Avatar doesn't have a good story. It has a heavy-handed, cliched story. And I'm saying that as a left-leaning environmentalist.
James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)
- Thread starter chrisspringob
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Fair enough. Avatar has an agenda that's about as subtle as a sledgehammer and not going to sit well with many people, I have no doubt. I read a similar criticism somewhere from an American conservative standpoint, lamenting that a Kentucky audience would only cheer such a film because it has good SFX.
As to the eye strain point, I had it for about twenty minutes then my eyes adjusted. I want to see it in 2d now just for the difference it would make. I also got a slight headache about 1/2 hour in, but it was gone by the end of the movie, I attribute this to the 3d, because I very rarely get headaches. I never ever remember getting a headache while watching a move in a theater, so that was a first too.
I have seen the movie once so far in IMAX 3D. I would like to see it again and hopefully will find the time to do so soon.
While I don't know not yet what to make of it, it is clearly one you should go and see in IMAX 3D while you still can. But so much is clear to me: the widespread criticism of the story is not warranted - do we dismiss Hansel and Gretel for its predictability? Of course, we don't. The story is meant to be an archetype, very much like the fairy tales are, it's a decidedly modern one, though. He's aiming very high, like Fritz-Lang-Metropolis or Chaplin-Modern-Times high - try to re-evaluate the 'story' from this kind of view point and here's the trouble actually: It's another great version of Silent Running, telling us unequivocally what not to do, it is not revealing the epoch showing us what is. The music of Joan Baez in Silent Running does a better job to immerse you in the story as any 3D imagery can, and more profoundly so since it's all about the actual emotional memory, stupid and not the vehicle used to induce it.
While I don't know not yet what to make of it, it is clearly one you should go and see in IMAX 3D while you still can. But so much is clear to me: the widespread criticism of the story is not warranted - do we dismiss Hansel and Gretel for its predictability? Of course, we don't. The story is meant to be an archetype, very much like the fairy tales are, it's a decidedly modern one, though. He's aiming very high, like Fritz-Lang-Metropolis or Chaplin-Modern-Times high - try to re-evaluate the 'story' from this kind of view point and here's the trouble actually: It's another great version of Silent Running, telling us unequivocally what not to do, it is not revealing the epoch showing us what is. The music of Joan Baez in Silent Running does a better job to immerse you in the story as any 3D imagery can, and more profoundly so since it's all about the actual emotional memory, stupid and not the vehicle used to induce it.
Speaking of archetypes, here is an interesting longish youtube review of Avatar by someone who goes into great depth of the philosophy, themes, and archetypes presented in the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryHvg-6Wy2A ('The true meaning of Avatar')
I personally think he goes off target a bit at the end, but as a whole it is a very interesting interpretation of the story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryHvg-6Wy2A ('The true meaning of Avatar')
I personally think he goes off target a bit at the end, but as a whole it is a very interesting interpretation of the story.
It is intended to be taken quite seriously. It's why Trudy can refuse to bomb the home tree and get away with it (and be left free to jail break the scientists.): She didn't sign up for bombing natives, but to ferry scientists.
But, in reality, US soldiers are mercenaries for whatever corporate/political interests win out in determining government policy. Nothing they do has anything to do with defending the US or fighting for freedom.
Therefore, practical criticism of aggressive war has to focus on the US (or its wholly owned subsidiaries) which has been perpetrator of most aggressive wars for decades. References to Mongols or even Nazis would have sounded musty, if they were understood at all.
The statement was a writer shout out that they did not mean the criticism to apply to the current US military. Writing the soldiers as mercenaries, when there is no plot necessity for it, was solely to remove the onus of their behavior from the current US military. The mere existence of the Trudy character, who is motivated solely by nobility, is to redeem the honor of the US soldier as an individual. And Cameron as I've heard has publicly claimed that the story is about humanity in general, which is pompous nonsense, but makes the point again: DO NOT APPLY TO CURRENT EVENTS!
Defining racism as the particular beliefs appropriate to a card-carrying Nazi does have polemical advantages. Arbitrarily close distinctions between chauvinism (which is both sexual and national,) and bigotry (which is both religious and racial,) merely serve to redefine phenomena out of existence. Jingoism, racism, bigotry, chauvinism, homophobia, they really are on a continuum, even if occasional individuals compartmentalize some exceptions in their personal lives.
Nobody in the US ever believed, on basis on rational consideration of evidence, that countries like Lebanon, Guatemala, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, and on and on, constituted a threat to our lives, or had somehow stolen or freedoms which we had to steal back. Their fear and hate stemmed from irrational fears typical of racism, or racist indifference to their human suffering, or racist contempt for the value of their lives.
Lastly, the notion that because Serbs are white somehow means that intervention into Kosovo isn't racist suggests a seriously perverted view of reality. The US presided over the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, not just of Serbs but of Roma. That is about as racist as it gets, barring a return to Nazi ovens, which are an historical extreme. The point that some of the soldiers are black forgets that soldiers do not really have functional individuality. Pretending that they do is an unconscious capitulation to militarism.
That is a good point, but that doesn't condone their previous actions. The film is about their present actions - it's quite clear that Sam Worthington's character, as a marine, is complicit in doing wrong. It's just that he - and Trudy - at one point wake up and cease doing that. Indeed, the idea that Venezuela 'was some mean bush' and implicitly a 'hellhole' is hardly congratulatory talk of two fellow liberators looking back on time well spent. In Avatar, we're repeating the sins we inflicted on our own world, both to the population and to the environment. And it's really, really not subtle about this viewpoint.
Which is the point of the film. It provides an allegorical contrast, sure, and they're not really American soldiers, but then again of course they are. So too were the Colonial Marines in Aliens, for that matter.
I think it'd be fairer to say it applies to general events, which is why Cameron has made this claim. The Americans are not the first or even the most pervasive society to forcefully dominate and control native populations for their resources; among others the British did a damn fine job of it too (here in Ireland as well as all over the world).
Simply put, distilled to the basic narrative of natives being supplanted by more advanced people for an ulterior goal - that is a universal story. That has happened all over the world. Cameron draws some intentional analogies in the film, and it's true these are predominantly American - the conquest of the Native Americans and Iraq, with shades of Vietnam - but it's not something unique to the American experience.
They may be, but I simply seek to use words in the manner of what they mean. It's linguistic, not ideological. If you discriminate in a manner related to racism or evolved from racism but which is empathetically not racism, then dubbing it as racism really dilutes the meaning of that word overmuch. I have seen this happen to fascism and Stalinism and any other word you'd care to name, whenever a word is given an unbearably negative connotation it inevitably broadens its scope to refer to as wide an umbrella as whatever current wag can give it.
And I won't stand for that.
It's an example I got, funnily enough, from racists. I have followed a few American racist websites and they have an interestingly mixed view of American foreign policy; they're all for the War on Terror (to a point, anyway, they aren't Israel's biggest fans, quelle surprise) but they're majorally pissed at Kosovo, which given their ideology is understandable.
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Was Cameron kidding us, or perhaps himself, when he wrote the shout out and wrote the soldiers as mercenaries, and hinged a plot point on them being mercenaries? Well, I suppose it's possible. But these are reasons for saying that the movie legitimately be read as not intentionally applying to the ontemporary US military or national policy. Also, Cameron says so. As a great fan of the new BattleStar Galactica, you are pretty much committed to the proposition that the producers' stated intent is authoritative.
Personally I think producers have been known to lie when it suits their interests, so Cameron's public statements are merely evidentiary, not conclusisve. Still, suppose you're right. If the movie is showing the heroes as being those who fight the US army, the question is, is that "fair?" That's what those who complain about heavy handedness, sledge hammer approaches, propaganda, white guilt fantasies etc. are upset about. It is a question of how factual, honest, objective the movie is about the US army and national policy. And a question of how morally sophisticated the story is about what the right response to such things should be. Again, many have a gut feeling that the movie is overblown, cartoonish, silly, in exalting such rebellion.
As to "racism", your notion that the citizens of the sole superpower can repeatedly persuade themselves that far away and impoverished and militarily weak, but darker skinned, peoples are a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from, well, presumably, rational reasons, is amazingly unpersuasive. The notion that it is merely an excessive love of their country inspires contempt. The notion that it is simply blind adherence to official authority is belied by the industry with which official explanations are learned.
In practice, "race" means something like "born of our kind," not just some category a Nazi-style scientific racist would use. Trying to narrow racism down to that kind of ideology serves much the same purpose as narrowing the word bigotry to exclude religious bigotry. It merely serves to smuggle much or even all the old baggage under different cover.
Personally I think producers have been known to lie when it suits their interests, so Cameron's public statements are merely evidentiary, not conclusisve. Still, suppose you're right. If the movie is showing the heroes as being those who fight the US army, the question is, is that "fair?" That's what those who complain about heavy handedness, sledge hammer approaches, propaganda, white guilt fantasies etc. are upset about. It is a question of how factual, honest, objective the movie is about the US army and national policy. And a question of how morally sophisticated the story is about what the right response to such things should be. Again, many have a gut feeling that the movie is overblown, cartoonish, silly, in exalting such rebellion.
As to "racism", your notion that the citizens of the sole superpower can repeatedly persuade themselves that far away and impoverished and militarily weak, but darker skinned, peoples are a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from, well, presumably, rational reasons, is amazingly unpersuasive. The notion that it is merely an excessive love of their country inspires contempt. The notion that it is simply blind adherence to official authority is belied by the industry with which official explanations are learned.
In practice, "race" means something like "born of our kind," not just some category a Nazi-style scientific racist would use. Trying to narrow racism down to that kind of ideology serves much the same purpose as narrowing the word bigotry to exclude religious bigotry. It merely serves to smuggle much or even all the old baggage under different cover.
What I mean is they're made to be literally wage slaves to corporate interests. American soldiers obviously are not; though in the eyes of some critics - including yourself, yes? - they're essentially serving corporate interests.
I wouldn't call myself a great fan. I only caught it ex post facto, and at any rate disagreed with any assertions that the Iraq parallels in the New Caprica arc were not intentional (of course they were, let's not be coy about it).
The thing is, Cameron is not being subtle here, as indeed neither was Moore in that case. Quaritch's phrase about fighting terror with terror is particularly noticeable because it only debatedly makes sense in context; the Na'vi really have not committed any acts of terror we're that familiar with - it's key use, obviously, is as a war on terror analogy. So too do we get shock and awe (and daisycutters) to give us the Iraq/Vietnam parallels; when Sam Worthington talks about manufacturing a rationale to attack a place to gain a resource; etc.
He can reasonably say that this is about all conflicts of this sort, as Moore could, but he can't really deny that he's drawn some parallels to specific conflicts of this kind. The original concept was clearly a native American one with shades of Vietnam, and somewhere along the way it was given an Iraq tinge to perhaps make the film seem like less of a product of the 1990s.
I'm not. I'm just saying if the impulse has some clear markers that don't make it racist, then it isn't. It can be just as irrational, certainly, but let's call jingoism what it properly is, no? In itself it's an interesting evolution if you want to call it that, in that one's national identity is no longer essentially a racial one but bigotry along national lines can still be encouraged. Is there some crypto-racism in there still? Quite possibly, but that really does not make it the same thing as the great white race combating the yellow menace.
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Man those are some the longest posts I've seen here in a while. 
At any rate, as much as the movie sucked, I would like to see it in the iMaxx 3D for the visuals. So I guess that's how Cameron is making bank on that horrible story.
At any rate, as much as the movie sucked, I would like to see it in the iMaxx 3D for the visuals. So I guess that's how Cameron is making bank on that horrible story.
I believe this is what you are implying, and assuming the Na'vi represent indigenous peoples of Earth dealing with colonial powers - no people are any more or less primitive than any other. Groups may have differing levels of technology, but the intelligent brain is the intelligent brain. People the world over, regardless of whether they have developed powered technology or not, are equally as capable of grasping complex thoughts and assimilating the novel. Yes, this story seemed to imply that the Na'vi possess a biological ability to enter or merge with the consciousness of other animals, but even were that not a part of their culture there's no reason to think they wouldn't be able to, once shown by Grace what was hapening, grasp the essentials of what is going on. They might describe it in more mystical as opposed to technical terms, but they'd still "get it" - at least the more flexible thinkers among them. There are always individuals whose thought processes are too rigid to accept (not understand but believe in, so to speak) things far outside their cultural norm.
That is, I don't think anything substantive was being said about the Na'vi as Na'vi, or about their "biological technology" - they are just shown to be intelligent creatures, which is in evidence on a variety of other fronts - they have tamed animals, built a city, administered a culture, developed a religion, etc.
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everybodys argument about oppression of intelligent creatures and earth's criminal supression of the Na'vi, would hold more water if you were talking about dolphins and elephants. both of those creatures have a greater brain body ratio then man does. and we're just now learning elephants communicate in the sub frequencies below our hearing... and we've not even come close to understanding the language of dolphins...
Yet Elephants and Dolphins don't have enough brain power to do more than any of the other animals on the planet.
No, but they are the tastiest.
Pfft ... when and where have you tasted either elephant or dolphin (the mammal, not Mahi Mahi the fish, which is delectable!)?