Avatar 3D: Stoned Review(writing and watching)

So yesterday I finally went out and saw avatar in 3D. We smoked a few bowls at 4:20 but the movie was at 8 so it had little to no effect but in my opinion you can get higher if you smoked earlier within the day.

Anyways we smoked a really fat philly blunt and a bowl or two in a pipe. It was my brothers first time getting high, he had smoked before but with little effect, but he really pushed himself and took some pretty big hits-he jus bout coughed up a lung. We smoked some pretty good chron with tight nugs and lots of hairs, the high was just your average whatever, not really leaning to much towards sativa or indica, although I would guess it leaned a bit to indica cuz I felt pretty glued to my chair at the end of the movie, but that was mostly cuz its 3 hours long. Wish I had some Barney's Farm LSD to smoke, that's probably the best weed I've tried for going to movies and making things "trippy".

We get in there and it was pretty sweet, I'm not going to exaggerate like all those depictions of stoners on tv watching crazy stuff like 3D movies. I smoke every day if I'm not broke, so it was enjoyable but not mind blowing. I didn't feel like I didn't know reality or anything bullshit like that, but the movie does seem more realistic and more interesting, although last time I went to a 3D high it was coraline and it didn't hold me attention well enough.

Anyways here's my review I'm writing while I'm high right now, of Avatar which I watched high, and I'm going to try to do more of these stoned movie reviews on here.

Summary:
The basic plot of Avatar is that in the future Jake Sully wakes from cryogenic sleep because of the interest his brother had in science. His brother was a big part of research on the planet Pandora, and so his brother's genes are mixed with Navi genes so that Jake can mind link with the body, and attempt to learn the ways of the Navi in order to convince them to move off the land they're on because it lays on top of a huge source of unobtainium, which is far more valuable that gold or diamonds or any resource we have today. Jake begins his program with Dr. something or other, never remembered her name, who is trying to work with a team of scientists to understand Pandora and the Navi culture, to find a peaceful alternative to the sergeant's ruthless genocide plans. Jake is soon spared by one of the Navi, forget her name, and he is grudgingly accepted into the tribe because he is the first mind linked person who also is a warrior, not a scientist, so they teach him their ways to learn more about his. He learns that navi have a tentacle type deal on their head that has open neurotransmitters which can be linked to just about every plant and animal, the doctor also explains that this neurological connection with the trees, which are sacred to them, is essentially a network of memories stored within the network of neurologically connected trees. The sky walkers of course plow through trees, and when jake is caught on camera trying to stop a vehicle of the company he works for from destroying the forest, the project to peacefully engage the Navi is ended and the sergeant begins preparation for an all out assault. Jake had one last chance to warn the navi, but when they find out that he knew of these plans the whole time he is banished. Jake goes out and mind linked and thus trained the fiercest dragon-like creature which has deep social and spiritual meaning with the navi, who now accept jake back and he leads them in an assault against the sky walkers calling for all the navi clans to gather. The day of the battle the military is trying to destroy the navi's most sacred tree, which stores their ancestors memories neurologically. Long story short the tree is destroyed people are dying, etc, and they must leave now. Jake's girlfriend still is very angry with him. Jake and the scientists are put in prison for betraying their own, but are broken out by this chick that flies helicopters and has also switched to the side of the Navi. They escape narrowly with the lab stuff, although the doctor is hurt. They rush jake to the mind linking sun tan booth, and he tries to carry the doctors body to be healed by the Navi, who reveal that the mind can be permanently transferred to the avatar body via a tree and their mother earth like goddess. They rise up to fight and gather together all the clans. They have a big fight and the massive animals of Pandora defeat the military with the navi. The earth goddess has restored balance to nature by destroying the greedy imperialists. Jake also has a show down with the sergeant and narrowly survives. He then has one more time in his human body and then is permanently mind linked into his avatar body. The aliens (humans) and sent back to earth, and presumably the avatars and navi live in peace.

Opinion:
I liked the movie over all, it had a lot of good messages. The one thing I didn't like is that it really went too far sometimes with the hippie, new age, environmentalist thing. The thing I really loved was the concept of the natives not being so savage and wild as is thought, and the general message of cultural equality, anti imperialism culturally and politically, and ethnocentrism. I found the Navi to seem to be a good mix of many cultures-I detected a little japanese, celtic, native american of course, incan/aztec/mayan, rastafarian/ethiopian, indian, etc-and I am sure this is meant to be the case. I hated though how they showed this culture's worth was respect of plants and animals although I think it is important they go a little far in my opinion), and actually it seemed to enforce many of the misconceptions of indigenous cultures throughout history. Many people for instance think the native americans are inferior because when we got here they were walking around half naked without structured towns. Well I took a college course on Native American Culture and History, and I can tell you this isn't true. They had huge planned pueblo cities, monk's mound, cahokia, the politically structure of the Iroquois League. Benjamin Franklin said if the representative system of the Iriquois were good enough for savages surely it is good enough for white men. The Celts defeated Julius Caesar in battle many times, until his larger, more structured army defeated the new coalitions. Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe, the Kushites, etc had very "civilized" cultures of tribal africa. And the list goes on an on, but basically you see throughout history that there is no ignorant, wild savage culture. All human cultures have art, politics, social structure, etc etc and none is merely inferior to the other. In Avatar however, they seemed to almost portray the Navi as the ultra simple culture that many mistakenly believe indigenous people have. Much like our modern american life, there are the people with a simple life of working, providing for their family, and just dealing with day to day life. Then there are the superstars which do big flashy things, often out of pride, and it is the same way with cultures, but you wouldn't say a farmer is culturally inferior to brittany spears, so why would you say a powerful culture such as the Hopewell are inferior to the romans? They aren't but the romans just happen to be the big celebrities of history. As the Irish say, "Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs". I feel that this is the deep message of Avatar, although to be fair I have thought of it for a while before hand, so I may have seen it in the movie only because I already had those thoughts. For me watching some of the parts about taking over the navi almost made me cry, but when I heard the part where they said they would gather all the clans at a sacred tree, I shed one tear, which is more than I can say for the passion. This is because when Julius Caesar lead his conquest on Britain in 55 BC, the Celts (who supposedly have no signs of cultural cohesion) banded together. Druids from France, maybe Spain, Scotland, England, and Ireland came together with Welsh druids on anglesey because they believed this was the center of the world. Julius Caesar struggled, but eventually won. He didn't come back himself, but subsequent Romans occupied England, Hadrian even built a wall to protect the romans from scottish and welsh attacks, and oppression began. Eventually the romans fell, partially due to the celts, and their prideful ambitions and arrogance spread to France, England, etc where they had been in control. Countries followed on in the tradition of imperialism, and England began to enslave africans and Irish men (and I would guess some welsh and scottish), practically enslave India, etc etc until one country turned around and defeated them. We are this country and we should never forget our simple roots. We often think we are more important than other cultures, but its bullshit. The life of a poor african child matters just as much as the life of bill gates, but bill gates, although he literally has enough money to end world poverty and still be hella rich, donates a very small percentage, and hordes the rest.




Avatar should show you the ethnocentrism and culturally imperialistic behavior of the united states and other world powers, and the need to change our behaviors. I believe the first step to this is having history books that don't go on for chapters and chapters and chapters for the romans and trace history through the bloodline of Caucasians. We need a good objective history so that future generations won't see a black man and think of some tribal guy eating grass or whatever, but would see the rich cultural diversity and achievements of blacks, whites, southern americans, etc etc.

There is no uncivilized culture, we are all brothers, one tribe, one race,
ONE LOVE.

this is my first Stoned Movie Review, but I promise to do many more if I get good response.

 

just posting to see if anyone even looked at this

 

Damn, well shit son, I've never done ketamine. most intense hallucinogenic experiences I've had were downing 1/4ounce of shrooms with a liter of jack and 50mg of 2c-i, don't really remember much about ketamine, must've been too fucked up every time people have talked about it lol

Copy of pocahontas-bullshit. Does it have similar philosophy and story-duhr they both draw from the same things, but avatar is more of a blanket reference to africans, celts, native americans, etc etc. Really just about any culture has experienced oppression at some point in time and this tried to not single out one or the other.

I did enjoi it, but I think its too long too watch again.

 

Here's the shorter version. I was stoned when I wrote that one, and I was supposed to be writing a movie review for my class so I did this instead cuz I was high and procrastinating lol.

It was pretty cool high. The visuals were very vivid and it really brings you in and seems so real you easily forget about being in the theater. Something I've noticed with being high at 3d movies though is that you can easily forget its 3d and aren't necessarily wowed by it the way you are when not stoned, instead it just makes you get more into it and it feels more real. Its not really a bad thing, but its not what noobs might think it would be.

As far as the actual story goes, its nothing incredibly special. The plot itself is very predictable, but I found myself so immersed in everything I didn't find myself thinking "wow how predictable" although I guess it was in the back of my head. I would have to say in fact, that the predictable plot line actually seemed to free me up to enjoi the other aspects more, although I suspect that was mostly because I was pretty high (couple bowls and two fat ass blunts). Although I didn't like a lot of the uber hippie messages about veganism/vegetarianism, environmentalism etc (I believe in caring for the environment and animals to an extent, but not the whole don't kill trees or bees or anything cuz it all has life force energy blah blah). The message I really did like was about cultural prejudice. It seemed to really bring in aspects of many cultures, like some rasta stuff I think I remember seeing, or maybe it was dreads or something, celtic (irish/scottish/welsh type, mostly irish sounding) music, and of course many references to native americans. We really need to have a more diverse cultural education in this country, and I hope this film helps that happen.

I have to quickly say something about history and a quick example of why this is important though. If you're interested read the longer version. What it reminds me of is the story of Sand Creek. Native American leaders White Antelope and Black Kettle worked to find peace with the US that was rapidly overtaking their home on the plains. They talked to Abraham Lincoln and received an american flag and white flag as a sign of the peace promised, then talked to a governor that formerly claimed they should be killed at all expenses, and received a promise of peace as long as they camped by sand creek in CO. John Chivington, the commander of the military forces in Colorado, however, went against all orders, saying he came out to kill injuns, who should be wiped out. He lead his troops to sand creek, one of the leaders (forget which) waved the flag, but the troops came in and shot just about every man woman and child. the leader w. the flag dropped to his knees and cried, singing the death song when someone came up and shot him in the head. The other leader (again forgot which is which), ended up at a mental institution unjustly and reportedly jumped out a window, committing suicide. I believe the rest of the survivors were killed as well, but i guess to be fair there were barely any.

Sorry for the short history lesson, but this is just one small example of something that has happened all over the world. Its what my signature is about, and its what I'm going to college to work on fighting. We already have stopped violent imperialism, now its time to stop cultural imperialism and ethnocentrism (look it up, seriously).






Really I would sum up the whole message by saying that we need to quit learning this narrow minded view of history that comes from Romans, the English, and Christians. It really is bullshit and the ignorance it causes breeds cultural pride and hatred. This is where stuff like the holocaust and slavery of africans (not to mention other people like the irish), occurs. So the really really really short version is a bit of a cliche now, especially in this stoner community, but bob marley had it rightne love.

 

I know its still kinda long, but hopefully its easier to read. I have a serious problem with keeping stuff short cuz I'm a novelist so I have a really bad habit of going into detail and going on and on and on since thats a good thing when you're writing a book. Oh and I forgot to mention that the novel I've been working on for the past three years is similar in its message to avatar, so I guess that could mean I'm a bit more excited about the movie, but it also kinda pissed me off since I'm sure some people might think I'm copying avatar too some degree. Oh well.

 

that would be my little brother that got high there for the first time lol

 

Awesome! that sounds like a very attractive major to me as well. I'm in a history major right now with Native American Culture minor, but I've been thinking of changing to either Anthropology(cultural) or horticultural with a minor in chemistry (now what would I do with that?)

Its really great to hear someone who first of all read the whole thing and that agrees and likes it. I'm currently working on a novel that illustrates this because I keep trying to talk to people about it, but it has too many big words or something I guess lol so I want to show more than tell. At times I worry that no one will care and my book will not be noticed, nor will its message. I am uber stoked to hear of others that share my view on this, and its inspired me to pull an all nighter and work on a few chapters (after finishing yet another paper-you know how it is in college, papers, exams, and more papers).