Finally a good movie to review.
Avatar: James Cameron's masterpiece.
Honestly, Im not a huge cameron fanboy, I hated Titanic, but I love Avatar. The movie is so good in fact, that this post will contain no spoilers, simply commentary on the storytelling process of the film.
The film received alot of grief for being all style and no substance. I retort that the people making these claims are also the same ones who can't seem to figure out why it is doing so well.
The movie touches a part of the human soul that is beyond style or substance, it looks back at human history to the pre-industrial eras and says "Hey, we may not have had toilets and TV's, but it was a rather fufilling way to live".
This also brings up the next big question: "Does technology make us more or less happy?"
I would honestly say Less. We spend less time with real people and real activities, and more time doing meaningless things in cyberspace. These internet and television activities are a great way to kill time, but not a great way to enjoy time.
A happy human is one who is actively enjoying their life, not their lifestyle. A man in love will work like a slave if he has to, as long as he gets to come home to the embrace of his lover every night. Happiness, like love, is an intense emotion, and does not translate well via cyberspace.
In the modern era happiness is so rare that we work and strive for even momentary happiness. We'll do anything for a moment of happiness, but most of the time need to settle for merely dulling the pain of reality with false enjoyment, drugs, booze, etc. We have fake friends of "social websites" who we never see in person but share our innermost thoughts with. As humans, we've become so desperate for "real" that we even seek it out in the land of the fake.
Avatar shows us a man of the fake world who comes into the real world.
The experiences are intense, the emotions are real, to the point where discerning reality from fantasy becomes a game of harsh truths.
In the Avatar world there is much joy, because they live in the moment and leave the future to itself.
Modern man has made the mistake of living for the future. We do awful terrible things with the justification that we'll make up for it in the future, but we never do. In Avatar the people live for the present, everyone is held accountable for what they do now, not for what they plan on doing.
No more excuses, just make the best of the moment.
If not for the quality of filmmaking or the depth of the story, watch the movie for the social commentary. The world of Avatar could be our world (with some sci-fi exceptions). We are not so far gone that we couldn't live a simplier, happier life. and this movie shows us that.
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Damn, seen the movie a couple times but never thought of it that way. =)
ReplyDelete-This is Nobby BTW
I would say technology has made people less happy in the last 10 years or so, with internet and cell phones becoming the norm rather than it being something cool and new that a few of your friends had.
ReplyDeleteFor example - yesterday my wife and I sat down in a bagel shop to get a coffee and something to nom on for breakfast. We were sitting there like normal civilized people having a conversation. Across from us were another couple, not saying a word to each other just texting and talking to other people on their cell phones.
Maybe I'm old fashioned but I dont see the point in hanging out with friends if you're gonna be too busy on your phone to bother having a conversation with them.
I'd have to disagree on at least one point. While the idea of us being less happy with technology is glorified with fictional ideas of "being one with nature" we're probably better off as we are.
ReplyDeleteMovies like avatar don't show the filth, hardship and terror of living without technology. My great grandfather described the gut wrenching heart break of losing an infant daughter, imagine all of us going through that several times through out our lives.
In addition "Guns, Germs and Steel" put quite a bit of the life style into perspective. For example the most common cause of death among men in tribal cultures is fucking MURDER. For women it's child birth. And while tribes do have some elderly among them compare that number to the rest of the tribe. Your chances of growing old and being some "tribe elder" are probably something like 20:1(I imagine it various from tribe to tribe)
And here's the big catch:People are just as horrible weather they're holding a cell phone or a stone axe.
To your credit tribal lifestyles do have some advantages and there may be people who would be happier in them. However it is important to realize that movies like Avatar don't accurately depict tribal life(murder, starvation, illness, ect). I admit the societal growing pains of rapidly evolving technology are problematic but I feel that's a separate issue.
On another note I liked the movie, definitely recommend seeing it in 3D.
Flame War GGGOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Valid points Neil, I did not mean to discount medicine with the rest of Technology. Certain parts of technology are extremely valuable and should be encouraged to flourish. I.E. Medicine, knowledge storage and sharing, long-range communication, plumbing and sanitation, etc. Ideally humanity should exist in a state where technology exists to improve the quality of human life, currently much of technology exists to make human life more complicated.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the day when TV, Cellphones, and computers all become the same device. It'll cut down on our energy requirements and allow us to focus on one aspect of technology at a time rather than being infused with all of it.