I posted on Avatar as a defense of property rights in January. I commented that during the movie, I had whispered to one of my friends, “This is the Kelo decision.” Various people pushed back on this site and on others here and here (in the comments).

I was catching up on articles I have clipped over the last 3 months and I came across this one I clipped from the L.A. Times while down in Palm Springs. It appears that the Chinese government agreed with me that Avatar is a defense of property rights.

Here’s the relevant part of the story:

The communist nation’s state-run movie distributor, China Film Group, unexpectedly began pulling the blockbuster science-fiction picture from 1,628 2-D screens this week in favor of a biography of the ancient philosopher Confucius.

According to the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, the switch was made at the urging of propaganda officials who are concerned that “Avatar” is taking too much market share from Chinese films and drawing unwanted attention to the sensitive issue of forced evictions.

Millions of Chinese have been uprooted to make way for high-rise buildings and government infrastructure projects in the fast-growing country. In “Avatar,” human colonists try to demolish the village of an alien race to obtain a precious energy source buried under it.