Total Pageviews  Saturday, January 30, 2010  Reverse Predictions
and More Subtexts  I see that AVATAR is now the most successful
movie in history, passing TITANIC earlier this month (I won't
use the obvious sinking metaphor.) Since this movie cost a half
a billion dollars, movie economics dictates that it didn't start
to earn a profit until it earned a billion dollars at the box
office. It's just done this, but half that sum came from outside
the USA. Why? Is it just due to the effects, or something more?
AVATAR has done spectacularly well in China and other Asian
nations, so well that the Chinese yanked the 2D version from the
theatres to prevent piracy. Which leads me to suspect that
AVATAR'S popularity is due to another subtext that appears in
this movie. It's about the end of colonial empire, specifically
an American colonial empire. There are some different races in
this movie (Cameron makes sure to show some mixed-race troops
cheering Colonel Quaritch's peptalk before the last great
invasion.) It's an A