Other's Great Thoughts on Avatar

In the end, if Avatar isn’t the Star Wars or The Matrix of its generation, that’s partly because the characters make so little impression. To borrow an observation from another friend, Luke, Han and Leia on the one hand, and Neo, Morpheus and Trinity on the other have become cultural icons — as have Jack and Rose, for that matter — and Jake Sully and even Neytiri aren’t in that league.

Deep down, Avatar is bone-headed, but it’s also beautiful — not just exciting and technically impressive, like Jurassic Park, but wondrous and exhilarating. How many movies can you say that about? It may be an inch deep, but it’s a mile wide, it gushes and roars like Niagara Falls, and it’s a sight to behold. -Steven D. Greydanus

As an achievement in technical innovation, Avatar is phenomenal, a ride worth taking more than once, but as adventure movies go, it is impressively new in every way except the way that matters most. Its look will last. But its heart won’t go on. Jeffrey Overstreet

We of little faith. James Cameron may not be greatest writer (several lines in Titanic still make me cringe) or one known for original and complicated plotlines (some of his best films can be summed up as bad thing comes after good guy), but he is one of Hollywood's best storytellers in terms of using all sides of the cinematic journey (visuals, story, music, etc.) to stir and capture imaginations for a satisfying ride. As a friend of mine put it, "When we first heard about Titanic, we thought it'd be a cheesy, predictable soap opera love story—and it was, but it was a well-done cheesy, predictable soap opera thanks to the writing, acting and spectacle." And that's the case here: it's not perfect, but it's familiar, simple territory that's well tread.
- Todd Hertz (Christanity Today Movies)

"Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message. It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings. It invents a new language, Na'vi, as "Lord of the Rings" did, although mercifully I doubt this one can be spoken by humans, even teenage humans. It creates new movie stars. It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation.- Roger Ebert

More than that, however, is the curious Christian subtext that this particular SWPL fantasy has, probably without a shred of conscious awareness on the part of people like Cameron. Film critic Jeffrey Overstreet talks about what he calls the "inescapability of the gospel". His point is that, because God is the Creator of the human person and the human person, made in His image, is a sub-creator, we simply can't help putting themes into our stories that recapitulate the gospel. Often those themes will be torqued badly by human sin or stupidity, but nonetheless they are discernible again and again: themes like redemption through self-sacrificial love, the exaltation of the humble, the passage from sin to glory through redemptive love, the final judgment against evil, etc. Where would storytellers be without them? Still and all, God can't be entirely repressed. Ultimately, he won't be repressed a bit and even the knees of those "under the earth" shall bow. That's how reality works. - Mark Shea