Avatar

Yesterday was Children's Day in Thailand, so I finally had to fulfil my promise to take the boys to see Avatar.

Two and a half hours of Hollywood (actually, three hours when you add in all the crap that comes first) is a bit much for me. However, this movie had a couple of good points: firstly, the special effects and computer graphics were impressive and creative, and secondly, the bad guys were really well done. They were an evil, greedy corporation that subcontracts the military to destroy all life in pursuit of a precious mineral -- could've been the love-child of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

But I didn't like the ending. Of course, since it's Hollywood, the big battle happens, and it looks like all is lost for the good guys, and then the hero has a moment of inspiration, and miraculously the good guys battle back until all guns and helicopter gunships are peeled away and the hero kills the arch-villain in hand-to-hand combat. OK, fair enough, we knew that was coming. But then, the good guys line up the hundreds of prisoners-of-war and send them back to Earth (which is no longer green).

"Tell your leader, Obama or Whatever, never send anyone again!"

They should have done what the Afghanis did to Elphistone's Army in 1842. 16,000 Brits (mostly Indians with a few white men as leaders, of course) marched into Afghanistan. The Afghanis killed everybody except one. They told that guy: "go tell your leader, King Whatever, never send anyone again."

170 years later, and the lesson still has not been learned.