Apocalypto Now...

[Troy]

I too greatly enjoyed Apocalypto, but have some reservations. There is a truly great director lurking somewhere inside Mel Gibson, and someday he will make a benchmark movie. Sure Gibson is controversial and his movies are controversial, but that controversy stems from two factors that will make him a truly great director over the next two decades: his lack of internal censor and his dedication to the themes of fatherhood and paternalism.

For me it's more of a FAMILY theme than just fatherhood. The role of family has taken the center of virtually every one of his films, even the ones where he's only an actor.

I'm just not sure that Gibson will be allowed the reins to that degree ever again. The guy is POISON in Hollywood. A true pariah.

Did we really have to have some white guys show up at the end? This is a complaint I've made before, which I know Peru has taken exception with before. But why take the time and effort to make the movie so authentic, use the native language, only to ultimately make it Eurocentric at the end. What did the ending mean?

The arrival of the Spaniards showed that the entire highly advanced, pre-apocalyptic, ultra-decadent culture (obviously meant to represent ours in many ways) was about to be rubbed out by the coming of the white Euro-trash. It was sort of the coup de grace after the crop failures. The whole point of the film was to show that society is fragile. Even the seemingly toughest cultures can disappear overnight. I think your 3 fish analogy is touching on the fringe of this aspect of the story.

I don't know. I thought this was a movie about a dad and a chase, at least until the last 10 minutes.

No, I think the story goes much deeper than that. The chase/rescue aspect was only one small facet of all the different concepts the film bought to the table.