Agree, what I would add is that it didn't merely have one message, they fit many messages in.
1)Anti-Colonialism/America
2)Ancestral worship
3)Spiritism
4)Environmentalism
5)Anti-corporation(which incidentally I agree with wholeheartedly)
6)Pantheism
And somehow they managed to hit all these very hard. Still, great movie if you can get past this stuff, to their credit they "fit it in" without it seeming heavy as far as the plot went. These messages worked within the story because the story was about them.
As Christians, we are so used to tolerating this kind of stuff. What I wouldn't give to be able to see movies of this quality without the messages, this goes for games too.
see this is where i would have to argue we get so paranoid about "messages" that we cant just enjoy a storyline, a movie, or anything else. I mean shoot, killing natives and the killing of military is bad both way, we just happenly interpret it 1 way because we're paranoid about that message.
New agey stuff, ya i admit its there, and i didt like it. theres new agey stuff in FF7 thats just as bad. Theres a pretty similar tree in FF9 for spirits and fate and god crap. Does it fit the storyline? yup.
Anti corp, well its just an instance where the invisible hand wasnt at practice as it should be in capitalistic ideals. what else is new?
cant we just watch a movie, see it for what its worth, eg. a movie, enjoy it and then move on???