Warning, if you liked Avatar, you might not want to read this. At the bottom are links to other criticisms of the movie that I find interesting that were not addressed in my own criticism (which is given below, sadly in a longer form than I would have liked).
This is a post that I keep trying to condense down, but I could talk for a long time about how the movie Avatar is a complete failure. James Cameron has put out what is possibly the worst science fiction work since The Phantom Menace. Avatar fails as an environmental-warning allegory, a critique of capitalism/corporatism, a critique of military, and a critique of imperialism.
Firstly and most easily it fails as a critique of imperialism. If the movie is indeed trying to represent the violent and tragic subjugation of American tribes and civilizations to European imperialists, then it is doing so with the mentality of a third grader. The title Avatar is reminiscent of the Hindu religion, and the god Vishnu taking several forms to interact with the world. So lets apply this to the movie Avatar: a white marine with a severe physical handicap is the savior and leader of a culture that is biologically and philosophically completely different from his own. The naive natives are helpless against their Western invaders until their Western (and white) savior comes from the heavens, deigning to their form and their culture to do it. This is less Jesus, and more Tarzan, encouraging a benign imperialism as opposed to a local, grass roots resistance raised by the aliens themselves choosing how they would live outside of human/Western influence. If Cameron wished to make this a true attack on Western imperialism, why not have the natives actually WIN by their own means, with their own strength, and from their own leaders. Cameron is saying that they are too weak, too innocent, and completely unable to defend themselves and need the guiding hand of human influence. How is this not subjugation, dressed up as paternalism? And how the hell did anyone in the audience accept that this white soldier, with no understanding of the language or culture managed to do what only supposedly a few of these people had been able to do in their entire history? That he managed to attract the most desirable female of all of them? That he was accepted faster than the scientists who had been living with them and studying them for much longer? Don't get me started on the voice casting for the natives either.
I will combine the failures of its critique of militarism and capitalism together in one simple argument that it attacks systems through two dimensional character assassinations. The military leader is predictably hard-headed, cold, cruel, and unthinking. The corporate scum bag is morally ambiguous putting a price on all life. This is all well and good for a five year old's fairy tale, but as an actual critique of the systems it does not work. If Cameron wanted to really attack capitalism, as Marx did, he would attack it as good people, working for a better system, but ultimately destroyed by the nature of the system. To portray the capitalist as cold, amoral, and lacking spirit simply says, "Well this guy does not do it well" but leaves open the argument that "well if the right person is in charge then it will work." If you want to attack the system, attack the system! Make your capitalist or your militarist as noble and good as any mythology surrounding Lincoln and Washington. They cannot tell a lie, they think of the good of their country, they are beyond reproach. Then demonstrate the weaknesses imposed on these good people by the very system they operate under and defend. Bam! Instant critique. But instead Cameron took the lazy-man's approach, and its written all over the poor character development, woefully inept dialogue, and plot with more holes than a Swiss cheese. Maybe that's why he had to steal so much from other movies (Dances with Wolves, anything by Miyazaki, his own much better film Aliens, etc. etc.)
Finally as an environmental warning allegory it is woefully inadequate. What did mankind do to destroy its own planet? To waste its resources? Why do they look for the ridiculously named and little explained unobtanium? Cameron should have gone with the stand by, which is easier to write but harder for audiences to accept: COLONIZATION! Cameron chickened out in front of US audiences, when he could have tapped into the one actual environmental and historical conflict that would have challenged them; Manifest Destiny. The subjugation and conquering of the land, the search for a better way of life balanced with the destruction of another way of life. Of course the natives are the typical 6th grade stereotype myth of the "one with nature" tribe who feel the trees' pain. They would do nothing to hurt it. Despite the fact that they are modeled after cats, who let's face it, enjoy killing whatever they so desire. If there was a settling party, that wanted to live where the aliens were and treated the environment differently as the natives did, then that would challenge the audience and bring up real conflict. As it is the audience cannot identify with the invading humans in anyway, and learn nothing about their own faults or their own prejudices. They simply see the bad corporation killing the native. This was not the old west story. It was not the railroads, or the mining companies, or the oil companies, it was those settlers that so many American stories are told about who go and risk it all for a better life who destroyed the North American tribes. That is the complex and hard truth that a true science fiction story would bring to the audience, that a true risk-taking director would make, and that would really function as a message about preservation of tradition, preservation of environment, and preservation of cultures different from our own. It is very easy to say the corporation is evil when it tears down the village. It is much harder when we see people like ourselves tearing down the village and building up their own. Cameron provides no real conflict. It is easy for the audience to walk out unchallenged, and having learned a thing. We are all like Cartman when we walk out of that movie, saying "You know, I've learned something today..." and I want some one to stand there and be like Kyle, screaming, "No you haven't, Cartman! You haven't learned a thing! Not [one darn] thing!"
There is not practical moral! How do we sustain our environment for our survival? Well love the Earth/planet-of-blue-kitties like these simple folk, even if you kill stuff. But we can keep killing stuff right? Well so long as you do it in a way that respects them. ... wait, what? No, Cameron needs to be blunt: what was the human error, how are the humans different from the aliens, how is this alien system better, what can humans do on Earth to prevent this, etc. Instead its just 3 hours of Fern Gully as interpreted by the Smurfs, with about as much intelligence and maturity. This is not good science fiction.
And to those who would say to me, "but the graphics were amazing!!!" Yeah? I nearly wet my pants watching Jurassic Park when I was young. I watch it now, and I laugh at the raptor scenes. Give it ten years, and Avatar will look just as silly. My proof?
Watch "Tremors" or "Tremors II" before you watch Avatar. See anything familiar? How many people are still talking about the great CG/puppet effects in Tremors? Cause a lot of those things in that movie just looked like "graboids" to me, when they didn't look like my cat had digested a smurf. And seriously, Cameron, have your blue kitties EAT SOMETHING. They look like anorexic shaved tabbies who wandered onto a paintball course full of twelve year old boys with serious anger issues.
If you want a good environmental allegory, pick a Miyazaki film. Any of them. Spirited Away, Princess Monoke, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa. These are all well developed plots with imaginative creatures and three dimensional characters. They criticize poignantly and humanly the flaws in certain systems without debasing themselves to 2 dimensional character stereotypes. They are everything that Cameron wishes he could do with Avatar, and they are on average a good 45 minutes shorter. Mononoke is especially pointed and difficult in its clash between the gods of nature attempting to retain their realm and the humans of industry trying to create a better life for the downtrodden. The capitalist industrialist is a strong willed, intelligent, and charitable leader who believes what she is doing is right. But as the movie progresses, the flaws in the system that she subscribes to become apparent (her disregard for the importance of the gods, her industrious attempts to tame the forest to continue to grow her city and serve her constituents). Watch that movie with an ear for what the director is really trying to say, and you will actually learn something and be challenged.
But I could forgive all of this, I could have sat in my seat and watched the movie and had a pleasant time, I could have even ignored the "White Man's Burden" undertones if this movie had not been so spectacularly boring. When do you think I had time to think of all of this? In the three hours I was bored out of my gourd watching ten foot smurfs cry over the loss of their shrubbery.
This movie is a grandiose, money-making failure of science fiction, and I think has set the genre back at least 15 years in intellectual pursuit.
There. Done. Now y'all know why I do not like Avatar.
Here's my advice: instead of watching Avatar, go watch Up twice. Pixar has been putting out fantastic films with excellent graphics and touching narratives since Toy Story (even before that really with their short films). Up has everything Avatar doesn't: adventure, love, developing of relationships, a complex and understandable yet still despicable villain, and A TALKING DOG! How can you argue with that? IT'S A TALKING DOG!
Links to other criticisms of Avatar:
David Brooks expands on the "Messiah Complex."
A fun and interesting blog post here. Favorite phrase: "sexed-up Ewoks."
No comments:
Post a Comment