 |
Oh, AvatarJanuary 10th, 2010 |
So, I finally got around to watching Avatar yesterday. In 2d, not 3d, as it happens.
I enjoyed it a lot. It was fun, and yes, it even left me thinking. But it left me thinking in probably not the way that the filmmakers intended, because the core problem with it and the reason, I think, why so many people have a hard time with it, is because it is a great entertainment that is intellectually dishonest.
Spoilers below.
The dishonesty does not lie in the basics of the plot. It is an old plot, as has been pointed out by many. It’s Pocahontas, it is Ferngully, it is Dances With Wolves. It is perhaps most this latter one, because Avatar isn’t aimed at kids, it is aimed at adults, and yet it is inescapably more of a cartoon than Dances With Wolves was. One of the common critiques is the acknowledgement that “then, the humans come back and win” is the natural next step. Yes, yes it is. And part of the reason why Dances With Wolves works better in that sense is that you know that in fact, everything that the hero does didn’t work in the long run. In Ferngully we deal with fairies and fairy tales, and of course, the tale of Pocahontas does not much resemble the history of Pocahontas; Avatar suffers from being more of a fairy tale than its realism would suggest.
I have read that Cameron wrote his story a long time ago. It may be that it shows in the cartoonish villainy of the bad guys, weak-minded greedhead corporations and militaristic nutcases. What is shown is bad business and bad military planning. Our thinking on this sort of issue is a lot more sophisticated than it used to be, and there’s something wincingly wrong about a line like “they don’t need anything we have,” a sort of “noble savage” attitude that grates. Especially these days when we learn more every day about sophisticated agricultural methods such as terra preta, or more about advanced civilizations living in the heart of the jungle.
The film even undermines itself; it seems internally conflicted at times, as when the death of Michelle Rodriguez’ character comes across almost as her just deserts for having abandoned her post earlier. The fact that Sigourney Weaver’s character makes it to the heart of the Na’vi culture before dying is a weak cop-out compared to how these things go in real life — the story of Moses has a better ending.
The funny thing is that there’s enough hooks there that you could see moments that were more bracingly real. The chief villain, the soldier, is motivated more by revenge for his ruined face (and more importantly, his ruined invincibility) than by anything else. But it is badly underdeveloped. It runs through the narrative everywhere: characters who act the way they do because of motives we cannot quite see.
In the climactic battle, the soldier says to Sully, the hero who has gone native, “How does it feel to betray your race?” and Sully cannot answer except with a snarl. And it is a strong moment because, well, it’s a valid question. Sully did. The fact that Sully himself, at that moment, cannot respond, is a truthful moment — because the fact is that Sully was led to that moment as much by a desire to recapture his lost legs (manhood, life) as by any idealism, despite false-sounding lines about his “great heart.” He became a hero for largely selfish reasons.
But all this stuff is too deep under the surface — and it literally would have taken just a couple of lines of dialogue, or one well-shot scene, to get this stuff across. One scene of the soldier in front of a mirror, with a picture of how he used to look tacked up there, his hand reaching up to touch the photo. One edit to the dialogue, changing Sully’s “I was born to fly” to “I can’t give this up for a wheelchair.” Which leads to disappointment.
The natural next steps in the story are even hinted at in the film. Of course there is something that can be offered to the Na’vi to make them accepting of humans. It may not be language or money. But a drug that hits right at their handy brainport braid? Of course that would work. Or knowledge, perhaps? This is a people who value the accumulated memories of their people, living hooked up to a planetwide memory bank and computer. Somewhere among these people is the equivalent of the scientist from Earth, who grows giddy with excitement at the notion of knowledge and progress. And that alone would be a wedge. Say, a Na’vi who is seduced by the idea of a way for humans to contact Eywa in order to attempt reverse colonization.It is hard not to contrast this with the other big SF film of the year, District 9, which does not shy away from this sort of thing.
At the end of the movie we see scientists left behind; we see Na’vi holding machine guns and wearing t-shirts; we see them occupying the research facility. This is not where it ends. The natural sequel is indeed one that undermines the entire notion of the first film, one which shows natural evolutions of Na’vi culture with technology, commerce, and the like. And yes, deforestation, nature preserves, camps. One where Earth scientists have developed mechanical ways to interface with the Eywa-bio-computer, realizing that Weaver’s scientist was right, that there is more value in that stored data than in the mineral they wanted to mine.
Instead, we end where we do, because while the movie plays with the meaning of the word “avatar” it ends up firmly on the mystical side of the definition rather than the modern one. Sully isn’t stepping into other shoes to self-actualize; he’s ordained as a savior by mystical lights to become the new warrior leader and by the end, is even the real shaman, the one who can talk to Eywa and change it. And then, incredibly, the film betrays its own mysticism, by having Eywa in fact absorb the human notions of survival, and fight back by marshaling armies. Eywa cannot survive except by becoming the enemy, and doing exactly what its shamans say is contrary to its nature.
The most fitting ending for a trilogy of Avatar movies would be for a wheelchair-bound Na’vi kid to plug his braid into one of those cool curved screen computers, to log in and play a Na’vi game where he can run as a fierce noble warrior, in brilliant 3d; where he can jump and fly in a world that never quite was, as a wish-fulfillment avatar in a world where the answers are easy. It could even end in exactly the same way, with eyes open in sudden astonishment, behind 3d goggles. This would speak to what fairy tales we like to tell ourselves, in a way that the movie doesn’t.
But that is not the ending we will get. Instead of the avatar bearing enlightenment, in Avatar it brings avoidance; instead of ending with the kid playing the movie, it ends with the movie playing us. And yes, I enjoyed every second of the ride. But I would have enjoyed it more if it were either pure cartoon or if it confronted its own issues. Instead, it feels like a movie that knows it is lying — to us, to itself? — but gives the happy ending anyway.
I do want to see it again, in 3d, though. 
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
