Twins in Popular Culture: Avatar

Fun fact: two of the four top-grossing movies of all time are about twins.   (Well, for all I know Titanic could be rife with twins, triplets and quads; I'm still not planning to see it.)


Welcome to what is intended to be a new series of posts about twins in popular culture.  Today we're examining the top-grossing movie of all time, Avatar.

You're forgiven if you don't remember that the protagonist (Jake) is a twin -- his identical twin brother's death is mentioned at the beginning of the movie as a convenient way to establish that Jake has the right DNA but the wrong personality for the scientific mission.  And, then, as far as I recall, the brother is never mentioned again.  But then again, I forgot the main character's name was Jake, so I could have missed it.

The movie is rated PG-13, so my boys aren't allowed to see it until 2023, if then.  Aside from the "intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking” which earned it that rating, there's the borderline racism and the anti-military bias.  But to top that all off, who really wants to show them a movie that begins with a casual, "Oh, yeah, an identical twin died"?

From an entertainment perspective, I'll give it 2.5 stars.  From a twin perspective, however, 1 star.