Movies In America: Avatar

The movie industry plays a huge role in the American culture. Many Americans spend some of their time watching movies at home or going to the theater to see the new releases. Obviously, because of people’s attraction to movies, the movie industry makes a lot of money. So why do certain movies make more money than others and what makes people so attracted to certain movies?
Let’s take a look at Avatar, released in December of 2009. This movie won three Oscars and made about $212 million dollars (http://www.examiner.com/). What attracted people to this movie?
Avatar tells the story of a paraplegic marine, Jake, who is taken to Pandora on a mission to try to get the natives of Pandora (the Na’vi) to move to a different place. The Na’vi people don’t want to move because they live in peace with nature. The Na’vi people worship their goddess, Eywa, who is a huge tree (like Mother Nature). Everything revolves around Eywa. Because everything in Pandora revolves around Eywa, they don’t want to relocate and it makes it hard for Jake to negotiate with them. While trying to negotiate with the people of Pandora, Jake finds himself attracted to the princess and learns the ways of the people who live there. He is then torn between doing what his mission intended and doing what is right for the people of Pandora.
Avatar is essentially showing that nature is the root of all things and technology is destroying it in a way. This is shown by our “Go Green” supporters in the United States, who were most likely the reason for Avatar becoming so popular. Avatar supported their idea of preserving nature and using its resources. And yes, other people who aren’t “Go Green” supporters did watch the movie and help them make so much money, because it was a great movie but the majority was probably those who are “Go Green” supporters.
Avatar might have made a lot more money if the idea of technology destroying nature wasn’t so prevalent. This might have turned some of its customers away because they didn’t agree with the story and the message they were portraying. I believe this is why certain movies in America become more popular and make more money than others. We, as Americans, are very opinionated and are allowed to believe in whatever we want to believe in and if the producers in the movie industry want to survive, they must make a movie that will appeal to the majority and this is very hard to do in the American society today. Producers end up making sequels to other movies or they make a new movie that is very similar to one that already exists and no one wants to see that. People want always want something new, that they haven’t seen before.
Many people are interested in many different things and the producer will never make a movie that every person in the United States will want to see even though the movie industry plays a huge role in our culture. Watching movies is a great American past time and movies are entertaining. But, in this case, Avatar appealed to a vast majority of people in the United States because many people are “Go Green” supporters and it also appealed to the youth because it was shown in 3D. This is a movie that people would watch over and over again because it is so interesting and there wasn’t a movie produced like it before.