James Cameron is credited with making some of the most spectacular films in recent memory: Titanic, Terminator and Terminator 2. Moreso he may be known for making some of the most expensive films in history. Avatar squarely falls in the latter category and does so for many reasons.
Avatar is the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Terminator: Salivation) a US Marine whose murdered twin brother was a scientist on the planet Pandora. Scully is then recruited to move to Pandora as he is genetically compatible with his brother’s Avatar.
The Avatars are artificial analogs of the Na’vi, the native sentient people of the planet. An avatar allows humans to interact with the natives, and experience the harsh climate of the planet. Scully is thrown in with a group of scientists including Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver). Weaver performs her roll well as the human expert on the Na’vi. It is hard to not make a mental connection to her roll in “Gorilla’s in the Midst” here.
Quickly, on a botanical expedition, Sully is separated from his scientists compatriots and eventually joins the Na’vi tribe.
The main plot of this film is entirely unoriginal and by far not Cameron’s best idea for a film. The plot is borrowed from any number of westerns that show sympathy for the Indians. Additionally there is an environmental message seemingly tagged on at the end of the scriptwriting process.
Much like the disappointment with “Star Wars: Episode I” Cameron, like George Lucas, has shifted his focus on filmmaking as a storytelling medium, to more of a platform for technological advances. The Star Wars prequels were the first films done primarily on green screen and with digital recording technology. Here, Avatar does more to integrate human actors with computer generated characters and scenery. The film does so flawlessly. Unfortunately this movie becomes much more about the technology than it is about the movie itself.
But the technology is almost worth it. Maybe about two hours worth it, but the last forty minutes, primarily the climactic battle, could have come earlier in the movie and been just as satisfying.Visually the movie is nothing less than spectacular. Until now you would have had to see an animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) to find this level of detailed artistry on the big screen.
The visuals are breathtaking and at no point is the audience at all aware of the boundary between the film’s actual and digital elements.
Playing second fiddle to the digital animation are the actors, all of whom would be receiving higher accolades had their performances not been overshadowed. Topping the list of supporting actors is Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch. He brings the character’s evil side to life as the film progresses. Also making a name for herself, if not actually appearing on screen is Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) Neytiri, the female alien love interest of Scully’s Avatar (it’s really not that complicated).
I did see this movie in 3D which in all actuality is just the last gimmick that Hollywood has that makes the theater going experience any better than the home theatre experience. When this movie comes out on BluRay there will be nothing lost when you go from 3D to 1080p.
In the end this movie is Dances With Wolves with blue aliens. Or as some have dubbed it: “Dances with Smurfs.” The plot is highly predictable, and you shouldn’t have to wait around for two hours and forty minutes for something this predictable. But like a train ride in the fall, just sit back and really take in the scenery!
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7 users commented in " Avatar: It’s like a PC Western in Outer Space with Blue People "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackYou see blacks, Im pretty sure I see Native Americans. Yea you can take It your own way, but its pretty blatant that they are modeled after the american indian.
Also, much of it also relates to the current Iraq war.
It was not racist, rather condemning racism. How is it racist if it is anti-western, kinda confused me with that statement.
This is a classic scenario you’ve seen in Hollywood epics from Dances With Wolves, Dune, District 9 and The Last Samurai, where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member.
If we think of Avatar and its ilk as white fantasies about race, what kinds of patterns do we see emerging in these fantasies?
A white man who was one of the oppressors switches sides at the last minute, assimilating into the alien culture and becoming its savior.
These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations.
The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the “alien” cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become “race traitors,” and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed.
This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It’s not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it’s not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It’s a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.
Wow, Steve Real. White guilt? This is one of the most racist commentaries I’ve seen in a while, although I realize that many associate past actions with race. What does “white” have anything to do with exploitation and injustice?
Should the Polish potato farmer feel guilt about what the Spanish conquistadores did — because both are white? Should the mongolians feel mongolian guilt because of Genghis Khan? Should blacks feel black guilt because of Idi Amin? Should native Hawaiians feel Hawaiian guilt because King Kamehameha brutalized other islanders?
It’s not white guilt; it’s not a race thing. Cameron and those like him, hopefully, are sending a message about the immorality of exploitation — not a race thing. The race aspect is a fallacy (be it white or non-white, or human or non-human); it’s not Cameron feeling guilty for his white ancestors but feeling guilty about a culture (not race) that at times did bad things.
Hmmm, did that same culture ever do anything good? Where’s that movie?
With the title being “Avatar”, and the fact that there are DNA matched Pandorians connected through computers to humans, are they in fact what some are when they are online? The avatar, known on the internet as your thumbnail identity when you are a member of some websites. Like Sully, who let’s just say can’t physically be himself, as his Avatar he can do anything he wants. He’s a better version of himself. They are all seemingly better versions of humanoids. It is brilliant. There is a story, and a hidden agenda. How can you say it was predictable? Sure, there is a war and the right people win, but that isn’t all there was to this story. There was the implication of humans ruining Earth with all of their superficial needs. Those superficial needs that make humans feel they have a right to start a war and kill over monetary issues. Maybe it was easy for some to overlook the story because of the high technology of the film, but I didn’t miss it. It was wonderful, and beautiful. The first movie I’ve ever wanted to applaud.
You people talking about race. Stop it. They were living off the land. All persons who live off the land would have similar needs, or even dress similarly. Their clothes would be main from plants or animal skin. Their speech would be their own. Their hair would be long and uncut.
I second that. There comes a point where you start over-analysing entertainment, picking it apart and spoiling the fun.
Leave complicated racial/socio-political issues to the academics please. That is what they do for a living after all.
Apart from that, yes, it was an extremely predictable film. But that’s not to say we didn’t enjoy seeing it anyway! It was visually stunning, to borrow the phrase form somewhere. Good character integration too.
Overall, a cliched story wonderfully executed.
Cameron’s original story centered around the sentient being called “Eywa” by the Na’vi, and not the Na’vi themselves, who perhaps might best be described as avatars for Eywa, giving extra meaning to the title of the film.
Audiences don’t seem to be able to wrap their minds around the real story depicted on the screen, and they are prone to cramming the facts into some sort of pattern already present in their minds, hence the regrettable tendency to see comparisons to similar stories, or allegories about current events.
Sci-fi is about creating a setting which then dictates the story and the actions of the characters. If that were not so, all you end up with is an exotic setting which distracts from a story which could have been better told in a less alien environment. The key fact in Avatar’s setting is that the Pandora ecosystem is synaptically connected planet-wide in a way that has produced an enormously powerful sentient being. This being is worshiped by the Na’vi, but it would not be proper to characterize their ceremonial awe as “spiritual” or as some sort of “religion”, since no belief in the unseen is required. It is more a recognition of a scientific fact.
The Na’vi in truth are the chattels of Eywa, and the Na’vi accept their status willingly, since Eywa has provided for them very, very well.
Like anybody who has never had to really fend for themselves, the Na’vi are really quite child-like, which is part of their great charm.
I don’t know how most moviegoers have managed to overlook the fact that it was Eywa, and not the Na’vi, who defeated the corporation’s security forces. Or how you must also draw the conclusion that the Na’vi were summoned by Eywa to fight the humans just like all of the other animals on Pandora. Being considerably more intelligent than the other animals on the planet, the manipulation had to be more subtle. Most of the early movie shows how Eywa performed this manipulation which ended up in a lot of Na’vi dying.
Would you want to live on Pandora as a Na’vi if you lacked free will and could be summoned to man the front lines of a hopeless charge into battle? Hhhmmm…there must have been a few too many Na’vi on Pandora at that moment. Ewya multi-tasked a little…drove the humans out and thinned out the Na’vi a little at the same time.
Yes, there is an extreme underdog in this movie you could cheer for. It was the humans.
These are all cerebral themes that would be unlikely to appeal to a mass movie audience, so Cameron, somewhere along the way, dumbed down the story and added a romance to draw the young ladies into the movie theatre. Also, it would have been a real risk to assume you could get an audience to emotionally invest themselves on the side of Eywa, a character which you never really see onscreen (you can’t see the forest for the trees!) So the focus of the film becomes the Na’vi.
Avatar has multiple levels to be appreciated, and those who dismiss the storyline as tried and trite have let the movie completely slide over their heads. On the other hand, Avatar could justifiably be criticized for trying to be all things for all people. Perhaps spending $500 million on movie-making and promotion will tend by financial necessity to produce such a product in the end.
Go see Avatar. Grace gives the best advice to Jake Scully. Clear your mind of preconceptions before entering the world of Pandora. But listen carefully to the actual story being depicted on the screen.
First, allow me to say that Mr. Cameron put through a picture of quality, sensitivity, beauty and the enduring human spirit. It was manifest in Jake Scully’s approach to the Na’vi. What I read so far seems to pick on the medium rather than the message. I love stories with both topical and deeper cerebral story lines. Here, we’re seeing a people, presumably from our own planet, the Earth. They show up on another planet, Pandora to exploit their mineral wealth, Unobtainium that sells for twenty million dollars a ton. This, as was explained by the ruthless corporate leader, to Dr. Grace Augustine was what afforded her scientific and social research. Another human point that I see in Jake’s indomitable human spirit is his ability to be more physically capable than his actual human physique allows. When Jake becomes the Avatar, he genuinely develops that initiative and the attitude that wins him a place in the hard hearted (at first) mindset of Dr. Grace. He further uses his sense of fair play and boyishness in his approach to the Na’vi. I do have a romantic bent to my own personality, and I must admit that it was very easy for me to escape thoroughly into this epic movie. The exchanges of knowledge and the ensuing romance between Jake and Neytiri was inspiring. Even without the gimmickry or the 3d, the landscapes and the wildlife were awesome and fearsome. The music was spectacular and completed the movie brilliantly. I would be very hard pressed to find anything bad to say about the movie or its messages. I even read how long they took to make this picture and how dedicated the actors and actresses were to it’s very successful completion. I look forward to many sequels based on this exciting and well written story.
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