Avatar

If you haven't heard of this film by now, you might actually live on Pandora instead of Earth. It cost a lot of money to make and it's made a lot, too. It's returned James Cameron, fresh from his now 13-year-old triumph, Titanic, to the headlines. He's king again. Some people think it's great, some people think it's hype, some people ackowledge that it's both. It's both. It also has a serious mediocre streak running down its middle. Let's agree on one thing right now: James Cameron can't write. How else could he have taken one of history's most compelling, haunting tragedies and turned it into an unwatchable potboiler? Yes, I'm talking about Titanic, which for my money was an insult to the victims of that disaster. Avatar's script is a rough draft, but its special effects and visual style are polished beyond anything I've seen before. I recommend watching it in 3-D. It needs all the dimensions the screen can give it in order for it to deliver its full impact. That impact so far has been considerable.


Avatar

James Cameron once famously declared himself King of the World. I imagine this is why, in his latest film, Avatar, he has created an entirely new world so that he could make himself king of it, too. To a large extent, he’s succeeded. His new movie seamlessly blends live action and computer imagery, and employs the most dynamic use of 3-D I’ve ever seen, to create a vision that is breathtaking, bold, and most important, alive. Unfortunately, the epic sweep of its visuals is not matched by its story, which, despite epic pretensions, lacks the requisite scope. It’s also depressingly unoriginal.

The action takes place in the future on a distant planet suggestively named Pandora. There, an occupying force of U.S. marines tries to keep order among the indigenous population, the Na’vi, creatures shaped like elongated humans with pointed ears and blue skin. The marines are there to run interference for an American company that is mining the planet for a rare mineral (“unobtainium”) found in deposits underneath the woodlands where the Na’vi live. The Na’vi are a proud hunter-warrior people, similar to many Native American tribes, and they offer fierce resistance to the military, whose aggression is held in check only by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), director of a project that’s studying the Na’vi in order to negotiate a peaceful way of co-existing with them.

Into this volatile mix comes Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic ex-marine who is recruited to take part in Dr. Augustine’s study. Her program is an ingenious one: she mixes Na’vi DNA with that of a human individual to grow a hybrid in the lab, then projects the human consciousness into the Na’vi body (the “avatar”) to allow him, or her, to walk among the Na’vi as one of their own . Jake is eager to join for personal reasons—it gives him a chance to start his life over, to once again inhabit a body that has all of its motor functions intact. But he quickly finds his position in the project compromised by the marine commander, Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who recruits Sully to spy on the Na’vi and report his findings to him instead of Dr. Augustine. Quaritch is eager to mount a full assault on the Na’vi and conquer them once and for all, and he figures any information he gets that doesn’t go through Augustine will help him accomplish this. Sully goes along because he is still a marine at heart. But his heart is about to undergo a radical change.

The movie has been called Dances with Wolves in outer space because of what happens to Sully once he “becomes” a Na’vi warrior. He likes it, of course—who wouldn’t? Especially when he's being tutored in his adopted people’s ways by the beautiful princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), between whom initial antagonism changes gradually—and predictably--into mutual liking, respect, and finally, love. In the scenes detailing his instruction, we watch Sully slowly transforming himself, finding not just wholeness in a new body but wholeness of a different kind as his soul grows into that body--and into the life he was obviously destined for. When, acting on the information he has provided Col. Quaritch, the troops begin their invasion of the forest to drive out the Na’vi, Sully realizes the terrible consequences of his betrayal and makes a fateful decision—he switches sides and fights for the Na’vi, eventually becoming the leader of their desperate struggle to remain free.

Taking up their cause is not without its consequences, however, and it is here that the narrative’s shortcomings are the most glaring. The film’s morality centers on doing the right and just thing, which in this case is presented as fighting for the oppressed against their oppressors. This is also the only emotionally plausible thing to do, since the story is dominated by Sully’s life among the Na’vi; his growing understanding of, and identification with, their values; and his romantic attachment to Neytiri. He never really has a choice, when it comes right down to it. The narrative relentlessly drives him in that direction from the moment he arrives on Pandora, and his conversion happens quickly and easily, without hesitation or inner turmoil over abandoning his human roots (Quaritch calls him a “traitor to his race”)--and therefore without dramatic effect. What should have been an emotionally wrenching moment in the story, imbued with tragic overtones, is treated matter-of-factly, like the forgone conclusion it is.

This has implications for the film’s politics, although undoubtedly not the kind Cameron intended. Much comment has already been directed at Avatar’s “liberalism,” which is to say it sides with aboriginal culture over industrialized society, with respect for nature over the worship of technology, with living in harmony with all forms of life instead of subjecting the natural world to human domination for purposes of gain. And it’s decidedly anti-military into the bargain. Oh, those Hollywood liberals--why do they hate America so? Actually, it’s hard to take Avatar’s “political stance” seriously, given the one-dimensionality of the conflict at its center and the predictability of its outcome. Even the least attentive member of the audience will have no trouble following the movie’s by-the-numbers scenario of Good vs. Evil: this is Melodrama for Dummies.

But Cameron courts controversy and contemporary relevance for his innocuous tale--he actually puts the phrase “shock and awe” into Quaritch’s mouth when he’s firing up his troops for the attack on the Na’vi. So Pandora is offered up as an analogue for Iraq as well as the American West, with Vietnam lurking in the images of warfare among lush tropical scenery: a roll call of American Imperialism’s greatest sins. Not enough guilt for you? Might as well throw in European Colonialism in Africa, the Middle East, India, etc. Cameron might think his targets are clear in all of this, but his aim is wild. The situation on Pandora is not like any of these historical ones because it has no solid context—the action takes place almost literally in a vacuum--so there is nothing to lend the would-be parallels weight. Pandora is not Iraq or the Great Plains--it’s a galaxy far, far away where a ragtag rebellion is fighting an evil empire that is superior both in numbers and technological sophistication but suffers from arrogance and overconfidence. When this saga unfolded on the screen in the first three Star Wars films, a savior arose from the ranks of the rebels to defy his father and his own past. Much the same happens here, with Sully defying his commanding officer/parental figure Col. Quaritch and turning his back on his marine, and his human, past to reinvent himself as the leader of the Na’vi.

Problematic in its politics, Avatar is far more successful in its introduction of religious themes. The Na’vis’ intimate connection with nature has been ridiculed by some critics as mere pandering to fashionable beliefs on the left, but in fact it’s an integral, and well developed, part of their conception as a race--and it plays the crucial role in determining their fate. The assault on their forest homeland is simply a strategic maneuver from the point-of-view of the culturally blind military: they need to drive the Na’vi out to get at the deposits of unobtainium buried beneath the trees. But in doing so, they unleash powerful forces they don’t understand and have no way to control. Some of the film’s most effective scenes explore the implications of the interconnectedness between the Na’vi people and the animal and plant life of their environment. Sully’s capture of the the Mountain Banshee (a winged, dragon-like creature that Na‘vi warriors tame in order to fly) is a thrilling action sequence but also a moving ceremony, a rite of passage for both as they form the bond that is the soul of all life on their planet. This bond finds its highest expression in the Tree of Souls, a rather banal name for the magnificent vision at the center of the Na’vis’ world, a gigantic tree glowing with the combined energy of all living things. Dr. Augustine discovers that it functions like a giant nervous system, providing a way for communication to flow back and forth between all forms of life on Pandora, and this proves to be Col. Quaritch’s downfall: when he orders his men to destroy the Tree to hasten the Na’vis’ defeat, the besieged natives are sent reinforcements by the planet itself.

Cameron effortlessly blends this animistic theology (shades of Star Wars’ famous “Force”) with some basic Christianity. One of several meanings of “avatar” is the incarnation of a deity, a god manifesting itself in human form. Sully’s consciousness is projected into the world of the Na’vi to inhabit one of their bodies and give it life, evoking Christianity's belief that God took the form of an earthly being in Jesus. Perhaps Cameron considered this allusion too obscure, for he pushes the analogy even further and has Sully make the ultimate sacrifice at film’s end, dying in his earthly (human) body so that his spirit can be reborn in the body of his Na’vi avatar—literally giving his life for the people he has chosen, or was chosen, to save. Deciphering the Christian allegory at play here is not exactly challenging.

But the real religion of the film is cinema itself. At this late date, does anyone doubt James Cameron’s total devotion to moviemaking as technology, art, and popular entertainment? If so, watch Avatar in 3-D in a crowded theater and you’ll see something that can truly be considered a modern spectacle. From the breathtaking vistas of Pandora’s mountains to the lush undergrowth and magnificent trees of the Home Forest, Avatar presents the spectator with a visually stunning and fully realized environment. In addition to these splendors, Cameron and his crew have advanced the technology of motion-capture filmmaking to the point where the animation is more than just smooth and supple--it has an almost tactile quality. The very process itself--recording a human actor’s movements, then transcribing them into the movements of a computer-animated figure--neatly doubles the technology of “avatarism” in the movie’s story, the process by which a person’s consciousness is transported into a Na’vi body and becomes its animating force.

But this “avatarizing” process is a metaphor for cinema also. In the film, the human subject lies down in a cylindrical chamber and goes to sleep, allowing her/his mind to “wander” off and merge with the avatar. In the act of going to the movies, we enter a darkened theater and allow our minds to wander as well, to be absorbed by the story playing out on the screen through the process of identification. That is, if the film is able to provide us with characters that can serve as conduits into its world. Although not a boldly drawn character—Worthington’s wooden performance doesn’t help—Sully is clearly designated such a “conduit” for the audience. A novice to the world of Pandora, as well as to the avatar program, he provides the film with an innocent, inexperienced point-of-view, much like that of the viewer—it is through his eyes that we learn about what is going on, that we are educated, at the same time he is, about the world we have entered. This is yet another version of the avatar relationship, of course: Sully is our avatar for “living in” Pandora. Through him, we are able to penetrate the cinematic realm projected upon--and in front of--the theater screen.

I suppose in a way Avatar is less of a movie than it is a phenomenon. It was designed to be that way, of course: designed to change the way movies are made, experienced, and thought about. But not to bear the weight of a morally complex universe. Cameron’s dedication to giving his audiences a new cinematic experience has all-too-obvious limits. Nothing else could account for why, in a film with seemingly boundless ambitions, the story has none. It stays snugly inside a comfort zone of borrowed plot elements and familiar tropes—a straight-line hero’s journey, a romance without real challenge, villains so wrong-headed they pose no meaningful threat. It’s basically a fairy tale, and while there’s nothing wrong with contemporary fairy tales in the movies (Penelope and Coraline are delightful recent examples), one that pretends to be savvy enough to preach to its viewers about geopolitical matters makes me nervous.

But it isn’t just an uninspired plot that plagues Avatar—there’s a certain laziness in its non-computer graphic details that undermines its overall impact. Cameron spent 300 million dollars on his movie and he couldn’t come up with a better name for the worth-dying-for mineral resource than “unobtainium”? How about “very-rarium”? When you’re dumbing down ideas, why stop halfway? “Na’vi“ is simply an abbreviated anagram of “native,” which is admirably economical but does not, in this case, prove that less is more. And although it’s a very talky film, Avatar’s dialogue is most definitely not in 3-D--it’s flat-out dull, and boasts not a single memorable line, unless you count the Na’vi way of acknowledging their regard for each other, “I see you.” When Sully in Na’vi guise says this to Neytiri during their long-awaited courtship scene, it’s probably a good Date Night moment, but beyond this, no one has anything important to say.

This laziness extends to character, as well. Sully’s blankness as a person may be calculated to make him more accessible to audience identification, but a handicapped ex-Marine who’s fighting against odds to win his life back ought to have a little more edge to him, a little more attitude, a touch of can-do bravado. Worthington gives us a decent guy who takes everything in stride, even his setbacks, like someone seriously into meditation. Col. Quaritch, on the other hand, is just what his name suggests: a hard-ass career soldier itchin’ for a quarrel. Lang delivers pretty much what you’d expect, strutting and snarling on cue, but he’s serving Patton Lite, and even some scripted character quirks can’t make him nearly as interesting as Robert Duvall’s similarly war-happy Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now (1979). Only Sigourney Weaver as the cranky, chain-smoking Dr. Augustine gives a performance with some spirit in it. Her presence is a tonic to the “meanwhile-back-at-the-base” scenes, which are mostly lackluster in conception and execution, since Cameron’s attention--along with ours--is elsewhere, caught up in the high-energy world of Pandora. Unfortunately, none of that energy is expended on making the Na’vi more than visually interesting. Zoe Saldana gives a sensitive reading as Neytiri, ensuring that her obligatory journey from suspicion to trust, from hostility to love, is at least believably done, but the character barely emerges from the clichés that make the Na’vi a rather bloodless creation, the latest version of industrial culture’s Noble Savage.

Avatar has been subjected to plenty of critical hits since its release, but it obviously can absorb them. It’s already made a gazillion dollars at the box office, so on some level--OK, several--Cameron knows what he’s doing. But does anyone, including himself, have a clear idea of what he’s done? Avatar is a movie about many things: heroism, love, community certainly, but also cinema and the spectator’s way of watching and experiencing it. The implications of this subject extend much farther, however, because the “avatarizing” process in the story actually gives us an interesting metaphor for the relationship between mind and reality as a whole—that is, for the interaction between mind and world that creates the reality we “know.” Sully’s consciousness enters another space and changes that space because of his presence and actions. It’s how all of us are in the world, of course--it’s just that he’s in it through another’s body instead of his own. The “avatarizing” technology is mirrored by the technology of the filmmaking process, in ways I indicated before—and both are mirrored in turn by the laws of perception that direct how we engage with the world and experience, or in Na'vi terms,"see" it.

Perhaps James Cameron is a master storyteller after all. For all the weaknesses of his movie’s internal tale, maybe the real story he’s telling is what his film represents as a technological achievement and how it relates to the way we experience reality in the first place. As an advance in filmmaking capacity, Avatar could conceivably be pointing the way to cinema's future. In watching a film, the spectator’s consciousness may be absorbed by the world beyond the screen, but the transfer is not a complete one—not yet, at any rate. Could the technologies of cinema and "virtual reality" merge one day into a single medium, making movies a truly interactive experience, and not just reflective of one? In the final analysis, that may be the story Cameron wants us to see while watching his film—see, and just possibly believe.