Mark Fellman
Not everyone loves James Cameron’s Pandora. The Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican Radio gave a great deal of coverage to the $1 billion-grossing film, but the news is hardly good for Cameron. Reviews quipped that the movie “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.” They acknowledged that the film was rich in “stupefying, enchanting technology,” but bemoaned its “few genuine emotions,” calling Cameron’s vision a “bland approach.” A Vatican spokesperson said that the coverage was intended as a collection of reviews, but that they also reinforce the pontiff’s belief that nature should not be seen as a “new divinity.” In the end, L’Osservatore said that despite its “sappiness,” the film’s worth lies in its “extraordinary visual impact.” All this on the same day that a professor of optometry tells the New York Daily News that the 3-D version of the film can “cause a sensation of vertigo,” and other viewers reported depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the blockbuster. One fan writes, “I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in Avatar.”