boy, coward George. Check this link out to see the UNBELIEVABLE hypocrisy of the Republicans being “tougher on national defense” by the simple LISTING of WHO served and WHO didn’t in the Bush years:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:WRsekFUhmgIJ:www.awolbush.com/whoserved.html+bush+administration+chicken+hawks&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
I LOVE that bullshit. “Democrats are WEAK on defense!” Hmmm. WWI? Woodrow Wilson – President (Democrat). WWII? FDR, Truman – President (Democrats), Korea? Started under Truman, (Democrat), handed off to Eisenhower, (Republican), who wisely, got the fuck out of there. Vietnam, started under Kennedy, (Democrat, who already lost one brother in WWII, then had his PT boat CUT IN HALF by a Japanese destroyer in WWII, swam HIMSELF with a severely damaged back, to an island a couple miles away, got help from the local inhabitants, who went out with boats and rescued the other men from his boat, brought them back to the island and hid and fed them till they could flag down an American warship), who handed it off to LBJ, (Democrat), who went right down the shitter by pouring HUGE amounts of men and resources into Vietnam, then, got handed off to Nixon, Republican, who ended up limping out, WAY too late, “with honor.”
The DEMOCRATS are “soft on defense?”
Are you fucking INSANE?
Here’ Brooks:
The formula also gives movies a little socially conscious allure. Audiences like it because it is so environmentally sensitive. Academy Award voters like it because it is so multiculturally aware. Critics like it because the formula inevitably involves the loincloth-clad good guys sticking it to the military-industrial complex.
Yet of all the directors who have used versions of the White Messiah formula over the years, no one has done so with as much exuberance as James Cameron in “Avatar.” “Avatar” is a racial fantasy par excellence. The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization. He ends up working with a giant corporation and flies through space to help plunder the environment of a pristine planet and displace its peace-loving natives.
The peace-loving natives — compiled from a mélange of Native American, African, Vietnamese, Iraqi and other cultural fragments — are like the peace-loving natives you’ve seen in a hundred other movies. They’re tall, muscular and admirably slender. They walk around nearly naked. They are phenomenal athletes and pretty good singers and dancers.
The white guy notices that the peace-loving natives are much cooler than the greedy corporate tools and the bloodthirsty U.S. military types he came over with. He goes to live with the natives, and, in short order, he’s the most awesome member of their tribe. He has sex with their hottest babe. He learns to jump through the jungle and ride horses. It turns out that he’s even got more guts and athletic prowess than they do. He flies the big red bird that no one in generations has been able to master.
Along the way, he has his consciousness raised. The peace-loving natives are at one with nature, and even have a fiber-optic cable sticking out of their bodies that they can plug into horses and trees, which is like Horse Whispering without the wireless technology. Because they are not corrupted by things like literacy, cellphones and blockbuster movies, they have deep and tranquil souls.
The natives help the white guy discover that he, too, has a deep and tranquil soul.
The natives have hot bodies and perfect ecological sensibilities, but they are natural creatures, not history-making ones. When the military-industrial complex comes in to strip mine their homes, they need a White Messiah to lead and inspire the defense.
Our hero leaps in, with the help of a pack of dinosaurs summoned by Mother Earth. As he and his fellow freedom fighters kill wave after wave of Marines or former Marines or whatever they are, he achieves the ultimate prize: He is accepted by the natives and can spend the rest of his life in their excellent culture.
Cameron’s handling of the White Messiah fable is not the reason “Avatar” is such a huge global hit. As John Podhoretz wrote in The Weekly Standard, “Cameron has simply used these familiar bromides as shorthand to give his special-effects spectacular some resonance.” The plotline gives global audiences a chance to see American troops get killed. It offers useful hooks on which McDonald’s and other corporations can hang their tie-in campaigns.
Still, would it be totally annoying to point out that the whole White Messiah fable, especially as Cameron applies it, is kind of offensive?
It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.
It’s just escapism, obviously, but benevolent romanticism can be just as condescending as the malevolent kind — even when you surround it with pop-up ferns and floating mountains.
I was just waiting for Ripley to hijack one of the battle mechs and open a can of Whoop Arse on the attacking troops, sadly this did not happen. This would have set the movie apart from Pocahontas for sure. They had a real nice song at the end, sounded like a Celine Dion impersonator. We always have “Aliens” though!
Wonder if “1941″ would be any better in 3D…
I loved Avatar, but it is just another story of how colonialist greed takes precedence over indigenous peoples rights to their land, resources and culture. Yeah and is does look like a ripoff of Pocahontas, what else is new?
boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl, boy works to get girl back, boy gets girl back.
Anyone?
So the heck what! Avatar was still an AWESOME movie, the graphics were GREAT and there was EXCITEMENT from beginning to the EXTRA LONG end. Stop hating!
What do you mean? Avatar was factual. It was historically accurate as far as I remember.