By Jason Apuzzo. Most of the attention surrounding the re-release of Avatar in ‘special edition’ form has centered around the extended ‘alien sex scene’ – which is sounding pretty tame, frankly. [Having recently seen Piranha, of course, pretty much everything is seeming tame right now.] Buried, however, in an article today from The New York Post, is this tidbit from James Cameron about another scene that’s been put back in the film – a scene Cameron refers to as “the drums of war.”
• A scene Cameron calls “the drums of war,” which he hopes will clarify why the humans choose to wipe out the Na’vi. He compared it to America’s decision to invade Iraq. “We had to provoke Saddam to do something stupid, and it’s like that with the humans invading Pandora,” he said. “I felt when I was writing it that the Na’vi had to counter-react and do something that is called an atrocity that gave [humans] the moral right to go in and destroy and displace them. The additional footage is pretty short, but it fulfills that purpose.”
So let me untangle this for you. Cameron’s ‘thinking’ more or less proceeds as follows:
• America invaded Iraq by ‘provoking’ Saddam into doing “something stupid.” What was that, exactly? Refusing to allow in weapons inspectors? How did we ‘provoke’ him to refuse weapons inspection?
• In Avatar, the Na’vi are thus ‘provoked’ into committing something that is “called an atrocity.” So is it an “atrocity,” Mr. Cameron … or isn’t it? Does an atrocity become less of an atrocity if it’s provoked?
• The atrocity which isn’t actually an atrocity because it was provoked then becomes the pretext for the humans moving in and exploiting the Na’vi’s land. Or something.
Did you get that?
By the way, I’d like all the people out there who still aren’t sure whether Avatar is a political film to please raise your hands – so Mr. Cameron can hand you some free, prune-flavored suckers.
Incidentally, Cameron says today that an Avatar sequel may not arrive in theaters until 2014. What a relief.
Posted on August 23rd, 2010 at 12:51pm.
How typical and how lame of Cameron. As if his film wasn’t left-wing enough as it was, he has to add this junk in. BTW, who are these people who still think “Avatar” isn’t political?
These people do exist … in fact, I think they represent a large portion of the film’s audience. [Sigh.]
I now officially lump James Cameron into the same pile of steaming horse manure that’s occupied by Oliver Stone and Michael Moore. Please Lord Deliver Us!
In fact, I’d like to rant about Comrade Stone for a moment. I watched a documentary last night called John Ford Goes to War. Fascinating film about Ford’s documentation of the World War II. It had the usual interviews from folks like Peter Bogdanovich with the hideous exception of God Knows Why, Oliver Stone! He had the gall (more likely a cocaine backlash) to criticize Ford’s overt display of patriotism in his documentaries and said he’d confront Ford about! (I suppose Olivie is too stoned to realize that Ford is dead) If We had guys like him doing our documentaries in World War II, We probably be all singing the Horst Wessel Song today as our national athem!
I think the only reason Stone might’ve appeared is that he is a veteran himself, who volunteered for a lot of combat duty. So essentially he’s earned the right to make an ass of himself many times over … but it depresses me that so many people continue to give him platforms from which to do that.
Yes he did actually serve and in fact volunteered to go to Vietnam. I salute him for that and cannot salute folks like say George W Bush who used his daddy to get into the Air National Guard or have bodyguards provided by his daddy like Al “Toker” Gore did when he was a reporter for Stars N Strips in Vietnam. It’s modicum of redemption for a fairly despicable person that’s pushed the most negative view of America.
I hear you.
I love how leftists bleat for Saddam Hussein. The guy murdered a million of his own people, and the U.S. is the bad guy here … unreal.
So, according to James Cameron, the U.S. made Saddam gas Kurds, and build a giant nuclear weapons facility? Did we plant the 550 tons of yellow cake in Saddam’s facilities, too?
I’m not a huge fan of the war in Iraq, but its legalities can’t be disputed. Because leftists like Cameron push the same lies, you never really get into a constructive debate on an Iraq policy because you spend all the time swatting the misinformation like hitting at a batting cage — it’s the same line over and over again.
Just following Cameron’s line of thought is such a tortuous exercise. It’s really incredible.
Here’s an idea: let’s NOT pay to see “Smurf-ahontas” again.
“Smurfahontas.” That’s pretty good. Did you come up with that?