Avatar

I recently saw the movie, Avatar, twice! It was that good. The story works well on many levels--hero's adventure, love story, man (Navi) v machine. But it also can be criticized for some typical Hollywood stereotypes--the white guy saves the people!

I've recently been re-reading Jared Diamond's excellent book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's interesting to think of his book in light of Avatar. The parallel story would be that the indigenous tribal people of New Guinea (or the Native Americans, African pygmies, Australian aborigines, etc.) were somehow able to fight off the invading Europeans. But this didn't happen in human history.

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