I’d also like to say that I think there are two pieces of unintentional irony in the film.

One being that the savior of the indigenous people is another arrogant white guy, just like Dances With Wolves. He bests the Na’vi champion, steals his bride-to-be, tames the unconquerable dragon and then rallies the people to victory. The destroyers are also the saviors. They hold all the power. That to me seems to subvert the theme of honoring the culture and wisdom of native people. This white savior is meant to assuage white guilt by doing what no one is history ever actually did. It seems to me that saviors more often come from within the ranks of the oppressed. I think the idea is handled better in District 9 since the hero is a reluctant hero and his transformation, physically, mentally and spiritually, are more gradual and believable. He never actually tries to usurp leadership, and throughout most of the movie his motivations are selfish. He has to be forced to change through his trials and tribulations and in the end he disappears into anonymity among the aliens.

The other unintended irony to me is that while the theme is meant to be the imperialists versus the natives, or the machine versus the soul, or even left brain versus right brain, you could connect that to commerce versus art. And the film loses that battle despite itself. Commerce wins here, and art loses. And as you point out John, this seems to be the trend of the last decade. Avatar tries to connect to the soul through artificial means, just like the main character, and it fails.

A huge amount of media–commercial and grass roots–is immediately available…but maybe only everything since 2005? The rest of old culture that has been placed on the computer depends on kindness of strangers.

[SPOILER]

As a movie buff, I wanted to add that the ending impressed me because it’s cleverly switched the genre from western/apocalypse to Zatoichi-like lone swordsman.

–J.E.

An excellent review as always. I have been reading Gebser alongside Mcluhan’s Understanding Media and soon the Gutenberg Galaxy so your thoughts on the power of the printing press and Word to shape and re-shape civilizations comes at the perfect time for me meditating on all of this business. I believe it is time to admit that Mcluhan was thoroughly engaged not only in media/culture but also in the discussion of the evolution of consciousness, as William Irwin Thompson points out in “Coming into Being” where he compares Mcluhan and Gebser’s tables of conscious evolution.

At any rate, I thought this one would be one I could pass up but your review is seductive and I love Gary Oldman so I am going to have to check it out.

Moon fits into a familiar genre that I call “Truckers in Space” (think Alien, Outland, and, well, maybe, Space Truckers). It has the small cast, big mining ship, working class crew making a major lifestyle sacrifice for a “share,” big business cover-up, threatening central computer…and so on. What I thought was new, and loved most, was that Mr. Jones and Mr. Rockwell brought warmth and a genuine emotional conundrum into this rotten situation. I wouldn’t like knowing I’m easily replaced. Although he’s a million miles away and has suffered the hardship of his wife dying and selling out, I’d want to be the real guy, not the clone. Even Kubrick and Tartovsky with their wide-screen, big-picture, birds-eye views can sometimes be faulted(or praised) for avoiding this human element.

The thing I didn’t like? When we run out of fuel…why do we go back to a fuel based economy? Mining the moon? We are gluttons.

I had the chance to see a screening of this with Duncan Jones present. He downplayed the screenplay and said he wrote it quickly because he had a window of opportunity to work with Sam Rockwell. A funny–at least to me–behind the scenes bit he mentioned was had to do with Dead Ringers. They studied the bonus features from on the Laser Disc of that movie for technical effects on twinning. Long live old media!

He also thanked us all for coming to Moon instead of District 9 which was opening that weekend. I got the impression Mr. Jones is a bit of a hopeless sci-fi nut who had the interests of other hopeless sci-fi nuts in mind. He mentioned that he wanted to be true to “hard science” in his story and he has reservations about having to use ghostly hallucinations at the beginning of the movie because they were more fantasy-based.

Benton, wow, “1,” …making an movie about that story is impossible. I also love Dead Ringers.

Thanks again for an excellent resource. I shall be buying your book on amazon today.

Kyle Elsbernd
Wisconsin USA