Not exactly seeing Avatar
I wanted to see Avatar because I knew it was about a wheelchair user (and other things, including environmentalism) and I wanted to see what it might say about disability (and other things, including environmentalism).
Ironically, thanks to my own disability, I became incredibly dizzy and couldn't make it through the film. (It wasn't because of the IMAX/3-D effects, although that didn't help - my feet were starting to swell up before we entered the theatre, always a bad sign. Kudos again to the very helpful staff at the Pointe Orlando movie theatre.)
S and C told me the rest of the plot, but, of course, that's not the same as seeing it.
What I did see had some interesting elements - the wheelchair user, Jake Sully, saying, in a statement I could identify with, that he was tired of doctors telling him what to do, and Sully objecting when a scientist/medical person, without asking, touched his legs and started to move them, pointing out that he was capable of using his arms to move his legs, and not so subtly pointing out that using disabled people as objects is not so cool. On the other hand, Sully is, from the beginning, used as an object: he's in the film only because his DNA matches that of a very expensive custom built avatar body (designed for his twin brother) and because, the film implies, he has nothing else.
I am decidedly uncertain about another element, where a superior officer bribes Sully with the promise of spinal surgery which will restore his ability to walk if Sully goes "undercover" to the native village (they're aware that he's a human mind in a blue person body) and sends back all kinds of info. It's not just that the thought of legs and mobility as a bribe made me uncomfortable, although it does. Sully is a soldier; I am not certain he needs the bribe. If he's under orders to collect info, he should, like any soldier, be obeying the command and collecting info. The whole "we'll give you your legs back" just…Well, for one thing, it makes Sully more about his disability than about anything else. That doesn't change until the still disabled Sully proves himself by using an able-bodied Avatar body. (Although, kudos to the scientists for mostly feeling annoyance that Sully lacks education, not legs.) I also somewhat wondered why, if Sully's record was genuinely decent, and if his twin brother had been (apparently) earning a decent salary, why either the military or his brother couldn’t come up with the costs for the spinal surgery. (I know the script said the costs were astronomical, but, still. So presumably were the lifetime disability payments the military was planning on paying Sully before the entire Pandora possibility came up.)
On the other hand, knowing that Sully will get his legs back one way or another did prevent the plot from going into the clichéd and irritating direction "choose between disability forever or saving blue people" I expected. (At least, I was told the movie didn't go that way.)
Also, Michelle Rodriguez is spending way too much time in mysterious jungle regions shooting at people. I'm just saying.
Anyway, while I was lying on the floor waiting for the world to stop moving quite so much, I realized something else that had been bothering me since I saw the first trailers for Avatar, and it is this: here we finally have the CGI to create truly fabulous, fantastic worlds, and what do we create? Tall humanoids who have eyes, ears, noses, and lips, use regular speech to communicate, fall nicely into two genders, exist in a familiar tribal structure and apparently (I missed this scene) even make out the way humans do. Sigh. Alternative concepts are out there, so why not use CGI to create the truly fabulous and unfamiliar?
(Because it's Hollywood, and Hollywood encourages the tried and true, not creativity. I know, I know.)
That was quite a lot for a movie I didn't actually see.
Ironically, thanks to my own disability, I became incredibly dizzy and couldn't make it through the film. (It wasn't because of the IMAX/3-D effects, although that didn't help - my feet were starting to swell up before we entered the theatre, always a bad sign. Kudos again to the very helpful staff at the Pointe Orlando movie theatre.)
S and C told me the rest of the plot, but, of course, that's not the same as seeing it.
What I did see had some interesting elements - the wheelchair user, Jake Sully, saying, in a statement I could identify with, that he was tired of doctors telling him what to do, and Sully objecting when a scientist/medical person, without asking, touched his legs and started to move them, pointing out that he was capable of using his arms to move his legs, and not so subtly pointing out that using disabled people as objects is not so cool. On the other hand, Sully is, from the beginning, used as an object: he's in the film only because his DNA matches that of a very expensive custom built avatar body (designed for his twin brother) and because, the film implies, he has nothing else.
I am decidedly uncertain about another element, where a superior officer bribes Sully with the promise of spinal surgery which will restore his ability to walk if Sully goes "undercover" to the native village (they're aware that he's a human mind in a blue person body) and sends back all kinds of info. It's not just that the thought of legs and mobility as a bribe made me uncomfortable, although it does. Sully is a soldier; I am not certain he needs the bribe. If he's under orders to collect info, he should, like any soldier, be obeying the command and collecting info. The whole "we'll give you your legs back" just…Well, for one thing, it makes Sully more about his disability than about anything else. That doesn't change until the still disabled Sully proves himself by using an able-bodied Avatar body. (Although, kudos to the scientists for mostly feeling annoyance that Sully lacks education, not legs.) I also somewhat wondered why, if Sully's record was genuinely decent, and if his twin brother had been (apparently) earning a decent salary, why either the military or his brother couldn’t come up with the costs for the spinal surgery. (I know the script said the costs were astronomical, but, still. So presumably were the lifetime disability payments the military was planning on paying Sully before the entire Pandora possibility came up.)
On the other hand, knowing that Sully will get his legs back one way or another did prevent the plot from going into the clichéd and irritating direction "choose between disability forever or saving blue people" I expected. (At least, I was told the movie didn't go that way.)
Also, Michelle Rodriguez is spending way too much time in mysterious jungle regions shooting at people. I'm just saying.
Anyway, while I was lying on the floor waiting for the world to stop moving quite so much, I realized something else that had been bothering me since I saw the first trailers for Avatar, and it is this: here we finally have the CGI to create truly fabulous, fantastic worlds, and what do we create? Tall humanoids who have eyes, ears, noses, and lips, use regular speech to communicate, fall nicely into two genders, exist in a familiar tribal structure and apparently (I missed this scene) even make out the way humans do. Sigh. Alternative concepts are out there, so why not use CGI to create the truly fabulous and unfamiliar?
(Because it's Hollywood, and Hollywood encourages the tried and true, not creativity. I know, I know.)
That was quite a lot for a movie I didn't actually see.