Avatar
So I went to watch Avatar. I'm much more of a story guy than an art guy, so while I recognize that the visuals were pretty good, that aspect was pretty unimportant to me so here I will mostly be talking about the story instead.
So basically the story is what I dubbed "Columbian catharsis". It's replete with White Man's Guilt over what happened to the native population of the Americas and wants to instead give us a fantasy world where the natives fought, won, and pushed out the invaders. It reads like an apology by Cameron to the native peoples, and trying somehow to purge the guilt of having caused the Columbian genocide. You can almost imagine Cameron on his knees before some tribal elders, begging for forgiveness for what his ancestors caused, as if he carried the massive weight of history's guilt on his shoulders, and wants to let the natives win in hopes of finding atonement.
Well, we all have our own hangups.
The setup between the "natives" and "invaders" is painfully black and white and stereotypical. The invaders are split between the "corporate/military" who are of course the bad guys after the money with no concern for the natives. And then we have the "scientists" who are oh so in tune with the natives and think the military are a bunch of money-grubbing brutes. Sensitive scientists versus insensitive soldiers. Well I've never seen that one before. Oh wait, I have. Heck, I don't even have to go outside Cameron's own work. In "The Abyss" we had a bunch of deep sea divers "in tune" with the sea and then a bunch of heavy-handed marines who were going to blow it all up. For that matter, Cameron worked on "Aliens" where Ripley is the sensitive civilian who conflicts with the brutish colonial marines and the company who wants a sample of the aliens for the quick buck. I'm not even going to wade into the deluge I'd get if I went outside Cameron's own work. Suffice to say, the "sensitive scientists and brutish soldiers" is such a painful cliche by now.
And for that matter, the juxtaposition between the natives and invaders is equally cliche. The natives are oh so nature tuned, the invaders are oh so careless and non-understanding about this great spiritual bond and are totally willing to bulldoze all the sacred stuff to get to their macguffin (which actually literally was named in the dialogue as "Unobtainium" -- they could've at least bothered to give it a proper name). Once, just once, I'd like to see a story where the invaders are more spiritual good-bringers and the natives are ruining their own world. But of course we can never see that, because that would be seen and instantly crucified by bleeding-hearts as sending the message of supporting what happened to various colonial countries *centuries ago*. So we're stuck with repeating ad nauseum the same apologist story of "natives good, colonizers bad". Hey, I think it was a crime what happened, and I don't want to see it happen again any more than you do, but let's come up with some variations to the story, for god's sakes?!
For that matter, can we see a *little* more gray area than just "good guys" who are 100% in the right and "bad guys" who are 100% in the wrong? What is this, fairy tale session for six year olds?
The predictability was off the scale. From the moment you saw the main character being recruited by the military commander to provide intel, you knew that he would eventually turn coat to the scientists and come to regret his actions and fight against the military. The first two hours or so, up until the big tree got destroyed, honestly felt like just waiting for things to happen that you knew were going to happen all along. Only after the natives were exiled from their home, did I start feeling like the story was getting anywhere even vaguely interesting, and somewhat unpredictable. It was like the first two hours were this huge long drawn-out prologue just setting things up for the somewhat better last quarter. The structure felt a little unbalanced and too front-heavy.
And then of course there was the romance plotline. You have a soldier who doesn't care about nature and is willing to sell it out, and through love he is transformed into the big savior who is more in tune with nature than the natives themselves. If you love a guy hard enough, you can transform him entirely to a polar opposite of what he was before. No wonder so many girls end up in bad relationships, if they grow up on stories like this. Love a bad guy hard enough and he turns into the greatest guy in the world. If he doesn't change then you're just not loving him hard enough and it's your fault. I find it highly morally dubious to promote this kind of fantasy where you should get together with a bad guy in hopes of changing him.
I also find it somewhat questionable that the natives can't fight back by themselves, but they have to be organized, led and trained by the "whites". For all of Cameron's Columbian apologism, he may feel sorry for what was done to natives, but he still seems to think quite lowly of them. Just a flock of sheep for the big messianic *Western* savior to lead because he now understands the land oh so much better than the people who have been living there their entire lives.
Eh. But then, what did I expect? It was a blockbuster movie, meaning that Joe Average liked it. The average American.
I guess I'll keep on looking and hoping for more Jodie Foster movies instead.
So basically the story is what I dubbed "Columbian catharsis". It's replete with White Man's Guilt over what happened to the native population of the Americas and wants to instead give us a fantasy world where the natives fought, won, and pushed out the invaders. It reads like an apology by Cameron to the native peoples, and trying somehow to purge the guilt of having caused the Columbian genocide. You can almost imagine Cameron on his knees before some tribal elders, begging for forgiveness for what his ancestors caused, as if he carried the massive weight of history's guilt on his shoulders, and wants to let the natives win in hopes of finding atonement.
Well, we all have our own hangups.
The setup between the "natives" and "invaders" is painfully black and white and stereotypical. The invaders are split between the "corporate/military" who are of course the bad guys after the money with no concern for the natives. And then we have the "scientists" who are oh so in tune with the natives and think the military are a bunch of money-grubbing brutes. Sensitive scientists versus insensitive soldiers. Well I've never seen that one before. Oh wait, I have. Heck, I don't even have to go outside Cameron's own work. In "The Abyss" we had a bunch of deep sea divers "in tune" with the sea and then a bunch of heavy-handed marines who were going to blow it all up. For that matter, Cameron worked on "Aliens" where Ripley is the sensitive civilian who conflicts with the brutish colonial marines and the company who wants a sample of the aliens for the quick buck. I'm not even going to wade into the deluge I'd get if I went outside Cameron's own work. Suffice to say, the "sensitive scientists and brutish soldiers" is such a painful cliche by now.
And for that matter, the juxtaposition between the natives and invaders is equally cliche. The natives are oh so nature tuned, the invaders are oh so careless and non-understanding about this great spiritual bond and are totally willing to bulldoze all the sacred stuff to get to their macguffin (which actually literally was named in the dialogue as "Unobtainium" -- they could've at least bothered to give it a proper name). Once, just once, I'd like to see a story where the invaders are more spiritual good-bringers and the natives are ruining their own world. But of course we can never see that, because that would be seen and instantly crucified by bleeding-hearts as sending the message of supporting what happened to various colonial countries *centuries ago*. So we're stuck with repeating ad nauseum the same apologist story of "natives good, colonizers bad". Hey, I think it was a crime what happened, and I don't want to see it happen again any more than you do, but let's come up with some variations to the story, for god's sakes?!
For that matter, can we see a *little* more gray area than just "good guys" who are 100% in the right and "bad guys" who are 100% in the wrong? What is this, fairy tale session for six year olds?
The predictability was off the scale. From the moment you saw the main character being recruited by the military commander to provide intel, you knew that he would eventually turn coat to the scientists and come to regret his actions and fight against the military. The first two hours or so, up until the big tree got destroyed, honestly felt like just waiting for things to happen that you knew were going to happen all along. Only after the natives were exiled from their home, did I start feeling like the story was getting anywhere even vaguely interesting, and somewhat unpredictable. It was like the first two hours were this huge long drawn-out prologue just setting things up for the somewhat better last quarter. The structure felt a little unbalanced and too front-heavy.
And then of course there was the romance plotline. You have a soldier who doesn't care about nature and is willing to sell it out, and through love he is transformed into the big savior who is more in tune with nature than the natives themselves. If you love a guy hard enough, you can transform him entirely to a polar opposite of what he was before. No wonder so many girls end up in bad relationships, if they grow up on stories like this. Love a bad guy hard enough and he turns into the greatest guy in the world. If he doesn't change then you're just not loving him hard enough and it's your fault. I find it highly morally dubious to promote this kind of fantasy where you should get together with a bad guy in hopes of changing him.
I also find it somewhat questionable that the natives can't fight back by themselves, but they have to be organized, led and trained by the "whites". For all of Cameron's Columbian apologism, he may feel sorry for what was done to natives, but he still seems to think quite lowly of them. Just a flock of sheep for the big messianic *Western* savior to lead because he now understands the land oh so much better than the people who have been living there their entire lives.
Eh. But then, what did I expect? It was a blockbuster movie, meaning that Joe Average liked it. The average American.
I guess I'll keep on looking and hoping for more Jodie Foster movies instead.