Metal Reviews

Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues

James Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.

On the fan forum site "Avatar Forums," a topic thread entitled "Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible," has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope. The topic became so popular last month that forum administrator Philippe Baghdassarian had to create a second thread so people could continue to post their confused feelings about the movie.

"I wasn't depressed myself. In fact the movie made me happy ," Baghdassarian said. "But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don't have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed."

A post by a user called Elequin expresses an almost obsessive relationship with the film.

"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the innernet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie," Elequin posted.

A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "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.' "

Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.

Cameron's movie, which has pulled in more than $1.4 billion in worldwide box office sales and could be on track to be the highest grossing film of all time, is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been pillaged by the human race. A greedy corporation is trying to mine the rare mineral unobtainium from the planet Pandora, which is inhabited by a peace-loving race of 7-foot tall, blue-skinned natives called the Na'vi.

In their race to mine for Pandora's resources, the humans clash with the Na'vi, leading to casualties on both sides. The world of Pandora is reminiscent of a prehistoric fantasyland, filled with dinosaur-like creatures mixed with the kinds of fauna you may find in the deep reaches of the ocean. Compared with life on Earth, Pandora is a beautiful, glowing utopia.

Ivar Hill posts to the "Avatar" forum page under the name Eltu. He wrote about his post-"Avatar" depression after he first saw the film earlier this month.

"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."

Reached via e-mail in Sweden where he is studying game design, Hill, 17, explained that his feelings of despair made him desperately want to escape reality.

"One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality," Hill said.

Cameron's special effects masterpiece is very lifelike, and the 3-D performance capture and CGI effects essentially allow the viewer to enter the alien world of Pandora for the movie's 2½-hour running time, which only lends to the separation anxiety some individuals experience when they depart the movie theater.

"Virtual life is not real life and it never will be, but this is the pinnacle of what we can build in a virtual presentation so far," said Dr. Stephan Quentzel, psychiatrist and Medical Director for the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "It has taken the best of our technology to create this virtual world and real life will never be as utopian as it seems onscreen. It makes real life seem more imperfect."

Fans of the movie may find actor Stephen Lang, who plays the villainous Col. Miles Quaritch in the film, an enemy of the Na'vi people and their sacred ground, an unlikely sympathizer. But Lang says he can understand the connection people are feeling with the movie.

"Pandora is a pristine world and there is the synergy between all of the creatures of the planet and I think that strikes a deep chord within people that has a wishfulness and a wistfulness to it," Lang said. "James Cameron had the technical resources to go along with this incredibly fertile imagination of his and his dream is built out of the same things that other peoples' dreams are made of."

The bright side is that for Hill and others like him -- who became dissatisfied with their own lives and with our imperfect world after enjoying the fictional creation of James Cameron -- becoming a part of a community of like-minded people on an online forum has helped them emerge from the darkness.

"After discussing on the forums for a while now, my depression is beginning to fade away. Having taken a part in many discussions concerning all this has really, really helped me," Hill said. "Before, I had lost the reason to keep on living -- but now it feels like these feelings are gradually being replaced with others."

Quentzel said creating relationships with others is one of the keys to human happiness, and that even if those connections are occurring online they are better than nothing.

"Obviously there is community building in these forums," Quentzel said. "It may be technologically different from other community building, but it serves the same purpose."

Within the fan community, suggestions for battling feelings of depression after seeing the movie include things like playing "Avatar" video games or downloading the movie soundtrack, in addition to encouraging members to relate to other people outside the virtual realm and to seek out positive and constructive activities.

So I've been married to my wife for a while now. Its been 6 years since our marriage and I had been dating her for 4 years prior to that. So its been quite a while. My life hasnt been that bad. I mean I have a good job working at Safeway bagging groceries, and my wife is a psychologist so she's the real breadwinner in the family.

We may not be rich but we usually don't want for much. I never thought myself the type to have an addictive personality but ever since we saw Avatar in theaters I have been having problems.

The past 7 nights in a row my wife has asked me to have sex with her, and I just havent been in the mood. Scratch that. I'm incredibly horny most of the time, but I dont feel attracted to her anymore. The sight of her naked literally does nothing for me, and I'm frightened by that. Instead I imagine Neytiri. Her majestic grace and boundless beauty as well as the alien mystery about her. I want to fly off to pandora and live with her, to be with her always. I would worship her as she deserves. I'd do anything to just to touch her, to smell her.

She's the perfect woman, and i feel like this life here has lost its spark. Where is the magic in humanity. Just a few days ago, my son asked me some question about what happened in Avatar. I dont even remember what it was, but after I told him, I started crying. Right in front of him. All I can think about is how depressing it is that I will never reach pandora. I almost vomited while I cried. It was the most pathetic thing I have ever done. Im in my 30's for god's sake. I have to remain strong for my son. Right?

I want to tell my wife but she's a psychologist. She'll think I'm sick. I know it. I probably am sick. But what can I do. Its a little early to tink about divorce, but the thought of her disgusts me. The thought of me disgusts me. How could I compare to the beauty and grace of a Na'vi. I want to leave, to just leave and sort things out, but I dont want to leave my wife and son alone. I dont know what to do with myself, with my life. I dont want to see another psychologist and get treated like a specimen. I just want to be a Na'vi. I've never wanted anything more in my life.

At this point I would rip my son to shreds for an hour on pandora. I would too. And that thought frightens me. Can anyone somehow offer me assistance. Christ what ami going to do with myself?

The first time after I woke up the next day after watching it I "had" to see it again. I have seen it four times now, and soon to be a fifth. I think watching it takes away that depression, because when I am watching it, i dont know how to describe how I feel, but it feels good. I want to just forget about it all sometimes, take down my avatar wallpaper, stop reading about it and what not, but I just cant.

I have to use a quote from the movie sometimes I guess "Sooner or later though, you always have to wake up."

I heard writing a sequel helps, but I just cant compete with what has been laid out.

I dont know if theres any WoW addicts out there, but after seeign Avatar I have lost all desire to play (and trust me thats like being addicted to any drug) I'm just hoping it will pass over time, but if anybody has any recommendations how to cope I would love to hear them.

It seems that the makers of Avatar have created a dream of a world, that is way better than ours. More beautiful, more pure, more meaningful. And when you wake up and return to the world as we know it, you can't think of anything that compares to Pandora. And you get a depressed, empty, meaningless feeling as you realize that there's no Pandora out there, there's no Na'vi people. You'll never be blue, you never see a tree that big, or the floating mountains. You will never connect with Eywa to listen to your ancestors, and you will never fly a dragon. You will never marry a Na’vi.

Is it possible to find equally purposeful meaning for life from what is real? God could easily create an Eywa for me to connect to and listen to my ancestors, but he hasn't. God has however created me for a purpose and there is a possibility to search for that. And that purpose can't be any worse than what it would be on the planet Pandora. Why? Because God in his infiniteness created what he thought is best. If I feel that James Cameron did better, reasoning says that I must be simply wrong. James Cameron just took his ideas from Earth. But the dream of planet Pandora can be part of the purpose of my life, in the way it affects my life and values. Me seeing Avatar can be part of God’s plan for me.

Time will make such dream to fade, even if didn’t want to. God himself has reserved a girl for me. I will wait to encounter her and do my best to have a relationship of purest form with her. She is meant to be with me by a higher power, just like Jake and Neytiri were meant to be in the movie. I will never betray her, not before nor after I marry her.

Hello all *waves*. I basically feel the same as most of you. Definitely suffering from "Pandora-Effect". I so would quit my life here and become a Navi in a heartbeat. It really is depressing to think that it won't happen.
This has definitely changed me in many ways. We were at a New Year's Eve party last night and I just felt...different than everyone else. I know, it's so silly and childish but I really did. It's a sad and longing feeling but at the same time it's a good one. I hope that when I get back into a "normal" routine, that I won't forget this. I don't want this feeling to go away.

How many of you would say that your Pandora-effect is like homesickness?

For the most part, that is exactly how I felt, on a visceral level, something beyond my consciousness and thus out of my control. The unpleasant part is that my emotional self was in conflict with my intellectual self. The intellectual self knows that wanting the impossible is a road leading to insanity but my emotional self did not want to let go of Pandora because it embodies everything that I consider "home".

In the end, to reconcile, I had to devise a plan for implementing Pandora on Earth; at least those parts of it that appeal to me and are probable. Now, even though I may not be directly involved in the implementation, I can track the technological trends and match them to my expectations. In this, I can have hope, instead of the hopelessness I felt just after the realisation that Pandora would never be real.

As human beings, we have the power to sculpt our world as we see fit; for good or bad. Just as Star Trek inspired a generation to seek out and replicate the technology on Earth, and with amazing success, I hope Avatar inspires the same type of people to seek out new ways for us to structure a technologically advanced existance (for that is what we are) to best fit our desire for a simple life, acceptance and recognition. The current social structure of city life and 6 degrees of separation are not working for us, we are coming apart at the seams.

I've been going a bit crazy lately from this movie. Just to be closer with nature like what Neytiri told us to do in the movie, I have been living outside in my backyard camping at night with only a few supplies, and my laptop. I've also been buying only blue things. I have even bought those "Snuggie" blankets because they were blue, and the night after watching that movie I made love with my girlfriend but forced her to wear the snuggie while we were at it.

I'm starting to lose my mind a bit but I am feeling closer to nature and the Na'vi each day.

In lighter news; Goat, have you started posting on Comment is Free?

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