Avatar

Hello.

I finally broke down and went to see the big event movie Avatar. I was hesitant, because I had been hearing through the grapevine that the story for the movie was less than stellar. Now, in general, this wouldn’t bother me too much, but with James Cameron, I have a higher set of standards. He is a man who helped revolutionized films in the ‘80s and ‘90s, both visually and story-wise. He transformed blockbusters from brainless fun to something smarter. He was also one of the first directors I realized had great capability utilizing special effects, using them to enhance and move along the story rather than just to wow you with what he can put in.

And now we have the vision driving him for decades. The question becomes was he up to the challenge? Would he give us another revelation, or would he give us a Jar Jar? After viewing, I think I have my answer. Warning, there be spoilers ahead...

Quite simply, Avatar has raised the bar on the visual medium. This was perhaps the first film I have ever seen where, even knowing it was mainly CGI, could not tell where reality ended and the illusion began. Pandora was a fully brought to life world, with an almost perfect realization of an alien ecosystem. (The one exception I will get back to later.) It was a world that honestly, I could believe see going to visit and explore. The lush jungles, the open skies, even the floating mountains looked like a documentary team was filming a Discovery Channel show. And this was made more amazing with the contrast of the human element also featured in the film.

If there was one thing I always liked about James Cameron, was his attention to detail on how technology would be used. His worlds of the future were believable, because it made sense. In this movie you could see that in spades. From big picture, like the long-distance spacecraft that looks like it was fully designed by NASA, powered armor I can ACTUALLY see working, and holographic monitors and displays that look like they could come out soon, to small things that made this reality fully realized. Photographs that were 3-D, the fact that military tech, while supplying more bang, are made kept as simple and old school as possible (remember, the M-16, a staple of the military, is almost 50 years old), to handheld computers looking like Steve Jobs designed them. On a side note, I actually got a big kick seeing that the mech armor was designed as if it was a person, using a rifle instead of having built onto it, showing great multi-purpose use thinking... and seeing it equipped with a giant combat knife just got me giddy.

Even the 3-D was done in a way that didn’t make me think it was trying to wow us with the ‘Ooh look!!! I am pointing things at you because it is 3-D!’ mentality that is prevalent in the medium. It was presented as if this was just the way are. Most of it was really subtle, (again, the photographs were great) and almost... mundane. Not that that is a bad thing. In fact, I liked it that way. I left the showing with my brain on fire from the possibilities of what Cameron has given to us all. This technology will change the medium.

But like utilizing midget porn, after the glow is gone, you realize there was something not right with what just happened. And there were some definite flaws and lost potential in Avatar. Now some of my complaints will seem petty, some a bit left field; but they distracted me from the experience, which is not a good thing. Let’s get one of the more obvious ones out of the way:

UNOBTAINIUM!?!?!

REALLY, Cameron? You couldn’t think of something slightly less subtle, like Maguffinnite, plotpointium, or even possibly symbolismite? Sorry, folks, that had to be the LAZIEST example of writing I have ever seen... and coming from Cameron, inexcusable. You are renowned for your realism, and you drop the ball with this.

Next is something that fully betrays my science geeky roots. Earlier, I mentioned that Pandora was an almost fully realized alien ecosystem. The one exception was the Na’vi themselves. Now before you get all crazy on me, I want you to think of this: on our planet, pretty much all life (not counting insectoid or invertebras here) are based on a quadruped formation. Dogs, elephants, emus, alligators, even humans have this common trait, two rear legs and two front legs adapted as necessary to the life form (wings, arms, fins, what have you.) It is apparent in all environments.

Now on the planet Pandora, life seems to have evolved to six-limbed (sextoped?) life forms. The giant armoured beasts, the predators, the banshees, even the weird lemur-like creatures feature a pair of rear legs and two sets of forelegs. The Na’vi are quadruped. Now I can see reasons why it was chosen to go this way. Financially, any shortcuts where they could help they would use. Maybe so we can associate with them looking similar to us. Or, if you want to go WAY out there, maybe Cameron was afraid that if he added a second set of arms to his 10 foot very slim species who resided on a planet with lesser gravity than earth, the Burroughs estate might realize what they were based on- albeit blue instead of green...

These complaints are relatively minor compared to the two biggest problems. I have said many times that I am willing to see a story I have seen countless times before if it is told in a new or interesting way. Take giant monsters destroying a city. I have grown up with Godzilla, but Cloverfield made the story fresh. Revenge thrillers? A dime a dozen, but when recreated as Memento... Unfortunately Cameron has confused storytelling with presentation.

The story is one you have probably seen numerous times in the past. Dances With Wolves, Ferngully, even Dune-if you are sci-fi inclined. I wouldn’t have any problem with this if there was some real innovation with the themes, but it seems Cameron was too busy with the visuals to fine-tune story. So we get a story by the numbers, nice and safe. Everything is telegraphed in advance, with no real surprises whatsoever. Even the Deus ex Machina is preordained and expected. And it is a shame, because the setting for his story presented some truly unique potential.

For example, one of the major set pieces involved the humans deciding to destroy the gigantic tree the Na’vi called home. You, the viewer, witness the destruction of it and its peoples up close and personal. The scene then cuts to the human command center, where everyone not involved in the mission is watching the same thing we are on the monitors and their reactions to it. And here is where it could have been tweaked for the better. One of the people watching is the head of the company. His face is showing awe, but not any real emotion. If Cameron would have had this actor emote one way or the other it would have greatly improved the scene. If the guy had shown satisfaction or smugness, he would have truly become a man to root against. (Yes, then most likely I would have bitched about how obvious it is, but at least you would have been able to enjoy him losing in the end.) If I had my druthers, Cameron should have gone the other way, and had the character, while watching the destruction, show realization at the fact that all that is happening is what HE caused, and the dawning horror at what he has unleashed. Cameron would have taken a weakly sketched stereotype and replaced it with a character who realizes he is WAY out of his league, and the veneer of leadership he had gets stripped away in that instant, shattering his world. In effect, it would have humanized him and made him a character who, while we may not have liked, we could feel an iota of pity... which would have let us connect to him. This is but one example of some little things that that could be done.

And speaking of characters, we come to the final problem I had with the film, the one that coincides with the cookie-cutter script: the cookie cutter characters. It’s almost as if we are given archetypes of characters instead of real characters, no real thought went into them. You could tell who the main baddie was, who would fall in love, who the good soldier would be, and the distruster who ends up giving their life for the main character. Everything about them was set from the beginning, with no real growth or uniqueness that would let us connect with them... with one exception for me.

Sigourney Weaver’s character on the surface appears to be the stereotypical good guy scientist who fights for the natives, albeit for the wrong reasons. She cares for Pandora and its inhabitants, but more for the purely scientific possibilities than any real understanding. It’s shown that she has tried to educate the Na’vi to the ways of humans, but with the exception of teaching some key characters English, she fails. Watching her character, it hit me while watching that I actually cared about her, and when I understood why, it made sense. She is the Christian missionary trying to bring civilisation and enlightenment to the ‘savage’ cultures. Her character is a metaphor for every misguided attempt to do good without thinking of the consequences. She is a tragic figure that too late discovers this fact for herself, and it is this flaw, this glimpse of something deeper that allowed me to connect to her.

Now I may have been a bit harsh with my problems with this film, but even despite of this, I highly recommend this movie. I see it as a very good movie that could have been an all-time great film if a bit more attention had been spent on the script. Go enjoy it, this film is definitely worth the admission, but as a parting shot, ponder this:

Imagine if this level of visual excellence was put into the hands of someone with an excellent grasp of the importance of story... say Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, or Darren Aronofsky. Now THAT would be truly epic...