Does the Movie Still Roll When No One Is There?

I saw Avatar with maybe nine other people in the theater which is not a big deal. Lots of movies screen all the time in big theaters for a few of us. I enjoyed it but have some misgivings which I’m sure have been talked about in one review or another. I was disturbed by the premise that the we were there in the first place to steal and ended up fighting ourselves because a renegade had a conscience. What if a soldier in the Iraq War had fallen in love with an Iraqi woman, and decided he’s sick of bombing and fighting for oil, and turned on his officers? An occupying army sets up all kinds of conflict and storytelling but the idea of an occupying army is wrong. As Howard Zinn noted, all war is against children.

Another thing that bothered me is the coming onslaught of 3D crap to our movie theaters. Most of these movies will be more Manichean fantasies with good and evil prototypes who duke it out. 99.9% of the time, the good side wins. If they don’t, definitely catch the sequel. Life isn’t so simple and these movies are so far from reality, they may as well sell you the hibernation pod that goes with the movie at the theater. Obviously, the killer app for 3D technology is porn which will be in your home theater very soon. The movie studios should keep trying to change the world, not enable us to continually escape from it.

Ghost Boast: I took the photos during the boring parts of Avatar. 15 second exposures.