Yesterday I watched Avatar on my parents high definition TV. I had avoided seeing the film in theaters because I had read and was told that it was a very liberal movie, I’d be hit over the head with green propaganda, while the effects were good, the plot would drive me crazy.
Talk about blowing it out of proportion.
I enjoyed the film immensely and regret missing it in 3D on the big screen. I’m sure it was awesome. Since Avatar was popular I’m assume most people are familiar with the plot, which is by no means original. It’s an allegory to American settlement, an outsider infiltrates for nefarious reasons then has a change of heart. It’s been done many times before.
As I watched the movie I had my guard up, knowing James Cameron is left wing (have you seen The Abyss?) and he’d portray humans as the typical ignorant and cliched bad guys.
There is a literary theory which states the story stands apart from its author, that no matter what the writer’s agenda is, the story is singular. It’s a theory I agree with. Take Horton Hears a Who. It parallels the abortion issue to a tee: a person is a person no matter how small. Dr. Seuss may not have been pro-life, his wife certainly is not, but the story can be seen as life-affirming.
James Cameron intended to make the humans money-grubbing, environmentally destructive people who think only about themselves. And he manages to achieve that. But he unintentionally put in some great gems and glossed over some ironic points.
There’s a scene in the movie where Jake in his Avatar links up with the Tree of Souls and Tells Eywa to look at Dr. Grace’s memories: that her people (humans) destroyed their Mother and would do the same on Pandora. In the story of Avatar the Mother Eywa is the deity, who connects all life to each other. While Cameron intended this to mean humans destroyed their own planet, I read it as humans destroyed their God, an unfortunate coming truth in our own society. It’s the destruction of God, giving him no meaning, which is wreaking havoc on family life, personal growth, and human meaning. Jake was right to try to prevent that from happening, as the results on Earth, were God was destroyed, led to fundamental corruption.
The Na’vi are also a family-oriented culture. Most people just saw them as “tree-huggers” and dismissed the film as a liberal rag. However, the family unit, respecting of elders, is a traditional idea that is embraced by right-leaning people. It is the left who seek to alter what it means to be family.
Ironically, Jake the human, is hailed as the great Na’vi and leads the people to war. So here you have this story bashing humans, and it’s the human who becomes the best native. I thought that was a little, shall we say, arrogant?
Jake prays for Eywa’s intervention in the war against the imperialists and she pulls through. In the end, nothing is possible without God on your side.
I’d also heard that the American military looked bad in this film. Perhaps they missed part of Jake’s opening narration where he describes the soldiers there as working for the corporation; men and women in the military back home fought for freedom, but the marines here worked for the money. They were mercenaries.
The themes of Avatar are bashing industry, the quest for riches, and destroying nature to mine for fuel. As with a lot of Hollywood elitists, they embrace the green agenda and rail on imperialism and industrial progress. But the irony was lost on Cameron. Avatar’s budget excited $230 million and grossed over two billion dollars. A lot of money was spent to make the film and a lot was generated by it. Somehow I don’t think Cameron, 20th Century Fox, or Lightstorm Entertainment donated the profits of Avatar to American Indians or any other indigenous people of the world. Of course I could be wrong.
And it was industry, the drilling and mining of fuel, that made Avatar possible. Avatar used incredible special effects created by computers sucking power. The Weta studio in New Zealand created the Na’vi affects, so planes were flown all over the world, burning up fuel and polluting the air. The film was shot inside a studio, which meant that at one time some kind of flora and fauna lived where the studio now sits.
Avatar was an extremely entertaining film. While the story was predictable, it was still a fun watch and I would happily see it again.
Funny – I just watched this movie last week for the first time too! I too was avoiding it because of what I heard. It reminded me a lot of Fern Gully – did you ever see that? Anyway, I pretty much agree with what you said here.
I never saw Ferngully all the way through, drove me nuts even as a youngster. Did you like Avatar? I’d watch it again, but want to see it in 3D! Oh well.
Thanks for the great review. I may now see it myself since I too had avoided it for the same reasons. Hope all is well Courtney!