Random Bits: The Avatar Edition

I don't have a lot to say about Avatar that hasn't already been said by lots of people in lots of places. It goes without saying that it's visually stunning, although you'll still find a few folks who complain about the CGI. More than any other, this film manages to take us inside the world it creates. And I didn't even get to see it in 3D.

It's a simple and predictable story, but I don't object to that. My quarrel with the film has to do with its political message of the evils caused by the marriage of big business and the military. Cameron is pushing this so hard that it made me fall out of the story a few times. A story shouldn't be a mere vehicle for someone's agenda. Further, the villains would have been more interesting and more threatening if they were less stupid and banal. Still, I very much enjoyed watching the film and want to see it again. You, too? Until then, check out these items, most of which have been making their way around the sf blogosphere...

Some people love Avatar so much that they find real life depressing: Post-Avatar Depression Syndrome? Really, CNN?

If you want to know more about Pandora, check out the Pandorapedia (which includes a video narrated by Sigourney Weaver). There's even a (farfetched) story about why mountains can float.

Is Avatar a racist film? Some say so. Mark Mardell argues not (although it might be about the U.S.)

SF author China Mieville on Avatar

SF author Nancy Kress on Avatar

SF author John Scalzi on Avatar

SF Gospel weighs in on Avatar

From Failblog we get the inevitable observation that Avatar's plot sounds awfully familiar...

The Avatar-as-a-Dune ripoff video is also entertaining.

You have anything else to add to the mix?

Oh, and yes there will indeed be an Avatar and Philosophy volume.

Time Travelers Never Die

Some time travel stories throw a wrench into the gears in your head. Your mind grinds to a halt and you have to read them again, or watch them again, to see if they make sense or if they're cleverly constructed nonsense. Stories like these make us flex our philosophical muscles. Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies" is the locus classicus here.

Other time travel stories are just a heckuva lot of fun. Time Travelers Never Die, by Jack McDevitt, is that kind of story. Shel and Dave inherit time travel technology--a handheld time machine, no less, much like an ipod--from Shel's father, who has gone missing. In their search for him, they travel throughout history. They go to see Galileo, Shakespeare, Aristotle. They check out the library of Alexandria and bring back some lost plays of Sophocles. It's rather like a liberal arts version of a time travel story. Where would you go?

What about the paradox of time travel? You know, all that business about (not) killing your grandfather. Well, McDevitt humorously solves that problem with a little something he calls "the cardiac principle." A researcher makes the fateful attempt to alter the past and create a paradox and she drops dead of a heart attack. Get it? Shel tries it for himself and somehow he's dropped in the ocean. Evidently something is protecting the integrity of the timeline. If you're going to appeal to a deus ex machina, why not be like McDevitt and be up front about it--and have a good time with it, too? But don't think about it too hard. Just enjoy the story!