on kitty people
I finally got around to Avatar, and I realized that it reminded me very much of Princess Mononoke, both being set around a humans vs forest creatures war, having one fairly superpowered individual trying to mediate between the two sides, and by devoting a huge chunk of screen time to what we shall dub 'scenery porn' (Isn't it curious that lately any large excess of a particular thing is called _____ porn?). It even extends further into the plot.. in Mononoke, the humans are mining for iron, and to get to the best source they must go further into the forest, which angers its spirits enough to gather for open war. And in both, the mining is largely for profit, and the resource being harvested has no use to the natives, the only problem is the disruption that its mining causes.
The primary difference is that in Princess Mononoke, the humans who want to do the mining are doing so to support a largely sympathetic way of life. Their leader is a woman who is trying to use the resources she uncovers to form a more egalitarian society out of those rejected from the rest of Japan, who still have a lot to contribute, but lack the ability to in traditional society. Unstated, but perhaps true, she is exploiting the forest precisely because the forest spirits and gods have made its iron deposits less desirable for the other major powers. Avatar's humans, however, use their resource, unobtanium, for some unspecified purpose, but while its high price suggest some use in space travel or energy, it is never stated. The movie goes out of its way to make the humans sole purpose to the utterly soulless pursuit of cash money, and I think the primary reason is that they don't desire any sort of moral ambiguity.
Avatar wants cartoonish bad guys, because I think we might be more forgiving of the human's hard ball tactics if Earth would run out of power if it didn't get its unobtanium. Because to put the audience in a situation where Earth's billions are in dire need resources that are being sat on top of by natives who would rather not be inconvenienced thank you very much, it suddenly becomes a little harder to root for the cat people. No negotiation is attempted on screen, other than giving general warnings, and that too is to avoid moral ambiguity. I can easily imagine that the cat people wouldn't recognize that any amount of need by another culture is worth moving their small society a few miles away to a different location. Granted they have lots of real magic sacredness there, but other than learning English, do they ever recognize that humans have anything to contribute to them, and do they ever have curiosity in the knowledge of things outside their own rather small world? Surely their world is nice, but we have nice things on Earth too. You see the curiosity of Earth scientists, but the cats are so self absorbed they barely stop to consider even the science or logic of their own world. And of course, Avatar avoids all of that. In Princess Mononoke, the gods and spirits are equally ignorant and distrustful of human science, and it destroys them utterly, and its only through a bit of Deus Ex Machina that the Na'vi don't reach the same conclusion. It made me hard to find the ending all that uplifting, since its quite possible for the humans to come back and nuke the shit of of them from orbit, just to be safe.
The primary difference is that in Princess Mononoke, the humans who want to do the mining are doing so to support a largely sympathetic way of life. Their leader is a woman who is trying to use the resources she uncovers to form a more egalitarian society out of those rejected from the rest of Japan, who still have a lot to contribute, but lack the ability to in traditional society. Unstated, but perhaps true, she is exploiting the forest precisely because the forest spirits and gods have made its iron deposits less desirable for the other major powers. Avatar's humans, however, use their resource, unobtanium, for some unspecified purpose, but while its high price suggest some use in space travel or energy, it is never stated. The movie goes out of its way to make the humans sole purpose to the utterly soulless pursuit of cash money, and I think the primary reason is that they don't desire any sort of moral ambiguity.
Avatar wants cartoonish bad guys, because I think we might be more forgiving of the human's hard ball tactics if Earth would run out of power if it didn't get its unobtanium. Because to put the audience in a situation where Earth's billions are in dire need resources that are being sat on top of by natives who would rather not be inconvenienced thank you very much, it suddenly becomes a little harder to root for the cat people. No negotiation is attempted on screen, other than giving general warnings, and that too is to avoid moral ambiguity. I can easily imagine that the cat people wouldn't recognize that any amount of need by another culture is worth moving their small society a few miles away to a different location. Granted they have lots of real magic sacredness there, but other than learning English, do they ever recognize that humans have anything to contribute to them, and do they ever have curiosity in the knowledge of things outside their own rather small world? Surely their world is nice, but we have nice things on Earth too. You see the curiosity of Earth scientists, but the cats are so self absorbed they barely stop to consider even the science or logic of their own world. And of course, Avatar avoids all of that. In Princess Mononoke, the gods and spirits are equally ignorant and distrustful of human science, and it destroys them utterly, and its only through a bit of Deus Ex Machina that the Na'vi don't reach the same conclusion. It made me hard to find the ending all that uplifting, since its quite possible for the humans to come back and nuke the shit of of them from orbit, just to be safe.