My first take home message from the movie was that the natives could not be victorious over the oppressors without the assistance of rebels and outsiders who learned about, and then cared about native resources and way of life. Please note that I think like a 14-year old.

It was clear that the Navi would be destroyed, and that only a defiance and small rebellion within the technological side gave them any chance of hope. It wasn’t bows and arrows that won, it was rebellion and supernatural magic.

I didn’t walk away with a feel good “don’t worry, it all works out.” If anything, it was made clear that the Navi were going to get wiped out, period. That was clear in the first tree scene. Instead, I left feeling like, “dang, if something isn’t right, don’t just go along, make a difference”. I must admit I developed a little man crush on the lead role, so that maybe had something to do with it . I don’t think the message of trying to do the right thing is a bad message.

I asked my 11 and 13 year olds what they thought, and they said “it was pretty good.” Is it a slippery path to put too much into the messages of action movies or CG films? Star Wars? The small rebel forces beat a weapon that could destroy a planet. Bugs Life? If that bird hadn’t shown up, Flick was a goner. Up? I really don’t think it is safe to run around on falling blimps.

My other take home message was that drinking a 24-oz drink at a 3 hour movie was not a good idea.

In history and literature what follows is almost always a unilateral decision to effect a land grab and crush the natives through war, treaty abrogation, illegal settlement, economic sanctions, disease, cultural dominance, or the like.

In our modern world, this meme is solidly established (Hollywood no longer produces bowdlerized cowboys and Indians movies), and institutional opinion swayers know that the other side—audiences, consumers, voters, etc.—will not be convinced, mollified, or stupefied if the meme is ignored. So they choose a head-on, yet masked, approach: show the Crunchy-Granolans beating the evil miners, something which could not happen in real life. In this way, the irritating meme is replaced by a warmer, smoother one that offers a comforting, happy ending…and the real-life opposition is blunted.

In short, Nathan, even if your “less-concerned friends [will] be almost universally inspired to think about the issues presented after seeing the movie,” I suspect that they will experience comfort that the good guys can and do win, not indignation that the greedy bastards are and will continue to rape the planet.

While watching Avatar, they will, I judge, register the problem, but after sitting in a darkened theater being seduced by Cameron’s victory for the the little people (actually blue 10-footers), will they rise up to solve the real problem here on Earth?

Your point is that the movie makes people think that “bows and arrows” can win against the machine, when they can’t. You think this lulls people to sleep in the face of a real danger — that of imperial, corporate, fascistic greed and power. You think that if the Na’vi were slaughtered it would have politicized the audience better against the machine.

I’m not so sure.

I think you should go into more detail in both your blogs against AVATAR. If you give us more detail, we can prepare ourselves better for disagreeing with you.