It is a good, decent flick. Good story, good characters, nothing too much too much, and oh so beautiful even if I did just see it on a regular tv.

Here’s what got me about Avatar: not that it was hyped but that people fell so in love with it that they wanted to commit suicide because they couldn’t live there. Hey gang, I live there. It is not a problem. What it takes is guts, balls, and courage.

You might notice in the film that a lot of the good guys die. You might notice that not many humans are invited to stay. I mean, most humans are not the evil leader incarnate but the boring, everyday Nazi prison guards “just doing their jobs” and thinking they don’t have a choice. To live there, the people (both Navi and human) had to be willing to die to live: They had to be brave beyond measure, love beyond reckoning, be both willing to let live and to kill; They had to replace self-protection, self-enhancement, and self-indulgence with courageous social contribution all the while maintaining independence and autonomy. (pretty classic self-actualization)

So, I enjoyed it but I think the people who thought it was over the top are deluded mostly about themselves.