Avatar 2: Hollywood's Beautiful Woke Dream
I just got back from watching Avatar: The Way of Water on the big screen. In 3D. If you want to see some of the most beautiful special effects ever seen in the history of filmmaking, this is the movie to see. However, be warned.
I read that unlike the first film, which was about the greed of capitalism, the evils of the military, the destruction caused by technology, and the superiority of primitive tribes over modern culture, that this sequel was about family and family values. Unfortunately, I had been misinformed. Unless you live in a woke family that abhors all of modern civilization and its accomplishments.
In this visually stunning movie, the heroes are members of a peaceful, joyous tribe of vegetarians who live on the planet Pandora where all get along peacefully under the rule of the American ex-Marine Jake Sully who has not only joined the tribe but come to rule them. Peacefully of course. Everyone is happy. Even the plants and animals on the planet, with the exception of one monstrous shark-like fish, work alongside each other. There are no fights, no jealousies, no disease, no wars, and never a famine or natural disaster. These people worship an all-giving and all-comforting tree. There are no conflicts whatsoever. Except, of course, with the vicious Americans who, for some inexplicable reason, are out to wipe out the planet’s entire population. And make no mistake about it, these are American Marines, not some other-worldly visitors, who speak English, wear American military gear, and use American military vocabulary while sporting American university logos on their T-shirts. Reminiscent of tales from the Vietnam War, these Marines gleefully burn down villages and torture the natives, including women and children.
Due to the superiority of the primitive culture, the natives, who have never experienced conflict until the Americans arrived, are able to overcome twenty-second century military technology with their superior courage and bows and arrows. I’m talking about bows and arrows defeating helicopters, battleships, robots, and cybernetically enhanced humans with automatic weapons. The natives do have flying dragons, but those are just for transportation because, as I’ve said, the animals on the planet are all peaceful.
I did wonder what all these animals ate since they all lived in peaceful symbiosis. In fact, they communicated with the peaceful but fearsome natives including the whale-like creatures that are far more intelligent than any other creature on the planet, according to the story, because they wander the seas composing music and forming advanced philosophies that they communicate telepathically to the natives. This was explicitly explained in the movie.
I’m not sure what kind of philosophies were needed by people who lived perfect lives in complete harmony with all of nature except, maybe, kill all humans. Because if you want to see humans die, this is your movie. The body count is in the hundreds if not thousands, and the music rises in glorious celebration for each human death, encouraging the audience to cheer.
So if you want to see possibly the most beautiful motion picture ever created, using the kind of technology that the movie makes clear is evil, raking in the billions of dollars that the movie makes clear is evil, and cheer the deaths of hundreds of humans while disparaging all the progress of Western civilization, this is the movie for you. As for me, I’m going to watch Top Gun: Maverick once again, to cheer for the right stuff instead.