Haven't seen Avatar . . .

Maybe when it’s out on DVD, I’m still in non-movie-watching mode. However, I have gathered a few facts about this particular blockbuster: the guy responsible for it, James Cameron, plays WoW. Somehow he came up with an idea where a disabled guy animates an avatar and runs around in the body of a large blue creature. There have been a few posts in the WoW forums about whether the blue creatures look more like draenei, night elves or night elf druids in catform, all three could be considered “artistic inspiration.” As far as the plot, apparently it’s Pocahontas. As far as the scenery, it takes place in Nagrand via Hawaii. As far as the 3D, supposedly it’s very well executed. As far as the subtext, it’s about an anti-imperialist white guy. As far as the tropes, here ya go.

(Thank you TV Tropes for saving precious hours of my life having to watch the same plot over again, after age 30 you start to get impatient with that.)

As far as I’m concerned . . . well, has anybody ever made a cowboys and native americans movie where the native americans, as opposed to being actual humans, are NPCs that can be animated and controlled by the cowboys? Uh, no. It’s kind of creepy, when you think about it. “Other people aren’t real, but I’m real, and if I possess their bodies, I can show them how to be real like me.” I mean, I’ve seen that particular point of view in movies before, like Silence of the Lambs, and the Exorcist.

I’ve got issues with the whole “mind in a different body” (MIDB) plot device anyway. It’s an appropriate mental state for playing video games, acting, reading novels, whatever. Plus it allows actors to show off by pretending to be other actors.

But we could have just as easily wound up with a metaphysical system where we’d be watching movies about “character A’s heart in character B’s body” or “character A swaps talents with character B.”

MIDB is one of those philosophical notions that you could waste many theses discussing. It’s at least as old as the notion of life after death, it’s well established in the dominant culture’s metaphysical zeitgeist. It's more philosophy than science, though. If extremely focused, you could also connect it with the sort of extreme hubris found in sociopaths, “I am real and others are but empty shells for me to inhabit.” Which would make sense, if you’ve ever spent time around successful Hollywood types, who are often difficult to distinguish from sociopaths. Rule one, write about what you know.

My own brain is far too feeble to come up with any kind of definitive resolution to all this. However, a couple of notes.

The concept behind Avatar creeps me out. Plus it’s another multigazillion dollar art-restating media with an underlying theme of “technology is dangerous and bad.”
In the same sense, a self-deprecating egomaniac who bores you with talk about his failings is far more tiresome than the regular kind of egomaniac who wins your attention by entertaining you.

So I haven’t seen it yet. I understand the effects are very nice though.

In my computer world, let’s see. I got a new notebook, which is powerful enough to play WoW and cost about half as much as I’m used to paying for a computer. I’m not going to tell you the brand, not sure I like their weird UI overlay enough to plug them.

I got it because my desktop was down for a couple of days, which was intolerable, and I found myself actually sort of missing Sims 3, even though their latest “EA download manager” has infected my os like a virus and is now spamming ads at me on startup. I actually need to do graphically creative stuff after running around in WoW slaying. Sims works for now. I’m fleshing out my town with various local characters and enjoying watching them befriend and flirt with each other.

In WoW, I have a warrior, hunter, death knight and druid over gear score 4000, my priest is around 5500ish and my mage just hit level 65. And I still have complex love-hate feelings for my guild.

In other words, same old thing :)