James Cameron is a Closet Brahmanist!
DharmaTroll
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>
> --
> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
Let me have a crack at it first.
And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
the caffeinated tea or whatever).
Hence the conclusion, "This is an agonized position, and if there’s no
escape upward — or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the
Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
"Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
(I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
love it the most.
Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
<<It’s the dogma of George Lucas’s Jedi, whose mystical Force
“surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
there is nothing in the world but a creation and a Creator,” he
suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
by including God and the universe in one great whole.”...It represents
a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
called pantheism “a sexed-up atheism.” (He means that as a
compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic “The End of Faith” by
rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
in “the roiling mystery of the world.” Citing Albert Einstein’s
expression of religious awe at the “beauty and sublimity” of the
universe, Dawkins allows, “In this sense I too am religious.”>>
Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
as well. Then he goes Christianist:
<<Its “circle of life” is really a cycle of mortality. And the human
societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining
Edens of James Cameron’s fond imaginings. They’re places where
existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
As in India and China, of course!
<<Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren’t at home
amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
half outside it. We’re beasts with self-consciousness, predators with
ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.>>
And there the author prostrates to the mighty Plato!
The mind/body Dualism of Plato, made simple for the masses in the
modern world by DesCartes. The body half in nature; the soul half
alienated, not at home, "yearning for immortality" with Jesus or with
Plato's eternal forms. Rather than questioning Plato's split into body/
nature and soul/immortality, he simply asserts Plato's eternal
transcendence of nature as an axiom, and from the light of that,
Cameron's pantheism is doomed to failure and mere Hobbesian annihilism
where life is merely nasty, brutish and short. Apparently the author
hadn't heard of a philosopher named Sid who suggested a middle path
between them. Otherwise, he might have concluded the op-ed piece in a
more upbeat way.
--DharmaTroll
<<The NYTimes Op-Ed
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.htm
Heaven and Nature
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: December 20, 2009
It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at
Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction
epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a
deeply felt religious message. It’s at once the blockbuster to end all
blockbusters, and the Gospel According to James.
But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long
apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and
calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.
In Cameron’s sci-fi universe, this communion is embodied by the blue-
skinned, enviably slender Na’Vi, an alien race whose idyllic existence
on the planet Pandora is threatened by rapacious human invaders. The
Na’Vi are saved by the movie’s hero, a turncoat Marine, but they’re
also saved by their faith in Eywa, the “All Mother,” described
variously as a network of energy and the sum total of every living
thing.
If this narrative arc sounds familiar, that’s because pantheism has
been Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now. It’s the
truth that Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves.
It’s the metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like “The Lion King”
and “Pocahontas.” And it’s the dogma of George Lucas’s Jedi, whose
mystical Force “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy
together.”
Hollywood keeps returning to these themes because millions of
Americans respond favorably to them. From Deepak Chopra to Eckhart
Tolle, the “religion and inspiration” section in your local bookstore
is crowded with titles pushing a pantheistic message. A recent Pew
Forum report on how Americans mix and match theology found that many
self-professed Christians hold beliefs about the “spiritual energy” of
trees and mountains that would fit right in among the indigo-tinted
Na’Vi.
As usual, Alexis de Tocqueville saw it coming. The American belief in
the essential unity of all mankind, Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s,
leads us to collapse distinctions at every level of creation. “Not
content with the discovery that there is nothing in the world but a
creation and a Creator,” he suggested, democratic man “seeks to expand
and simplify his conception by including God and the universe in one
great whole.”
Today there are other forces that expand pantheism’s American appeal.
We pine for what we’ve left behind, and divinizing the natural world
is an obvious way to express unease about our hyper-technological
society. The threat of global warming, meanwhile, has lent the cult of
Nature qualities that every successful religion needs — a crusading
spirit, a rigorous set of ‘thou shalt nots,” and a piping-hot
apocalypse.
At the same time, pantheism opens a path to numinous experience for
people uncomfortable with the literal-mindedness of the monotheistic
religions — with their miracle-working deities and holy books, their
virgin births and resurrected bodies. As the Polish philosopher Leszek
Kolakowski noted, attributing divinity to the natural world helps
“bring God closer to human experience,” while “depriving him of
recognizable personal traits.” For anyone who pines for transcendence
but recoils at the idea of a demanding Almighty who interferes in
human affairs, this is an ideal combination.
Indeed, it represents a form of religion that even atheists can
support. Richard Dawkins has called pantheism “a sexed-up
atheism.” (He means that as a compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his
polemic “The End of Faith” by rhapsodizing about the mystical
experiences available from immersion in “the roiling mystery of the
world.” Citing Albert Einstein’s expression of religious awe at the
“beauty and sublimity” of the universe, Dawkins allows, “In this sense
I too am religious.”
The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response.
Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is
good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering
and death. Its harmonies require violence. Its “circle of life” is
really a cycle of mortality. And the human societies that hew closest
to the natural order aren’t the shining Edens of James Cameron’s fond
imaginings. They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish
and short.
Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren’t at home amid
these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and half
outside it. We’re beasts with self-consciousness, predators with
ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.
This is an agonized position, and if there’s no escape upward — or no
God to take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it
— a deeply tragic one.
Pantheism offers a different sort of solution: a downward exit, an
abandonment of our tragic self-consciousness, a re-merger with the
natural world our ancestors half-escaped millennia ago.
But except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us back.>>
Déjà Flu
> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, D�j� Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>>
>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>>
>> --
>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> Let me have a crack at it first.
> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> escape upward � or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the
> Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> love it the most.
>
> Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
> �surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
> de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
> suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
> a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
> compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic �The End of Faith� by
> rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
> expression of religious awe at the �beauty and sublimity� of the
> universe, Dawkins allows, �In this sense I too am religious.�>>
>
> Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
> as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>
> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren�t the shining
> Edens of James Cameron�s fond imaginings. They�re places where
> existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>
> As in India and China, of course!
>
> amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
> ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.>>
>
> And there the author prostrates to the mighty Plato!
>
> The mind/body Dualism of Plato, made simple for the masses in the
> alienated, not at home, "yearning for immortality" with Jesus or with
> Plato's eternal forms. Rather than questioning Plato's split into body/
> nature and soul/immortality, he simply asserts Plato's eternal
> transcendence of nature as an axiom, and from the light of that,
> Cameron's pantheism is doomed to failure and mere Hobbesian annihilism
> where life is merely nasty, brutish and short. Apparently the author
> hadn't heard of a philosopher named Sid who suggested a middle path
> between them. Otherwise, he might have concluded the op-ed piece in a
> more upbeat way.
Well done.
I thought it was a disguised plea for religionism, actually.
Not to mention Play-doh's schizophrenic philosophizing
which seems to be rather common around here.
You are hereby awarded the Order Of The Christmas Turkey
in the tradition of The Eternal Form.
Oh, and remind me to tell you the story of the Fake Nun
(who is now looking for other work, but inhabited the
neighborhood for nearly 3 years). She came to a party last
Xmas and, after I finished my demo of Irish Dancing, I
blessed her. The look of shock on her face was classic.
Carry on.
Hollywood Lee
> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, D�j� Flu<cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>>
>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>>
>> --
>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> Let me have a crack at it first.
> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> love it the most.
>
> Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
> �surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
> de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
> suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
> a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
> rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
> expression of religious awe at the �beauty and sublimity� of the
> universe, Dawkins allows, �In this sense I too am religious.�>>
>
> Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
> as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>
> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren�t the shining
> existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>
> As in India and China, of course!
>
> amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
> ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.>>
>
> And there the author prostrates to the mighty Plato!
>
> The mind/body Dualism of Plato, made simple for the masses in the
> modern world by DesCartes. The body half in nature; the soul half
> alienated, not at home, "yearning for immortality" with Jesus or with
> Plato's eternal forms. Rather than questioning Plato's split into body/
> nature and soul/immortality, he simply asserts Plato's eternal
> transcendence of nature as an axiom, and from the light of that,
> Cameron's pantheism is doomed to failure and mere Hobbesian annihilism
> where life is merely nasty, brutish and short. Apparently the author
> hadn't heard of a philosopher named Sid who suggested a middle path
> between them. Otherwise, he might have concluded the op-ed piece in a
> more upbeat way.
Douthat violates Julian's "at least 3" rule repeatedly in his columns,
and he doesn't disappoint here either - where he imagines that the
choice is only between hollywoodesque pantheism and his escape upwards
christianity. Other choices simply don't occur to him.
That said, Avatar is a technically, visually stunning 3d movie. I saw
it Sunday with one of my daughters and just got over the headache
yesterday, but it was worth it. Very immersive experience, even if the
story itself sucks balls.
Charles E Hardwidge
"DharmaTroll" <dharm...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:214c685a-d893-4905...@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, D�j� Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>>
>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>>
>> --
>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> Let me have a crack at it first.
> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> love it the most.
It makes a positive change to see a topic introduce some variety relevant to
living and relevant to people outside this niche. Also, it's pleasing to see
a proper comment rather than some lazily cryptic remark or a cut 'n' paste
job. It was rambling and showy but apart from that a reasonable effort.
I've consumed some of the pre-show hype including trailers, reviews, and
interviews. You can grasp a little of what the project is about but most of
it is just bigging things up and attention seeking. They want your moonay.
I've already seen Avatar. It's a typical Cameron film and contains shades of
Aliens and Titanic. They appealed to the testosterone and oestrogen crowd
and, I suspect, Cameron is trying to meld these together. Then there's the
background of pushing technology, globalisation, and cultural toxicity. He
succeeds in meeting all these bullet points but the general polish and
energy of the movie is let down by forgettable acting and a poor story.
Picking up on Cameron's pantheism and comparing it to George Lucas'
religious exploitation with the Star Wars franchise is a good call.
I've commented elsewhere that sci-fi is dead and we need another Star Wars.
Since then editorials have been getting behind that position. (Bob is going
to hate this but I posted anonymously on a leading blog and watched the
press roll out with that over the next few weeks. That's on top of getting a
tug in an interview with a leading producer. Fuck, yeah.)
Most people are probably familiar with the comparisons between Star Wars and
Doaism but there's another angle than mythology or storytelling. Star Wars
is a juggernaut that needs feeding. To keep going it needs new material and
a constant influx of revenue. To that end the Star Wars machine has been
geared by *management policy* to mine Eastern mythology.
In an age where information is more valuable than gold, Eastern mythology is
being raped by the Star Wars franchise as readily as Monsanto and Exxon
went before them with genetics and oil. Surely, it's no coincidence that
America and other vested interests are pushing behind the scenes for a
comprehensive and binding international treaty on intellectual property.
Cameron strikes me as a bit of an anti-establishment figure, but he's a
clever guy and politically savvy enough to be successful as a movie maker
and stay alive within the studio system. Perhaps it's Cameron's lead or just
a coincidence but Fox are making almost zero noise on movie piracy with
Avatar. Lucas is a /little/ like that himself. If Lucas and Cameron are the
public successes of the system, perhaps, they've kept enough of a piece of
themselves back they can allow people to share in that dream.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
> On 12/22/2009 6:34 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
> >>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> >> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>
> >> --
> >> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> > Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> > Let me have a crack at it first.
> > And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> > Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> > Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> > himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> > guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> > know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> > the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> > Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> > ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> > And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> > enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> > ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> > human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> > "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> > Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> > Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> > pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> > But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> > I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> > (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> > 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> > love it the most.
>
> > Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
> > “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
> > de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
> > suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
> > a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
> > compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic “The End of Faith” by
> > rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
> > expression of religious awe at the “beauty and sublimity” of the
> > universe, Dawkins allows, “In this sense I too am religious.”>>
>
> > Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
> > as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>
> > societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining
> > existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>
> > As in India and China, of course!
>
> > amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
> > ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.>>
>
> > And there the author prostrates to the mighty Plato!
>
> > The mind/body Dualism of Plato, made simple for the masses in the
> > modern world by DesCartes. The body half in nature; the soul half
> > alienated, not at home, "yearning for immortality" with Jesus or with
> > Plato's eternal forms. Rather than questioning Plato's split into body/
> > nature and soul/immortality, he simply asserts Plato's eternal
> > transcendence of nature as an axiom, and from the light of that,
> > Cameron's pantheism is doomed to failure and mere Hobbesian annihilism
> > where life is merely nasty, brutish and short. Apparently the author
> > hadn't heard of a philosopher named Sid who suggested a middle path
> > between them. Otherwise, he might have concluded the op-ed piece in a
> > more upbeat way.
>
> Douthat violates Julian's "at least 3" rule repeatedly in his columns,
> and he doesn't disappoint here either - where he imagines that the
> choice is only between hollywoodesque pantheism and his escape upwards
> christianity. Other choices simply don't occur to him.
>
> That said, Avatar is a technically, visually stunning 3d movie. I saw
> it Sunday with one of my daughters and just got over the headache
> yesterday, but it was worth it. Very immersive experience, even if the
> story itself sucks balls.
Ok, I just saw Avatar. Nice special effects (though I prefer Wall-E).
It's not religious or pantheistic at all, actually. The alien planet
is more like "the Borg" of Star Trek, except in a good passive way
instead of an aggressive cancerous way. The planet is alive, and all
the trees connect to each other like nerve cells, so that the planet
has a giant brain, and can communicate. Furthermore, all of the
animals as well as the Indian-like spear-chucker humanoids basically
have USB ports built into their tails, so that they can interface with
each other or with the planet mainframe. Nothing really spiritual, any
more than the Borg was spiritual, and the idea of the alien trees each
being a nerve cell in a large planetary brain isn't really mystical or
pantheistic in any deep sense. Robert isn't going to see the film and
say, "wow, that's the teaching of Ramana Maharshi". Hell, it doesn't
even have a Deprok Chopra level of spirituality in it. It's mostly a
sci-fi variation on the same old worn out "Native American Indians are
good and white men with guns are bad" theme.
The plot is simple and ridiculous, with cartoon good and bad guys:
there are nice natives and there are nice scientists who want to learn
about the cool new beautiful planet and communicate with the natives,
and then there are the evil G.I. Jokers who simply want to kill or
chase off the natives and strip-mine the planet for profit. Though the
natives don't have any tech beyond the bow-and-arrow, our hero, an
Earth human who has gone to live with the natives, interfaces with the
planetary brain, which in turn gets all the birds and dragons and
alien-rhinos to attack and overwhelm the humans before they can blow
up the natives, and then finally our hero fights the lead G.I. Joker
and defeats him, and then stays on the planet and marries the native
princess and they live happily ever after. And that's all there is to
it.
I suppose "the story sucks balls" pretty much sums it up. It's
basically a Disney cartoon with added violence and wonderful special
effects, but that's about it. Fu was pretty much right about that
review, that the reviewer just wanted an excuse to make a pitch for
his own religiosity, that's all.
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
> I suppose "the story sucks balls" pretty much sums it up. It's
> basically a Disney cartoon with added violence and wonderful special
> effects, but that's about it. Fu was pretty much right about that
> review, that the reviewer just wanted an excuse to make a pitch for
> his own religiosity, that's all.
You Americans can think in clich� iconongraphy. While reviewers are keen to
bandwagon, look important, and massage an audience there are more subtle and
indirect aspects to this moving you're missing. This tacks against the
ideology topic you started the other day, so is also inconsistent.
EPIC FAIL.
FU trimmed to alt.zen
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Hollywood Lee
> On Dec 22, 10:44 pm, Hollywood Lee<hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/22/2009 6:34 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>>
>>>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>>
>>>> --
>>>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>>
>>> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
>>> Let me have a crack at it first.
>>> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>>
>>> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
>>> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
>>> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
>>> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
>>> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
>>> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>>
>>> Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
>>> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>>
>>> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
>>> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
>>> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
>>> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
>>> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
>>> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
>>> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
>>> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>>
>>> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
>>> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
>>> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
>>> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
>>> love it the most.
>>
>>> Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
>>> �surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
>>> de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
>>> suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
>>> a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
>>> rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
>>> expression of religious awe at the �beauty and sublimity� of the
>>> universe, Dawkins allows, �In this sense I too am religious.�>>
>>
>>> Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
>>> as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>>
>>> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren�t the shining
>>> existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>>
>>> As in India and China, of course!
>>
>>> amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
yeah. Just saw district 9. Almost a retro CGI technique, but much
better story.
DharmaTroll
> On 12/23/2009 2:00 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 22, 10:44 pm, Hollywood Lee<hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/22/2009 6:34 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
> >>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> >>>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> >>> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> >>> Let me have a crack at it first.
> >>> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> >>> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> >>> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> >>> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> >>> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> >>> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> >>> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> >>> Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> >>> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> >>> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> >>> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> >>> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> >>> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> >>> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> >>> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> >>> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> >>> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> >>> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> >>> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> >>> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> >>> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> >>> love it the most.
>
> >>> Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
> >>> “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
> >>> de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
> >>> suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
> >>> a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
> >>> compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic “The End of Faith” by
> >>> rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
> >>> expression of religious awe at the “beauty and sublimity” of the
> >>> universe, Dawkins allows, “In this sense I too am religious.”>>
>
> >>> Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
> >>> as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>
> >>> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining
> >>> existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>
> >>> As in India and China, of course!
>
> >>> amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
I haven't seen that one yet either -- I heard it was really violent,
so I didn't bother to see it in the theater when it first came out. I
don't know what it is about violence, but I want less violence of the
bloody gratuitous kind, and more steamy sex as well as lots of women
clad in skin-tight silvery space suits. I liked Watchmen, except for
the excessive bloody violence. I like action, but uggghh. Cut out the
most 10 minutes of violent scenes and that movie is a masterpiece. Why
show someone bludgeoning someone's head open? Why not just imply it?
Why not add more sex and bare breast scenes instead?
Reminds me that Dollhouse has been canceled, dammit. Besides the fact
that I"m madly infatuated with Eliza Dushku, and have been since she
played 'Faith' in the Buffy series, it's another case where steamy sex
is shunned. Dollhouse was a cross between The Matrix and La Femme
Nikita, and while the first season was ok (and I got to see Eliza
Dushku every week in hot outfits), the second season rocked, and
Dushku's character "Echo" goes into the Attic, which is The Matrix in
this show, where lots of humans are interfaced in a virtual reality
and used to form a supercomputer. The whole theme that Echo in her job
'downloads' personalities and skills as characters did in the Matrix
is awesome. And the ongoing love story and then the arch-nemisis
'Alpha' story is getting intense -- and now it's canceled, dammit.
Maybe the SyFy channel will cut a deal with Joss Whedon to keep it
going. At least I have the last 3 un-aired eps left to see in January
before it's over. You'd think they would have learned from canceling
the masterpiece "Firefly", and now here's another masterpiece from the
same director, and they do the same damned thing just when it's
starting to get off the ground.
<<"It’s the classic American double standard: torture — great. Sex —
oh, that’s so bad!" Whedon talks about how he has been "frustrated" by
Fox's skittishness when it came to what he thought would be one of the
show's central concepts: The exploration of sexuality and intimacy, in
all its forms. "Fox sort of has that reputation for 'sexy' or 'edgy'
or blah blah blah, but they don’t actually want that, and it
frustrates me," he continued.>>
Grrrr. What, has the Fox News Channel taken over the Fox network now?
Zheesh. But read the whole interview about Dollhouse at:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/12/dollhouse-fox-joss-whedon.html
--DharmaTroll
herbzet
Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
> I've commented elsewhere that sci-fi is dead and we need another Star Wars.
I have no idea what this means, and I don't wish to be argumentative, but
as much as I loved Star Wars, it was never science fiction. It was superb
space opera.
--
hz
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Dec 23, 5:14 pm, Hollywood Lee <hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> yeah. Just saw district 9. Almost a retro CGI technique, but much
>> better story.
>
> I haven't seen that one yet either -- I heard it was really violent,
> so I didn't bother to see it in the theater when it first came out. [...]
> Reminds me that Dollhouse has been canceled, dammit.
District 9 was just a re-run of media coverage on apartheid South African
and post-post-modern emo demasculisation. Anyone who's over 30 who doesn't
take moral direction from the media probably hated it.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was superior TV to Dollhouse but was
cancelled in its favour because the studio producer had a woody for Joss
Whedon. Look who's laughing now, b4tch.
Hollywood Lee
> On Dec 23, 5:14 pm, Hollywood Lee<hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/23/2009 2:00 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Dec 22, 10:44 pm, Hollywood Lee<hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 12/22/2009 6:34 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>>>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>>
>>>>>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>>
>>>>> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
>>>>> Let me have a crack at it first.
>>>>> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>>
>>>>> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
>>>>> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
>>>>> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
>>>>> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
>>>>> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
>>>>> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>>
>>>>> Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
>>>>> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>>
>>>>> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
>>>>> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
>>>>> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
>>>>> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
>>>>> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
>>>>> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
>>>>> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
>>>>> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>>
>>>>> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
>>>>> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
>>>>> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
>>>>> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
>>>>> love it the most.
>>
>>>>> Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
>>>>> �surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
>>>>> de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
>>>>> suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
>>>>> a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
>>>>> rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
>>>>> expression of religious awe at the �beauty and sublimity� of the
>>>>> universe, Dawkins allows, �In this sense I too am religious.�>>
>>
>>>>> Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
>>>>> as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>>
>>>>> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren�t the shining
>>>>> existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>>
>>>>> As in India and China, of course!
>>
>>>>> amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
> oh, that�s so bad!" Whedon talks about how he has been "frustrated" by
> Fox's skittishness when it came to what he thought would be one of the
> show's central concepts: The exploration of sexuality and intimacy, in
> all its forms. "Fox sort of has that reputation for 'sexy' or 'edgy'
> frustrates me," he continued.>>
>
> Grrrr. What, has the Fox News Channel taken over the Fox network now?
> Zheesh. But read the whole interview about Dollhouse at:
> http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/12/dollhouse-fox-joss-whedon.html
Never got into Dollhouse. Tried. Just seemed odd, even though I like
other whedon stuff generally. As for district 9, yes it is violent but
far less so than avatar imho and with a connection to the story in a way
that was missing in avatar.
My sweet wife would walk out of both, if that is any measure.
Charles E Hardwidge
news:4B32A5D5...@gmail.com...
It depends on whether you want to get into hard versus soft sci-fi, and the
technical versus narrative focus. I'm not a definition freak over it and
other people's tastes differ so am not going to snap in half if someone
takes a different view.
Science-fiction has run into uncomfortable realities and popular culture has
diluted the original impact. So, science-fiction is effectively holed
beneath the waterline. A parallel would be, say, industrialisation and
climate change where people are slamming into limits. Our perspective on
both issues needs a similar reboot as the old ideas and resources are played
out. In that respect, Avatar and the Copenhagen summit are disappointing
but one could, at least, call them a start.
Déjà Flu
I can picture it...
The theater door swings open.
The Lady in Black Heels strides out into the cold night muttering,
"I'm going to my Yoga class, that stuff sucks balls."
The camera traces her calves, covered by glittering stockings,
up to the edge of her skirt before its eye is blinded by the
Dark Knight who followed her out calling, "Hey, honey, wait up!"
The camerman struggles up from the gutter and the camera
is left staring at the right rear wheel of a Cadillac SUV.
Fade to 2010, a year of resignation after a year of hope.
Hollywood Lee
hehe
DharmaTroll
> On 12/23/2009 3:50 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>
> > On Dec 23, 5:14 pm, Hollywood Lee<hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/23/2009 2:00 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
>
> >>> On Dec 22, 10:44 pm, Hollywood Lee<hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> On 12/22/2009 6:34 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
> >>>>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> >>>>>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> >>>>> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> >>>>> Let me have a crack at it first.
> >>>>> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> >>>>> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> >>>>> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> >>>>> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> >>>>> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> >>>>> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> >>>>> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> >>>>> Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> >>>>> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> >>>>> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> >>>>> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> >>>>> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> >>>>> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> >>>>> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> >>>>> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> >>>>> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> >>>>> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> >>>>> But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> >>>>> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> >>>>> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> >>>>> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> >>>>> love it the most.
>
> >>>>> Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
> >>>>> “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
> >>>>> de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
> >>>>> suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
> >>>>> a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
> >>>>> compliment.) Sam Harris concluded his polemic “The End of Faith” by
> >>>>> rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
> >>>>> expression of religious awe at the “beauty and sublimity” of the
> >>>>> universe, Dawkins allows, “In this sense I too am religious.”>>
>
> >>>>> Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
> >>>>> as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>
> >>>>> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren’t the shining
> >>>>> existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>
> >>>>> As in India and China, of course!
>
> >>>>> amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
> > oh, that’s so bad!" Whedon talks about how he has been "frustrated" by
> > Fox's skittishness when it came to what he thought would be one of the
> > show's central concepts: The exploration of sexuality and intimacy, in
> > all its forms. "Fox sort of has that reputation for 'sexy' or 'edgy'
> > frustrates me," he continued.>>
>
> > Grrrr. What, has the Fox News Channel taken over the Fox network now?
> > Zheesh. But read the whole interview about Dollhouse at:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/12/dollhouse-fox-joss-whedon.html
>
> Never got into Dollhouse. Tried. Just seemed odd, even though I like
> other whedon stuff generally. As for district 9, yes it is violent but
> far less so than avatar imho and with a connection to the story in a way
> that was missing in avatar.
>
> My sweet wife would walk out of both, if that is any measure.
I actually watched the first 3 eps of Dollhouse and lost interest at
first. Then in the second season, my die-hard Whedon fans kept saying
"oh it's getting good", so I jumped in and saw a good ep, and since
then I've been watching it weekly and catching up with the old eps
over the net. The last couple of eps have been the best. Now that the
main character Echo is adding other personalities and in control of
them rather than being an empty shell being programmed, she's an
interesting character, and her going into the Matrix (called the
attic) with her extra powers is an interesting theme. I hope all the
ongoing arcs get wrapped up in the last 3 eps, and we don't have to
wait for a movie, as we did with Firefly. (I hope you liked Firefly,
btw. That was simply amazing.)
I'll watch District 9, then, if it's actually less violent than Avatar
and the violence isn't gratuitous. I'm no wimp and like action and
violence, but only when it serves the plot, and it should be implied
as much as possible -- I don't want to see lots of blood and
mutilation. The most violent show I like is Dexter. That show is
simply amazing. And I can handle Dexter's violence as a serial killer
because he is completely "lawful good" and never kills anyone except
murderers, so he's really more of a vigilante like Batman. I love the
depth of the supporting characters as well. And True Blood. That's
fantastic and maybe the most fun show on television, but it will be a
long wait until the next season begins. I suppose those are my two
favorite TV shows, but both are Showtime and not on regular TV/Cable.
The 3-season western Deadwood was violent but amazingly well done, but
I only watched the first season, and just haven't been in the mood to
watch any more of it, as it was so harsh and crude and violent, even
though it was amazingly realistic and beautifully directed and acted.
I like violence the best, however, when it is implied. The cutting of
shots in Hitchcock's Psycho, for instance, is scary and gruesome, but
all the actual violence is implied -- we never see Janet Leigh
actually being stabbed at all in the shower. But the suspense and
intensity is all there. That's the way to go, IMO. With sex, however,
I like to see more nudity and steamy scenes, and sexy outfits, rather
than just having it implied.
--DharmaTroll
zenworm
from the trailer alone this movie "Avatar" is
recognizable as a variant of an old sci-fi
book titled "Planet of Death" by Robert Silverberg.
It is a great story and was quite advanced in
it's use of 'evolution' and the whole 'Gaea principle'
thing, at the time of the books writing. (1967)
"Avatar" seems a spiced up,
modernized,(video) version.
ZN :D _/|\_
absolute permanent perfection overflowing without effort
Lee
"zenworm" <zens...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:76dd8cca-1336-4066...@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
On Dec 23, 4:00 pm, DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> On Dec 22, 10:44 pm, Hollywood Lee <hollywood...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 12/22/2009 6:34 PM, DharmaTroll wrote:
> > >>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> > >> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>
> > >> --
> > >> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> > > Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> > > Let me have a crack at it first.
> > > And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> > > Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> > > Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> > > himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> > > guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> > > know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> > > the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> > > Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
> > > ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>
> > > And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
> > > enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
> > > ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
> > > human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
> > > "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
> > > Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
> > > Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
> > > pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>
> > > But if you truncate that last conclusion, the article is interesting.
> > > I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
> > > (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
> > > 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
> > > love it the most.
>
> > > Anyway, first of all, the theme is compared to Star Wars:
> > > �surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together"....Alexis
> > > de Tocqueville saw it coming: ''Not content with the discovery that
> > > suggested, democratic man 'seeks to expand and simplify his conception
> > > a form of religion that even atheists can support. Richard Dawkins has
> > > rhapsodizing about the mystical experiences available from immersion
> > > expression of religious awe at the �beauty and sublimity� of the
> > > universe, Dawkins allows, �In this sense I too am religious.�>>
>
> > > Well, that's fantastic. In that sense the Dharmatroll is too religious
> > > as well. Then he goes Christianist:
>
> > > societies that hew closest to the natural order aren�t the shining
> > > existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.>>
>
> > > As in India and China, of course!
>
> > > amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and
=========================
it's ALL just "rehash rehash rehash".
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, D�j� Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440
Add another to the list. Science dude bandwagoning. One thing science dudes
don't get is nobody buys their books. Very, very few authors who try to
capitalise on their science background by writing fiction go anywhere.
Tang Huyen
DharmaTroll wrote:
> [skip, the following is from Ross Douthat, NYT]
It is quaint, that the "tragic" view of Douthat, in the
passges quoted by DharmaTroll on top, has not been
identified with by a certain member of these boards,
who has participated in this thread several times.
It seems to me (though I can be completely wrong)
that it reflects closely what Lee Dillion (Lee
Hollywood) has been saying for years, and Lee, who
has repeatedly participated in this thread, has not
stepped up to own up to it.
<<Not really. That is, I fully agree that the two
views have different predictive value in the world I
inhabit. It is why I think a materialist/realist
explanation makes more sense than an idealist one.
But the status of their ontological truth (versus the
mundane experiential truth) doesn't seem to have any
real implications for a Buddhist practice unless, I
suppose, your idealism is such that you deny all need
for action or thought of any kind or quality. A kind of
primordially perfect as is, don't need to do anything
because I'm already a hunka hunka burnin Buddha
sort of thinking.>>
The "materialist/realist explanation" of Lee is close to
the "tragic" view of Douthat, and the optimistic view as
expressed by DharmaTroll, strangely, comes pretty
close to the idealist view as expressed (ironically and
pejoratively) by Lee.
You never know. Some day DharmaTroll can yet cozy
up to Jen. Jen, are you ready to take him as your
comrade-in-arms?
Tang Huyen
Julian
>
> DharmaTroll wrote:
>
>> Most of this op-ed could have been written by
>> anyone sympathetic to Eastern philosophy, until
>> the end, when the author, who reveals himself as
>> an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks"
>> kind of guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his
>> Christianist view (you know, the crap Tang
>> wrongly accuses you and me of when he
>> overdoses on the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>>
>> Hence the conclusion, "This is an agonized
>> God to take on flesh and come among us, as the
>> except as dust and ashes, Nature cannot take us
>> back."
>>
>> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't
>> that what enlightenment is, to be in harmony with
>> nature rather than to separate ourselves as a
>> self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
>> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to
>> find that our "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and
>> not alien from the world? Instead, the only answer,
>> says the author, is escape from Nature to Plato's
>> Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that
>> Cameron's pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust
>> and ashes.
>>
>> [skip, the following is from Ross Douthat, NYT]
>>
>> The question is whether Nature actually deserves a
>> religious response. Traditional theism has to wrestle
>> with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does
>> he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering
>> of life� is really a cycle of mortality. And the human
>> societies that hew closest to the natural order aren�t
>> the shining Edens of James Cameron�s fond
>> imaginings. They�re places where existence tends to
>> be nasty, brutish and short.
>>
>> Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans
>> half inside the natural world and half outside it.
>> ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.
>>
>> among us, as the Christmas story has it � a deeply
Ah, that's nice.
After the great hot female grad students debacle
he may yet get lucky.
DharmaTroll
wrote:
> "DharmaTroll" <dharmatr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>
> news:214c685a-d893-4905...@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
>
> > On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, Déjà Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440
>
> Add another to the list. Science dude bandwagoning. One thing science dudes
> don't get is nobody buys their books. Very, very few authors who try to
> capitalise on their science background by writing fiction go anywhere.
>
> FU trimmed to alt.zen
>
> --
> Charles E Hardwidge
Actually, I like that site a lot, and I also want sci-fi to get the
science right, while giving the story a pass for things like FTL
drives, and so forth.
Here's a cool point:
<<My biggest beef in Cameron’s trading physics for visuals is those
goddamn floating mountains. Seriously, floating mountains? How the
hell do they stay up there? This is such an egregious flouting of the
laws of physics that surely there is some reasoning behind it. Between
the fact that Pandora seems to be sort-of at 1g, the impossible
rotation of Polyphemus, and the floating mountains, physics is one one
area AVATAR gets a marginal fail on Copernicus’ Law of Science
Fiction. But on all the other aspects of science, Cameron gets either
a pass or passes with flying colors.>>
And this one is a pretty glaring problem as well:
<<Given their networking abilities, the Na’vi should not be so
technologically inferior to the humans. On Earth, the largest barrier
to technological progression was that information that existed in the
brains of primitive humans could not be easily shared or preserved. As
soon as writing was developed, suddenly it was possible to store
information outside of the brain, and record and build upon knowledge.
The knowledge available to a human or tribe went from one brain’s
worth (and a minimal amount of oral tradition), to thousands, and
ultimately billions of brains’ worth. The result was a technological
and social explosion. Hominids have had technology like spears for
about half a million years, but only 7,000 years after the development
of writing we had left the planet. And the sharing of knowledge is
still undergoing a revolution with the development of the internet.
Now we have instantaneous access to the combined knowledge of the
entire history of humanity.
Since the Na’vi have had the ability to download information and share
it in a massive network for long periods of time (evolutionary
timescales), they should be way ahead of us in terms of technological
development. Still, I have to give Cameron a pass here. It is
thematically necessary that the Na’vi are technologically primitive,
and their root-network is necessary to the plot. Maybe you could say
that they could have evolved more technology, but they don’t need it
or want it. Still, that reeks of the “Noble savage” idea, and I have
to agree with Stephen Pinker that that is a bunch of hoo-ha.
But my major complaint from an evolutionary standpoint is that there
is no way in hell that life on Pandora would evolve to look so similar
to Earth life: there are humanoids, space horseys, hammerhead
rhinoceri, and pseudo-pterodactyl beasties. And to make it worse, they
have DNA, and the DNA is close enough to our own that Na’vi and human
DNA can be combined! Again, I have to give Cameron a pass. First, it
is easier for the audience to relate to familiar things. And more than
that there is a significant plot point that I won’t spoil towards the
end of the film that hinges on humans and Na’vi having similar DNA.>>
Anyway, those would be the points I'd more likely discuss as a sci-fi
fan, as I didn't really see anything religious, or much about
pantheism, except that the Na'vi were more connected to other beings
and the planet, both psychologically as well as physically, than
humans. Nice science-geek review you found.
--DharmaTroll
DharmaTroll
wrote:
This sounds more like your almost arbitrary categorizing to me than
anything else, Tang. It would be fun to make up a quiz (like the Myers-
Briggs and others like that) which would sort out various approaches
to philosophy/spirituality/religion/metaphysics. I took a silly "what
religion are you" on belief.net, I think it was, and it told me i was
a Quaker, of all things!
Now you lassoed materialist/realist together with Hollywood Lee. Why?
Strangely, I have always thought of Hollywood Lee Dillion as a
pragmatist, and there are varieties of that as well, some closer to
realism or to various realisms than others. Or maybe you're going
bonkers again and are going to lump Lee in with Fu and me in your
Christianist labeling.
The problem around here, is that many folks here are philosophically
naive dolts who cling to a religious view from some Roshi or Tulku or
Bhante, and then label everyone else "materialists". So your quick
associations are only throwing away stereotypes. Dammit, Tang, you're
actually one of folks here with the philosophical firepower to clarify
what you mean by these terms, so perhaps you could be a bit more
precise.
You can be a realist of various sorts, you can be an idealist, and you
can be something in-between. The problem with the ‘Objectivist’
picture of the world, to use Husserl’s term for a kind of scientific
realism, is an interesting problem. Though when Robert or others use
the word Objectivist, they often aren't quoting Husserl (maybe Rob is,
but not others) and rather are just hurling a simple-minded stereotype
that means "you don't fit with my dogma" or something like that. So
let's clarify what the hell we are talking about, and then you can see
where Hollywood and Fu and Jen and Robert and you and I all fit here.
Idealism is one way to avoid problems, but Pragmatism is another, and
I think that some mix of realism and pragmatism (such as Hollywood
Lee's, if I read him right) might be the most sane approach to life
and to Buddhism. I have no frakking idea why you place Lee close to
Douthat's "tragic view" (Keynes is much closer to Douthat, for
example).
I'd love to devise a quiz, have all you schmucks take it, and then
have it say "your views are closest to the Western philosopher/school
X and the Eastern Philosopher/school Y" (where X could be, say
'Schopenhauer' or 'The Stoics', and Y could be 'Dharmakirti" or
"Gelug", etc.) and then rate the 2nd closest and 3rd closest, with a
percent match. Now that would be cool.
Anyway, not having developed that quiz, nor knowing anyone else who
has, I think Hollywood Lee leans toward realism but is a pragmatist (I
can be wrong here), but I don't see how he has anything like Douthat's
view. Here's a quick and dirty definition I can paste in:
<<The epistemology of early pragmatism was heavily influenced by
Charles Darwin. Pragmatism was not the first to apply evolution to
theories of knowledge: Schopenhauer advocated a biological idealism as
what's useful to an organism to believe might differ wildly from what
is true. Here knowledge and action are portrayed as two separate
spheres with an absolute or transcendental truth above and beyond any
sort of inquiry organisms use to cope with life. Pragmatism challenges
this idealism by providing an "ecological" account of knowledge:
inquiry is how organisms can get a grip on their environment. Real and
true are functional labels in inquiry and cannot be understood outside
of this context. It is not realist in a traditionally robust sense of
realism (what Hilary Putnam would later call metaphysical realism),
but it is realist in how it acknowledges an external world which must
be dealt with.>>
Speaking of Hilary Putnam, one of my favorite philosophers, Putnam has
an interesting try between Realism and Idealism. Putnam gives us the
story of the Seducer and the Maiden:
<<In the melodramas of the 1890s the Seducer always promised various
things to the Innocent Maiden which he failed to deliver when the time
came. In this case the Realist promises common sense (the Innocent
Maiden) that he will rescue her from her enemies (Idealists, Kantians,
and fearsome self-described Nelson Goodman) who (the Realist says)
want to deprive her of her good old ice cubes and chairs. Faced with
this dreadful prospect, the fair Maiden naturally opts for the company
of the commonsensical Realist. But when they have traveled together
for a little while the ‘Scientific Realist’ breaks the news that what
the Maiden is going to get isn’t her ice cubes and tables and chairs.
In fact, all there really is – is what ‘finished science’ will say
there is – whatever that may be. She is left with a promissory note
for She Knows Not What, and the assurance that even if there aren’t
tables and chairs, still there are some Ding an Sich that her folk
physics picture. Some will say that the lady has been had.
My old-fashioned story of the Seducer and the Innocent Maiden was
meant as a double warning: a warning against giving up commonsense
realism and, simultaneously, a warning against supposing that the
seventeenth-century talk of ‘external world’ and ‘sense impressions’,
‘intrinsic properties’ and ‘projections’, etc, was in any way a
rescuer of our commonsense realism:
[Internal realism]: (realism – with a small ‘r’) OR: [Pragmatic
realism]
1. Realism is not incompatible with conceptual relativity.
2. Objects do not exist independently of conceptual schemes. We cut up
the world into objects when we introduce one or another scheme of
description.
3. Different versions of conceptual schemes are equally right, as long
as they are correct (coherent?). No view is absolutely right. Our
descriptions reflect our interests and choices.
4. The mind and world jointly make up the mind and the world.
5. Reference is not a relation to a mind-independent world.
6. A being with no values would have no facts either. To talk of
'facts' without specifying the language to be used is to talk of
nothing.
7. There are no 'things in themselves'. The phrase simply makes no
sense – NOT because we cannot know the things in themselves (as Kant
thinks). (So, Putnam is not an agnostic in this respect.) We simply
don’t know what we are talking about when we talk about “things in
themselves.”
8. Commonsense realism is true: there are tables and chairs as we
commonly perceive them.
Now I really like Putnam's view. I don't really have a view myself,
but I like Putnam's the best a lot of the time. I'd like to know if
this view appeals to Hollywood Lee, to Robert, to Jen, to Tang, etc.
Finally, once you get a feel for where you fit in the realism vs
idealism vs pragmatism domain, the talk about 'materialism' is another
issue, and has all sorts of nuances. I'll again paste in some stuff
from an earlier post of mine from a couple of years ago, to give you a
feel for the various choices. Basically my ideal plan would be to
ignore in that thread anyone who lumps people together as
"materialists" or "realists" without understanding the nuances and
complexity of the situation, and have cool discussions with whomever
is left and see how we compare. But maybe that isn't very realistic.
<<Physicalism/Materialism includes what it appears to include: not
only elementary particles, mass-energy, waves, atoms, molecules,
forces, points in space/time, but also (perhaps surprisingly) various
*abstract* objects, e.g., numbers, sets, and properties, since, so far
as anyone has yet been able to show, physical theories are standardly
expressed in a way that commits them to such things. For example,
physics is committed to arithmetic, which seems committed to
*abstracta* such as numbers when it says such things as 'There is a
positive square root of 16'; 'There are an infinite number of prime
numbers'; and its *causal* explanations appear to appeal to such
*properties* of objects as their *mass* and *charge*.
"Physicalism (physical monism) could be contrasted not only with
'dualism' but also what might be called 'tri-alism' which sometimes
posits God as still a further substance different from both mind and
body. And, of course, there could be 4-alism, 5-alism,....However, as
the number increases, the interest of the view begins to diminish,
particularly if it were to turn out, say, that arguments for mind
being different from body were also arguments for dollar bills being
different from bits of paper or mountains being different from
collections of atoms. Indeed, some of the arguments for dualism could
be regarded as equally arguments for what I shall call 'N-alism', or
the view that there are n number of different kinds of things in the
world (dimes, dollar bills, mountains, molehills), for an arbitrary
large number n.
In order to come to grips with any of these ontological claims, one
needs to specify the *category* of phenomena about which one is making
a monistic or dualistic or n-alistic claim (where the 'categories' are
the distinctions among e.g., 'objects,' 'properties,' 'states,' and
'events'....Many philosophers are eliminativists with respect to one
category of thing, but reductionists with respect to another. Thus,
Descartes spoke of a dualism of *substances*: there was a mental
substance, 'mind,' in addition to physical substances. He and many
others have also claimed that there were non-physical *objects* like
'immortal souls'; some people even believe in (presumably non-
physical) 'ghosts'; and it has certainly seemed vivid to many people
that there are such things as *pains*, *itches*, *tickles*,
*after-images*, *mental images*.
But many recent opponents of materialism have balked at these claims,
regarding them as extravagant. They might well be *eliminativists*,
for example, about *ghosts*, and maybe even about any mental
*substance*, and restrict their dualism merely to *properties* or
*aspects* of ordinary physical objects. And they might or might not
then be dualists about the *events* composed of, say, physical objects
with these aspects. And we'll see later that someone might be an
eliminativist about *pains*, or *mental images*, but a reductionist
about pain or imagistic *experiences*. So in considering various
ontological views, whether monist, dualist, reductionist, or
eliminativist, it is a good idea always to be prepared to specify what
category of phenomena, among such alternatives, one has in mind.>>
In any case, folks might have a completely different answer with
respect to the question about the existence of chairs, trees, cats,
atoms, photons, tickles, pains, mental images, etc., whether any of
these exist mind-independently, or whether one takes a reductionist
stance toward them, or an eliminativist stance towards them, etc.
Maybe someday I will develop that quiz.
Well, I'm off to Midnight Mass with all my relatives. Merry Christmas
and Ho Ho Ho everybody.
--DharmaTroll
Keynes
wrote:
>
>Finally, once you get a feel for where you fit in the realism vs
>idealism vs pragmatism domain, the talk about 'materialism' is another
>issue, and has all sorts of nuances. I'll again paste in some stuff
>from an earlier post of mine from a couple of years ago, to give you a
>feel for the various choices.
>
>only elementary particles, mass-energy, waves, atoms, molecules,
>forces, points in space/time, but also (perhaps surprisingly) various
>*abstract* objects, e.g., numbers, sets, and properties, since, so far
>as anyone has yet been able to show, physical theories are standardly
>expressed in a way that commits them to such things. For example,
>physics is committed to arithmetic, which seems committed to
>*abstracta* such as numbers when it says such things as 'There is a
>positive square root of 16'; 'There are an infinite number of prime
>numbers'; and its *causal* explanations appear to appeal to such
>*properties* of objects as their *mass* and *charge*.
Hmm.
Seems to be a whole lot of invisible abstract Physical/Material
things that are 'real' in themselves. And without even a mind to
derive them. Lo! Another miracle!
It's probably so since "'There is a positive square root of 16';
'There are an infinite number of prime numbers" in Plato's
heaven of preexistent and eternal forms?
The world is waiting for this startling new philosophy.
All agog, we anticipate further miraculous revelations.
Keynes
wrote:
>On Dec 24, 10:38 am, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
The point of human invasion was to get super conducting ore.
Super conductors can hold electrical charge perpetually or
pass it along without resistance or losses. Super conductors
have been used to levitate objects on the principle of magnetism
where like charges repel.
How much is enough? Knowing how much is enough can
be liberating. We have made 'improvements' in the last few
centuries, but none have been without their problems.
It's obvious that better agriculture leads to over population
and paradoxically, to starvation. Mono-cropping has failed
in the past and likely will again. Antibiotics, Pesticides,
and herbicides fail when their victims evolve immunities.
Industrialization has not been a complete success, since it
has depended on using up resources that can not be replaced,
as well as the overflow of waste and pollution. We're in the
middle of a great extinction of animals, plants, forests and
seas. We're destroying the ecology of the planet so fast that
we can see it happening in one human lifetime. This can't
go on forever of course. There will be a collapse.
Sustainablity at a comfortable level is not as stupid as some suppose.
>But my major complaint from an evolutionary standpoint is that there
>is no way in hell that life on Pandora would evolve to look so similar
>to Earth life: there are humanoids, space horseys, hammerhead
>rhinoceri, and pseudo-pterodactyl beasties. And to make it worse, they
>have DNA, and the DNA is close enough to our own that Na’vi and human
>DNA can be combined! Again, I have to give Cameron a pass. First, it
>is easier for the audience to relate to familiar things. And more than
>that there is a significant plot point that I won’t spoil towards the
>end of the film that hinges on humans and Na’vi having similar DNA.>>
>
Amino acids and other carbon compounds have been found
in meteorites. The makings of life seem to appear naturally
in space that is full of supernova products. (Like our solar
system.) All elements heavier than iron were made in the
explosive death of bigger stars. Chemistry has preferences
for certain combinations and reactions. Living cells are
probably not as improbable as some suppose.
Charles E Hardwidge
news:vch8j55c1dvnnbhu5...@4ax.com...
>>>On Dec 24, 10:38 am, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
>>>wrote:
>>> http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440
> The point of human invasion was to get super conducting ore.
> Super conductors can hold electrical charge perpetually or
> pass it along without resistance or losses. Super conductors
> have been used to levitate objects on the principle of magnetism
> where like charges repel.
> How much is enough? Knowing how much is enough can
> be liberating. We have made 'improvements' in the last few
> centuries, but none have been without their problems.
>
> It's obvious that better agriculture leads to over population
> and paradoxically, to starvation. Mono-cropping has failed
> in the past and likely will again. Antibiotics, Pesticides,
> and herbicides fail when their victims evolve immunities.
>
> Industrialization has not been a complete success, since it
> has depended on using up resources that can not be replaced,
> as well as the overflow of waste and pollution. We're in the
> middle of a great extinction of animals, plants, forests and
> seas. We're destroying the ecology of the planet so fast that
> we can see it happening in one human lifetime. This can't
> go on forever of course. There will be a collapse.
>
> Sustainablity at a comfortable level is not as stupid as some suppose.
> Amino acids and other carbon compounds have been found
> in meteorites. The makings of life seem to appear naturally
> in space that is full of supernova products. (Like our solar
> system.) All elements heavier than iron were made in the
> explosive death of bigger stars. Chemistry has preferences
> for certain combinations and reactions. Living cells are
> probably not as improbable as some suppose.
Some very good points, Keynes and I wholeheartedly agree with your point of
view. I would've thought anyone with a cursory understanding of the subject
would share this view. While the story is weak and the technology is a
novelty, the narrative "cut" that brings them together with the science is
sound. It's a let down as a movie but Cameron did pull it off.
I think, the author is a little carried away with his "science" background
and wants to look "cool". He doesn't know as much as he thinks he knows and
strikes me as being a bit of an attention whore. Had a run in with a
similarly complacent emo in the photography groups who threw a snotty bitch
fit when I pointed this out. Hey, ho.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Charles E Hardwidge
obsessing the brain and group politics again. Wrong direction.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
DharmaTroll
> On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:50:01 -0800 (PST), DharmaTroll <dharmatr...@my-deja.com>
DharmaTroll
wrote:
So far, Keynes babbles nonsense, and then Charles complains.
I'm waiting for Tang or others to weigh in with something interesting.
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Dec 25, 7:55 am, "Charles E Hardwidge" <bo...@invalid.invalid>
> wrote:
>> What the fuck has any of this got to do with the topic? You guys are just
>> obsessing the brain and group politics again. Wrong direction.
>
> I'm waiting for Tang or others to weigh in with something interesting.
I prefer Plan C.
(See if you can catch the obscure Unobtainium reference).
--
Charles E Hardwidge
halfawake
>
>> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, D�j� Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>>
>>
>> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
>> Let me have a crack at it first.
>> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>>
>> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
>> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
>> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
>> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
>> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>>
>> escape upward � or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the
>> Christmas story has it � a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
>> ashes, Nature cannot take us back."
>>
>> And I have to ask the author, why the hell not? Isn't that what
>> enlightenment is, to be in harmony with nature rather than to separate
>> ourselves as a self-existing ego or soul, to be fully intelligent and
>> human but to live "in accordance with the Tao", to find that our
>> "Buddha Nature" is deeply natural and not alien from the world?
>> Instead, the only answer, says the author, is escape from Nature to
>> Plato's Heaven, to an alienated transcendent God, and that Cameron's
>> pantheism is futile, leading to mere dust and ashes.
>>
>> I want to see the film anyway eventually, just being a big Cameron fan
>> (I mean Terminator, and T2 and Aliens, not that long, boring, mushy
>> 'Titanic' ), but this adds a nice twist to it. I'm sure Robbie will
>> love it the most.
>
>
> relevant to
> living and relevant to people outside this niche. Also, it's pleasing to
> see
> a proper comment rather than some lazily cryptic remark or a cut 'n' paste
> job. It was rambling and showy but apart from that a reasonable effort.
>
> I've consumed some of the pre-show hype including trailers, reviews, and
> interviews. You can grasp a little of what the project is about but most of
> it is just bigging things up and attention seeking. They want your moonay.
>
> I've already seen Avatar. It's a typical Cameron film and contains
> shades of
> Aliens and Titanic. They appealed to the testosterone and oestrogen crowd
> and, I suspect, Cameron is trying to meld these together. Then there's the
> background of pushing technology, globalisation, and cultural toxicity. He
> succeeds in meeting all these bullet points but the general polish and
> energy of the movie is let down by forgettable acting and a poor story.
>
> Picking up on Cameron's pantheism and comparing it to George Lucas'
> religious exploitation with the Star Wars franchise is a good call.
>
> I've commented elsewhere that sci-fi is dead and we need another Star Wars.
> to hate this but I posted anonymously on a leading blog and watched the
> press roll out with that over the next few weeks. That's on top of
> getting a
> tug in an interview with a leading producer. Fuck, yeah.)
>
> Most people are probably familiar with the comparisons between Star Wars
> and
> Doaism but there's another angle than mythology or storytelling. Star Wars
> is a juggernaut that needs feeding. To keep going it needs new material and
> a constant influx of revenue. To that end the Star Wars machine has been
> geared by *management policy* to mine Eastern mythology.
>
> In an age where information is more valuable than gold, Eastern
> mythology is
> being raped by the Star Wars franchise as readily as Monsanto and Exxon
> went before them with genetics and oil. Surely, it's no coincidence that
> America and other vested interests are pushing behind the scenes for a
> comprehensive and binding international treaty on intellectual property.
>
> Cameron strikes me as a bit of an anti-establishment figure, but he's a
> clever guy and politically savvy enough to be successful as a movie maker
> and stay alive within the studio system. Perhaps it's Cameron's lead or
> just
> a coincidence but Fox are making almost zero noise on movie piracy with
> Avatar. Lucas is a /little/ like that himself. If Lucas and Cameron are the
> public successes of the system, perhaps, they've kept enough of a piece of
> themselves back they can allow people to share in that dream.
>
Something I've been aware of for a while are those actors and filmakers
who not only keep a piece of themselves in super-successful movies, but
are willing to sacrifice a bit more in order to keep a bigger piece of
themselves intact in the actual work. Actors like Kevin Bacon and
Mickey Rourke in the U.S. are examples of actors that can or could get
Hollywood roles but keep going back to either controversial or more
independent material in order to have a more satisfying dramatic life.
Sometimes they pay for it dearly by losing income or stature. On the
other side is a Tom Cruise who loses any sense of real identity in order
to become a money-making entity. He went towards something great a
couple of times, but always came back to being a charming money vehicle.
This is true of directors too. One of the greatest living directors,
who really works in an original way with total integrity is Mike Leigh.
Although he's become quite famous, he has never made the kinds of
millions that others of his stature have, because he will never quite
cross over to the mainstream. Then there are some who manage to tread
both worlds. Most of Cameron's work is very Hollywood, even though he
is good at it. Ridley Scott is one who can go fully Hollywood but did
something really special with Blade Runner, and is really good at what
he does. Then there is someone like Steven Soderbergh who dips into
mainstream but always has a very special style, care for his suject
matter and never appears to fully sell out. I'm not in love with
Spielberg or George Lucas as filmmakers. I think that Spielberg knows
how to create an icon out of a good story, which is a skill, but is not
really about film, and Lucas got lucky and knows how to tell a good
story - maybe more a storyteller than a director. Just a few thoughts
in this direction. I've been studying film and and studying and
teaching film acting for a long time, but have not done that much
directing, so I'm not exactly an expert.
Best,
Robert
= = = = = = = = = =
Charles E Hardwidge
news:hh4cbu$2v8$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
That was a reasonable appraisal of the situation. It also shows the clear
split in our understanding or personalities. My personality and inclination
I lean more towards directing than teaching. If I was being snarky I'd say
you were parroting but would also have to admit issues. "Routine" and
"chumming" are not strengths of mine. In that respect I'm probably the Lucas
to your Spielberg (or Hitler to your Stalin on a bad day).
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Lee
"Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
news:FNadndDt5JfgeK7W...@supernews.com...
>
>
> DharmaTroll wrote:
>
>> Most of this op-ed could have been written by
>> anyone sympathetic to Eastern philosophy, until
>> the end, when the author, who reveals himself as
>> an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks"
>> kind of guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his
>> Christianist view (you know, the crap Tang
>> wrongly accuses you and me of when he
>> overdoses on the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>>
>> Hence the conclusion, "This is an agonized
>> God to take on flesh and come among us, as the
>> among us, as the Christmas story has it - a deeply
sorry, no fat chicks.
DharmaTroll
> >news:214c685a-d893-4905...@h9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, Déjà Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
>
> >>> Tang, you like to quote NYT screeds, how about a translation?
>
> >>> --
> >>> Ubi dubium ibi libertas
>
> >> Wow, this is a cool op-ed piece, Fu.
> >> Let me have a crack at it first.
> >> And let's ask Robbie, too: he's our list film director!
>
> >> Most of this op-ed could have been written by anyone sympathetic to
> >> Eastern philosophy, until the end, when the author, who reveals
> >> himself as an anti-nature "God exists or else the world sucks" kind of
> >> guy, trashes it at the end and reveals his Christianist view (you
> >> know, the crap Tang wrongly accuses you and me of when he overdoses on
> >> the caffeinated tea or whatever).
>
> >> escape upward — or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the
> >> Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one....But except as dust and
So did you see Avatar, Robert? And you remind me of how Alfred
Hitchcock demanded that actors precisely play the part and not bring
themselves into the role, that they are to be treated as cattle. I
remember the quote from a film class I took on Hitchcock: “I never
said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be
treated like cattle.”
--DharmaTroll
Charles E Hardwidge
> So did you see Avatar, Robert? And you remind me of how Alfred
> Hitchcock demanded that actors precisely play the part and not bring
> themselves into the role, that they are to be treated as cattle. I
> remember the quote from a film class I took on Hitchcock: �I never
> said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be
> treated like cattle.�
Epstein is an opposite character type to Hitchcock. He's more like Meme
Leder with a penis.
--
Charles E Hardwidge
Appledog
> Hitchcock: “I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be
> treated like cattle.”
If you've a brain like his, sure. Today's writers need the actors to
carry much of the writing. With hitchcock the actors just get in the
way of the book. He knew it, and the reason he could make such demands
successfully was because everyone else at the time knew it too.
-
Charles E Hardwidge
> On Dec 22, 5:18 pm, D�j� Flu <cha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html
Read some of Cameron's original script treatment last night. There's a
bigger story and more texture in there than hit the screen. I've heard
estimates it could've run to 4 hours if they'd gone with the whole thing.
My guess is a lot of the acting presence was levelled down and smoothed over
to fit better with the animation. This robbed the movie of punch but it
looks less uneven when weighed against the obvious CGI shortcomings.
In many ways this movie is more like a spin on Aliens and The Last Samurai
than "Shrek with Wolves". In fact, given the backstory it's almost "The Last
Alien" seen from a Na'vi perspective.
--
Charles E Hardwidge