James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)

[Agenda]

But that doesn't really work on any reasonable level that isn't horribly insulting to real "natives." Even in the heart of Africa people have become dependent on cell phones because they make instant communication over long distances not only possible, but very convenient. Pots, pans, glassware, steel axes, guns, and other such things were snatched up by natives everywhere because they're useful. American plains Indians switched to firearms for buffalo hunting, since even flintlock muzzle loaders proved superior to bows and arrows. So we're presented with a Na'vi who are too stupid to even realize what would be useful to them, so we pretend that they don't really need anything to make the story work. Such a situation could exist as a stand-alone science fiction piece but Cameron went to great lengths to make the story an allegory about how Westerners interacted with native cultures, which is what causes the jarring disconnect. Not only does this ignore so many realities about native cultures, it casts them into a role in a Western fantasy about what natives would be like if they had been invented by Westerners for our own artistic amusement.

When Cameron wrote the story, way back when, such a misconception was popular in Hollywood and elsewhere. The sentimental idea of the noble savage living in perfect harmony with his environment, ala Rousseau, is best left in the eighteenth century where it belongs.

They see the humans come to their beloved planet and rape it with the same technology they're trying to sell to them, and you wonder why they don't want anything to do with it? And keep in mind that the Na'vi are not like Native Americans and they are not human. People keep saying that, but they're not a direct equivalent. Unlike humans, they are living extensions of their planet's own ecosystem (ie through their tail connection thingy). No doubt, that would affect their outlook.

 

[suarezguy]

Below average. Weaver and Worthington did alright with what they were given but the characters were too simple. A lot of the scenes felt too focused on the effects, bad padding; the Na'vi and Jake's interactions with them felt too formulaic. I was expecting something more serious and character-based.

 

[gturner]

They see the humans come to their beloved planet and rape it with the same technology they're trying to sell to them, and you wonder why they don't want anything to do with it? And keep in mind that the Na'vi are not like Native Americans and they are not human. People keep saying that, but they're not a direct equivalent. Unlike humans, they are living extensions of their planet's own ecosystem (ie through their tail connection thingy). No doubt, that would affect their outlook.

And that's what makes the natives look stupid. We have intense curiosity about them (which was badly underplayed in the movie to help portray Westerners as unthinking morons) but the natives showed no curiosity about people from another planet. We have more than technology to offer, and the viewer would have to assume that translations of Homer or Shakespeare were also refused, along with DVD's of "Titanic" and "Terminator 2." Indeed, the knowledge base of our entire planet would've been freely available, and any reasonably intelligent species would have members that would love to browse the vast array of artifacts presented. But we weren't presented with a portrayal of a reasonably intelligent species. We were presented with a two-dimensional "noble savage" who is happy in his ignorance, which was just a fictional creation of the Western mind during the romantic period.

The movie wasn't just a 3D fantasy about another world. It was also a bizarre fantasy about ourselves (Westerners who surf the Internet and read science-fiction) in relation to natives, one that we made up about the inability of "primitives" to grasp technical concepts or even to imagine how others might live, as if they were somehow retarded, yet smart in some way we can't grasp. It's similar to stories portraying plantation slaves as blissfully happy in their simple ignorance.

 

[Hyperspace05]

gturner, While I agree that a 'first contact' element would have been fascinating to see - But this is not a film about first contact. That occurred 20-40 years ago before the film Takes place. Grace built a school, taught many Na'vi english (and presumably other things), but things went bad, and the school was shut down. Again, this is background of the movie.

And the Na'vi are far from dumb, and certainly not portrayed that way. Many of them mastered an alien language pretty well. Here's a line in the script, which was cut from the film:

Grace: The kids were so bright, so eager to learn... they picked up English faster than I could teach it to them.

I actually think that your insistence that the Na'vi would find out culture so interesting to be the more egregious fantasy of our superiorness. Why should they care about some vid/holo films by aliens? Do you think it would have been more realistic to see them sitting in their dwellings watching Youtube crap on their "Ipod" devices given to them?

 

[gturner]

They are portrayed as dumb, at least once you give it a moment's thought. As I mentioned earlier, a semi-retarded American learned their language and culture in a about a month, so well that he equalled the greatest feats in their history and became their leader. If one of us can learn all they have to teach in a month then there can't be very much to learn from them. In Sully's case, it's like finding a boy who was raised by wolves, doesn't speak English, and then a month later he has their culture's equivalent of a GED. Obviously the course work wasn't very involved.

In contrast, after years of contact with humans, after we've tried teaching them, they still didn't know that arrows are pretty useless against giant steel bulldozers. They didn't seem to know what a bulldozer even was, even though these same giant machines had apparently been driving around their forest for over a decade. I guess they're just not very observant, to say the least.

In the South Pacific during WW-II the natives who came out of the jungles were driving our jeeps around the new airfields in almost no time, and adapting our mountains of war-fighting flotsam to their own uses. The Na'vi, in contrast, were like a bad parody of stupid people. Maybe they were from glorious nation of Kazakhstan, or maybe the portrayal was an ill-thought rehash of "Dances with Wolves" crossed with "Enemy Mine."

 

[Ptrope]

But that doesn't really work on any reasonable level that isn't horribly insulting to real "natives." Even in the heart of Africa people have become dependent on cell phones because they make instant communication over long distances not only possible, but very convenient. Pots, pans, glassware, steel axes, guns, and other such things were snatched up by natives everywhere because they're useful. <snippety snip flush>

Good God, this 'reasoning' is arrogant! To call a people, a culture stupid just because they don't think all of your cool stuff is the best thing since sliced bread? To write them off as 'retarded' because they don't make an effort to embrace and assimilate a 'superior' culture's things? And then to use this sort of outrageous egocentrism as the excuse for not liking the film? Shit, man, you walked into the wrong theater if all you can see is that a technological culture is, by default, a superior one, and that the rejection of its devices is somehow a demonstration of inferiority, either cultural or biological. Geez, I can barely ready these posts - that's what turned you off? That the natives weren't eager to become just like their invaders, that humans weren't the most interesting thing in their lives?

I can think of many reasons to not like the film - I don't agree with most of them, but I admit there are several that are rational - but I hadn't considered arrogance to be one of them.

 

[Kegg]

^
It makes sense in the logic of the story (the Na'vi have no need to be curious about our things or adapt to our way of life because theirs suit them fine), but gturner is correct that this isn't a likely attitude in the real world.

The Avatar program does make more sense as a plot device, but within the context of the film it doesn't seem that useless: Being proper Na'vi size and not having to wear a breathing mask all the live-long day would make the humans more relatable in communicating to the Na'vi, and unlike the Body Snatchers they're not pretending to actually be their species (it's closer yes to the V, who were doing it... as a PR stunt! It only failed because their real identity is something we found gross, which indicates it was a good idea to go along with it to begin with.)

As to how much human culture they were exposed to in the past few decades, we're not sure. There was a school run by Grace and English was taught there - we don't know what else since it's mostly avoided; for all we know they were only taught aural English and never got to write it (though this seemed unlikely to me.) It's clear for the story to work Cameron needed a minimum of contact, the aliens needed to be unspoiled by human contact - just enough beforehand for certain story elements to work, and nothing else - and even that de-emphasized.

 

[gturner]

No, my point is that the Na'vi were stupid even by retard standards. Decades after contact, Jake had to alert their leader to the danger by saying "a great evil comes this way." He still couldn't quite explain to them what was going to happen because, well, they were stupid.

Jake was semi-retarded, but even he was smarter than their entire planetary network of trees and such. Remember this bit?

Our Great Mother does not take sides, Jake. She protects only the balance of life.

Obviously their great mother had never talked to an American. Jake made her his bitch. She took his side.

The Na'vi culture is an adaptation of the way movies have always used what is termed a "magic negro." My complaint is that relying on such worn out, racist caricaitures detracts from the story.

 

[gturner]

^
It makes sense in the logic of the story (the Na'vi have no need to be curious about our things or adapt to our way of life because theirs suit them fine), but gturner is correct that this isn't a likely attitude in the real world.

The Avatar program does make more sense as a plot device, but within the context of the film it doesn't seem that useless: Being proper Na'vi szie and not having to wear a breathing mask all the live-long day would make the humans more relatable in communicating to the Na'vi, and unlike the Body Snatchers they're not pretending to actually be their species (it's closer yes to the V, who were doing it... as a PR stunt! It only failed because their real identity is something we found gross, which indicates it was a good idea to go along with it to begin with.)

As to how much human culture they were exposed to in the past few decades, we're not sure. There was a school run by Grace and English was taught there - we don't know what else since it's mostly avoided; for all we know they were only taught aural English and never got to write it (though this seemed unlikely to me.) It's clear for the story to work Cameron needed a minimum of contact, the aliens needed to be unspoiled by human contact - just enough beforehand for certain story elements to work, and nothing else - and even that de-emphasized.

Okay, I'm mostly funning with these people but I do raise a few valid complaints.

Cameron told his story with great excellence, though that has raised some complaints because you could see (being smart) everything that was going to happen sometime later being explained in a previous scene. Usually in sci-fi movies we have to ask, "where the heck did that come from?" as the producer pulls a device out of his ass - because he can and because it's science fiction. In "Avatar" the world and its mechanisms were very consistently laid out. He avoided the usual sci-fi pitfalls and made a movie that made perfect sense on the first viewing and had no obvoius plot holes that nagged at the audience a few hours later.

My complaints are that the edifice is built on a well-worn flawed story. We all know the story and many buy into it, but it is badly flawed none the less. It's still light-years ahead of Lucas, as flawed stories go, but then again, the Gungans appeared like idiots but were light-years ahead of the Na'vi. Go figure.

 

[Kegg]

The Gungans spoke broken English and the one we focused the most time on was a bumbling idiot; also their climactic battle was played for comedy. The Na'vi had some who spoke good English; were not portrayed as idiots, and their final battle was in all dead earnest seriousness.

This also goes for the Ewoks, to a point.

Also: The Na'vi are noble savages, not magic negroes. Magic Negroes are, well, the Morgan Freeman role in every other movie he's in, but especially films like ShawshanK Redemption.

 

[Brit]

Don't underestimate the power of the "Bond" guys. That one little plot device IMHO trumps any "technology" that humans can come up with and it elevates the Na've out of being "noble savages" and into a position of equality or maybe even superiority.

Brit

 

[Deckerd]

They had to be noble savages in comparison to the humans. 'Twas ever thus in this kind of story. Hence the impossibility of grey areas.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Don't underestimate the power of the "Bond" guys. That one little plot device IMHO trumps any "technology" that humans can come up with and it elevates the Na've out of being "noble savages" and into a position of equality or maybe even superiority.

Brit

Yep.

It's rather parallel to George R.R. Martin's "A Song For Lya," which IIRC won all the sf writing awards it could back in ...1975, 1976? I don't remember.

Anyway, the arrogant human administrator of the Earth compound on a distant planet just doesn't get why the local "simple" people are completely disinterested in trade, etc and why their culture doesn't evolve. Turns out that it's because the people themselves do evolve, at the end of their lives as individuals, by becoming part of a mass consciousness which means that in effect they're immortal.

There's an exchange at the end of the story between the disbelieving administrator and a telepath who has discovered the native "secret." It goes something like this:

"We have the only tower on their world."

"They have the only God in ours."

 

[Deckerd]

Don't underestimate the power of the "Bond" guys. That one little plot device IMHO trumps any "technology" that humans can come up with and it elevates the Na've out of being "noble savages" and into a position of equality or maybe even superiority.

Brit

If you mean their capacity to fight back then they would have to be equal to vanquish their oppressors. Otherwise there wouldn't have been much or a story.

 

[Brit]

Don't underestimate the power of the "Bond" guys. That one little plot device IMHO trumps any "technology" that humans can come up with and it elevates the Na've out of being "noble savages" and into a position of equality or maybe even superiority.

Brit

If you mean their capacity to fight back then they would have to be equal to vanquish their oppressors. Otherwise there wouldn't have been much or a story.

That is kind of on the right track, but I think it goes farther. The Na’vi apparently didn’t use the technology of reading and writing for example. They did use the “Bond” to down load their ancestors’ memories and ideas. It looked like the network had the ability to record and save all stories, songs and histories of the Na’vi people. It would be a superior system because for one thing it probably doesn’t have the elaborations and sometimes out right deceit that our histories have.

Now I don’t know that Cameron will use this at all but in his shoes I would.

It’s like Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Darkover” books. The Terrain Empire needed Darkover as a spaceport, and they considered the people of Darkover primitive and or backward because (among other things) they banned any weapon that left the hand. Meaning Swords and knives were in, arrows, guns and energy weapons were banned. The Terrains assumed the ban was to protect Darkover, it wasn’t. Darkover had a technology based on mental powers. They banned the weapons not to protect themselves from the Terrains but to protect everyone with these huge destructive psychic weapons.

What I’m saying is that what looks on the surface to be a lack of technology may really be a technology that hasn’t been identified as such yet. I can think of so many ways this might progress.

Brit

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

One interesting direction in which a sequel could go would be for the members of some clans to take up the Earthers' military technology, trading for guns and so on. Humans might want to encourage that for any of a number of reasons. We know that there are other clans; we do not know yet whether all of Pandora is as fecund and generous an environment as the area focused on in Avatar - although background material for the film does indicate that it's all probably pretty lush compared to Earth at any point in the last few million years.

It's likely that the sequel will center again on conflict between the Na'vi and more humans, and not too much of a stretch to suppose that Cameron will look to additional aspects of how Europeans have historically gotten on with less technologically sophisticated groups here on Earth.

 

[gturner]

It's likely that the sequel will center again on conflict between the Na'vi and more humans, and not too much of a stretch to suppose that Cameron will look to additional aspects of how Europeans have historically gotten on with less technologically sophisticated groups here on Earth.

When it comes to a conflict with natives, the Marine Corps wrote a book on it (the USMC small wars manual). Given the way the story has gone so far, I don't think the US will be a good example for him to use, since our habit is to give the natives weapons and such, which is how they ended up as US generals and admirals and the like, such as Vice President Curtis, who was Kaw. Maybe Cameron should instead look to the Belgians in Africa.

As a side note, the movie proves why you can't trust disabled people. Sully volunteered to screw over the natives in return for some legs, but when he liked his Avatar's legs more than his own he volunteered to screw over his own people. Perhaps in the sequel the humans will offer him some hot super-model legs and he'll switch sides again.

 

[Lt. Trull]

It's likely that the sequel will center again on conflict between the Na'vi and more humans, and not too much of a stretch to suppose that Cameron will look to additional aspects of how Europeans have historically gotten on with less technologically sophisticated groups here on Earth.

Well... that would be biological and chemical warfare.
since that is how the white man got rid of most of the natives of the america's...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

There was a remarkable lack of any rabbit-analogue on Pandora, demonstrating further Cameron's perspicacity and good sense.

Well... that would be biological and chemical warfare.
since that is how the white man got rid of most of the natives of the america's...

Hmm? The documented attempts to use infectious disease against the native populations of the Americas were in fact few and of disputed effectiveness. If by "chemical warfare" you mean the introduction of alcohol, something analogous could serve as a subplot or incidental occurrence. Given a species whose group and cultural cohesion are so closely aligned with their neurological sensitivity to "bonding," messing with certain aspects of their brains' internal "reward system" could be pretty devastating.

 

[gturner]

It's likely that the sequel will center again on conflict between the Na'vi and more humans, and not too much of a stretch to suppose that Cameron will look to additional aspects of how Europeans have historically gotten on with less technologically sophisticated groups here on Earth.

Well... that would be biological and chemical warfare.
since that is how the white man got rid of most of the natives of the america's...

Echoing Dennis, Westerners didn't know enough about chemistry and disease to seriously attempt such a thing, with the exception of British General Amherst who tried small pox blankets to no effect, not knowing that small pox can't be transmitted that way. Outside the body the virus is only viable for a couple of hours. Of course he had a supply of small pox because his soldiers were being eaten up by it at the time. It wouldn't have worked during later periods because the US government innoculated the Indians against smallpox starting in 1800.