Defending Avatar

A friend of mine wrote a scathing review of Avatar. He despised it. I loved it.

I had made a conscious decision not to review the film because I knew everyone was desperate to have their say, and I doubted I could add anything new by way of compliment or critique. When I made the mistake of volunteering to my old college friend that I loved it, I had the distinct impression that I had instantly shrunk in his estimation. In a matter of seconds it seemed like I had gone from being an intelligent friend, to an idiot.

Maybe not, but he did hang up on me very soon afterwards. He’s a busy guy, so I’ll stop being paranoid now. But my paranoia did motivate me to offer something of a rebuttal to his bashing of the film.

I cut and paste my comment to his blog post, Avatar Sucked. His words are in bold.

The story and plot are retarded and predictable.

Retarded? That’s an insult, not a critique. The story IS predictable however, but Cameron wasn’t writing a thriller. The film was intended to be a simple morality tale about goods and evils.  Evils: 1) destroying one’s planet (Earth in the film); 2) making an enemy out of a people if they have something you want (literally stated in the film); 3) corporate exploitation of the natural resources of a people without regard for the wellbeing of those people; 4) the use of overwhelming force to take what you want; 5) the disregard of ‘alien”, plant and animal life; and 6) racist, supremacist ideologies based in absolute ignorance of a people who you couldn’t bother to understand.

Cameron very consciously had the humans use the most offensive of racist labels to illustrate the evil of racism in the film and in the real world. It’s just a morality tale, and like most science fiction, it challenges xenophobia (while ironically using positive ethnic stereotypes to flesh out its Na’vi characters.)

UPDATE: 20th Century Fox describes the film thus:

“The themes of protecting the environment, respecting life, and yearning for a peaceful planet have united moviegoers worldwide…”

The dialogue is incomprehensible. You kind of have to stop listening to what the characters are saying in order to enjoy the visuals.

I disagree. I found most of the dialogue fairly straightforward and comprehensible, albeit banal. Much of it wasn’t bad, just not good. However, the one-liners put in the mouths of “the main dude” and the villainous head of security were horrendously awful. I physically cringed. Those you DID have to ignore to enjoy the predictable plot ride and the visuals.

The visuals are amazing…but so fucking what?

You sound like you have a lot of anger towards this film (which I can understand), or a tepid appreciation for cinematography (which I highly doubt). The visuals in this film were fantastic. Cameron showed remarkable creativity in drawing another world in such minute and original detail. The night scenes on Pandora were magical. The flora and fauna were strange but familiar, silly but intimidating. See the New York Times article about how the world Cameron created invites us to look at the natural world and science with wonder:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/science/19essay.html

The directing of the visuals was also spectacular. Pretty much every scene involving the flying animals was directed to perfection, as were the scenes with the “main dude” and the Na’vi princess hunting in the forest.

This movie is racist as fuck. I mean gut twistingly so…to the point that my friends and I were dying laughing by the end at how disrespectful it was.

Hmmm… Like you, I avoid like the plague most films that feature a white saviour to the colored masses. You couldn’t pay me to see The Blind Side or that old Michelle Pfeiffer movie where she is a teacher in the inner-city, or many other films of the genre. I think both of these examples are true stories and I honor the white women in them who tried to make a difference in their areas of influence, irrespective of the color of those they helped. We need people of whatever color helping others in need of whatever color. However, I don’t enjoy watching “white man saves the day” films. I think we need more stories of people helping themselves, in film and in life.

The thing about Avatar, though, is that you see what you want to see and you judge Cameron in the way you are inclined to judge writers who tell such stories.

See the New York Times on this very thing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/movies/20avatar.html

Or Australia’s Ann Coulter having a bitchfest about the anti-Americanism in the film:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/hit-by-the-leftie-sledgehammer-20100101-llpp.html

I didn’t see the main character in this film as a white hero who saves the inferior natives from themselves. I saw him as a flawed human with an initially inferior and ignorant worldview (shared by all humans), who helps save the natives from his own race. The message here is that it takes someone intimately familiar with the evil of his own, to defeat that evil. The evil humans (and the humans are undeniably portrayed as evil in this film) attempt to “civilize” the natives with human schools and human infrastructure (as mentioned by the CEO) and these attempts are portrayed as culturally inappropriate and useless overtures to a highly developed culture and ecosystem that doesn’t require improvement. The film actually explicitly states that the people of Pandora require and want nothing from humans. The film argues that the civilization of Pandora is almost utopian: superior. The humans represent an inferior culture, worldview, way of being, and way of living. I think it’s highly significant that the human who is rehabilitated by adopting the Pandoran worldview goes so far as to deny his humanity to become a native. If that doesn’t argue for the inferiority of human culture, I don’t know what does.

Not only does the white guy have to save the stupid colored natives…but of course the best woman the natives have, the hottest, smartest most capable woman…falls for the “outsider”.

This is debatable. I certainly understand your disapproval. They could have easily made the girl in the film less noble to her people. He didn’t need to get the princess. I thought the film did argue well enough why she would be open to him though. She is shown as being among the few Na’vi who attended the human school and learned English. She was obviously open to learning about them. She is also the only female and only one of two females discussed as a hunter. The larger impression is that males are still the primary hunters. She would be attracted to a fellow hunter like her intended mate, and like the human warrior. She was visibly impressed with how quickly he learned to hunt in the Na’vi tradition. She was initially annoyed but also impressed by his reckless bravery. He was by definition the most attractive human because he was the only one who sought to learn their ways.  I think she was also depicted as being fairly free-spirited and independent, albeit loyal to her people to the point that she was going to witness his execution after his betrayal was disclosed.

Finally, you’re a man. I’m a woman. I always fall for the outsider. Give me the one that’s not like the others every time.

The acting is a mixed bag. Main dude and Sigourney are okay but the rest suffer under the burden of the shitty dialogue.

Yes, a mixed bag. I thought the Na’vi princess was pretty good. All the Na’vi were interesting. Michelle Rodriguez was annoying, and the “main dude” was actually the weakest actor when he played his human character. But the acting was good enough to carry the story.

UPDATE: Well at least one person agrees with me and argues further that the actress Zoe Saldana, who played the Na’vi princess, was damn good:

But the most egregious “Avatar” snub was for Zoe Saldana. Her turn as Neytiri, the blue-skinned alien huntress, is truly the heart of “Avatar.” Neytiri’s every movement and facial expression was created by Saldana on a motion capture stage. She went through months of training for the physical demands of the role, along with learning an entirely new language for most of her dialogue. Cameron told New York magazine he feels she deserves recognition for her work: “Every second of the performance is Zoe. To carry a film on her shoulders and to step up every day for over a year is no small task.”

3D is OVERRATED! I’ve now seen two movies in the new 3D. It’s not that good. the corners are fuzzy. and while the old 3D made it look like the movie was coming for you…the new stuff makes it look like you’re IN the camera watching…kinda cool, but ultimately not good enough to be trumpeted.

This is a matter of taste I think. What was good about the 3D in this film is that it wasn’t employed to make things jump out into the theatre. It was employed to take you into the forest. I thought it did that well. I would be curious to see the film – yes, again! – in 2D to see the difference.  I like 3D. I like the idea of movie-going being an event that may require equipment. I like surround-sound and getting lost in sounds and images.

I now feel about James Cameron the same way I feel about Spike Lee and M. Knight Shyamalan…”You’re an amazing director, but for the love of GOD…let someone else do the writing.”

I agree. Movies by these directors with better scripts would be off the chain.

Avatar sucked.

Couldn’t disagree more. It was a fun ride. I loved it.

If it makes a single blindly pro-war citizen more conscientious about the use of force…

If it makes a single oblivious polluter or energy-guzzler more conscientious about the environment…

If it makes a single soft-bigot more conscious about his prejudices…

If it makes one adult fall in love with a trip to the movies again…

Then it succeeded in doing what Cameron wanted.

My Final Comment

To think that anyone who likes this movie must be an idiot would be ungenerous and arrogant. Just as thinking people can be Republican (though I’m no Republican), thinking people can like this movie too.

With much respect,

humanb

UPDATE: My review of another blockbuster special effects extravaganza, 2012, stands in stark contrast to my review of Avatar, and clearly demonstrates that I can appreciate the kind of criticism Avatar has received.

UPDATE: I’ve seen The Blind Side. It wasn’t my idea, but there it is. It was actually pretty good, primarily because it was a true story about a group of remarkable people – black and white – with a limited amount of Hollywood cheese.  In the film and in real life, the white people AND the black guy saved each other.