My wife and I saw Avatar this weekend in 3D. Here’s the verdict: four out of four stars. Absolutely amazing special effects–best I’ve ever seen; fun story; all in all a very fun, nice movie.
And at its core it was very libertarian: it was about a group of people (the Na’vi) defending their property rights on the world Pandora from aggressors (the human invaders), and about one of the humans (a soldier named Jake Sully) deciding to join and help the right side. Sure, the movie has some stilted dialogue in parts, and a few cliched scenes (I liked how the evil military commander referred to their outrageous assaults on the Na’vi as “shock and awe,” but his telling the troops that they would “fight terror with terror”–when the Na’vi had not really been shown to have done anything characterizable as terrorism–was a bit of a stretch in its attempt to dig at the current American “war on terror”), but overall it was great and fun, and libertarian. And the passion and vision and craft that has gone into this movie is amazing to behold. Cameron is to be commended for this great work of art.Ignore the cynics–such as Peter Suderman on Reason‘s Hit & Run blog who accuses Avatar of “anti-corporate clichés and quasi-mystical eco-nonsense”. Nonsense. Libertarians are not anti-environmentalism, for one; property rights are the only way to protect the environment. As for “quasi-mystical”–I can’t say much without spoiling, but the various beliefs of the Na’vi are perfectly grounded in reason and reality, as the movie shows. As for anti-corporate–nonsense.
And the “corporation” here is basically a mini-state, or an arm of a state–it has an army going around killing and destroying (Lester Hunt makes this point here). In fact, in the review of the leftish Mark Kermode of the BBC, he just calls the bad guys the military; even he is not taken in by the corporate facade. And the libertarian hosts of Free Talk Live (12/19/09 episode) get it right too: the plot is about property rights. In particular, the property rights of the Na’vi, in an established tree-city that they have clearly homesteaded. The Na’vi are not just some uncivilized savages as some curmudgeonly reviewers imply; they live they way they do because of the wondrous bounty of their strange world and some unique features it has–which, again, I can say little of without spoiling, but suffice to say it’s grounded in reality and extrapolative science fiction, not some quasi-mystical nonsense. They even have a sophisticated homesteading technique worked out for ownership of the wild, pterodactyl-like creatures known as Banshee or ikran. In addition, the main Na’vi character, Neytiri, although she is betrothed to another Na’vi, is permitted to change her mind and choose someone else–respect for individual choice and autonomy.
As for the 3D: the 3D was well done, not over-used, and did add depth to the picture. It’s worth seeing in 3D if you go to the movies. That said, I don’t think it adds much. Avatar will still be great on HD home theater systems in Blu-Ray or HD. Note: we intentionally avoided the IMAX version because I assume the image has to be cropped (left and right sides chopped off) to fit IMAX’s different aspect ratio.
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I disagree with your analysis of the film being pro-libertarian. While I am a property-libertarian, long story short, the land of Pandorum and the Navi people failed to have a proper, formal apparatus for determining property rights set up on their moon. The Navi people, in my opinion, seemed to be more hippie-like in their demeanor and uncivilized yet as to determine the correct course of action to setup their claim to the moon. Perhaps my interpretation may just be another means by which to interpret the plight of the humans and Navi on Pandorum, but I and many others believe my claim to be correct.
Sounds like the excuse President Alan Garcia uses when he steals some rainforest to sell off to oil corporations. (Google Bagua to see what I mean)
Even if they lack a formal apparatus, which I doubt, does it justify theft?
Do the Na’vi have the concept of individual rights and property rights? Do they own the entire planet just because they live there? Can we apply the concept of res nullius here?
Well, this film reminds me of the Arab countries that nationalized oil fields more than four decades ago that were developed and owned by contract right by western oil companies. The Arabs owned their lands for centuries, but they didn’t what to do with their so-called god-given wealth.
Stephan Kinsella is again talking about property rights. Do the Na’vi have the concept of property rights? Did he fail to see that the Na’vi are a bunch of mystics, tree-worshipers, and witch doctors? Based on this film review, property rights, according to Stephan Kinsella, cover anything that is owned by man or an inhabitant of another planet by birth. He simply disregards the Law of Causality.
I see that commenters have finally broached questions as to what IS property, and when do WE have to respect what OTHERS view as theirs.
These are fundamental questions that I have raised with Stephan in the context of IP (and with Gene Callahan and Bob Murphy in the context of an “objective” moral order) here:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/12/21/what-is-quot-property-quot-a-few-weird-thoughts-on-evolution-society-quot-property-rights-quot-and-quot-intellectual-property-quot-and-the-principles-we-structure-to-justify-them.aspx
The simple answer, when societies and individuals (and differing life forms) are in conflict, is that “property” is only what it turns out that you can
defend, or others respect as not worth the conflict.
Technological advance continually shifts the boundaries of what is valuable and what can be taken and/or defended.
I think an Avatar II would have to be much more interesting, as the Na`vi would realize that the value that others place in minerals on their planet will force them to change in ways that better enable them to respond to the possibility of future interstellar contact. The clock can never be turned back; the same is true for all “primitive” socieites that meet more technologically advanced ones.
Hey, TokyoTom here’s an Avatar picture and here’s another.
I have posted a review about Avatar concerning property on my site. It challenges points raised in this article:
http://jasonjcrawford.com/2010/01/20/avatar-review/
Avatar and the Principles of Libertarianism: http://bit.ly/cCCAtT
This review underscores the need to be circumspect in reviewing movies for their idological content – we all tend to interpret through different lenses. For example, there was a review of Wall-e on this forum which dismissed it as just so much cliche-d anti-capitalist propaganda, whereas my interpretation on seeing that film was triumph of the individualist spirit against STATIST bureaucracy!
Like Mr Kinsalla, I saw Avatar in 3d, and like him I enjoyed a magnificent cinematic spectacle. But I did find the characters somewhat ‘cardboard cut-out’, and a paint-by-numbers generic plot that could, with minor tweaking, have been dropped into any hollywood genre. Great literature this ain’t. And I have to point out what Mr Kinsalla studiously avoided: the shameless fusion of ‘capitalistic greed’ and ‘military force’ into a single ‘bad guy’ bloc, representing the ‘Military-industrial complex’ strawman so beloved of leftist environmental propaganda. That’s an outright misrepresentation of capitalism ( or rather ‘free marketism’, but lets not have yet more of THAT argument here!).
My mini-review of Avatar in Twitterese:
‘Enjoyable remake of Dances with Wolves. In space. Without Kevin Costner. With blue Indians. Great special effects. ‘
Thanks for that time-saving (in reading and watching) review, Mushindo. Was it really just like “Dances” where the lone good white man forsakes his rotten-to-the-core culture to join and defend the noble savages? *The* lefty fantasy scenario cracks me up. For another hilarious example, watch almost any Ken Burns “documentary.”
avatar provides a modenrn sci-fi way of looking at the native americans and our actions.
it presents a mirror to look at our own greed and destructive nature and shows in as beautiful a way as I could fathom how it affects every part of every thing.
It shows the beauty of life – and the frailty of it to this evil that has overcome us.
I’m for being dominant I eat whatever I want – regardless of it’s self awareness, celluar pain just like us or whatever. I am not for draining the coffers dry however which is exactly what we are doing. You do not comprimise your air and water quality, the soil it grows in or any vital thing for luxuries/comfy lifestyles. Luxuries are what we should have after the vitals are secure and prospering. If you can’t make all plastic bioacceptable and degradable for example – it simply should be banned. If you can’t make a car that runs on the sun, hydrogen from the sun, steam, or whatever then you should be walking,biking and using trains for long distance.
It is like using a product with a 100% cancer guarantee to relieve an itch or reduce sweeling on a beesting. Just a dumb fuck thing to do and the teat won’t hold up with that kind of use it all cause jesus is coming anyhow mindset. I like my milk fuckers – stop pissing in it.
Actually, as I understand it, the movie was in a major sense anti-libertarian. The Na’vi seemed to not only reject specialization and industrialization when given the opportunity, but the basis of their culture was rooted in the “noble savage” idea of romanticism. When Jake took their side, he was in essence rejecting the “modern culture” of specialized market activity for a primitivism that borders on utopian.
The movie was fantastic, though – if you haven’t yet, you should definitely check out the extended edition as it makes the plot more cohesive and coherent, in my opinion.
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