Pocahantas Simba Binks Meets Avatar

Warning: Plot Spoiler. This review gives away parts of the plot (such as it is). My personal opinion is that a movie worth seeing won't be diminished by previous knowledge of the narrative, but some people can't live with it, so there you are.

The short version: Very long (2.5 hours), watchable, highly Disnified fairytale. No literary classic, but respectable visual and audio effects.

The longer version (but not as long as 2.5 hours):

In a galaxy far, far away, a mining company searches a primitive jungle planet for a mysterious precious mineral with the unlikely designation of something like “Unobtanium.” What this stuff is good for, we never know exactly, since all of the transportation modes involved in the fantasy world appear to operate in old-fashioned combustible ways, but for whatever reasons the stuff is highly desirable. Okay, we'll give them that.

The native inhabitants are a unique and vaguely jurassic group of spiritually interconnected plants, animals, and elongated blue humanoids with little use for the low-consciousness of the invading miners and their environmental carelessness. Coincidentally, deposits of the valuable mineral tend to be associated with the most important places in the native culture. Opposition from the natives and the hazards of the environment require the mining company to employ an army of ex-marines to insure security. If the native population doesn't cooperate, the Marines will also either forcefully relocate them, or eliminate as many as necessary to insure success of the mining operations.

Racing against the military profit schedule set by the corporate business manager, a team of dedicated scientists led by the crusty but culturally-conscious Sigorny Weaver as Grace, the science manager, struggles to find a workable diplomatic compromise by gaining knowledge of the native culture through the interaction of avatars, biological android replicants controlled by transfer of consciousness from a human operator. Just in case that wasn't sufficient provocation to produce avatars, human beings can only live in the atmosphere for about twenty seconds without gas masks. (Sorry folks, those are the rules, I didn't make them up.)

Into this predictable conflict of methodology and objectives, stumbles, so to speak, Jake Sully, a disabled Marine veteran who has lost the use of his legs under circumstances that are not clear, and is now, for reasons that are also not clear, the only suitable replacement to do the job of “sullying” the native culture as an avatar operator that was supposed to be his twin brother who has inconveniently died under circumstances that are even less clear. In a likewise somewhat incomprehensible deal, the militant and determined Marine Drill Sergeant Maniac commander of the security force offers to insure replacement of Sully's legs in return for his cooperation as an avatar operator to find something about the natives the mining company can use to force their cooperation. Apparently, as a fellow Marine, the Marine Drill Sergeant Maniac feels Jake's loyalty can be trusted. Unfortunately for the Marine Drill Sergeant Maniac, the native chief's attractive, independent daughter (think blue Pocahantas) conveniently rescues Jake in the character of his avatar (with a stylized minority face remarkably similar to Simba the lion cub) from the consequences of his own impetuous ignorance in the jungle. The inevitable follows.

Jake learns to appreciate the native culture as well as his shrewd and attractive native guide. His loyalties shift. The infuriated security chief convinces the business manager the time has come for violent action. The company sends in a team to destroy the native home-base (think Disney Tree of Life). The attack aircraft launch explosive incendiary rockets at the base of the colossal tree. The tree falls, and in the chaotic aftermath, the father of Pocahantas, I mean Blue Native Princess, gets speared by a fatal spike of the splintered tree.

Disowned by the natives for his human connections, poor Jake has to find a way to regain their confidence. This he accomplishes with a minimum of fuss by jumping onto a giant flying dinosaur and piloting the awesome beast in for a landing at the powow, becoming only the sixth or so successful major dino pilot in the long history of the natives. This is good enough for them. They take it as a sign.

The natives worship another weird tree (think fiber optic weeping willow) that serves as a kind of connection to the spiritual network of the planet. Unfortunately the tree grows on a promising location for Unobtanium. The company sends out an expedition of giant mining equipment, but Jake and the blue warriors head them off at the pass, so the business manager decides to go ahead with plans to drop a huge bomb on the site, and Jake leads the defense. Some kind of natural forces on the planet interefere with navigational instruments, so it's mano-a-mano, dino-riders against exo-suits.

In spite of their valiant effort and some help from their friends, including the scientists and a rogue copter pilot, the dinos and the natives are getting whacked by the massive firepower of the secuirty machines. Blue Jake jumps onto a flying humvee for a showdown with the Marine Drill Sergeant Maniac, and tosses a missle into the rotor, but Marine Drill Sergeant Maniac escapes in an exo-suit and Blue Jake makes a successful crash-landing through the sympathetic jungle vegetation.

On the ground, Marine Drill Sergeant Maniac in exo-suit takes on Blue Jake, Blue Pocahantas, and some of their dino back-ups. I won't spoil the duel by describing the outcome. I'll only suggest that it won't surprise you much.

As a teacher once put it to me, the simplest way to explain literature is that it messes with your head. Literature sells ideas like billboards sell cruises. How the ideas come across depends on a lot of things, including language, logic, comparisons, organization, all those things literature teachers are always ranting about as elements of literature whether they understand it themselves or not. This is also critical thinking, understanding how ideas are presented and their effect.

As literature, Avatar doesn't especially convey ideas successfully. The fundamental conflict between economics and nature represented by the mining company and the blue natives, a thinly veiled comparison to European colonial expansion, is something Disney has routinely exploited, exploited more effectively, and exploited with more blatant and complete hypocrisy (and I'm not even arguing that would necessarily be a bad thing for a business project).

What impact the narrative has depends, not on discovering any important or novel aspect of the relationship between nature and economics, but on contrived sentimentality of the sort criticized by Horkheimer and Adorno as products of the culture industry, predictable devices: destruction of the loyal companion, destruction of the devoted father, destruction of the loyal pet, destruction of the noble warrior, joining of the romantic characters, not things that have impact because of fundamental, inescapable personal connections, but things that have impact because of conditioned behavior, things that make you want to cry because they are supposed to make you want to cry.

To an extent, all emotional reactions are learned, conditioned, social behavior, but if that's all it is, then there is nothing authentic in the reaction. In that way, Avatar adds little or nothing to the conversation in the way that films like Blade Runner or Brazil added to the conversation, and the construction of the narrative is inconsistent. What supposedly happens to these avatars when the operator disconnects? Apparently they just go to sleep wherever they happen to be, which seems rather careless. Shouldn't they at least be parked somewhere secure?

Like a demanding mother, Grace insists on poking macaroni and cheese into Human Jake while the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. What kind of planning is that? Are clothes generated for avatars the same way as the avatars themselves? Why does one of the scientists' avatars always wear identical clothes? Doesn't that guy ever change clothes, in or out of the tank?

The only real critical success of Avatar is not in narrative or in social issues. The success is almost strictly in the detailed aesthetic world of imagination that conjures up the frightening proximity of unfamiliar creatures, provokes stomach-turning vertigo on the verge of numerous heights, or involves the viewer in the ceremonies and environments of a mystical race. Dinosaur-like predators attack with jarring presence. Fragile, glowing reptiles with wings and luminous jelly-fish insects float through the air. The characters scamper recklessly along mossy branches far above the apparent surface. The meager story advances through myriad views of unfamiliar life forms, but the thing painfully apparent is confinement to the passive visual and audio experience.

This is not an alien world. It is 3-D, the dimensionalizing of fantasy art into movement and sound. The floating mountains, the dinosaur-like dragon creatures, the weapons of the primitive tribe are all standards, not of profound insight, but of an esoteric, mock-medieval style of legend. It is a magnificent set without a script of any significance, and even the technical effect is questionable. It lacks the novelty of a Star Wars and merely utilizes the hyper-real production techniques of a Final Fantasy or even a Toy Story. In some ways more like the arbitrary identity shifts of a video game than narrative, Avatar ends up as an only somewhat successful and very long (2.5 hours) look through a constrained window of special effects, although for that length of time, even the accomplishment of not being totally boring is a degree of success.

I was rather struck that so many people in the audience would accept the corporation and the caricatures of the US military as enemies, that they would literally applaud the destruction of the strike force. But perhaps the joke is on me, because ultimately the representation of military loss is only pretend, and the message that remains attached to the visual spectacle seems to be that the fate of nature and culture depends not on right, or justice, or even on inner strength, but on the disputes and intervention of Anglo, male, U.S. Marines. Whether you are a predatory corporate enterprise, or a valiant blue native, you can't win without an Anglo male Marine on your side. Everything else is incidental, and resistance is futile. As true as somebody might like that to be, 2.5 hours is a long time to take for the message.

Here's Thinking for You
Iffy

Emily Dickinson Writes "The Gingerbread Man"

This is sort of a Christmas post, Martha Marinara’s fault. Suppose Emily Dickinson made gingerbread like she wrote poetry, or even worse, suppose she wrote poetry like she made gingerbread....

A pudgy fellow cooked by gas
Occasionally hides--
You may have met him--
Did you not
His notice sudden is--
The nose reacts as to a fork--
A flattened shape is seen--
And then it dashes past your feet
And sassy further on--
He likes an open doorway
A floor apart from meals--
But when a child and hungry
Returning after school
I passed I thought a morsel
Escaping on the run
When stooping to secure it
It danced away for fun--
Some of the kitchen’s people,
I know and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of familiarity
I never met this fellow
Accompanied or alone
Without a warmer feeling
And spicy taste of home.

Here's Thinking for You, Best Wishes for the Holidays

Iffy

Phantom Post

Information for Living

Probably most human activities involve critical thinking. Information frequently finds you unprepared, unavoidable, attacking in the most merciless and inconvenient ways. Walking across the street requires knowing and accumulating volumes of information about imagery, lighting, traffic, sounds, physics, customs, laws, history, religion, and philosophy, not to mention personal capabilities and characteristics of response. How to apply the information to the task requires analytical and associative thinking, projections of future outcomes and identification of patterns. Should I cross here? Is it safe? Should I hurry? Can a car get here before I can get across, or in the case of imminent danger and spiritual insecurity, perhaps before I can get a cross? Where’s the nearest traffic light? Should I obey the law? Is it convenient? Why should I cross in a pedestrian crossing? Do I care what other people think? Is that Brad Pitt over there?

Therefore, it goes without stating, which means, of course, that it will be stated, critical thinking concerns the most intricate and personal aspects of our lives, so why would critical thinking be an issue of concern somehow separate from any particular problem? Maybe one answer has to do with the necessity of noticing patterns. Accumulation of information for such diverse projects as genetic research and identity theft or hacking requires the identification of patterns connected to the production of information.

What are the situational patterns, the parameters, that provide clues to the operation of natural processes and to the behavior that controls access to property or other valuable information, and how do people think who gather and use that information? The analytical processes are closely related, the patterns that generate databases fundamental. One scholarly critic describes it as “Unit Operations,” the idea of producing information processing programs that are both reusable and modifiable in ways that allow adaptation to a variety of purposes. In general, for instance, word processing serves the purposes of both divinity and drug dealers.

What the recognition of fundamental or underlying patterns means for information fluency is that understanding how information works, finding information, using information; research, rhetoric, and critical thinking, suggests clues, not just to the subject of a specific inquiry, but to the complete range of information-critical problems. Understanding how to prepare and use research makes the products of the thinking and development behind hacking, identity theft, and online scams not entirely avoidable maybe, but certainly easier to recognize and deal with, which is another way of saying information fluency represents information for living.

Here's Thinking for You

Iffy

Playing Electronic Gotcha

Considering what mainstream remote computer surveillance software programs can do, the idea of either interfering with electronic communications or stealing information from electronic communication isn’t much of a stretch. Numerous programs available for under a hundred dollars can record information from a computer in as much detail as individual keystrokes or streamed display recording. (http://www.awarenesstech.com/TestDrive/overview/frame5.html)

If keystrokes and images from a computer screen can be recorded remotely, and not only remotely, but now over wireless connections, even from cell phones, gathering information surreptitiously (stealing?) only becomes a matter of getting the control program onto the target device. We don’t even want to think about how easy that may be, really, but apparently at least it isn’t completely automatic, because this is where scams and viruses come in as a convenient way of convincing people to cooperatively turn over their protected information.




http://www.ripoffreport.com/Employers/Career-Network-Aka-A/career-network-apple-staffing-2bn92.htm

http://www.gradtogreat.com/tips_advice/article-jobboard_scams.php

Stealing personal information, such as passwords or Social Security numbers can be as simple and direct as looking over somebody’s shoulder at an ATM or as technical as hacking into a network database from a remote, wireless location. Sometimes the most sophisticated technical security remains open to the most simple-minded access, such as the British net surfer (more or less) almost accidentally hacking U.S. military intelligence. None of that encourages great confidence in the ultimate security of electronic information, but it also suggests that the obvious mode of operation for stealing information is the path of least resistance. If the U.S. military will give up information conveniently, why go to the trouble of elaborate technical programming, except maybe as an ego trip to prove superior technical capability? Another answer may be in the potential payoff of individual records in the millions, but by and large, attempts to collect protected information concentrate on more direct approaches. Why go to a lot of trouble dealing with complex technology if all you have to do is ask through email?

The variations are many and diverse, stealing for both fun and profit, but most follow the basic patterns of either convincing us to supply a click that a computer program interprets as authorization to perform a restricted operation, like downloading a document with a virus, or convincing us to provide confidential information, and away we go on the familiar carnival ride of unauthorized use and malfunctioning devices. Everybody knows what these cheerful requests for mindless cooperation look like. Please confirm your account information. Follow this link for photos of Lindsay Lohan. Click here to renew your subscription. We’d like you to join our company. In order to protect your personal security, and so forth.

The psychology of this operation is diabolically simple. We want things, and we worry a lot (about identity theft, among other things), so verifying account information to prevent unauthorized access is, like, a high priority, and clicking on an external link or an attachment is so easy (Like the one with a graphic link as a big red disk labeled “Do Not Press This Button”). Worst of all, sometimes we want to believe those lurid claims are true. So how do we avoid entrapment by these inventive hucksters? Most of it, especially on a personal level, depends on those simple concerns. Maybe the first line of defense is simply being alert to our own priorities. The agents, bots, and cookies that collect information for more or less legitimate marketing also provide potential guidance to scammers.

Familiarity with the routine transactions of banking and/or using a variety of credit cards online makes financial information an attractive target and our response potentially careless. Think twice about any unanticipated electronic communication concerning money and financial transactions, especially if it involves submitting passwords, numbers, or other personal information. What could be easier for identity theft than simply asking for the information? Think twice about any unanticipated electronic communication concerning any subject, especially if it involves clicking on anything. Consider the composition of the URL. Paste it in as a browser location address if you really have to check it out, although that can have a downside also. A very undesirable web location may now be permanently recorded in your address list, that can only be removed by either deleting your entire browsing history or by locating and modifying the registry file that keeps the list. Modifying registry files is not necessarily a convenient operation, so avoiding the problem makes sense.

There are other general precautions worth considering. There is no perfect way to insure security in cyberspace, but Leaving a computer on with accounts open or any kind of useful information displayed is potentially problematic as the remote variations of wardriving become more sophisticated and effective. The size and complexity of both video and animation files and the programs to display them are better suited to concealing virus and information control activity, so avoid videos if your security software has deficiencies. Transferring malicious material or controls in text files is very difficult through direct connections on the internet and pretty much impossible without opening the files on an individual unit, even without additional security programs. If files aren’t downloaded and attachments aren’t opened, viruses and information control can’t get connected.

While advisable, security software is notorious for slowing down operating systems, and security programs aren’t necessary for every kind of problem. An example is the disconcerting experience of receiving hundreds of undeliverable messages as a consequence of having email hijacked by a bot to distribute spam. While free security programs like Spybot and AdAware can remove uninvited intruders (although don’t confuse AdAware with the opposite and deliberately similar Adware, which installs rather than removing snoopy gate-crashers), sometimes the situation can be managed simply by changing the email password. Another danger of allowing bots to operate in email accounts is that the email account will eventually be virtually shut down by anti-spam control from recipients of the commercial or malicious messages, which can be excrutiatingly inconvenient for personal email accounts. Even if we have security software on our computers, sometimes we already have the best security installed in our heads. All we have to do is use it.


Here's Thinking for You
Iffy