Tag: military

Avatar – I saw this movie before

Just watched Avatar, and I’d really like my almost 3 hours back! Talk about over-rated. I saw an average science fiction movie laden with bright, powerful colors, Star Trek/Star Wars visuals, which was apparently to make up for the fact that the storyline for this movie was ripped from a bunch of different ones. I paused the movie to see how long I had been watching, and it had only been an hour, good thing someone else rented it, but, I watched the entire thing. One thing I missed was Gargamel and Azrael, aren’t they part of this smurf story?

Immediately what came to mind was the noble savage concept when we first meet the Navi, Na’vi, Nav’i, well whatever. The noble savage comes from the 18th century, and books such as Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, and The Last of the Mohicans all explore it. Heck, the biggest example in the last 20 years was Dances With Wolves; Americans bad, Sioux good. The definition of noble savage is that they were uncorrupted by the influences of civilization, was considered more worthy, more authentically noble than the contemporary product of civilized training. Isn’t this now considered racist? Here I thought James Cameron was an enlightened man and only those bad, mean, thoughtless, nazi, mob, terroristic conservatives(am I missing any slurs?) were the racist ones. Give me a break. I even heard James Cameron went native in South America or Africa a couple months ago, even though he had his bodyguards, camera crew, and his own food with him, but, hey anything to appear like you actually care about the natives.

Speaking of Dances With Wolves, instead of Sully having to get to be one with wolves, Sully gets the whole freakin’ planet to be one with. Then, you have the Nav’i warriors who are really stand-ins for Sioux or Blackfoot Warriors, and the bad, bad, American military. Oh, you mean it’s not Americans? Ok, sorry, it wasn’t the American military, it was some random corporation with a mercenary force that spoke American English and all looked like Americans(wasn’t that Aliens or Aliens 3?). No, I don’t see any connection there. Apparently Ellen Ripley has turned into Sigourney Weaver and her real-life obvious contempt for military types bled in to the movie, at least it seemed that way to me.

Other movies I saw, was a combo of Independence Day, Braveheart, and The Patriot. Sully practically goes all “they won’t take away our freedom, today is our independence day” or something similar. Then you have The Matrix, where the consciousness of the person is absorbed/downloaded into the “network” of the planet. The Mechs were all from Aliens, and I think the avatars themselves are reminiscent of Ghost in the Shell. I was expecting Jack and Rose, drowning in the ocean, declaring their love forever for each other to pop up somewhere. John Connor should’ve really put Marcus Knight, sorry Jake Sully, out of his, and our, misery.

Ok, rant over.

Updates on what I’m writing

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, mostly because I’m concentrating on finishing up college, which will be this May if everything goes as planned. I have two stories in the works, one a sequel to Don’t Mess With Earth and the other one is a political thriller, not science fiction at all.

I take a comment made by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev back in the 1960’s about how the Soviet Union would, in so many words “Bury us.” What he meant by that was that he thought the American working class would overthrow the powers that be and install communism. Well, my take on this has him getting the KGB to recruit an American girl who is a dedicated communist and having her give birth to a son, who will be trained in all things Marxist and Lenin. Included in this is how the Soviets also have someone who the boy will marry at the appropriate time also being raised as a KGB infiltrator. The goal here is complete and total infiltration of American society from the White House on down. The boy will be tutored by American KGB agents who want to bring down the USA and they have very high positions in government and academia.

This story takes place from the 1960’s all the way to present day. When the Soviet Union collapses in the early 1990’s, the now grown man is given the choice of abandoning the plan of destroying the USA from within. He decides to go for it. He goes from State Senate, to US Senate, to the White House in less than 15 years, never giving his political position and always voting present. He has a big financial backer who in this story has taken down countries and its leaders through manipulating the financial markets, and the backer does the same thing to the USA shortly before the Presidential elections, thus turning the tide for the KGB infiltrator to become the next President of the United States. He becomes the POTUS, disbands the military and creates a Civilian Defense Force, abandons all overseas military posts and bases, enacts a Fairness Doctrine to silence mostly his critics, and begins throwing all dissenters in jail. There is one man who doesn’t keep silent, much to the Presidents’ chagrin, because he is difficult to find and silence.

The next half of the book is about a soldier who comes home from Iraq and joins this new Civilian Defense Forces, only because he has to. The very first thing they do, is try to bring the former POTUS and his family in for treason charges. The former POTUS has some back-up from loyal US military and doesn’t go down without a fight. The man in charge of the CDF unit ends up killing the ex-POTUS and his family when they’re captured. Then the soldier has to help attack Texas when the State secedes from the Union. The President orders a nuclear strike from Barksdale AFB on Dallas, but the remaining US Air Force airmen on the base decide to detonate one of the nukes, leaving Barksdale, Bossier City, and Shreveport a smoking, radioactive ruin, pretty much ruining the Presidents’ plan. So, the President orders all of the sleeper cells ran by the KGB to activate and they help.

Later on, the solider realizes he’s on the wrong side when American churches are raided, some of the congregations are killed, including his parents. He makes it his mission to stop the President. I will stop there, because I also plan on having a somewhat surprise ending.

Stay tuned!