Sneak Peak at Disney "Avatar Land"

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by weka

This is the Internet, you can swear.

LOL, iron jones is the last person you need to tell that to.

Most forum software comes with the option for admins to make it so that swearing is automatically censored, and I'm pretty sure most swear/curse words are censored here.

As for the topic at hand, I'm not terribly excited for this attraction.

The message behind Avatar, in a nutshell, is to be considerate about how your lifestyle(s) and actions impact non-human lifeforms. An important part of this is not "over-consuming", which is something that many people in modern countries/societies (especially "Americans") are quite guilty of doing.

Over-consuming is when a culture becomes obsessed with things like shopping, eating and drinking from potentially artificial, processed sources (i.e. getting coffee from Starbucks every day or eating frequently at restaurants instead of eating at home) that damage the environment, and doing all of the above as cheaply as possible.

A large mass-market theme/amusement park is the very embodiment of all those things. For that reason, I am not excited that an attraction like this ended up at Disney world, and I feel kind of like James Cameron/Lightstorm chose this location because of the sheer utility (which would be hard to find elsewhere), but Disney wants it there just because it will turn a big profit for them.

Finally, this is a theme park catering mostly **to children**. If I'm going to be walking around in a recreation of a chunk of Pandoran jungle, I don't want be stepping in sticky soft drink spills and stale popcorn while avoiding someone else's poorly-behaved brood of vermin as they run around screaming. Also, this isn't going to include anything new or revolutionary. It's probably going to have some really nice scaled models of Na'vi and Pandoran plants and animals, and some interactive stuff, but it probably won't be as nice as the Seattle exhibit, even if it is on a larger scale.

There will probably be some really amazing opportunities for cosplay, and I'm interested in seeing models of the different kinds of plants and animals, but otherwise, I'm more excited that it is in Florida, and since we'll have a meetup there that means we get to go see Florida, which is a glorious gem of biodiversity (in the places that haven't been converted into retirement homes, anyway).

[Empty Glass]

Originally Posted by Raiden

The message behind Avatar, in a nutshell, is to be considerate about how your lifestyle(s) and actions impact non-human lifeforms. An important part of this is not "over-consuming", which is something that many people in modern countries/societies (especially "Americans") are quite guilty of doing.

Over-consuming is when a culture becomes obsessed with things like shopping, eating and drinking from potentially artificial, processed sources (i.e. getting coffee from Starbucks every day or eating frequently at restaurants instead of eating at home) that damage the environment, and doings all of the above as cheaply as possible.

A large mass-market theme/amusement park is the very embodiment of all those things.

I have to admit these are some of my thoughts and worries too.