"By now most of you have seen James Cameron’s blockbuster movie, AVATAR.
The night I saw it I knew this movie would strike a chord with large audiences worldwide. I tweeted that anyone who saw the movie was going to want to live on Pandora, the home planet of the 10-foot tall, blue skinned Na´vi.
The Na´vi people are tall, thin, tribal, handsome and fiercely brave. Pandora, their planet, is as beautiful as it is dangerous. The Na´vi live in a ubiquitous communion with each other and their world. The conflict arises when an evil corporation (surprise!) from Earth wants to exploit large deposits of a treasured mineral located directly under the Na´vi’s ancient home.
Interestingly enough, CNN reports that audiences are experiencing depression after viewing the movie, with some even entertaining suicidal thoughts. Others are experiencing an increased disgust with humanity.
I mentioned to a new friend of mine how I felt that many viewers would want to live on Pandora. He said that he asked his wife to paint herself blue. To me, these are totally understandable responses. The Na´vi live in community. The Na´vi are exotic, wise, fierce, and sexy. Their planet, Pandora, is filled with cool flora and fauna. Life there is an adventure.
Ok, so the fantastical Pandora is cool. What’s not to like?
But thoughts of suicide? Anger with the humans?
Many of us feel a slight sadness when we finish a great novel, or when a favorite television series ends. But depression?
Still, perhaps there is something here that we should pay attention to. Sometimes we minimize the distance between the world we live in, the world “as it is”, and the world we dream of, the world as “it could be”. The Na´vi live in the kind of dense community we long for but cannot seem to find. They are exotic, fierce, wise, and sexy. We are not blue, not fierce, often confused, and mostly look awful in thong underwear. Their lush planet and colorful lives are filled with adventure. Our lives seem gray in comparison.
Here’s where it all began to break down for me. The CNN article tells us, “Compared to life on earth Pandora is beautiful and glowing utopia”.
What?
This is a line written by someone who never gets outside. Heck, you don’t even have to go outside. Get the Discovery Channel for God’s sake.
Perhaps part of the problem is that while we wished we could live on amazing fictional planets, we’ve never taken the steps to really live here on this planet.
We are estranged from each other and our world, but not because humans suck and the “world is dying” (as one of the depressed said of Earth). Our problem is that we lack a mission worth giving our lives to, something worth defending, something worth dying for. Without this we often feel an emptiness to our lives and routines. Another part of the problem is that we spend too much time being heroes in fantasy worlds and games. We live action packed lives vicariously through television and movies. Since I adore movies and TV let me qualify this. “Too much time” is a relative. Some of us live before our screens to the exclusion of a real world that is filled with amazing adventures, vicious predators, and lots of opportunities to die doing something really daring.
Just a couple of days before I heard about the “Avatar blues” I was listening to a new friend of mine, Steve, tell of his experience on a hunt in Africa. He and a mutual friend of ours, Terry, had fired on a Rhino and the behemoth charged them. Steve tells me that you could feel the ground tremble as this angered beast ran at them. Terry, he said, took two steps forward at the Rhino, ground trembling beneath their feet, cocked his gun, and fired.
That’s not fiction. That’s adventure. Earth is as beautiful, as dangerous, as lush a utopia as Pandora. There is a difference. Utopia means “no place”. That’s Pandora - no place. It’s not real. Earth, however, is real. You just gotta get out now and then.
I wonder what would happen if some of us actually got to live on Pandora? Would we spend our Pandoran days playing fantasy games in which we were Earthlings like Steve and Terry who actually went out once in a while and had adventures?
For Christ following people, Avatar is a reminder that in Christ we have a mission, and on that mission we will have adventures a plenty. We live in a real world of real splendor populated by real residents who are under attack. The cause is real. The risk is real. Because the cause and the risk are real, the conditions for dense communion with others exist. It’s up to us to step into it. So put the remote down. Here’s the call: Heroes Wanted in the fight for humanity and for the quest to save the planet. Safe Return Doubtful.
what do you think?"
