While director James Cameron’s latest big-budget film, Avatar, astonishes audiences with a torrid of stunning visual effects, the movie has also grown a surprisingly large and rabid fan-base. Just ask Anthony Hansen, a Salt Lake City-based customer service representative who works for Stencil Tech, or at least he used to until he was fired from the company for expressing his “anti-Avatar” views of the movie.
One of the most highly anticipated films of the second half of the decade, Avatar has been touted as the special effects event that would change cinema forever. The movie centers on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine who takes a job on the alien world of Pandora in order to operate his dead brother’s avatar, a lab-grown “native” fused with his brother’s DNA to that of a Na’vi, the indigenous humanoid population on Pandora. Hired by a non-governmental mining operation on the planet, the humans wish to remove the Na’vi from their home in order to dig up the precious mineral underneath. As the humans draw closer to war with the Na’vi, Jake realizes that he has more in common with his new blue family than with the “evil humans.”
“I liked Dances with Wolves too,” says Hansen when discussing the plot of Avatar. “In fact, that was a great movie and probably one of two movies that Costner didn’t fall on his face with. Avatar is exactly like it. Just like that new piece of [expletive] G.I. Joe movie was just like Team America: World Police. Am I the only one seeing this?”
When taking a routine call the Monday following Avatar’s global release in theaters, customers, who were trying to make simple small talk with the long-time customer service rep, raved about the new film. “People were calling up and saying that the movie was the best thing they have ever seen in their entire lives. One person actually said, ‘I wish I lived on Pandora. They are so nice there. The movie was so real.’ Really? The blue people seemed nice? You want to live on that planet with the weird rhinoceroses? I told them I’d book a ticket with Nucking Futs Airlines.”
The customer on the other end of the phone, Andrea Thompson, 38, didn’t see the humor of Hansen’s comment and asked to speak with his supervisor. “I needed help with a stencil,” says Thompson. “I couldn’t get it to work. Seriously, how do you get them to work? Does the pencil go on your ear or under the paper?” When asked about Hansen’s comments about the movie, she choked up. “Avatar was incredible. It is in 3D and looked good. I’m not talking “good,” I mean awesome. It was awesome. That man was off his bean. He said that the story was too simple and that if movies were used as a vessel for storytelling, then Avatar was a ‘turd in an Armani’ or something. He also called me an ‘Avatard.’”
Thompson wasn’t the customer that felt the heat of Hansen’s sting. Two other Stencil Tech customers called the call center looking for assistance with recently purchased stencils and brought up the film, like 20-year-old Chris Ullyes. “I called that 800 number and he picked up. First I asked if he could tell me what color my yellow stencil was. He laughed and said he would need to look up yellow stencils in his database to find out the color. So, I asked him if he saw Avatar yet. I told him I thought it was the greatest movie I had ever seen. Way better than Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Legends of the Fall and The Godfather. Then he yelled at me.”
Hansen remembers that call like it was yesterday. “That guy was such a douche. He actually said Avatar was like watching Jesus being born. Who says dumb [expletive] like that? I asked why he liked it so much and he said ‘because it looked awesome.” That was it. Anaconda looked ‘awesome.’ Inspector Gadget looked ‘cool.’ I told him I’d pay him $5 if he could tell me what the story was about. He told me it was about a blue guy who wanted to fly on a dinosaur. I told him his yellow stencil was blue like his nuts after seeing Avatar.”
Getting into arguments with customers isn’t new for Hansen. He got into hot water during the summer of 2009 when Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen arrived in theaters. “At least with Avatar, it’s actually a pretty decent movie and the effects are incredible. With Transformers 2, that was easily the worst movie of 2009. Worse than Transmorphers. Seriously. I can’t tell you how many people called in about that one. The lines were flooded with 12-year-old boys needing stencil help. [expletive] retards.”
For Hansen’s manager, William O’Duff, the complaints from customers was too much and “decisive action” had to be taken. After receiving four complaints from customers, O’Duff called Hansen into his office and asked for his headset. “I’d like to tell you it was a tough decision, but it wasn’t. Avatar was amazing. It was beautiful and I cried the entire time. I loved the story because I can’t remember any movie for more than 10 days so, to me, Avatar was the best thing since G.I. Joe. Awesome.”
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Avatar is the corniest movie ever made about the white man's need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt.
Avatar is the corniest movie ever made about the white man's need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt.
excellent work my friend. excellent. getting that reference makes me feel important
Avatar was the greatest movie ever!!
While I definitely would have rolled my eyes at the things that these customers said–and I'm not even going to address the "best thing since GI Joe" bit–.. his job was as a CUSTOMER SERVICE REP. You idiot! Of course you're going to get FIRED if you laugh at your customers, make fun of them, and call them names. What a genius.
Avatards are actually fans of the animated nickelodeon series: Avatar: The Last Airbender. And have been so 4-5 years prior to the release of Cameron's movie lol.
Which will be made into a white-washed Hollywood movie called "The Last Airbender".
that film is gonna be amazing though, check out all the official trailers released on youtube and yes i am an original avatard
Kel, I believe you are the genius. You correctly deduced that the above story was a satire and not an actual event. Good job.
Hi, inteesting site. Well done.