Newsweek speculates that China’s uncertainty (wait – didn’t they name a mountain range after the movie?) about Avatar has less to do with its usurpation of local cinema fare (namely a recent Confucius biopic starring Chow Yun-Fat)  and more to do with uncomfortable parallels between the Na’vi and Earth’s Tibetans, who are not exactly blue and 12-feet tall but have a penchant for nature-worship and reincarnation.

Reincarnation is a potent idea in China, and Beijing doesn’t want moviegoers to be reminded of the Tibetan belief that no one ever really dies. This faith is partly the reason why many Tibetans remain fiercely loyal to the exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom Chinese leaders believe to be a dangerous separatist. Even when he is old or frail, irresponsible or doddering, his followers worship him and, when his corporeal form eventually passes away, they eagerly await the discovery of the Dalai’s new incarnation. Indeed, the state of the elderly Nobel laureate’s health will be on many people’s minds during U.S. president Barack Obama’s expected meeting with him in Washington—slated for this month—a move that has already triggered gnashing teeth among Chinese authorities.

On so many levels, and despite the designs of Chinese officialdom, Avatar has taken on a life of its own. That’s why audiences weren’t nearly as interested in the great sage. First, they panned Confucius, which brought in a paltry $5.5 million over five full days—compared to Avatar’s record opening-day take of $4.8 million. Chinese movie star Chow Yun-Fat had said, “If you don’t cry after watching Confucius, you’re not human.” (Chow plays the erudite Confucius, which itself stoked controversy because the star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon does not have a classical Chinese education.) But the attendance numbers were so anemic, popular blogger Han Han wrote that the viewers with the best reason to weep were the filmmakers themselves, realizing “how many middle-school classes and government officials they’re going to have to drag into theaters en masse to break even.” Global Times called the film “thoughtless and mind-numbing.”