One could just watch a movie for the sake of ENTERTAINMENT? And maybe not to extrapolate symbolism and parallels past where the movie chooses to place them? Allow the movie to determine the course, and not some previous events it doesn't reflect "accurately." It's a movie, not a news report.

Some movies do bother me. I have not entirely figured out why some movies bother me and some don't. Most Sci Fi and Fantasy don't bother me even if there is combat... but war movies i can't watch, even if it's fiction, perhaps because it is too "realistic" i dunno for sure though. Action movies i'm so so... depends on the movie, the actors, and my mood at the time.

Avatar sounds interesting to me. Just because there are parallels with a horrific historical precedent doesn't make a movie silly in my books. I don't generally read critiques before i go to watch a movie, but the article posted went beyond a critique. it started out bashing Avatar and then went on and on and on about the Native American genocide as a subject on its own - which it actually is. I did start wondering if various "atrocities" are featured in the movie or not - i kind of am guessing not, but if they are I probably will NOT want to watch it. (Bizi feel free to let me in on this deep dark secret, perhaps privately to avoid spoilers for other readers.)

Art does not HAVE to imitate life, but when it does it certainly CAN tweak it to make it prettier. By golly, if art couldn't do that, we'd be in one sorry place, for sure!

Anyway my guess (for one who has not seen it yet) is that Avatar probably has intrinsic entertainment value as fiction. I don't see that a movie that has similarities to historical events, but a different ending, necessarily was meant to rewrite history and appease people. Different movies have different ways of entertaining. This one is certainly not a documentary nor historically set - it is set in the FUTURE... and if people do reflect on the parallels, i think it's cool that a movie can portray an alternate, better ending. Hello, hope? What if we saw in it a positive message "Let us not allow history to repeat itself." And anyway, why leave audiences with Great Vortices of Racial Guilt in the pit of their stomach... that would be a whole different kind of movie. Anyone who wants to see that can watch Last of The Mohicans and OD on racial extermination. Personally, I have enough guilt thank you i don't need to get it socked to me by a movie.

sidenote... I think Dances With Wolves is a beautiful beautiful film which largely honors the Sioux while showing the tragic and relentless persecutory mindset of the "white man" that would eventually take from them their land and way of life. It is not perhaps the most realistic film either, but it had valuable elements of realism. I watch it most times its on even though i always cry.

~ waves ~