Corps official: Avatar ‘sophomoric’ - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Corps official: Avatar ‘sophomoric’

Avatar, the highly anticipated 3-D movie by director James Cameron, was met with enthusiasm by audiences across the globe and has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide as of Jan. 6. Talks of a sequel are already underway.

But despite commercial success, Avatar has been the target of anger and backlash from some who see it as an affront to the Marine Corps and a negative allegory for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the movie, a paraplegic Marine veteran named Jake agrees to travel to the distant, resource-rich planet Pandora where he works with the military and private mercenaries to displace a humanoid race called the Na’vi so that their land can be mined for precious minerals. In return for his service, Jake is to receive a surgery that will allow him to walk again, but after infiltrating the Na-vi with an avatar identity, he falls in love with one of the locals and decides to take a stand against the money-hungry corporation that seeks to eradicate them.

Chief among critics of the movie is the Marine Corps’ own director of public affairs, Col. Bryan Salas. In a recent letter to the Marine Corps Times (see below) he said the film, “takes sophomoric shots at our military culture.”

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Col. Bryan Salas’ letter:

Lost amid the staggering commercial success of “Avatar” and obscured by the punditry of the left and right as they debate James Cameron’s social and historical commentary are the real warriors whose heroism, valor and selfless service has allowed the U.S. to leave a war in Iraq that many in 2006 thought was unwinnable and indeed salvage success from the jaws of calamity.

“Avatar” takes sophomoric shots at our military culture and uses the lore of the Marine Corps and over-the-top stereotyping of Marine warriors to set the context for the screenplay. This does a disservice to our Corps of Marines and the publics’ understanding of their Corps.

The Marine Corps embraces a warrior-scholar mentality and prides itself on understanding host country narratives and sensitivities in complex climes and places. Gen. James Mattis, whose catch-phrase is “no better friend, no worse enemy,” better captures the essence of Marines who helped usher in the Sunni Awakening in Anbar province than the cinemagraphically convenient colonel-turned-mercenary antagonist in “Avatar.”

Let’s view “Avatar” for what it is, a leap in the wizardry of cinema, a digital fantasy and a vehicle for a film-maker to make a statement, but not emblematic of the Marines who honorably fight and fall to win our nation’s real battles today.

Col. Bryan Salas director of public affairs

Headquarters Marine Corps