Avatar – RodneyOlsen.net

I’m probably the only person on the planet who is yet to see Avatar. I was at the cinema to see Old Dogs on Sunday afternoon and the queue for Avatar went half way across the city. Well maybe not … but it was a very long queue.

I don’t know if I’ll get around to seeing Avatar but I’ve certainly heard conflicting reports about the spirituality presented in the movie. Some say that there is a strong messianic theme to the movie while others talk about the strong pantheistic themes.

We need to keep in mind that the movie is the work of James Cameron who not only brought us the blockbuster Titanic, but also the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, claiming that a tomb containing the bodies of Jesus and other members of his family had been discovered. Cameron is certainly a spiritual person who is critical of the beliefs of Christianity, leaning more towards a belief of universal energy.

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and Vice President elect of the Baptist World Alliance. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

We discussed the spirituality of Avatar today, highlighting the various themes it presents.

If you’d like to hear what Ross had to say, simply click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.

[audio:http://mpegmedia.sonshinefm.ws/feeds/SPI020310_1033.mp3]

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While the movie world is trumpetting Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time, many are missing the fact that it was actually beaten at the box office by a 1961 animated Disney classic about dalmations.

It also still lags behind movies like Star Wars, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Sting, The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago.

Of course it all depends on what you’re using to determine the biggest movies of all time. Avatar certainly is the highest grossing movie of all time. That means it’s taken the most money of any movie ever produced but it’s only at number 26 (so far) as far as tickets sold. I have no doubt that it will continue to climb but it may never even reach the top ten.

The Hollywood Reporter has pulished an article titled Why ‘Avatar’ is actually the 26th biggest movie. It lists the biggest movies by ticket sales rather than income.

There are so many factors that will have an effect on the statistics such as price of tickets over the years, the introduction of things like television, video, DVD, Blu-ray, internet and a range of other entertainment alternatives. I suppose it’s easier to simply quote the dollar amounts that a movie is making.

So which movie has put the most backsides on seats at the cinema? It’s still the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind, selling 202,044,600 tickets.

Just for the record, here are the top 20 movies in order of tickets sold.

1 “Gone With the Wind” (1939) 202,044,600
2 “Star Wars” (1977) 178,119,600
3 “The Sound of Music” (1965) 142,415,400
4 “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) 141,854,300
5 “The Ten Commandments” (1956) 131,000,000
6 “Titanic” (1997) 128,345,900
7 “Jaws” (1975) 128,078,800
8 “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) 124,135,500
9 “The Exorcist” (1973) 110,568,700
10 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) 109,000,000
11 “101 Dalmatians” (1961) 99,917,300
12 “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) 98,180,600
13 “Ben-Hur” (1959) 98,000,000
14 “Return of the Jedi” (1983) 94,059,400
15 “The Sting” (1973) 89,142,900
16 “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) 88,141,900
17 “Jurassic Park” (1993) 86,205,800
18 “The Graduate” (1967) 85,571,400
19 “Star Wars: Episode I” (1999) 84,825,800
20 “Fantasia” (1941) 83,043,500

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