Avatar Sorta Review
Avatar is spectacle. It's about an inch deep, but it's pretty as hell. They really did an amazing job integrating the human actors with the CGI environment. I left feeling meh about it though.
I'll put the rest of this behind a cut, since it contains spoilers.
I'd heard Avatar described as a "white man's guilt" movie. It features a white guy, Jake Sully, who does the right thing and stands up for the Native American ciphers, the Na'vi. I guess, as far as that goes, it's an apt description. The movie had me rolling my eyes at several parts, and my favorite character wasn't who I was supposed to be rooting for.
My favorite character was the Colonel. Yeah, the villain of the piece. Except that he isn't a villain. He's a working man, whose job is to try and keep as many of his people alive in this hostile environment as he can. We're supposed to hate the Colonel, but damn, the man is just too hard-core for me to really hate.
The Colonel would rather burn the Na'vi to the ground than attempt diplomatic relations. Kind of. He's willing to let people try diplomatic relations, but there's a schedule that is going to be kept. And it's his job to keep people safe while they meet that schedule. The Colonel doesn't really set the time table, the suits on Earth do. It's the Colonel's task to eat the shit sandwich that is his job and make his people as safe as possible in these extremely inhospitable environs. Because of the awesome responsibility of his position, he has adopted a very brusque, very practical position: break the Na'vi and get them out of the way.
Probably my least favorite character in the movie is Jake Sully, although it isn't an active dislike. I just found that everything Jake was going to do was too easily predictable. The Colonel was way more entertaining, if only for the number of times he would take a big gulp of air and then stride out into the toxic (to humans) atmosphere of Pandora, firing a gun at someone. That's what badassery is about.
"But, Jake became a Na'vi warrior, he tamed wild beasts, etc." Meh. Jake was playing a video game for most of the movie. It's hard to develop much interest in someone else playing a video game. If he died at any point in the middle of the movie, he'd unplug from the machine, take a deep breath, and head back to Earth where he would probably get his legs back because the Colonel (The tragic hero of the movie) intended to keep his promise.
You know what? That's a good point. The movie just became a lot more interesting to me now that I'm thinking of it as the Colonel's story, as a tragedy. What's the colonel's main fault? He's allied with the wrong side. There's nothing wrong with his motivation, it's basically the same as the Na'vi. The Colonel wants to protect those he cares about. The Na'vi want to protect their family, and their extended family, which is the entire world. And the tragedy of it is that the Colonel can't just decide to switch sides, for the same reason the Na'vi couldn't.
Which means that the real villain of the movie is the corporation on Earth that sent the mining operation to Pandora. Even Giovanni Ribisi's manager character wasn't evil per se. He was ignorant and tasked with a job. He didn't care to learn about the Na'vi or their ways, because what difference would it make? If the coporation learned about how the Na'vi were literally a part of their world, and killing anything at all hurt them, it still wouldn't care. All that would happen is that Ribisi's character would be anguished about what happened. Or let's say that he did throw in with the Na'vi, well then the corporation would send bigger and badder fleets until they finally got one that destroyed everything.
So, here's my idea for a sequel:
While Sully and friends get used to the idea of a world without the corporation trying to mine their world out from underneath them, the fleet heads back to Earth, limping after getting smacked so hard by a traitor. This takes them five and a half years. The corporation learns of this, and goes to the world government, which decides that this unchecked aggression will not stand, man. Things are prepared for a year, and then the corporation comes back to Pandora, only, now, they have an armada of Earth space naval vessels with them. So this means that twelve years pass between the end of Avatar and the sequel.
In that time, things have happened. Sully and Neytiri have had children, but there were complications. Several of the births were still born, because of Jake's human DNA. The babies were poisoned by the toxic atmosphere in the womb. Finally one child is viable, but remains kind of smallish and sickly for a Na'vi. Then one day, while hunting, Sully's vision gets a bit blurry and he falls out of a tree. Such things keep happening till he goes to one of the human scientists still on Pandora, and asks them what's wrong. "Jake," one of them says, "Your body isn't designed to last forever. Your human and alien DNA aren't really compatible. Also, the corporation built in a time limit to your body. It's kind of past its expiration date now. I don't know how long you have, but it can't be long." So while jake is dealing with the realization that he is dying, and will not live much longer, the Fleet reappears.
So, Jake, dying, rallies the troops to try and fight off the human forces. In the fleet, the corporation scientists have founda way to mine the Unobtanium ore without disturbing the Na'vi. They can more or less use directional drilling to get at it without moving the Na'vi. They tell the Admiral what they've found, and he shrugs. The Admiral says that won't be necessary, since the na'vi won't be a problem much longer. When the scientists say that more bloodshed is unnecessary, the Admiral shrugs again, and says he's not there to protect them. He's been sent to exact revenge. The government sent him to perform a retaliatory strike, not to play baby sitter.
The leader of ground operations on Pandora is another Colonel. Only this one isn't as hands on as the last one. He's just as hard core, but he sends underlings out to do the work instead of going himself. The big climactic battle doesn't go well for the Na'vi. It ends with Sully in a position to kill the Colonel, to cut off the head of the Earth serpent, only to die at the wrong moment. The Na'vi are in chains, the forest is on fire. Neytiri and her child are separated from everyone else, alone in what's left of the forest. Maybe Neytiri has a mortal wound. The child is alone, and sickly.
The end credits roll.
The third movie is about how Sully and Neytiri's son is raised by the forest, how he comes back to free his people, and how they drive the humans away once and for all. A human scientist has found out how to denature the unobtanium, making it worthless. The Na'vi do this, chasing the humans away by removing the thing they want from their world.
Or the third movie is about how the son completely fails, and his race is exterminated. Since Hollywood can't abide an ending that's that depressing, they'd go with the former.
I'll put the rest of this behind a cut, since it contains spoilers.
I'd heard Avatar described as a "white man's guilt" movie. It features a white guy, Jake Sully, who does the right thing and stands up for the Native American ciphers, the Na'vi. I guess, as far as that goes, it's an apt description. The movie had me rolling my eyes at several parts, and my favorite character wasn't who I was supposed to be rooting for.
My favorite character was the Colonel. Yeah, the villain of the piece. Except that he isn't a villain. He's a working man, whose job is to try and keep as many of his people alive in this hostile environment as he can. We're supposed to hate the Colonel, but damn, the man is just too hard-core for me to really hate.
The Colonel would rather burn the Na'vi to the ground than attempt diplomatic relations. Kind of. He's willing to let people try diplomatic relations, but there's a schedule that is going to be kept. And it's his job to keep people safe while they meet that schedule. The Colonel doesn't really set the time table, the suits on Earth do. It's the Colonel's task to eat the shit sandwich that is his job and make his people as safe as possible in these extremely inhospitable environs. Because of the awesome responsibility of his position, he has adopted a very brusque, very practical position: break the Na'vi and get them out of the way.
Probably my least favorite character in the movie is Jake Sully, although it isn't an active dislike. I just found that everything Jake was going to do was too easily predictable. The Colonel was way more entertaining, if only for the number of times he would take a big gulp of air and then stride out into the toxic (to humans) atmosphere of Pandora, firing a gun at someone. That's what badassery is about.
"But, Jake became a Na'vi warrior, he tamed wild beasts, etc." Meh. Jake was playing a video game for most of the movie. It's hard to develop much interest in someone else playing a video game. If he died at any point in the middle of the movie, he'd unplug from the machine, take a deep breath, and head back to Earth where he would probably get his legs back because the Colonel (The tragic hero of the movie) intended to keep his promise.
You know what? That's a good point. The movie just became a lot more interesting to me now that I'm thinking of it as the Colonel's story, as a tragedy. What's the colonel's main fault? He's allied with the wrong side. There's nothing wrong with his motivation, it's basically the same as the Na'vi. The Colonel wants to protect those he cares about. The Na'vi want to protect their family, and their extended family, which is the entire world. And the tragedy of it is that the Colonel can't just decide to switch sides, for the same reason the Na'vi couldn't.
Which means that the real villain of the movie is the corporation on Earth that sent the mining operation to Pandora. Even Giovanni Ribisi's manager character wasn't evil per se. He was ignorant and tasked with a job. He didn't care to learn about the Na'vi or their ways, because what difference would it make? If the coporation learned about how the Na'vi were literally a part of their world, and killing anything at all hurt them, it still wouldn't care. All that would happen is that Ribisi's character would be anguished about what happened. Or let's say that he did throw in with the Na'vi, well then the corporation would send bigger and badder fleets until they finally got one that destroyed everything.
So, here's my idea for a sequel:
While Sully and friends get used to the idea of a world without the corporation trying to mine their world out from underneath them, the fleet heads back to Earth, limping after getting smacked so hard by a traitor. This takes them five and a half years. The corporation learns of this, and goes to the world government, which decides that this unchecked aggression will not stand, man. Things are prepared for a year, and then the corporation comes back to Pandora, only, now, they have an armada of Earth space naval vessels with them. So this means that twelve years pass between the end of Avatar and the sequel.
In that time, things have happened. Sully and Neytiri have had children, but there were complications. Several of the births were still born, because of Jake's human DNA. The babies were poisoned by the toxic atmosphere in the womb. Finally one child is viable, but remains kind of smallish and sickly for a Na'vi. Then one day, while hunting, Sully's vision gets a bit blurry and he falls out of a tree. Such things keep happening till he goes to one of the human scientists still on Pandora, and asks them what's wrong. "Jake," one of them says, "Your body isn't designed to last forever. Your human and alien DNA aren't really compatible. Also, the corporation built in a time limit to your body. It's kind of past its expiration date now. I don't know how long you have, but it can't be long." So while jake is dealing with the realization that he is dying, and will not live much longer, the Fleet reappears.
So, Jake, dying, rallies the troops to try and fight off the human forces. In the fleet, the corporation scientists have founda way to mine the Unobtanium ore without disturbing the Na'vi. They can more or less use directional drilling to get at it without moving the Na'vi. They tell the Admiral what they've found, and he shrugs. The Admiral says that won't be necessary, since the na'vi won't be a problem much longer. When the scientists say that more bloodshed is unnecessary, the Admiral shrugs again, and says he's not there to protect them. He's been sent to exact revenge. The government sent him to perform a retaliatory strike, not to play baby sitter.
The leader of ground operations on Pandora is another Colonel. Only this one isn't as hands on as the last one. He's just as hard core, but he sends underlings out to do the work instead of going himself. The big climactic battle doesn't go well for the Na'vi. It ends with Sully in a position to kill the Colonel, to cut off the head of the Earth serpent, only to die at the wrong moment. The Na'vi are in chains, the forest is on fire. Neytiri and her child are separated from everyone else, alone in what's left of the forest. Maybe Neytiri has a mortal wound. The child is alone, and sickly.
The end credits roll.
The third movie is about how Sully and Neytiri's son is raised by the forest, how he comes back to free his people, and how they drive the humans away once and for all. A human scientist has found out how to denature the unobtanium, making it worthless. The Na'vi do this, chasing the humans away by removing the thing they want from their world.
Or the third movie is about how the son completely fails, and his race is exterminated. Since Hollywood can't abide an ending that's that depressing, they'd go with the former.