So what is it about the blockbuster hit Avatar? This sci-fi fantasy film has not stopped breaking box office records, and has continually awed the audiences that go to see it. So what exactly is it that draws in the hundreds of moviegoers week after week? Simply put, Beauty. The viewer is immersed into a world of overwhelming beauty that most of us have never seen before. It is truly a sight to see, but one that has put many people longing for more. Steven D. Greydanus of Decentfilms took an interest into Avatar when he noticed a trend of viewers of the film who became depressed because of their inability to be inside the world of Pandora. For example, a viewer was quoted by CNN.com saying: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. (Decentfilms)Greydanus responded to this reaction of the film by saying:
What’s going on here? A number of things, it seems. On the one hand, we have a youth who has dedicated a significant chunk of his young life to unreal worlds encountering one that tops them all, and finding the experience so overwhelming as to eclipse the goodness of the world and the meaningfulness of life. Mixed up with this are environmental and perhaps political and social concerns which may be partly valid and partly exaggerated.
On the other hand, such reactions aren’t necessarily all bad. Take the comment “I live in a dying world” — quite true, and perhaps telling. Never mind that, cosmologically speaking, Pandora would be be a dying world too. It seems that Pandora has nonetheless evoked a young man’s dissatisfaction with living in a dying world — a dissatisfaction ultimately rooted, in Christian thought, in God having placed eternity in our hearts.
Pandora is not Heaven, nor is it Eden. It’s an exaggerated playground fantasy world with mixed New Age overtones. Even so, in this young man’s response to Pandora may be, whether he knows it or not, a kind of homesickness, a longing for our true home.
In the litheness and impossible acrobatics of the Na’vi we may glimpse a hint of the eschatological agility of glorified bodies in the resurrection. The heightened splendor of Pandora, with trees like mountains and mountains like clouds, may evoke the unimaginable glory of the new earth of which the beauties of this present world are only a foretaste.
When a young man says he wants to “escape reality,” could the diagnosis be less than entirely accurate? The longing for escape may be unmistakable enough, but is it necessarily “reality” he wants to escape, or only the fallen reality of the world as we know it? Granted, if it leads him or anyone else to contemplate suicide, or other unhealthy forms of escapism, it may not much matter (or perhaps again it may; God will be the judge of that). (Decentfilms)
In the end, while Avatar is simply a movie, it has awoken in many a desire for the eternal. A desire for a world that is beautiful beyond belief and a world that can finally fulfill our deepest desires.
Our consolation should be that even though Avatar does not exist, our true home, Heaven, does exist and is the destination that we are all striving to attain.
