That was a movie of stunning insight and lack there of.

Insight:

1) “Our only choice is a preemptive strike.”

2) “Stock holders hate a bad quarterly report” (this is why I don’t invest.)

3) Basically the idea that relocating some people group is never a viable solution.  It didn’t work for the native americans, the Masai, etc., etc., etc.

Lack of Insight:

1) Apparently, if you’re indigenous, you must be kind of African.

2) A world as complex as Pandora only has 15 people groups (clans) and they all look they same, speak the same language, etc.

3) Indigenous populations can win their battles if they get white people to pray to their animist goddesses. WTF?

On different note, it was stunningly well done from a CG standpoint.  It trod the line nicely between creating a world that suspended belief and just having downright believable character animation.  These were no Gungans running around—the characters had many of the small subtle movements that real life people have, adjusting balance, brushing stuff out of the way, picking things up in a way that made them actually conveyed the item’s weight.  This is the first mostly CG movie I’ve seen that I could forget that fact.

On the other hand the mech suits just bothered me.  I mean how is one really supposed to control a big chunk of metal by waving your sensor covered arms around?  It doesn’t make sense.  Humans can’t manipulate something without tactile feedback. And secondly, a machine that large can’t match the speed of a humans reflexes, just based on size.  Big stuff moves slowly for a reason.  Two movies this year with lousy mechs.  Bleah.

So yeah.  Basically, the movie had a heart until the Home-Tree got cut and then came the indigenous people beating the Marines bit.  That kind of shit just doesn’t happen.  The indigenous people get crushed, relocated and their resources extracted.  End of story.  Look at history, we just happen to be the ones who’ve done the crushing.  It sucks to be part of that people group, but probably not as much as it sucks to be one of the indigenous people—and I don’t mean that in a let’s keep on doing this sort of way.  But we probably will.  I mean I need my cheap cotton underwear from El Salvador and a slick iPhone made by people in China who are essentially slaves…

Ok I’ll pull it back together now. Good movie.  Well done.  Hollywood ending.

Let’s just say I’m a bit disappointed with you, Ohio.  After the past two elections I thought maybe you were getting the hang of things.  Vote down Casinos.  Vote in a Governor that isn’t obviously crooked.  Ban Smoking.  You even did a decent job not being racist in the presidential elections last year.  But what happened?  I thought we had an understanding here. Remember 2007?  We said no casinos, right? And here you go changing your constitution to let in casinos and you don’t even get a decent tax rate?!?  Did they really take you in by saying they’d give you 34,000 jobs? Do you actually believe for a minute that those are lasting permanent jobs instead of fluffy pink fairy-like jobs that soon go flitting off to the next state in need of casinos?  Well I guess the respite is over, I’ll go back to a cold ambivalence towards you, Ohio.  Please don’t take it personally, you just don’t know what’s good for you.