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Cylinsier
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 Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:46 pm Post subject: Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues |
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html
| Quote: | (CNN) -- James Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.
On the fan forum site "Avatar Forums," a topic thread entitled "Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible," has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope. The topic became so popular last month that forum administrator Philippe Baghdassarian had to create a second thread so people could continue to post their confused feelings about the movie.
"I wasn't depressed myself. In fact the movie made me happy ," Baghdassarian said. "But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don't have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed."
A post by a user called Elequin expresses an almost obsessive relationship with the film.
"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie," Elequin posted.
A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie.
"Ever since I went to see Avatar I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.' "
Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.
Cameron's movie, which has pulled in more than $1.4 billion in worldwide box office sales and could be on track to be the highest grossing film of all time, is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been pillaged by the human race. A greedy corporation is trying to mine the rare mineral unobtainium from the planet Pandora, which is inhabited by a peace-loving race of 7-foot tall, blue-skinned natives called the Na'vi.
In their race to mine for Pandora's resources, the humans clash with the Na'vi, leading to casualties on both sides. The world of Pandora is reminiscent of a prehistoric fantasyland, filled with dinosaur-like creatures mixed with the kinds of fauna you may find in the deep reaches of the ocean. Compared with life on Earth, Pandora is a beautiful, glowing utopia.
Ivar Hill posts to the Avatar forum page under the name Eltu. He wrote about his post-Avatar depression after he first saw the film earlier this month.
"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."
Reached via e-mail in Sweden where he is studying game design, Hill, 17, explained that his feelings of despair made him desperately want to escape reality.
"One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality," Hill said.
Cameron's special effects masterpiece is very lifelike and the 3-D performance capture and CGI effects essentially allow the viewer to enter the alien world of Pandora for the movie's 2½-hour run-time, which only lends to the separation anxiety some individuals experience when they depart the movie theater.
"Virtual life is not real life and it never will be, but this is the pinnacle of what we can build in a virtual presentation so far," said Dr. Stephan Quentzel, psychiatrist and Medical Director for the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "It has taken the best of our technology to create this virtual world and real life will never be as utopian as it seems onscreen. It makes real life seem more imperfect."
Fans of the movie may find actor Stephen Lang, who plays the villainous Col. Miles Quaritch in the film, an enemy of the Na'vi people and their sacred ground, an unlikely sympathizer, but Lang says he can understand the connection people are feeling with the movie.
"Pandora is a pristine world and there is the synergy between all of the creatures of the planet and I think that strikes a deep cord within people that has a wishfulness and a wistfulness to it," Lang said. "James Cameron had the technical resources to go along with this incredibly fertile imagination of his and his dream is built out of the same things that other peoples' dreams are made of."
The bright side is that for Hill and others like him who became dissatisfied with their own lives and with our imperfect world after enjoying the fictional creation of James Cameron, becoming a part of a community of like-minded people on an online forum has helped them emerge from the darkness.
"After discussing on the forums for a while now, my depression is beginning to fade away. Having taken a part in many discussions concerning all this has really, really helped me," Hill said. "Before, I had lost the reason to keep on living -- but now it feels like these feelings are gradually being replaced with others."
Quentzel said creating relationships with others is one of the keys to human happiness and that even if those connections are occurring online they are better than nothing.
"Obviously there is community building in these forums," Quentzel said. "It may be technologically different from other community building, but it serves the same purpose."
Within the fan community, suggestions for battling feelings of depression after seeing the movie include things like playing "Avatar" video games or downloading the movie soundtrack in addition to encouraging members to relate to other people outside the virtual realm and to seek out positive and constructive activities. |
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Brant
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| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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Those people they're talking about in the first paragraph are what we normal folks like to call idiots.
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freethinker
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| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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Wearing dark glasses allowed me to successfully sleep through the last hour....Until I started snoring
Plot -- Dances with wolves combined with Last of the Mohicans
I hate rip-offs
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OndinitaAKALibchit
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| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 9:41 pm Post subject: |
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Is the article a joke? WTH? 
Cy, I know that you were excited about Avatar. Did you go see it already?
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"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties ... if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I’m proud to say I’m a 'Liberal.'" ~ Senator John F. Kennedy 9/14/1960
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Cylinsier
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| Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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Haven't seen it. And the article appears to be serious.
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busdriver
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| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:26 am Post subject: |
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| Brant wrote: | | Those people they're talking about in the first paragraph are what we normal folks like to call idiots. |
Brant, "those " people out number the rest 100-1, don't pizz them off
( everything will be ok unless you explain , using cartoons, that you are pizzing them off) |
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Brant
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| Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:53 am Post subject: |
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The priests of the different religious sects dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.
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Amphikalein
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| Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:47 am Post subject: |
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Saw the movie & thought it pretty awesome. NOT a Dances With Wolves ripoff, imo. Full disclosure - i HATED Dances With Wolves (and pretty much anything Kevin Costner has done. Waterworld - now there's a snoozer!)
What is covered in the lead article for this thread just sucks. Those depressed folks seriously need to get a life.
Did i find it depressing? Not exactly, though i admit to thinking "Yeah, we humans WOULD do something stupid like that," while watching the destruction caused by the human antagonists. Destroy/denigrate something we don't understand and/or appreciate instead of seeing its inherent value, i mean. Sort of a Phony mentality. 
Saw it in a Cinemark "XD" theater - the effects were way cool. Though judging from the preview trailers i expect to enjoy "Alice in Wonderland - 3D" even more! It looks supremely trippy!
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Last edited by Amphikalein on Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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OndinitaAKALibchit
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| Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 11:02 am Post subject: |
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Amphy--I saw it & totally agree with you! The theatre that I went to didn't have it available on 3D, so I'm gonna go see it again at the Imax! 
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