| | Taking a page from John's book, I do find it helpful to see what Cameron himself has to say on the subject. Here's one helpful excerpt from IndieLondon:
Q. Can you talk about the politics of the film and its references to the war on terror, Ground Zero and the fact that the heroes are not the ones with huge mechanised forces. Was that deliberate?
James Cameron: Obviously, I think there’s a connection to recent events. There’s also a attempt to connect to Vietnam imagery, the way they jump off helicopters. I take that thread further back to the 17th and 16th centuries and how the Europeans displaced indigenous people from the Americas. I think there’s a lot of the wonderful history of the human race written in blood. You go back to the Roman Empire and further where we have this tendency to take what we want without asking, as Jake says. I see that as a broader metaphor, not as intensely politicised as some people might take it, but broader in that that’s how we treat the modern world. There’s a sense of entitlement. We’re here, we’re big, we’ve got the guns, the brains, there’s a sense of entitlement there fore we’re entitled to do every damn thing on this planet and that’s not how it works. And we’re going to learn that the hard way, unless we wise up and start seeking a life that’s in balance with the natural cycles of life on earth. This is the challenge before us.
The film espouses this kind of love-hate relationship with technology. The film uses technology to tell the story that is a celebration of nature, which is an irony in and of itself. But, I think that it’s not that technology is bad, it’s not that that a technological civilization is bad, it’s that we need to be in control of the technological process. We’re not going to be able to just rip our clothes off and run back into the wilderness. First of all, there’s no wilderness left. Second of all, that’s not going to work for 8 billion people. So, we’re going to have to think our way out of this using technology and science. We we’re also going to need to be human about it, get in touch with our emotions and with our understanding of each other. Part of the theme of the film, I think, is symbolised by the fact that it begins and ends with the characters eyes opening. It’s about a change of perception and about choices that are made once that perception has been changed.
(bold and underline not in original)
It's probably helpful also to consider Avatar in light of Cameron's past film endeavors: Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Titanic, Spider-Man. All of these reflect that same line bolded and underlined above.
Jordan
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