Lullaby for Gaia

In other words, there is no spiritualism to the Na'vi. Their beliefs would be fantastical on Earth, but on Pandora every single one of their convictions are borne out by physical facts. Even the Earthlings and their Earth tools are able to prove the scientific validity of Na'vi claims.

- Letter To Ebert

Avatar crossed the 1 Billion Dollar mark at the beginning of 2010.

More than half of those earnings come from overseas, and, ticket-inflation notwithstanding, I didn't expect this to be as big a hit as it is.

But it's passing a test in my head that few movies pass. I'm still thinking about it. For all the negative reaction to its seven-layers deep coat of MESSAGE, its easy comparison to Dances with Wolves and cheap new-agerism, I think any of us who felt that way might've been thinking too fast.

I'm not willing to act above this flick. It had me. Whatever choices Cameron and Co. made, it had me. Obviously it didn't play, nor was it developed, like any other movie.

I'm beginning to think it may have been one of the most positive films I've seen in quite some time. My urge is to see it again, to take in its peerless visuals more fully, and to approach it less full from what I usually expect my masterpieces to sound like. The script may or may not be great, but what were we wanting that script to do?

I need to see it again, like I said, to find out. My feeling here is that the visual accomplishment, impressive to be sure, is not the real key, in a world full of filmgoers who've seen everything, to its success.

Could it be we're entering an age of consciousness that demands social and ecological justice? Do we yearn to find some resolution to our murderous, destructive past through an embrace of one of the aspects of technology that can be good, to see other people's experiences as if they're our own?