Day 70, Avatar, Did I 'see' it? (I did but it was called...)

"So, what did you think?" is the reverberating mantra as we all stand out our cushy popcorn laiden seats and grab our mysterious trash. I didn't want to answer because I had such mixed feelings. So, after 48 hours of work, a 3.3 mile run, and a several cups of coffee, ...I think I can write something that is not completely nonsensical. Here's my try.

It took awhile for me to get passed the Ferngully, Dances with Wolves, Never-Ending Story, Star Wars, Zelda and Smurf overtures. Ferngully/Zelda because it seemed I was watching a documentary on the rain forest and how the 'great tree' held everything together in green peace. Dances with Wolves, as the new 'Kevin' be-friends a tribe and eventually goes 'en-gine' (Indian) on the United States Calvary taming the ta-tonka (Buffalo). Never-Ending Story, because who in the world can hang on to any animal and fly. Star Wars because, if you remember in Star Wars I, the Naboo people with Jar-Jar...I truly thought an Ewok/Wookie would be running around in the luminescent backdrop. Finally, the smurfs on roids. Where has our imaginations taken us but to bizarre 'smurf/humans' that have more than idealized bodies.

That's just the ongoing internal references.

From a religious, not so critical perspective, the observation looks like: A clear 'mother-earth' theme, laced with female leadership at all levels, Cycle of life, and the bizarre worship ceremony at the Tree of Souls which looked very similar to Eastern/ Temple of Doom. The ominous LAN (Local Area Network) between the creation and humanity, that is at odds because we have not 'tamed' it. 

Bottomline: As I watched toward the end of the movie, I began to think if this would be something that honors God. Not from a language/partial-nudity aspect, which I found disturbing, but more from a continual blurring of 'green-thought' and what God reveals through Scripture. The problem with the Creation is not bound up in a depletion of resources or over-population. The creation was seen and pronounced by God as good in Genesis. After the Fall, humanity and creation are longing for a state-of-redemption in which the created order is restored, not recycled. We long for resurrected bodies, not absorption (my argument for burial and not cremation). Christians are not Platonist, and should fight the temptation to be drawn in to seeing the body as evil and the soul good. Christ, when he came out of the tomb had his body that was glorified/still had scars.


Would I see it again? I doubt it. As the songs we sing reflects what we believe, I believe Avatar reflects an ever-growing tension of the movie industry trying to direct our thinking through art.