Thoughts on Avatar
Saw Avatar tonight. Pretty, very pretty, even if I found the 3D distracting. It's Dances With Aliens. And that's everything that I'm going to say that doesn't count as spoilers.
See, this is a story that's been told many times, in many places. Men with guns show up and drive back the native population. Then someone stands up and says, "I have a magical shirt that repels bullets." And the population rallies behind the man with the ghost shirts.
And the shirts don't repel bullets.
And God doesn't save them. The spirits of their ancestors don't save them. The planet doesn't save them.
This could have been that story, could have taken inspiration from five hundred years of human history and conquest. Instead, the white messiah shows up with the ghost shirts and, while they don't stop bullets, the planet hears him and the people are saved.
That's a story that I wouldn't find so disquieting if it weren't for the too-close parallels to history. Oddly, the way I think I'd fix it isn't to make it less connected to human history, but rather more. If I ignore the scene with the Na'vi escorting the humans off the planet, it becomes closer to truth. They gained themselves a brief respite, but if we're committing a level of resources where we're sending sleeper ships at significant portions of light speed to their planet, unobtanium is valuable enough that we'll be back.
I wouldn't want the movie to end with the Na'vi being escorted to their reservations half a continent away, but I would have liked a level of ambiguity in the ending that simply wasn't there. A battle doesn't ease demand for magical shiny rocks and the Na'vi are no more able to withstand carpetbombing than they were before the white messiah showed up.
Ending simply with Jake becoming Na'vi in body, but no resolution to the problems would have worked, but for a properly happy ending, I'd have liked to see Selfridge acknowledging Tsu'tey as a leader of a sovereign nation, one with whom the humans have to negotiate. Completing the arc of 'what if the ghost shirt worked'. But recognising Tsu'tey, inheritor of the Na'vi traditions, rather than Jake. Jake's arc is over and he deserves to take off the ghost shirt and retire.
But other than the last 20 minutes, it was a gorgeous movie, beautifully rendered, though I'd likely find some of the showing-off visual sequences to be a little long in rewatching. I'm not even that upset with the use of a white messiah figure; he tames the dragon in the hopes of becoming a symbol, not because he's innately better than the Na'vi, but because he's able to take a risk with his second body.
Oh, and as a final note, I'll add my appreciation for a deus ex machina in the literal sense. It's frowned on to have God fix every hopeless thing, so when it happens, it makes me smile
See, this is a story that's been told many times, in many places. Men with guns show up and drive back the native population. Then someone stands up and says, "I have a magical shirt that repels bullets." And the population rallies behind the man with the ghost shirts.
And the shirts don't repel bullets.
And God doesn't save them. The spirits of their ancestors don't save them. The planet doesn't save them.
This could have been that story, could have taken inspiration from five hundred years of human history and conquest. Instead, the white messiah shows up with the ghost shirts and, while they don't stop bullets, the planet hears him and the people are saved.
That's a story that I wouldn't find so disquieting if it weren't for the too-close parallels to history. Oddly, the way I think I'd fix it isn't to make it less connected to human history, but rather more. If I ignore the scene with the Na'vi escorting the humans off the planet, it becomes closer to truth. They gained themselves a brief respite, but if we're committing a level of resources where we're sending sleeper ships at significant portions of light speed to their planet, unobtanium is valuable enough that we'll be back.
I wouldn't want the movie to end with the Na'vi being escorted to their reservations half a continent away, but I would have liked a level of ambiguity in the ending that simply wasn't there. A battle doesn't ease demand for magical shiny rocks and the Na'vi are no more able to withstand carpetbombing than they were before the white messiah showed up.
Ending simply with Jake becoming Na'vi in body, but no resolution to the problems would have worked, but for a properly happy ending, I'd have liked to see Selfridge acknowledging Tsu'tey as a leader of a sovereign nation, one with whom the humans have to negotiate. Completing the arc of 'what if the ghost shirt worked'. But recognising Tsu'tey, inheritor of the Na'vi traditions, rather than Jake. Jake's arc is over and he deserves to take off the ghost shirt and retire.
But other than the last 20 minutes, it was a gorgeous movie, beautifully rendered, though I'd likely find some of the showing-off visual sequences to be a little long in rewatching. I'm not even that upset with the use of a white messiah figure; he tames the dragon in the hopes of becoming a symbol, not because he's innately better than the Na'vi, but because he's able to take a risk with his second body.
Oh, and as a final note, I'll add my appreciation for a deus ex machina in the literal sense. It's frowned on to have God fix every hopeless thing, so when it happens, it makes me smile