Target sighted. Target confirmed.

This is the follow-up to 5 Reasons Avatar Will Suck, enhanced by the fact that, at this point, I have seen the movie. Feel free to go back and see how prescient I was. This one has spoilers; the last one did too, but they don’t count, because it’s not a spoiler if the movie just happens to be predictable. You have to see it first.

Barring the few slobbering orientalists who get jazzed by how Avatar fetishizes the exotic, everyone I’ve talked to has the same basic opinion of this winter’s biggest megamovie — the visuals are groundbreaking and all fancy (and crap), but the characters and story are not so good (and crap). Overall judgements on the film seem to differ based on the watcher’s priorities. Which is more important, spectacle, or the other five Aristotelian elements of drama?

If you’re the kind of movie-watcher who values shiny objects over all else, you probably love Avatar, and I don’t know if Overthinking It can do much for you other than recommend some other all time cinematic greats.

But if you are the kind of movie-watcher who sees movies as a medium for storytelling, Overthinking It can do quite a bit more for you. We can vindicate you. We can set you free. We can speak truth to power. And we can go back later, see whether or not we were right, and talk about ourselves.

We can tell you why Avatar sucks. We can even add a sixth reason, because we’ve actually seen it this time. It’s a new year, with new possibilities and new, higher Arabic numerals.

The re-debriefing on cat boobies and more, after the jump —

So I finally saw Avatar, everyone.  Yeah, I know, I’m late.  I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would, but I didn’t love it, either.  The story had problems, and I didn’t find myself connecting with any of the characters.  The animation was cool, but not cool enough to justify the boring plot and characters.  Also, the movie was long.  Real long.

But I did quite enjoy one thing about the film, and that thing was the world building.  Okay, the Na’vi species isn’t all that different from the human species, and, sure, the Na’vi culture isn’t all that different from white Americans’ common misinterpretations and mental mishmashing of every native culture our grubby pale hands have ever come in contact with.  But overall I thought the Na’vi were kinda neat.  I liked the idea that they could literally connect with nature via a neural net, I liked that they could tame animals this way, and I liked that this all influenced the development of their culture.  I also liked the general badassness of the Na’vi, whose pedagogy seemed to boil down to, “Learn this fast or die in the most painful way possible.”  Probably wouldn’t work for us squishy humans, but Na’vi bodies take a beating better than ours do—they can handle it.

My quick review of Avatar, then, is, “Bland plot, bland characters, pretty animation but not so pretty that I’m going to start cursing God for giving James Cameron such powers… but it had its moments.  And those moments involved the world building.”

Color me surprised, then, that the ever popular Jason Kottke had almost the exact opposite reaction.  To him, Avatar’s story, characters, and visuals were top-notch; the world building, on the other hand, was piss-poor and nonsensical.  According to his review, the Na’vi shouldn’t be living in  Stone Age conditions because

1.    They are physically capable.
2.    They are very intelligent.
3.    They are aware of their environment/have access to many natural resources.
4.    They are well-nourished, healthy, omnivorous, adaptive, and inventive.
5.    They have domesticated animals.
6.    They are troubled by few serious natural predators.
7.    They can live in different environments.
8.    They can communicate over and travel long distances.
9.    They have regular access to a global supercomputer.

And he concludes: “The Na’vi are too capable and live in an environment that is far too pregnant with technological possibility to be stuck in the Stone Age. Plot-wise it’s convenient for them to be the way they are, but the Na’vi really should have been more technologically advanced than the Earthlings, not only capable of easily repelling any attack from Captain Ironpants but able to keep the mining company from landing on the moon in the first place.”

My response is thus:

Nope.  Nope nope nope.  Wrong on almost every count.  And here’s why.

Howdy, y’all!  It’s good to be back, it really is.  Hope you missed me.  Since it’s been almost a month since the introductory installment, you might want to give it a quick once over, especially if you don’t really know the show. And a quick reminder:  while you can say anything you want about episodes 1-5 in the comments now, don’t go spoiling the later ones.  At least not much.  Like I said last time, I’m not totally sure that Cowboy Bebop is a show that the concept of “spoilers” really applies to.

In typical “Overthinking X” fashion, I’m going to begin with a quick plot summary a long plot summary of the particular episodes in question.  And actually, for the first one, I’m going to go into some pretty extensive detail.  A problem that I can see myself having to deal with a lot, writing about this show, is that a lot of the important stuff is in the details, and it’s hard to talk about the details in isolation.  We could be looking at some mammoth posts here, people.  I’ll try to keep a lid on it in the future.  For today, just settle in.  You might want to get a snack.

Karl Marx: Even hairier than the Wolfman. Coincidence... OR IS IT!?

[I want to thank Professor David Graeber, whose anthropological dissection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and accompanying lectures) very much forms the basis of this post.]

Let’s begin with two observations. First: the Vampires that inhabit our most recent pop cultural works differ so dramatically from the classic archetype of Golden-Age Hollywood that they are are almost unrecognizable. Second: Werewolves are lame.

Or at least, compared with their undead, blood-sucking, vaguely-Carpathian cohort, werewolves of late have occupied a far less enviable position in the collective pop cultural landscape. These are not the subtle, nuanced, infinitely malleable characters vampires are–the sort capable of carrying their own novels, TV-shows, Movies and crappy Movie-Tie-In Video Games. Rather, lycanthropes end up as the stock types passively added to spice up a Vampire vehicle. Sure, some immortal genius might figure out a way to breathe new life into the old dogs, but for now, Buffy’s Oz remains a werewolf’s best case scenario. In the worst cases it’s… well… I’d rather not say.

However, there is something to be said about the sheer frequency with which werewolves pop up in Vampire works. Is your horror-story turned teen-abstinence-parable getting a bit too stale to survive a sequel? Throw in some werewolves! Is having a psychic heroine dating a vampire proving an insufficient allegory for southern race relations? Make her boss a werewolf! At least…sorta’. The point is, as the length of a Vampire epic approaches infinity, the probability that the spinning “let’s throw in a different kind of monster” wheel will stop on “Werewolf” approaches 1. And it does so far earlier than all of the other forms. As the old aphorism goes: no ghosts, witches, reanimated corpses, mer-people, vengeful pagan gods or giant, radioactive slugs before werewolves. And for heaven’s sake, NO MUMMIES.

The delicious exception that proves the rule.

Yet–and this is important–despite the number of appearances Werewolves (or the equivalent) make in predominantly Vampire (or equivalent) works, the converse is never true, because Werewolves remain lame.

But why? What is it about our culture that causes us to perpetually dwell on one classic occult figure, while paupering the other of such attention?

The answer, of course, lies in the failure of Marxism.

Originally, the OTI editorial staff was going to make this a break week for the Overthinking Lost series, as Mlawski is on vacation.  However, rather than finding out what happens when we let the clock reach zero, I decided to race to my computer and punch in the numbers.

In addition, it has been a while since I have Overthought anything, so I saw this as the perfect opportunity for me to go back to the island.

Now might be a pretty good time (or in fact a bit too late for some readers) to mention that I’m going to depart from Mlawski’s cardinal rule—there will be substantial Lost spoilers in this post, so only read on if you’ve watched through the end of season 5 or don’t mind learning things that will substantially bias your viewing experience of the whole series thus far.  There will also be major spoilers for The Wire.

Why would I gleefully break protocol after you’ve all been so careful not to reveal any of Lost’s big mysteries in the comments for the past few months?

Because I’m special—the rules don’t apply to me.

[Ed. Note: Seriously. There are substantial Lost spoilers after the jump, up to and including everything that has aired. And pretty substantial spoilers for The Wire as well, covering the whole series. Don't read on if you're not prepared.]

You never get away from the dust.

I feel it crunch beneath the palm of my hand as I lower myself to the ground next to the rusting Corvega, resting the .30-06 along its bumper. I brush my hand absently on the padded leather pants I stole off my last victim, not noticing if the dust goes anywhere. Taking a deep breath, trying not to choke on the dry grit in the air, I lower my head to the scope.

“I am in a conventional dither / with a conventional star in my eye …”

On the same night that MTV unleashed The City upon the world, the network also premiered Bromance, a reality competition show in which 9 dudes vie to be the new best friend of Olympian offspring/former Hillster Brody Jenner. The ostensible motivation for the show is the increasing visibility of bromances- male homosocial relationships characterized by reasonably high levels of physical and emotional closeness. Although the concept of homosociality itself doesn’t imply anything other than a social relationship between two members of the same sex, a number of gender/queer studies theorists have argued that muted sexual desire has long been an intrinsic component of homosociality in Western culture, and that shifts in what kind of behavior society defines as “gay and therefore bad” have historically driven changes in the prevalence of homosocial romantic friendships.

Indeed, a number of mass media trend pieces have postulated that the recent surge in the amount of bromantic behavior depicted in film and television has been driven in large parts by the integration of a number of aspects of gay subculture into the mainstream, which in turn has lead to more widespread social acceptance of man-on-man affection.

Is the cultural moment of the bromance really indicative of increased mainstream acceptance of homosexual norms and behavior, or is it just the status quo in new, more homoerotic clothes?

[The "Musical Talmud" is our ongoing series that finds the true meaning behind pop music lyrics. See also Part 1, "Don't Stop Believing," Part 2, "The KKK Took My Baby Away," and Part 3, "I Want It That Way."]

It’s way over budget. It’s blown past multiple deadlines. I am, of course, referring to the long-awaited deconstruction of the lyrics to “Chinese Democracy,” the title track to the long-awaited Guns ‘n’ Roses Album Chinese Democracy.

On January 1, 2001, when Axl debuted the song at a live concert, he specifically cited Chinese political oppression as the inspiration for this song, so it’s a safe bet that Axl didn’t intend for “Chinese Democracy” to be a coded reference to something unrelated. With that in mind, let’s see what geopolitical insights Axl has to offer.

It took the Vatican 522 years to admit “mea culpa” on the Spanish Inquisition, and 359 years to come around to admitting Galileo was right about the whole Sun and Earth thing. However, it looks like the Church has tightened up its “oops, we’re an ancient bureaucracy and take forever to admit we were wrong” process by forgiving John Lennon only 42 years after his “more popular than Jesus” comment sparked outrage among Christians.

Lennon’s absolution should give hope to other pop culture icons that have been on the receiving end of the Church’s wrath in recent years, including Sinead O’Connor (tore up picture of the Pope on SNL) and Dan Brown (author of The Da Vinci Code).

But let’s stop and Overthink ™ this for a second. Why does the Catholic Church repeatedly get itself into trouble by issuing official condemnations on pop culture? Is the Church just digging itself deeper and deeper into a hole of cultural irrelevance?

Make the sign of the cross and genuflect before reading on.

In preparation for the March release of its film adaptation, I reread Watchmen this week.  It had been more than four years.  Back then, I liked it, but it wasn’t the time for me to read it.  I hadn’t been exposed to as many “real” superhero comics yet, and the world, while sucky, didn’t seem apocalyptic to me at the time.  This time around, Watchmen hit me a lot harder.  I mean, “Who watches the watchmen?” could be talking about I-bankers, right?  And Dr. Manhattan is the market’s invisible hand?  No?

For years, Alan Moore (the writer of Watchmen) has been saying that his comics are unfilmable.  He has a beef with Hollywood that is easy to understand, especially if you’ve seen the god-awful adaptations of his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell.  In the late 80s, Terry Gilliam approached Moore, thinking he’d direct the Watchmen film.  Instead, Moore told Gilliam that it was an impossible task, like finding the Holy Grail or filming Don Quixote.  Terry Gilliam agreed.  Watchmen was unfilmable.

But is it really?