Cameron made Avatar and has been reveling in his status since. I mean, he was big before. But when pictures surfaced of a crowd demonstration in Africa with several people painted blue like the Na'vi from the movie, he made sure everyone knew he was telling a Very Important Message (TM) with it. Despite how cliched the movie is, people have embraced it as an environmental tale and a revolutionary tale and all kinds of other stuff.
Please note, if you like Avatar, I don't have a problem with that. Just because I didn't think much of the movie doesn't mean no one else can. Other people like it, and that's fine. My problem is with people praising Cameron as a genius and a field marshall for their political thought when he is anything but.
For example, Cameron made sure we all knew we need to be less wasteful and focus on biodegradable stuff and recycling and that. This from a guy who released multiple versions of Avatar on DVD and Blu-Ray, which are made of non-recyclable plastic. And, in addition to, on top of that, he gave an interview saying extra discs, extra editions, and so on are wasteful, although he has no problem with his own output. Avatar was first released as just a regular DVD version with a special edition just around the corner, plus two more three disc sets for DVD and Blu-Ray.As for his detractors’ contempt for his environmental consciousness, dramatized in the film by the callous destruction of the Na’vi’s pastoral world, Cameron says that the film’s environmental message is a lesson for all moviegoers to digest. He explains that our planet “will be a dying world if we don’t make some fundamental changes about how we view ourselves and how we view wealth …. We’re going to have to live with less.” This from a guy who lives in a six bedroom, seven bath, 8,272 square foot house in Malibu. The same guy who had a 17 million gallon water tank built to film Titanic.
Howza about ecoterrorism? It's the reason I quit supporting Earth First all those years ago. Entertainment Weekly had this snippet:
EW: “Avatar” is the perfect eco-terrorism recruiting tool.”
JC: Good, good. I like that one. I consider that a positive review. I believe in ecoterrorism.
How about Halloween costumes made of more plastic? The toys? Snow globes? Posters? Party stuff like paper plates and shit? Cameron says in interviews people need to destroy the "rich capitalists" and "greedy scum". Uh, that's you, dude.
It's been thankfully quiet on the Cameron front for a long time. But now, he's back. He's hatched a deal with Disney to make an Avatar theme park attraction. It is expected to open in Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom, construction begins in 2013. And Disney is expecting to put it around the world.
Now, not only is this clearly intended to compete with Harry Potter at Universal, but Cameron, with his being conscientious? Chew on this, from a 2009 article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel:
"Disney’s theme parks and resorts, which are heavily concentrated at Walt Disney World, produced about 244,000 tons of carbon-dioxide equivalents, or about 43 percent of the company total.
"The figures do not include roughly 14,700 tons generated by Disney World’s third-party bus operators, nor about 4,300 tons produced by its on-property landfill.
"Similarly, Disney’s parks and resorts consumed approximately 1.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006-about 73 percent of the company’s total electrical use.
"The theme parks also are the company’s biggest waste producers. Disney’s parks-and-resorts division generated 298,000 tons of solid waste in 2006, with 170,000 tons buried in landfills. The rest was diverted for uses such as recycling, composting, donations or reuse."
As Deceiver points out, that is the equivalent output of the country of Granada.
So, if you enjoy Avatar as a virtual reality thing or a fan thing or whatever, please enjoy. But make no mistake -- the message you are buying has nothing to do with truth. It has everything to do with what Cameron thinks you will buy from him.
