For me this movie was many things including a wake up call and a cautionary tale. What the so- called bad guys were doing in this movie is not a far cry from what our members of the military have been commanded to do for sometime. We rape and destroy people’s sacred land and kill innocent people. We need to recognize it and take responsibility for it. The cautionary tale for me is, those that might possibly be capable of stopping the destruction of our earth and entire cultures need to be doing all we can, otherwise innocent people are forced into the position of defending themselves or dying.

Jake doubted that his prayer would be answered and acknowledged to the tree that he was acting out of desperation. Neytiri educates him that this is not how Eywa, their goddess works. She says Eywa does not choose sides, she finds balance. What transpires is a miracle–as they exist in many religions and cultures– those things stories and folklores are made of. You said that the message was that we should passively wait for some supernatural force to save us. The Na’vi were not living in this manner. They were living in balance with their environment. They saw life and their world as sacred. They built supportive communities. When they had no other choice but to defend themselves they did.

I did, to some degree, agree with David Brooks critique that the movie smelled of the white messiah male saves the native people. On the other hand I do think their is an important message even with this decision. Jake was a military man himself that was broken and then transformed by ‘seeing’ another culture. A people that if he were on assignment would have been following commands to shoot and kill. Because of his connection and understanding of the invading army he was able to protect the Na’vi from being dessimated. A message is that it is most effective for people within a culture, that understand a culture, to have an influence in ending their own cultures’ destructive tendencies. Imagine if Grace had spoken in defense of the Na’vi sooner. Imagine if Jake had not been so desperate to walk and then exploited with a promise for surgery. What if more of the military folk learned to see and appreciate the Na’vi or spent more time in the forest.

Having said all of this, I do agree that it did have a comic book or fairy tale quality of good vs. bad. But for me the imagery and message of life, nature and balance as sacred were more powerful than the good vs bad storyline. It was the justaposition of the sterility of the lab and the concrete landing area to the beauty of the natural world. Other imagery – tanks and giant man controlled robots within the context of the beautiful forest seeking out super condensed natural energy to quickly expend and continue to be too powerful and destructive. I’ll stop there for now. I didn’t spend enough time trying to understand your perspective, obviously I liked the movie and the message alot. Paul hasn’t seen it yet. I may even go a second time with him, I’ll let you know if my opinion changes.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by theimageoffish: Ethics, Eschatology, and “Avatar.” Some theological concerns about the current blockbuster: http://ow.ly/V3uz...

Shalom,
Jesse