[RonPrice]

The film Avatar has been out and about for four months(12/09 to 4/10) after being in development since 1994. I have read many reviews, listened to many comments and discussed it’s style and content with many both in cyberspace and in our wide-wide-world. This prose-poem tries to encapsulate some of my initial thoughts on this blockbuster, its initial reception and some of its meaning.

James Cameron, who wrote, produced and directed the film, stated in an interview that an avatar is: “an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form." In this film, though, avatar has more to do with human technology in the future being capable of injecting a human's intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body. "It's not an avatar in the sense of just existing as ones and zeroes in cyberspace,” said Cameron; “it's actually a physical body." The great student of myth, Joseph Campbell(1), should have been at the film’s premier in London on 10 December 2009. I wonder what he would have said.

Composer James Horner scored the film, his third collaboration with Cameron after Aliens and Titanic. A field guide of 224 pages for the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora was released by Harper Entertainment in late November 2009. The guide was entitled Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora. With an estimated $310 million to produce the film and $150 million for marketing, the film has generated a myriad positive reviews from film critics as well as its share of criticism especially over what many reviewers refer to as the film’s simplisitc content.

Roger Ebert, one of the more prestigious of film critics, wrote: “An extraordinary film: Avatar is not simply sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough."-Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 5 April 2010.

Like viewing Star Wars back in ’77
Some said/an obvious script with an
Earnestness & corniness/part of what
Makes it absorbing/said another/Gives
You a world, a place/worth visiting/eh?

Alive with action and a soundtrack that
Pops with robust sci-fi shoot-'em-ups...
A mild critique of American militarism
And industrialism... yes the military are
Pure evil... the Pandoran tribespeople
Are nature-loving, eco-harmonious, wise
Braveheart smurf warriors. Received...
Nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards
Of the Broadcast Film Critics Association &
On and on go the recommendations for the..
Best this and that and everything else. What
Do you think of all this Joseph Campbell??

You said we all have to work our own myth(1)
In our pentapolar, multicultural-dimensional
World with endless phantoms of our wrongly
Informed imagination, with our tangled fears,
Our pundits of error, ill-equipped to interpret
The social commotion tearing our world apart
And at play on planetizing-globalizing Earth.(2)

(1)If readers Google Joseph Campbell they can find some contemporary insights into the individualized myth that Campbell says we all have to work out in our postmodern world.
(2)The Prophet-Founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh, has been presented as an avatar in India beginning, arguably, in the 1960s. There were only 1000 Baha’is in India in 1960 and now more than 2 million. Baha’u’llah has been associated in the Bahá'í teaching initiatives with the kalkin avatar who, according to a major Hindu holy text, will appear at the end of the kali yuga, one of the four main stages of history, for the purpose of reestablishing an era of righteousness.

There are many examples of what one might call a quasi-cross-cultural messianistic approach to Bahá'í teaching in India. This approach has included: (a) emphasizing the figures of Buddha and Krishna as past Manifestations of God or avatars; (b) making references to Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita, (c) the substitution of Sanskrit-based terminology for Arabic and Persian terms where possible; for example, Bhagavan Baha for Bahá'u'lláh, (d) the incorporation in both Bahá'í song and literature of Hindu holy spots, hero-figures and poetic images and (e) using heavily Sanskritized-Hindi translations of Baha'i scriptures and prayers.

Ron Price
5 April 2010

[Fr_Chuck]

I am sure there had to be a question in there somewhere, but beats me If I can find it.

These are not blogs, and I am sure that would be a good answer if someone had asked a question about it.

The movie, OK, I think it was related to political or religion too much, as a advertising method, if it gets condemned or talked about, most likely more people go see it.

[ballengerb1]

Yep, just go see it and don't try to diagnose the "meaning". I watched it and turned to my wife and said, Dances with Wolves in outer space, she agreed

[ebaines]

Yep, just go see it and don't try to diagnose the "meaning". I watched it and tryuned to my wife and said, Dances with Wolves in outer space, she agreed

Yep - also it could be "The Last Samarai" in outer space. White warrior is sent to help conquer the savages, but ends up becoming one of them.

[albear]