Avatar: the film to see if you’re ready to give up on life

Avatar: the film to see if you’re ready to give up on life

Posted on January 19th, 2010 by Sean Cunningham

In addition to generating huge amounts of revenue and winning tons of awards (James Cameron can now add two Golden Globes to the trophy pile), Avatar makes people want to die. Not the way Battlefield Earth makes people want to die; with films like that the suicidal thoughts typically fade once you reach the parking lot. No, Avatar fills people with the despair of knowing the Na’vi live in such a magical world and ours, by comparison, kind of blows. And I have to wonder, is this the first time these people have ever felt this sorrow…or does it occur every time they head to the multiplex?

Movies, after all, exist to present existences much cooler than the ones we are currently leading. Who hasn’t seen Goodfellas and not felt at least a tiny yen to hijack trucks with De Niro before heading to the Copa? And what if these people are just inherently prone to envying the lives of others? (Incidentally, after watching that film I did briefly think it would have been neat to work for the East German Stasi — not for a lifetime, but perhaps a semester abroad type deal.) Maybe those feelings are triggered by every film they encounter, good, bad, or ugly. There’s a real chance that if Avatar had been sold out and they’d been forced to catch Did You Hear About the Morgans?, they’d now long to be in the Witness Protection Program in Wyoming with the delightful Sarah Jessica Parker.

Personally, I fear life in the Na’vi world would be a disappointment. Not that I’m so big on our planet — I’ve often had mixed feelings about it, particularly when the Tuck Rule enabled the Patriots to win their first Super Bowl — but Na’vi Land is overrated. I might feel differently if the evil corporation hadn’t blown the magic tree to hell, but they did and that’s that. Even if they still had the magic tree, it’d be disconcerting to go through life wondering if each Na’vi you encountered was an actual Na’vi, or just some poindexter messing around with his computer. Finally, as anyone who’s gone camping can tell you, frolicking in the forest gets old after about four hours. It’s a hard reality to face, but for most of us being plunked on the couch with the remote and the laptop is as good as it gets, and even Cameron can’t change that (at least until he releases the Director’s Cut).