Avatar Accurately Mirrors Real Life Experiences in 3D

Recently, I took my family to see the movie, Avatar. I have read the critics reviews and comments about the movie. Some have said it is a movie about the environment, how it depicts humans as inferior to 'the blue people,' that it highlights worship of trees, etc. However I am of the view that we miss the point of the whole movie. You have to look at the big picture and see it to the end, than to take it apart bit by bit. It sounds much like the way we see life. Before you give up, look at the big picture and don't engage in looking at parts to make a determination of the end product. To watch Avatar, you need special glasses, just like life, you need special equipment to survive. In order to see the movie clearly, you have to wear 3D glasses, otherwise your vision will be blurred. 

The movie has a story. The hero is disabled and uses a wheelchair to get around. Because of his disability, he is treated as if he doesn't matter.  He had been a marine and had not studied formally. He was considered of no value to the system. He lacked the intellect and formal training, such study brings to do the job they needed him to do. They overlooked his natural intelligence that was hidden, because they focused on his obvious disability. This to me was a parody of today's life. People are judged based on their natural attributes, rather than on the content of their character and the potential they have. They (the leaders) wanted someone who could interface between the humans and the indigenous people of this faraway planet.

As the humans, or 'earth people' as they were later referred to, had conquered this planet, they wanted something valuable which the inhabitants had. They devised a scheme to infiltrate and over power the citizens or 'the blue people.' They were blindsided by their obliviousness to what happened next. The hero, Jake Sulley, developed a bond with the people and started to see things from their perspective. Whether it was his disability which gave him an insight into what it feels like to be conquered,  ignored or overlooked, is left up to your interpretation as you watch the story unfold.

It became clear to me that this was a satire on history as recorded from one perspective. We know for instance, that we have gone and conquered other peoples' land. We go in the name of love, and took away whatever they possessed, once we befriended them. Just because the blue people look different from humans doesn't mean that they are not valuable. Don't disregard someone just because he is different from you, nor overlook them because they sound different, look different, or practice different customs, etc.

What changed the hero's mindset? He started to see the people not as the conquered but that thy deserved to live the way they think they should in their own land. For Jake had to put on 3D glasses to see them, but once he did his vision was no longer blurred. he could see clearly what was being taken from them. With all the violence and mayhem going on around us. We need to stop and take a look at ourselves. What if we could see ourselves in 3D? Would we like it? I don't think so. We mistreat one another, we overlook people, because they are too black, too white, too brown, disabled, speak a different language, have different customs, different religions, different beliefs. Oh and just in case you were thinking that this movie is a political commentary of sorts,  it was written by a white man capturing his overview of recorded history. Perhaps he is right, just maybe. But I do know this. It is time to start looking at life with the right perspective. Wear glasses if you must. As long as your vision isn't blurred by whatever prejudices you have been raised to believe, you will just like in the movie, need your glasses put on.

This is the best movie I have seen in thirty years. It was like watching the first Indiana Jones, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, all rolled into one. Good old-fashioned Hollywood movie. One that has a plot and a story to it. Go out and see it for yourself. You, too will enjoy life in 3D.

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