Arthur Rosenfeld–
James Cameron’s new film, Avatar, tells the fairly linear and predictable story of a handicapped ex-Marine who ships off to a faraway mining planet, where new technology temporarily transplants his consciousness into a whole and working body. And what a body it is! Alien, blue, tall, svelte and athletic, it provides the young man with the longed-for feeling of running and jumping, while at the same time serving his military masters with a way to infiltrate local aliens, gain their trust, learn their secrets, and then betray them.
The movie’s pure cinematic technology seems to command the lion’s share of critical attention to the film, and perhaps it should. I’ve never been so thoroughly and compellingly transported to another world, not even in The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or Star Trek. If Cameron’s use of 3D technology does provide a 
blunt instrument for overtaking the senses, he is to be commended for using the club like a scalpel, creating worlds of tendrilous trees, giant mushrooms that shrink away from the slightest touch like anemones, and myriad monsters who claw, bite, jump and glide their way across a world so visually compelling and thematically cohesive that one you won’t even notice those thick, cheap plastic 3D glasses putting a dent on the bridge of your nose for a couple of hours.
Yes, the story is somewhat predictable, and yes we’ve seen the villains before. Yes the action is non-stop to the point that my nine-year-old son at one point quipped “enough killing already”, and yes this is a love-story and a morality play we’ve seen a thousand times. And yet… Avatar is an environmentalist tale, pure and simple. It’s a plea for Mother Earth done up in such exotic garb that Earth isn’t even Earth anymore, but a far-away, multi-mooned sphere of rock called “Pandora,” and the plea thuds in the gut of a dyed-in-the-wool conservationist like me, a writer who would see people as a plague upon the planet if spiritual tendencies did not command me.
I’ve often written and spoken about evolution’s pressures on us leading inexorably to a spiritual leap that saves us, and Earth, from what otherwise appears, technology notwithstanding, to be certain demise. Cameron’s feast for the eyes embraces this idea, and revels in a non-dual philosophy (we’re all part of the web of life) as the film’s primary principle. I’m hoping that while the audience out there is fixated on the film’s technological candy, the medicinal message will go down all but unnoticed, and take root in young minds.
Then we’d really have a film worth $300,000.000.
Arthur Rosenfeld is an authority on the spiritual dimensions of Eastern thinking for a Western world. 
A novelist, martial arts master and philosopher, Rosenfeld is a contributor to national magazines, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Parade, has been seen on national tv and radio networks. The author of eleven acclaimed books and the creator of the fiction genre “Kung Fu Noir,” he combines stories with Eastern wisdom drawn from nearly 30 years of martial arts study. His latest title is Quiet Teacher.
A Yale graduate, Rosenfeld combines scientific background and communication skills gained through post-graduate studies at the University of California with real-world savvy gleaned from high-level corporate positions. Drawing on his background in medicine and science he has been cited in national media, including Newsweek, Ebony, and Parade. He has also written The Truth About Chronic Pain.
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