I didn't see Dances with Wolves. It came out when I was a teenager and I just didn't give a crap. So I won't draw the inevitable conclusion that just about everyone else has drawn, outside of this sentence...
The good: It was pretty. The forest was pretty. The animation was sharp. The people and animals were as good or better than anything Lucas could do. And that's about it.
The bad: There was sooo much bad. The story. Sticking with the Lucas comparison, it was as bad a story or worse than anything Lucas could do. I'm talking Episode 1 bad. This movie made Jar Jar Binks seem like a viable character with depth. OK, call the Death Star an unimaginative name for a space station. But surely it is more imaginable to the power of 10 of the key element in the film, Unobtainium. Unfrickingbelievable.
It was a typical leftist sob story.
The military leader is a testosterone pumped up single minded killing machine. No explanation needed, because we know that's a leftists' view of military leaders. Blood thirsty simply for the sake of blood thirstiness. As two dimensional a character as ever dreamed up. The only thing missing from this cliche was a gloriously evil exposition by the military guy of his sadistic beliefs. But again, that would inject the tiniest amount of depth into the character, and we can't have depth. Thrown in are scoffing bits to get the lib sheeple to nod in appreciation: A joke about Shock and Awe, another line about a war on Terror... Ugh.
Of course you can't slam the evil military without slamming the evils of capitalism. It's Haliburton in space. Another flat construct, the giant corporation that exists only to ravage and exploit while on its way to profit. Eviiiiiil Profit! The corporation was every bit as unimaginative and unexamined as Lucas's Trade Guild. So in this respect it was on par with Episode 1.
Anti Male (especially anti white male). Of course you can't have anti military and anti capitalism without the third leg of this red-herring tripod, the anti white male clap-trap you typically see. The military is almost exclusively white and skin headed. They hate the monkey aliens. They don't smile, only scowl with heavy brows and sloping foreheads.
The only good guys in either the corporation or the military are a wonderfully diverse planet saving hodgepodge, a melting pot of typically enlightened liberal anti-establishment. A latina woman saves the day. A female scientist saves the day. A black scientist saves the day. A
The only focus group that isn't represented is the one liberals in power routinely ignore with every chance they get. Sadly, just as with the Obama administration, Jim Cameron doesn't throw a bone to the gays. No gay male thumbing his nose at the military industrial complex. Nope, sadly, no gay guy sashaying in to save the day in Avatar...
Propaganda aside (I won't call it indoctrination since it was not compulsory viewing), the story was just weak. Like Episode 1 it relied on the beauty of the CGI to carry the piss-poor story. And it failed, at least in the eyes of anyone not a typical leftist sheep. Come on. If the planet could muster all sorts of life forms to come to its aid at the end, why couldn't it make all those floating mountains crush those slow moving ships? Why couldn't the planet just regurgitate the Unobtainium (heh) into the hands of the evil capitalists and sent them on their way to the next planet to strip mine? I'd pick apart more of the story...That is, if more of the story existed to pick apart. There just wasn't any. It was leftist cliche after leftist cliche.
I am torn, while I truly loathed Star Wars Episode 1 and want to keep it in the lowest bowels of my movie list, I have to put Avatar below it. Episode 1 wins simply by way of the epic Darth Maul lightsaber duel at the end. And that creates a conundrum for me. For now I have to like Avatar a little bit, because it raised my appreciation, however slightly, for Lucas' abortion otherwise known as the Phantom Menace.
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