The Vatican critique on AVATAR

[stellinacadente]

Now... I was just logging into my Yahoo! messanger and This http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/vatican-says-avatar-no-masterpiece-ap

captured my attention..

Now I have seen Avatar and I am not particulary found of it only because my impression was of just another Big guns vs good guys movies and they make me nervous and mad...

The only thing I have appreciated about the movie was the fact that somebody has had the gutts to bring onto the big screen the Spiritualism of Nature that organized religion has attempted to wipe clean for two thousand years...

what really makes me laugh is that the Catholic church still feels threatned by the "witches"....

but if the Old Religion was so false... why bother???

It  really makes me wonder LOL

[Darlica]

I wouldn't even call that critique... 


The reason?
I guess the old men of the Vatican feel the power that their religion used to hold over people is slipping away.
And what better way to get the sheeps back in the enclosure than telling them about the big bad wolf... Hoping the sheep will be so scared they'll jump right back over the fence where they can be duly punished for trying to think for them self.



I haven't seen the movie yet, but perhaps I should...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There are definitively more subversive movies (the upcoming Legion may possibly be quite subversive, or even the castrated Golden Compass), but when the movie is a hit that millions -possibly billions- of people will watch they have reason to be touchy even if there is no specific discourse on the movie.

Specifically, in the movie the Na'vi don't worship nature but communicate with it, but apparently the link of tails is a worrisome metaphor for the Vatican. Ironically by criticizing the movie they actually come as anti-environmentalists even when supposedly the pope is for the respect of the environment.

I guess my ranking of the Catholic faith in the other thread is justified...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I liked Avatar. Fern Gully with guns and the visuals were stunning, even if I do agree with some critics when they note the following:

Blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have criticized the film, with some calling it "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" and that it reinforces "the white Messiah fable." Cameron says the real theme is about respecting others' differences.

The RCC makes me giggle.

[pieces o nine]

Benedict has often spoken about the need to protect the environment, earning the nickname of "green pope."

There's a photo manip in there somewhere...   

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Personally?

I think the RCC had invested some serious coin, hinging on the success of the movie.

And to ensure the widest possible audience (and hence, the highest return on their coin) they immediately criticized it.

Nothing makes a movie more successful, than criticism from the holy C....

<eyeroll>

[Swatopluk]

One would actually expect some right-wingers to like the movie. The hero is accepted by the tribe because he is a warrior (not one of these weakling science guys that tried earlier and failed). And the white messaiah leading the natives to victory falls into a similar category. The true leader of the white invaders dies fighting for what he believes, so he too could be an identification figure for a certain kind of people.
Well, of course the movie is liberal with the subtlety of a sledgehammer but what else would you expect from Cameron?
Thus the Vatican's critique has something for it as far as it stays out of theological arguments. That the movie could lead to a significant number of people to switch from Roman Catholic to Wiccan is on the other hand preposterous.
Btw, how did the church react to E.T.?

The first critique to be expected from 'Christians' would have to be about lots of (near) nudity and a sex scene not content.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Apparently the 'sex' scene* was edited out and will be in the DVD extended version.

*the joining of the tails... 

[Swatopluk]

Can't remember whether that was in or not in the cinema. But they went to work on each other in any case explicitly enough
---
As for Weaver smoking, I think it is obvious in the movie that it is an undesirable habit. And who the netherworld cares unless it turns into an ad.
One could only wonder where she gets the cigarettes, if there is no plant life left on Earth (or did her family do a Kennedy-before the-Cuba-embargo, storing several life supplies of the stuff before it became unavailable?  )

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I imagine it's no more wild plant life on Earth, so all of it is made of crops.

[Swatopluk]

Or it could be synthetic cigarettes. Nicotine is a relatively simple compound.
Is the brand name visible anywhere?

[Aggie]

Cigarettes seem a bit anachronistic for the future. Nicotine, OTOH, is here to stay.

Surprised the drug companies haven't figured out how to covertly market nicotine gum as 'cool', should appeal to the energy-drink crowd.  Better packaging might help.

[Swatopluk]

In an old Czech SciFi movie (Ikarie XB1) cigarettes have been replaced by a kind of smelling stick, so the habit of fingering theses little things remains but without (I suppose) the negative effects on health.

[goat starer]

the vatican are racist against blue people.

they hate the smurfs too

[beagle]

they hate the smurfs too

That might explain where my 20% Catholic score came from. I can't think of any other explanation...