A Wonderful Avatar Article

[Icu]

Nassau Weekly | "If I Could Just Leave My Body For a Night"

Everyone should read that. Despite some misspellings and a few small detail errors, it's a wonderful interpretation of Avatar and what makes it so great.

[tallbluewanderer]

This article is brilliant. A quote from near the end:

Perhaps Avatar has been so successful in getting people to confront their pain of separation because, like Dreyer's film, it also includes an element of self-representation in the form of the Avatar program itself. Like humans controlling avatar bodies, we can only experience the movie's fantasy world from a distance. We share in Jake Sully's joy as he explores Pandora, as he joins the Na'vi and fights to defend them against the greedy humans invading their world. But his adventure is haunted all the while by a silent but ever-present specter: the fact that, despite all appearances, he is not really there. No matter how much he feels at home in his avatar body, it is still an extension of the paraplegic human body that lies languishing in a metal cocoon. His experience, like ours, is vicarious, regardless of how beautiful and immersive and real it may seem. In this way, Avatar represents, within its own plot, the tragic lacuna between itself and us, thereby forcing us, however subliminally, to come to terms with it.

The author picked up on quite a lot that so many have missed -- it's a long read, but well worth it.

[Human No More]

Amazing article
It's so true, for the most part (EPIC failure about the ikran aside).
Escapism is always important and Avatar just took it to a new level

People ensconced in the comfort and stability of late-industrial civilization, in order to live with the ennui and claustrophobia that is an unavoidable by-product of their security, must fantasize about breaking out of the confines of the society so they do not have to deal with the consequences of doing so in real life. These escape fantasies are solipsistic—their content is determined entirely by the needs of the psyche that generates them. They comprise the negative space of a society, and the imagined Other that appears in them—in this case, the Na’vi—can be anything that approximates the shape of that space. By the same token, Dances With Wolves was not really about Native Americans—they just fit the space.

This. Says. It... PERFECTLY.

Also, whoever David Brooks is, I just added a name to the list of people I completely despise .

[ISV Venture Star]

Originally Posted by icu

Nassau Weekly | "If I Could Just Leave My Body For a Night"

Everyone should read that. Despite some misspellings and a few small detail errors, it's a wonderful interpretation of Avatar and what makes it so great.

Mllte oe nìwotx! Leiu txantsan nì'aw! Tsapamrelsiyu sì oe fpìl nìtengfya nang!

[Fighter-of-Wars]

Really a great article. Thanks for posting

[ISV Venture Star]

What I like about it is that the writer understands that there is nothing wrong with art that is in part designed to appeal to escapist urges.

[Grif]

Finally someone who can put all of our feelings into words.

[Empty Glass]

That was probably one of the best and most thoughtful commentaries on Avatar I've read. I'll have to read it again.

[CyanRachel]

Originally Posted by Empty Glass

That was probably one of the best and most thoughtful commentaries on Avatar I've read. I'll have to read it again.

Yes, agreed! I really enjoyed reading this commentary on Avatar -- the writer made some excellent arguments and seems to really get what Avatar is all about.

[Aketuan]

"The Na'vi, though, are physiologically different from humans in ways that point straight to the heart of what makes human existence so painful"

"Beneath all our idealistic fantasies of a perfect world, it is ultimately the inescapable limitations of our own bodies, our hated corporeal frailty—signified just as much by Dr. Grace's smoking habit as by Jake's disability—that is the source of our pain, and from that pain we will never be free. Avatar lets us believe, if only for a few hours, that someday we might be."

wow, that article was really well written and I agree with most of it. Seriously good ideas and thoughts.

Like Empty Glass, I think I may have to read it again.

[James of terra]

Great artile, I really enjyed reading it. Yes well writen.

[misstammie]

WOW that was great! I really enjoyed that and thanks for sharing ICU!

[Marvellous Chester]

A very great read! Really hit the nail on the head, shall certainly read it again.