A Big Fraud

A Big Fraud

$2,923,000,000.

That’s a lot of zeros. Enough that I have to count the commas to know what figures we’re dealing with. 2.9 billion dollars is the record gross revenue earned by James Cameron’s Avatar in 2009. With such wild success, surely this must have been a new, original story to cause such a revolution! Maybe not. While watching the film, it seemed to be an oddly familiar storyline, but with admittedly         fantastic CGI and a unique setting.

It later was brought to my attention that Avatar is nothing more than the 1990-Dances with Wolves, that starred Kevin Costner, just staged in space with blue aliens versus Native Americans:

· Soldier with leg injury

· Sent alone to a foreign land

· Falls in love with indigenous woman

· Gradually becomes part of the foreign society

· Soldier fights for the indigenous people

Despite the obvious similarities and James Cameron’s own admission that Avatar is in fact Dances with Wolves “in space”, it was a wild  success. I think Cameron’s talents of visual effects certainly played a part, but I am convinced it is the story that brings most of the        substance. After all, Pocahontas tells the same story long before    Kevin Costner or James Cameron, and I think Disney’s bottom line showed it was a success.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and often an effective means to garner similar success. This is precisely the walk of the  Christian. Christ, the son of God, who gave up his glorious estate (Phil. 2:6) came to Earth, taught and lived an exemplar life that led him to death of the cross. We have been called to follow this          example (1 Pet. 2:21). We should imitate God (Eph. 5:1-2) but also any that we find that walk after his pattern (Phil. 3:17).

It’s a great recipe for success, and the only story that we can live out to find eternal life. What story are you copying in your life today?

I love you

Jonathan