I think it's also worth noting that Avatar has a lot of profanity, which is one of the main reasons I didn't watch it.

I watched Avatar and I must confess I enjoyed it at the time. I felt a little bad afterwords though as I just thought it was very spiritualistic in a bad way, if you know what I mean? And at the end where his body died and he became alive as an avatar...mm I just didn't like it. I was with my dad when I watched it and I was a little uncomfortable with the girls clothing. I think as a girl I notice it more when I'm sat with a man watching, otherwise I don't notice it as much. I wouldn't care to see it again but that's just me I read an article by Dave Hunt on it, that was very interesting

PluggedIn has lots of good information on films. I personally go there for everything I want to know about a film. But their database only goes back about 10 years: films from longer ago are either very sparsely described or else just not in the database.

I use PluggedIn, too. It's the best movie review website about content that I've found.
http://www.pluggedin.com/

I've seen Avatar. My brother loves the graphics with a passion, and I'll admit they were impressive, but I didn't think the movie had a strong plot. (It's sad when you start viewing things from a writer's stance.) It was like Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves sci-fi version. XD I'm not saying the movie's bad, I just thought the plot wasn't very original for the amazing graphics it had.

I haven't seen Avatar, and probably won't... but from everything I heard on my favorite filmmaking forum, Calen is right. From a writer's POV, Avatar isn't anything new. (The other film that it is supposed to be similar to is Disney's Pocahontas)

The really big thing was the CGI advances and the realism of the 3D.

(which is fine with me... now that 3D is getting good enough to actually be worth it, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader sounds rather neat in 3D! )

My family nicknamed Avatar as "Smurfs in Space - Pocahontas Style," Or something like that.

I probably won't be seeing it again. The graphics were stunning. But the plot wasn't great and there were definitely some issues...

Haha, if you know the Smurf storyline then you know it just about literally is Smurfs meets Pocahontas

I haven't seen Avatar yet, but I probably will at some point.

My only comment is this:

I was actually complaining about how immodest I thought the Na'vi females were, and one of my guy friends was really surprised at me. He made the point that they are bright blue aliens with huge tails, and weird faces, and wasn't sure if modesty was an issue or not.

He didn't seem to have a problem with the way Neytiri dressed anyway.

I have a queston about the other books/movies you mentioned. Are we discussing their movies? Or their books? Or both? Because all of them have been made into movies.

I've seen Avatar and enjoyed it, I wouldn't go to it to learn about morals and spirituality, but you can enjoy it in as it's own, separate, untrue form.

Can I do Harry Potter? I don't care, I'm doing it anyway. I just talked with my mom about Laura Mallory too, so it's fresh on my mind.

The good:
-Love is the most important thing in the HP world, more powerful and more terrible than any sort of magic. There is one part where the Potions master calls the Love Potion the most dangerous potion, even in a room with poisons. Love is everywhere. In the HP world, magic isn't a theme. Magic is there, but will always take a back seat to love.
-Speaking on the love potion, there is actually no way to bottle love in the HP world. Love is a more spiritual thing, a strong bond that magic can't even attempt to touch. Love potions simply create obsessive attraction. Still very dangerous.
-Christian morals of bravery, generosity, family, friendship, kindness, self-sacrifice etc. are everywhere. Jo doesn't push Christianity, but she always pushes the Godly morals; it's a subtle leading, brought on by Jo's Christian roots but also just her own ideas of morality.
-It forces the reader to think about big issues of prejudice, racism, complacency, etc. She doesn't write her books as an escape for readers, but as a place for them to go in, learn, and then come out of with new mindsets, that are, without fail, compatible with Biblical truths.
-Her writing is phenomenal. Her characters are complex, and her world is so real with it's own sports, creatures, races, and schools. She's written a whole book on her magical sport; obviously she did the thing right.
-Her good characters aren't always good. They're real. They make mistakes, sometimes even do really awful things. It's like the real world, like real war. This is a matter of opinion, but I think it's good. Many people have problems with HP because they think Jo is saying people on the good side are simply good through completely their own merit, but showing good characters still doing awful things shows that no, Jo is saying nothing of the like.
-Personal stuff here: The HP books have brought me together with Muslim-, Buddhist, atheist, and Christian friends to discuss deep things like morality, spirituality, etc. Before I read HP, I could never talk about these things with any friends but Christian ones, because there was nothing that brought us together in that way. I hope I don't even have to say why this is awesome.
-There is such a spiritual side to HP, not in the sense of connecting with the spiritual, but in the sense of souls and the afterlife. I couldn't possibly go into all of it, but it's all very thought provoking and lovely how she writes it.
-When you look into certain parts of the spiritual side of HP, you find that faith is very important.

The bad:
-Magic is portrayed simply as an ability and a weapon, not any sort of demonic thing, as it is Biblicaly.
-God is not present as a real being.
-Wizards and witches, after death, can choose to either come back as a ghost* or go on, presumably to a sort of afterlife. Obviously not Christian in that sense, though see footnotes.
-Some content can be considered "scary" for some people, especially children.

*A very stupid course to take, I believe the quote is something like "Ghosts are souls who, for some reason, chose to remain on this earth." The quest for immortality is always futile, and leads to devastating results.

I hope that wasn't too "debate-y." If anything I said was, I can delete it.
I'd also like to say that HP is not and will never be and shouldn't be taken as an allegory. Don't try and say certain characters are supposed to be certain things; it doesn't work. That is all.

Hey Willow, I only had one quick comment in here (I have lots, but my life won't allow my interaction on this subject). While I have seen pictures of the Avatars (I have not seen it) and they do look creatureish, the girls still have a female body. I don't think guys are being really honest if they didn't notice that the female Na'vi still look like underdressed females. I’m glad if he didn’t stumble, but lots of men will. Hollywood wouldn’t have made the Na'vi the way they did if they didn’t appeal to fleshly human desires. That is all.

Oh, and a friend wrote this on Avatar, which I thought was a good article. http://www.outside-hollywood.com/2010/0 ... ew-avatar/

With cardboard characters and a lame plot, the issues raised here were the last thing on my mind when I watched it. When the villain held his breath and ran outside to shoot people, all the while looking like he'd just been given a bag of candy, I couldn't help thinking it was the cheesiest set of cartoon characters I'd seen in a while. I recommend watching "Fern Gully" (a lame cartoon from the 80s with the exact same plot) twice instead (or yes, Pocahontas, also very similar). It was a waste of two hours and simply bad bad story telling.

That was my personal opinion, anyway.