So Avatar sucked, right? You knew the writing was going to be simple and blunt and derivative. You knew the message would be, like, “greed is bad” or “go outside” or “share your toys.” But the 3D and the CG were supposed to punch your brain so hard that you wouldn’t notice, that you’d be too busy trying to look around some scenery to catch a peek of Na’vi boob or something that you wouldn’t listen to the sludge coming out of the speakers.

But it didn’t look that good, did it? After I got used to the 3D and settled in to a minor, pulsing headache, it looked pretty much like any other big-budget, grand-scope flick. There were several moments where I took my glasses off, saw that telltale double image and was like, “that’s not 3D is it [glasses back on] oh I guess it is well hmm.” The first and last thing I was really impressed by was that little glob of floating stuff at the very beginning.

I do think the CG savages Na’vi did a good job of taking a spirit walk over the ancestral bridge spanning the uncanny valley, but then again they were blue and rangy and kinda cat-like. My friend Ross has almost the exact opposite opinion—about the 3D and the uncanny valley stuff—so I guess, you know, a nation divided.

What’s hilarious is that the clumsy Dances-With-Wolves-meets-Ferngully story is apparently angerfying the portion of the U.S. that thinks if you’re not actively pouring molten plastic into a bedrock aquifer you must be an anti-American hippie terror-fag. Leftist Hollywood pushing its agenda while making our kids buy its action figures! Truly the final outrage.