The true message of Avatar?
 

What is really the true meaning and message of Avatar?

Well, on one hand it is a commercial product, a movie that are made to entertain and also give the creators some money.

But on the other hand it is also a film that have a message that our own world is in peril, that governments and RDA-like companies are destroying it so it one day will end up in the sorry state that are implied in Avatar. Also these companies and governments are doing very similar things here on Earth today that they are doing on Pandora in the film. Indigenous people here on our own planet are suffering the same (and often much worse) hardships as the Navi.

So Avatar can be a wake up call for us to be more active in trying to fight against the RDA:s of the real world, to try to save the environment, to try to help indigenous people to survive and to look at our own life style and see if it contributes to the destruction or if it actually contributes to a better world.

It is nice and fine to long for Pandora, it is also nice and fine to love, or long for Neytiri. But to completely loose oneself in that world, to more or less distance oneself from all the things that are going on on our own planet is not so productive and I also think it goes against the message of the film.

Why bother when we are already way past the point of no return?

You mean the world is already beyond saving?

That depends what one would mean by saving. Is there even anything worth saving on this ball of dirt anymore?

"What is really the true meaning and message of Avatar?"

In my opinion, there is no inherent message in Avatar - or in any form of art whatsoever. There are messages many people see in Avatar, definitely, and there might also be messages the author intended. But to say these are *the* message of the movie, is to show ignorance towards everyone who sees beauty in the movie in different ways.

Some people see messages of environmentalism, some see the very opposite. Some see pagan messages, some see the movie as showing how everything can be explained through science. Some see pro-human messages, some see anti-human ones.

And none of all these ways to interpret the movie are wrong, or less true - we all see the movie differently, learn from it in different ways.

And that is truly beautiful.

There is no point of no return. Earth has gone through hell many times before livings things even came to be. It is humans flattering themselves to think we could do anything that would permanently damage Earth. We'll simply pollute and destroy until we're all dead....

Or we'll wake up and save ourselves and all the other animals. They're the choices.

Stop being so self righteous, as if YOUR personal interpretation is ideal and you think everyone should subscribe to it and give up their lives they enjoy.

I've looked for somewhere better than Earth for YEARS before I saw Avatar.

You can't dictate what people get from it. The rest of your OP is true for many people, including me, but that is not the only thing. I also see it being about transhumanism, about things people aspire to but can't reach, about how to do space exploration right, about how to use discoveries the right way and how to improve.
Just because someone likes somewhere that isn't Earth doesn't mean they can't change things there too. Just because you quite clearly didn't actually like Avatar as evidenced by the thread complaining about Neytiri doesn't mean you can start going "You're understanding it wrong!". This is why I see posts like these of yours as very suspect.

EXACTLY :).

Actually it seems that Cameron himself also sees Avatar as a way of making people aware about what is happening on our own world and if possible activate themselves to stop the ongoing destruction. He himself has also gone around to different threatened places, like the Xingu region, met the different peoples who live there and engaged himself in the struggle.

You can not really know how the Earth is until you have been around more and seen the many beautiful places there are and also some of the beautiful peoples that still exist. Ofcourse there are also ugly, destroyed places, bad people and hopelessness, but there are also fine, undisturbed places, people that still are truly human (in the best sence of the word) and even people that actually live a life close resembling to the Navi (without Ikrans though) and a way of looking at the world also remainding of the Navis.

I do not dictate anything, I just voice an opinion and perhaps a wish that Avatar will serve as an inspiration to save the best parts of our own world. And actually I believe it has already done so for many people.

I do indeed like Avatar otherwise I would not hang around an Avatar forum. I also like Neytiri but still I understand that she is a creation out of James Camerons fantasy that has been visualized through computer technology and also good acting by Zoe Saldana. Real, existing women, in our world is another thing though, they are of flesh and blood and some of them are as beautiful, or sometimes even more beautiful, than Neytiri and some of them has the same personal quality, or even better. And the real fine thing about them is that they are real.

Why must you be so condescending? You just assume he doesn't know what the world is like.


Once again assuming. Assuming people who are attracted to Neytiri are victims of a false representation of beauty. Assuming everyone shuns real women for movie characters.
Feminist.

Noone knows the whole world. It is a rather big place. And sometimes one can draw some conclusions of what people write.

I do not assume anything. But I sometimes see such tendencies among some people.

The thing is - no matter who stood behind Avatar's creation, it doesn't give the movie itself an inherent meaning. Avatar simply exists - and different people might interpret it differently. Cameron sees it in one way, but that doesn't make any other ways to see it less valid, or right. It's the same with any works of art - the artist might see it in one way, but there is no "right" or "wrong" way to interpret it. The artist's opinion is just one among many.


Neytiri is fully real. Not physically tangible, quite true, but certainly real. She has had as much of an impact on many of us as any physical woman - been a meaningful part of our lives, made us see more beauty in the world. And there is nothing wrong with that - it's a wonderful thing.

There are definitely many amazing women - and men - in our world, many of them, as you say, having the same 'personal quality' as Neytiri - and there is of course nothing wrong with wanting to share your life with any of these people. But that doesn't make Neytiri less real - one can see beauty in many persons and places in the world, and in the end, what one prefers is a highly individual thing.

I know people who are completely interested in any women on Earth, but would gladly spend the rest of their lives with Neytiri - and dreaming of it is making them happy, no matter how physically intangible she is. That is only something beautiful - Neytiri is making their lives better and brings beauty to their world. Though it might differ from what others want, that does not make it invalid or wrong.

Equally, there are a lot of people who are completely uninterested in Neytiri, but have deep desire to spend the rest of their lives with a man or woman here on Earth - and dreaming of that is making them happy. None of these goals or ambitions are more right than the others - we are simply different.

Some prefer physical tangibility, some prefer to dream of people beyond the physical - and some would gladly want both. We have to respect that we are all different, and as long as it's making us happy, there is nothing wrong with any of it.

If that was the only message, he'd have made a documentary, and would certainly have not made a scifi epic with as many themes as it had - it would have worked basic plot-wise without them.

Again, stop being self righteous.

It it OK with you if I do that while still preferring things about Pandora to Earth? </sarcasm>
I never said Avatar DIDN'T have a message about Earth. However, IMHO it has a lot of other themes too which someone can ALSO get inspiration from if they want.

Your continual threads complaining about it (BAAAAWWW NATIVE AMERICANS! BAAAAWWW BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ARE BAD! BAAAWWW PEOPLE DON'T INTERPRET IT THE SAME WAY AS ME!) suggest otherwise.

...and some of them aren't as beautiful. A fictional character should not have to be ugly to avoid being better than any living human.
Don't get all offended and start bashing Avatar in the name of humanity because Neytiri is better looking than some humans. I've seen less badly formed arguments on worthless middens like tvtropes.


Exactly :)

I don't believe in all that 'Death Of The Author' rubbish, but I think there's still significant room for interpretation in everything. I never said Avatar DIDN'T have a message about Earth; but also that it has numerous and pervasive futurist themes.

Again, I agree (even if I disagree on the definition of real there). Neytiri is just as inspirational as Avatar. That's a good thing.

I'm running out of ways to emphatically agree here :P

Wow.

http://theicarusproject.net/files/im...ll.preview.jpg


I'm sorry, but about all I get out of this is:

Likewise.


- Mikko

...you're right :(

I've just got so used to defending Avatar from trolls, I shouldn't have to on this site... that throws me a bit :'(

red, saying you like Avatar means nothing on its own. There are MANY people who like Avatar and don't want things from it directly, but they don't feel the need to complain about Avatar for having good looking characters or for causing people to like Pandora. By all means, you can very much not be physically attracted to Neytiri, but don't go making threads telling everyone else they shouldn't be and are bad and wrong for doing so and JC is for making a film with her in it...

But still in the end it is not she that make that impact, it is Cameron and his film team. But ofcourse it is a real achivement to visualize their creation in such a way that it is so belivable that it becomes a meaningful part of peoples lives. But that still does not make her real. She is still a fantasy.

Noting wrong in that really, but perhaps one shall not forget the real women out there. And if one do not like the women in our western culture one should be aware that there are women out there, still today, that live in cultures that have more resemblance with the Navi culture than our own society has. Perhaps one seldom, or never, really get a chance to meet them, but still one can direct some energy to try to help them to save their societies, their culture and the environment they live in. At least that is something that Avatar has encouraged me to do.