Avatar blues

In Avatar, the main character Jake has the privilege of going back to his white body. Milkus, in District 9, does not have that luxury. Cameron has held forth profusely in his junket to expound on his original Avatar narrative which he says is his opus…for now. Avatar may be a visual movie-going game changer but as a story, the overt racially charged sermon and “here come the scary white people to obliterate your world” anthropology lesson seems a bit like a guilt farm. Is Cameron Catholic, too?

District 9 had an incredible edge to it, arresting, with a mix of visuals, film qualities, angles and a great basic story. The racial xenophobia message was unveiled, ugly, filmed in South Africa, a land of recent racial strife, still on a daily brink…and Milkus was transformed, not a temp in the blue man group like Jake.

There will be sequels, but right now Milkus’ story seems a bit more gripping and I worry about him eating that nasty cat food every day…