Obligatory Avatar post:

So, I finally saw Avatar, as is seemingly mandated by geek law. (Not unlike Watchmen, although I guess more of you are going to Avatar.) And...it was OK. I didn't spring for the iMax or 3D, so it didn't floor me, but it was all right. So, intend of being wowed and/or beaten into submission by the visuals, I did notice the movie beating me over the head with the green theme, that mankind should go back to it's grey dead mother homeworld and die. I kinda thought yeah, it's easy to be environmentally friendly when your pets/meat are plug-and-play...and what kind of footprint does a $600 million production leave, to say nothing of the toys or Happy Meals...

I had been watching Star Trek: the Animated Series before I went to Avatar, so of course I thought Captain Kirk would've worked out a peaceful solution. Or blown up Ewya or Enya or whatever their deity/crystal thing was called (the Tree of Souls?) as being too controlling of the people, a la classic episode "the Apple." Tough to say with Kirk, could've gone either way. If a pile of Avatar figures fell into my lap, I'll do a strip for it, but I'm not buying the damn things.

Also, I think there's been some undeserved criticism of some elements as being taken wholesale from Cameron's prior movies, specifically Aliens: the marines and the gunships have strong resemblances, and you could argue the AMP suits are way too close to the power lifter Ripley used there. Nothing wrong with that: I just took it to mean Avatar and Aliens took place in the same universe. We'll just see how smug those treehuggers are when the bugs come at them...