6 commentsA 3D rendering of a flat story
(This is a post I wrote a while ago but forgot to post. This was before I sarcastically nominated Avatar for the Oscar for “Best Screensaver”)
I saw Avatar about 6 weeks ago, but I guess it’s not quite too late to write a review. Last week, I watched the review by the guy who ripped apart The Phantom Menace for 70 minutes and had a discussion with two of my roommates about the movie, both of whom thought the writing in the movie wasn’t defective.
First off, to get this out of the way: overall, I liked Avatar. If you haven’t seen it, you should, and you should see it in 3D. Despite this, I have very little interest in spending 3 hours watching it again. Actually, I’ve stated that I’ll watch it again if I have access to a fast-forward button. This doesn’t seem feasible.
This post contains spoilers, but the whole point of this post is that the spoilers aren’t really spoiling anything anyway.
The video review I linked to above contains a lot of the same criticism as this post, but he got rather sidetracked in things that were just anecdotal or somewhat interesting instead of focusing on review/criticism.
Begin!
Avatar’s writing is not good and it makes the movie boring. Being visually stunning isn’t a workaround for this flaw: other movies with revolutionary effects, like Star Wars (original trilogy) and The Matrix would still be enjoyable with your eyes closed. Good writing builds characters that you care about, makes you experience emotions when things happen to them and sometimes makes you think. Avatar rarely did any of these things.
The main arc of the plot is Jake’s defection to the Na’vi and subsequent fight against the human invaders. Since Jake is a marine, a betrayal like this must be difficult for him. Sounds like a strong plot device, except it isn’t. While the defection should be hard for Jake, it’s not at all hard for the audience. We immediately know that Jake is on the wrong side and should switch, and we have no reason to feel conflicted about that. We don’t share any of the emotion that he’s supposed to have. Having clear villains is fine, but if a major plot arc is a character’s switch from one side to another, the difficulty of that switch needs to be impressed upon the audience, otherwise it’s worthless. Heck, even Star Wars Episode Three did a better job of this. I never thought I’d write that sentence…
An easy way to make Jake’s conversion more difficult for the audience would be to make the terribly-named “Unobtainium” meaningful in some way. What if it were needed for fuel or medicine? That would at least give us some pause before condemning the mining. But no, we are left with cartoonish un-nuanced villains.
The characters exacerbate this problem. The Colonel Quaritch and Parker Selfridge (the corporate guy) are completely unambiguous caricatures reinforcing the problems above. There’s nothing redeeming about either of them.
Meanwhile, Neytiri and Jake’s love story seemed ridiculous for reasons that are a bit more difficult to pin down. This is a lot more subjective, but had it not been completely obvious that the script demanded that they get married or whatever eventually, the romance would have seemed like it came out of thin air. In other words, it didn’t seem like they had any real chemistry until they were a couple.
The fact that the plot isn’t original (see Fern Gully, Pocahontas, and Dances with Wolves) isn’t a deal-breaker on its own. Heck, some remakes are great movies, but great writing requires nuance and detail in characters and events that make us care about them, one way or the other.
I’m not saying that Avatar is a terribly written movie, just that it’s not a well-written movie. It’s a shame, too, as it could have been so much better since it was visually quite beautiful.
“Shock and awe!”
6 comments
I agree with just about everything you’ve said here and nearly everyone who i’ve talked to that’s seen the movie would probably also echo those same comments. The only thing i have to add here is that for as much as you warned readers about spoilers in your review i don’t think that there’s much to spoil to anyone who has watched the trailer. This is about as cliche a story as you can get. Once you’ve watched the first 5 minutes you know the story they’re telling and you know exactly what’s going to happen to every character who exists in it.
Yeah, exactly. I wouldn’t have written this if there weren’t multiple people who vehemently disagreed with my thesis, though. Since I saw the movie relatively late, several people had told me that I wouldn’t be at all surprised by the plot, and they were certainly right.
I propose a new game called Trope Bingo that could be played with movies like this. Played like regular bingo but with classic tropes on all the squares (taken from somewhere like http://tvtropes.org). Then I could go to moves like this and yell bingo about 10 – 20 minutes in.
Hah, yeah, that’s a great idea.
I agree with what you wrote, but I disliked the plot for a different reason.
It is true that movies do not have to be “meaningful” to be good. They can just be entertaining. However, in Avatar, James Cameron chose big, seemingly important themes (e.g., capitalism vs. environmentalism… peace versus aggression… understanding vs. ignorance). Instead of really making his film matter though, and having something meaningful to say about any of these themes– the ending of the movie left me thinking it was exploitive crap.
To explain: the thematic strength of Avatar is the Navi culture. They are the movie’s “good guys” because they respect the environment, do not consume more than they need, and are peaceful. A major theme of the movie is demonstrating that Jake has an “illness” (e.g. he’s human) which can be “cured” through a more selfless/ worldly view of not just his alien neighbors, but also the beauty of the environment around him. This is a theme I truly admire regardless of the movie’s weaknesses.
However… (spoiler to follow)
“Avatar” is resolved, not because Jake learns an important lesson, not because the Navi are superior to humans, not because environmentalism is important, not because of anything really meaningful, but instead, becaust the Navi are converted into becoming humans.
The huge problem I have with Avatar’s plot is that we are supposed to believe that Jake becomes a Navi— and this is what saves the day. However, in the plot, what really saves the day— is war, an epic battle, superior military tactics— basically, what saves the Navi is that they have beaten the humans at their own game. They have learned and become better than humans at war. Jake has taught them war and this (along with new “warrior” animals) saves them. And… of course… the Navi pick a human to be their next leader…
What disgusts me is that this is the worst ending possible. What does this ending mean? That the Navi are better because they beat the humans in a battle? That the humans now have a better understanding of a different culture/ of the environment? That Navi and humans can, in fact, live in peace? No!!! It doesn’t mean any of this!!!!— All it means— really means— is that the Navi have polluted their culture by adopting war as their main conflict resolver— and that when we humans come back to their planet with more guns (as we inevitably will)—- we humans are going to kick their alien asses by using our nukes versus their flying dragons… and annihilating all of them. The Navi are dead. Let me repeat that– given this plot— Jake has permanently killed the Navi. Culturally, physically, in every way— they are dead.
Just look at what we do to any animal that kills a human… Wolves? Mosquitos? We annihilate them— the only animal we don’t is that orca at Sea World— he’s the only example I can think of. Typically, when an animal bites us— we put it to sleep and quickly. The Navi chose war to defend their homeland? Okay… fine, but it’s not Navi— it’s human— and, basically, it means the end of their species. Could you imagine if wolves united and attacked humans? What about Iowans uniting and attacking the rest of the country because we craved endangered pigs?
I really liked how the Navi culture was portrayed (good) and how the human culture was betrayed (flawed). What sickened me was the underlying idea that although humans have something to learn from the Navi– at the end of the day, the human way is still best— and destruction is the ultimate resolver.
So yeah, overall I was just pissed off because I really liked the Navi culture and was sad to see them sacrifice their culture (and inevitably their civilization), just to win some CGI battle. Most of all, I hated how in the end, the Navi became human. The movie was supposed to have a happy ending, but it just had the stupidest and saddest ending.
Of course, there’s going to be a sequel, and perhaps then, perhaps, a character like Sigourney Weavers’ might make a difference… oh shit.. wait… she’s dead… never mind… nope, they will engage in a CGI battle where somehow the Navi “force” will stop nukes… or cross breeding between Navi and humans will lead to a green species.. or some other meaningless crap. Again, movies do not have to have meaning…. they can just be entertaining… but James Cameron chose issues that are rather important to me— and he shat on them— and this I found very disappointing.
Or perhaps Mr. Cameron’s right, and in the end, the Navi die— and life really is just a matter of who has the bigger gun… well, if that’s the message, just have it end that way in the sequel, please, and have Jake be the first to die— leading a dragon charge to a machine gun…
-P
P.S., I understand that Jake tried “diplomacy” and the war was perhaps “necessary” to gain time for “peaceful talks”, but overall, I stand by my critique and think that this movie should have won awards for its technical beauty, but should not have been seriously considered for best picture. I have not seen “Hurt Locker” though (so I can’t comment on that)—but I really liked “Up in the Air”.
I don’t think that it’s true that they suddenly learned war. It’s clear that the na’vi were capable of war they just needed a leader. I don’t think they became any more human. Also they’re in a remote part of the galaxy humanity would think twice before spending that much money to try and wipe them out. At this point they’d probably just cut their losses and retry diplomacy.
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