'Avatar' insults the military

Avatar is an action-packed movie set far into the future on a far-away planet called Pandora. It uses 3D and computer generated scenes for a stunning picture. What is disturbing about this movie is the possibility it may be an undeserved insult to the prestigious American armed forces.

First, this movie uses subtle innuendo to hint the Marines are mercenaries, killing innocent men, women and children to enhance the profits of a corporation. This is done in a very subtle way because no American flag is shown, but the hero of the movie wears a Marine T-shirt and in the beginning says "back home we were Marines, but here we're just hired guns."

This may be excused as just the standard complaining done by most soldiers. But the fact that they are working for a corporation is spelled out very clearly by one of the actors by him saying "what matters here is quarterly profits." Another hint that he is an American is when he makes his video report. His home address is Ag, Georgia, in very fine print at the bottom left of the screen.

After establishing that the American soldiers are mercenaries, two tragic events in American history are depicted; one is the American Indian wars, the second is the Vietnam War.

The Indian Wars are hinted at by first establishing that what they are after is a special mineral that floats in the planet Pandora's atmosphere and is supposed to be worth $20 million a kilo. If you think of "gold" in place of this floating rock in Pandora's atmosphere, you can see the link between Pandora and the "Gold Rush days" in the American Wild West, along with the land rush that was involved where Native Americans were killed when they got in the way of gold prospectors and Europeans after their land. This theme is enhanced by the native people of Pandora wearing what looks like the native wear of American indigenous people. Also, their use of the bow and arrow as their main weapon, while fighting the Americans armed with guns also hints at the Indian Wars.

The war in Vietnam is hinted at in some scenes, by what looks something like helicopters, with two rotors instead of one and open doors that have mounted machine guns pointing out. These helicopters are flying through what is clearly a jungle scene, bringing back images of Vietnam. The American soldiers talk about winning their "hearts and minds" while other soldiers are saying "you can't do that with machine guns." Again, this brings back themes from the Vietnam War. Also, they describe distance in "clicks" just like they did for the first time in Vietnam. One soldier is told by a native woman to "go home, you don't belong here." Again, just like Vietnam.

These hints of the Indian Wars and Vietnam in the fictitious battle of Pandora are saying that American soldiers will always be mercenaries for the corporations. It's clearly a false reading of history based on only two wars from the many that were fought in American history.

In real life, some people have tried to smear the American military with the slander "mercenary" as during the war to free Kuwait when it was invaded by Iraq. They said the American military was fighting for oil profits for the corporations. Even though this was proven untrue, when American forces withdrew from Kuwait after the defeat of the invading Iraqi forces, no apology was offered to the American military.

It's interesting to note that nobody has commented on the anti-military aspect of this movie. It has made more than a billion dollars in sales.

The new groups that are OK to insult are police, soldiers and politicians, so nobody is objecting to this movie. But is this really OK? American soldiers are giving up their lives and are being maimed for the freedom of many people in this war against terrorists and all the movie industry can do is insult them.

When will they ever learn?

Jose Lugo

Spring Hill