The Best Avatar Review I Have Read
This is probably the best Avatar review I have read yet. It was written by my cousin-in-law (is that a real term?) who is a Navy JAG currently serving in Iraq.
http://tibbettsreport.blogspot.com/2010/01/he-hate-us.html
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He Hate Us
It's a peculiar time in our country's history that a movie so gruesomely horrible as Avatar is celebrated as a cinematic and cultural accomplishment. With the possible exception of Love Happens -- maybe -- I haven't seen a worse film from 2009.
Let me get this point out of the way: the mesmerizing special effects, the translucent neon brilliance of the otherworld scenery, the seemless blend of CGI and human actors, made this movie without doubt the most-expertly crafted digital film, ever. In fact, I would have enjoyed it much more had the narrative been excised completely, leaving only a horde of blue things navigating their dream forest.
As it was, the plot sucker-punched me, in the face, nonstop, for 150 minutes. It's a Geneva Convetion violation.
For the one reader who hasn't seen Avatar, I'll spoil it for you:
A super-evil corporation, some time in the future, is extracting a valuable mineral from the habitable moon Pandora. The mineral is called, lamely, Unobtainium. As in, can't be obtained. The extraction is complicated by the elements of Pandora, to include its indiginous blue humanoid residents, the Na'vi, who are protective of the natural, pre-homo-sapien way of things.
Enter the scientist.
Evil corporation has hired a research team as part of a PR campaign, the specifics of which remain unexplained, to convince the Na'vi to give up their land, easing the way for evil bulldozers. Sigourney Weaver is the lead scientist. She has devised a way of allowing humans to operate test-tube Na'vi, so that man can walk among the natives, gaining their trust. Or something.
Evil corporation has simultaneously built up its security contingent, which is stocked with ex-Marines who are battle-hardened from an Orwellian series of neverending wars on Earth. These Marines want desperately to kill Na'vi. The Marines are, to a man, cruel and hateful.
The only good Marine is Jake. Jake is paralyzed. His twin brother was a brilliant scientist who used to work for Sigourney Weaver, but died. Jake has taken his place. Jake is not as brilliant. Weaver distrusts Jake because he is a Marine. Jake operates a Na'vi.
There are other scientists. They are nerds.
That is it. You have the outlines. You may paint the rest of the picture, using the prescribed numbers. It is easy.
You know, on reading this plot foundation, I realize it didn't have to be a terrible movie. But the pneumatic dullardry of James Cameron dictated otherwise. The cliches and tropes are, in a word, relentless. There isn't one non-hackneyed component of the story. Not one. It's as un-subtle as can be. In Cameron's world ...
- The head of the evil corporation has to be blindly profit-driven -- and only his only route to profits is extracted unobtainum ore.
- The lead scientist has to be a military-hating bleeding heart. She has to eventually appreciate Jake for who he is.
- The ex-Marine head of security has to be a bloodthirsty sadist irrationally bent on destruction of the locals.
- The Na'vi have to be a silly blend of Native American, Carribean, and African primitives who are spiritually pure, docile-yet-noble warriors, in harmony with nature, and ready to be led by a virtuous outsider.
- Jake has to fall in love with his Na'vi tutor. And mate with her. And lead the Na'vi to victory in the end.
There are a million other cliches that occupy the fringes of the film (tough-as-nails bulldyke helicopter pilot with heart of gold; resentful nerd co-scientist who achieves battle success in the end; resentful Na'vi warrior who doesn't get to mate with Jake's tutor but who shares a mutual respect -- ****ing-A Respect -- with Jake nonetheless, etc., etc.).
And all this was -- I read this somewhere -- for James Cameron's desired message of "We should be more accepting of other people."
Oh, Christ.
Fine. But how much more effort would it have taken, say, to make the scientist the bloodthirsty one? Or to have the ex-Marines be battle-fatigued counterinsurgency experts, advising slow-scale nation-building? Or to have the corporate weasel amenable to profit by exploiting Na'vi culture by placing them on overpriced t-shirts, or turning out Na'vi collectible dolls, or creating a handheld videogame based on their terradactyl flights? Or to have Jake ****ing resent his tutor and end up sleeping with the stupidest, hottest Na'vi slut in the tribe? Or to have the Na'vi be just as susceptible to parochialism, bigotry, xenophobia, ignorance, or even disease as any isolated bunch of tribal illiterates likely would be?
Wouldn't any of those things more-closely relate to the American or even human experience in the early 21st century? Instead, we get an insipid, humorless romp through all of the sad, Susan Sarandon-style culture wars of the early 90's.
It's like Cameron shut himself in a room, or deep-sea submersible, in 2003, and refused to come out. Does he really think the American military is the interest group pushing for blood? What would he say if he'd read, maybe, General Flynn's take on Afghan war intel? Does he think earthly governments -- not that there's any government in Avatar -- are so callous? How to explain the relief efforts in Haiti? A Cameronian world would just let them Haitians sink into the sea and take their damn sugar and be done with it. And does Cameron really believe that interpersonal, let alone interspecies or intergalactic, differences can be swept under by the embarassingly limp, facile capstone cliche, "I see you," title of the soundtrack's Oscar-pandering closing number, too? How about, "I notice that your race lacks sustainable housing and a means of clothing your young, but I respect your ability to ride dinosaurs with your mohawk ponytail -- and will always love you"?
Of course, I could be all wrong about Avatar. Maybe I needed to see the 3-D version.