I just don’t understand cross species love.
I wanted to love the King Kong remake, but I couldn’t buy a romantic plot between a human female and an oversized gorilla. When Family Guy episodes focus on Brian the dog hooking up with human females, I don't laugh. It’s like asking me to believe that I could fall in love with a horse. In fact, what if someone made a full length movie of Mr. Ed where the plot hinged on Ed’s burning desire for his keeper’s wife?
Talk about forbidden love…
In “Avatar,” James Cameron’s sci-fi special effects opus, a marine who is lacking the use of his legs gets hooked up through sci-fi machinery to become a Na-Vi (as in “native” – a blue alien creature that is an obvious reference to Native Americans). He becomes them to learn about and ultimately exploit them. That’s because their home sits amongst a highly valuable energy source on their planet called Pandora. Things get all twisty though when our hero falls in love with the people, ways, and an individual of the Na-Vi.
No mention of “Avatar” is complete without talking about the amazing technology the movie employs. “Avatar” is visually dazzling and it makes a good case for 3D films. It looks (mostly) stunning with bizarre winged creatures, insects, and horses. The rainforest type setting with light up flooring a la Billie Jean is lush and imaginative – we believe it could actually exist but recognize it as alien all the same. In addition, the human’s technology and aircraft all look inspired but somehow familiar. Cameron’s Pandoran world is grounded in enough reality that it never feels so far away.
But as good as “Avatar” looks, we’ve seen it before. If “Avatar” were a book, you probably would be bored. This is a tired story, filled with obvious allegories and unintentionally humorous stereotypes. The American’s (though I don’t recall nationality ever being mentioned – it’s an organization run by a corrupt company) march in to get a much needed but costly energy supply. The company has no qualms marching in and destroying a civilization with their own customs and ideals to get this energy source. The company tries to reason with the Na-Vi but they can’t do it and get exactly what they want. So, when one tribe/culture/person won’t work with your country, what else to do but use lots of firepower and brand them terrorists! (The line “we’ll fight terrorism with terrorism” even makes an appearance from a crazy white guy drunk on the mission). It felt too obvious and silly.
While the story is ultimately uninteresting, it is obvious that James Cameron is a gifted director when it comes to action. The climactic ending sequence is riveting, even though it is fairly obvious about how the movie will end. The scenes are shot coherently and cleanly, and we never have to wonder just what is going on (there are even multiple “300” type slow-mo sequences that probably made Zac Snyder blush). I also feel the need to mention that James Cameron likes blowing up large objects. Cameron goes titanic on a massive tree delivering similarly spectacular results and devastation.
Spirituality is also a big component of the film. Like the believability of Cameron’s visual world where things look like ours but aren’t the same, the spiritual connection he strives for is Pandoran but it borrows from a lot of animism. The trees, animals and flowers all seem to have souls and spirits. It is perplexing to me that people find a spirit inside nature but somehow are closed off to the idea that nature points to its actual Creator. Granted, the people and world of “Avatar” are made up, but we are kidding ourselves if we don’t recognize that all creative endeavors inherently express some type of worldview.
It would be unfair to say that “Avatar” is like a beautiful woman with no brains, because “Avatar is not a garbage film. “Avatar” is just an average film. No amount of visual pop and creative 3D can overcome how tired the story felt. How could I be held in suspense if the ending was in plain sight before it happened? How am I supposed to care about the characters if they feel like stereotypes that have little depth? And seriously, do you really expect me to buy into a love story between an alien and a human (complete with a brief sex scene)? Sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts may get more out of the experience than I did, but once was enough for me.
Fresh back from my plunge into Pandora and I must say I quite enjoyed the journey.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to point out some of Avatar's flaws, but despite the fact that there are elements of LOTR, Matrix, Transformers, Dances With Wolves, and (as Matthew Faris, who went with me, pointed out - The Last Samuri), it seemed to me that Cameron managed to squeeze out enough originiality to successfull weave his particular tale.
Regarding the "spirituality" in the story, I didn't mind it much especially at first. Later, however, the tribal "worship" liturgies seemed a little bit too much like a cross between a cult ritual and a U2 concert.
The animism was glamorized, but there was acknowledgement that the humanoid personalities of Pandora's rainforest world had to interact with a Divinity that had a will, that may or may not hear and answer prayers, etc. It wasn't, in other words, a pure manipulation of spirits that characterizes classic withcraft and animistic spirituality in its most raw form.
That nature had more personality and "soul" than we normally think of it as having is nothing new to these grand stories. Even Lewis played on this note and, in some ways, I enjoyd things like the little jellyfish pods and so on. Even LOTR had trees that talked and otherwise intelligently expressed their feelings and memories and,of course, Star Wars had The Force.
So, even though Avatar's spiritual notions were not as developed as Tolkein's, I appreciated that they were at least not as vague as the impersonal "force" from Star Wars.
What was more interesting to me was the question of morality. Where do the protaginists / antagonists get their notions of what is right and what is wrong? That seemed shifty and it felt like the weakest part of the movie -- indeed, James Cameron seemed to just plain punt on this point.
The "bad" guys were bad because they were greedy for gain and militaristic (and most like us and our neighbors) but they were so entirely unsympathic that it was hard to identify with any dilemma they may have been facing about what they were doing -- even if it included wholesale maurading and death-dealing.
And we were asked to suspend a lot of belief about the motives of the Na'vi. Did they hate their oppressors? Did they want some payback for payback's sake? If they did, it was hard to detect. Even Greenpeace leaders have had their flaws and divisions but The People in Avatar were pretty much one dimensional in their moral sophisitication. "We'll show those sky people this is OUR LAND" Sully urges at one point. Translation = "We'll kill the bastards or dies trying". Hmmmm.
And was there jealousy after Sully bonded to his mentor and broke the ancient traditions about how power and authority would be passed down? If there was, it sure was resolved quickly.
The morality of both sides was painted broadly and, in light of this, the genius of Tolkein, for instance, really shines all the brighter (like, for example, when a "good guy" like Borimir is overcome with near murderous jealousy for the ring and when a "bad guy" like Gollum is revealed to be a regular Joe who gave in to his dark side and, therefore, remains at least somewhat sympathetic and redeemable until he makes his final choices.
Like so many tales that do not rely on a Judeo-Christian worldview, we are left to ourselves to make up what and who is "good" or "evil" in Avatar based on shallow and instantly detectable characteristics.
Having said that, I thought Avatar was quite a ride and even though elements of the story were quite predictable, it did not stop me from wanting very much to see them get played out.
There's much more to say, I'm sure, but that's my first stab and, oh yeah, I've got quite a store of Unobtainium if you've got an extra 20 million...