Rate Avatar (James Cameron)

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Indeed, both strong ethnocentrism and a heavy dose of Mighty Whitey. Still an amazing film, but it could have been much more.

Indeed. The white human male takes what? Two months? To become the bestest Navi EVAR! (Or at least in 3 generations or so).

The Ferngully parallels are almost as obvious as that Pocahontas summary. Dude almost gets killed in the forest, but is saved by Magic Native Chick. Dude and Chick have adventures and fall in love. Big bads make their move. Dude is revealed to be technically aligned with the big bads, but is totally reformed now, man! Big battle scene arrives. Natives start off getting their butts kicked all over the place, but the power of the Earth and the badassery of the Chick save the day.

FernGully at least had the balls to opt out of the happy romantic ending and send Dude and Magic Native Chick back into their separate worlds, both older and wiser. In that respect, it was a more challenging film than Avatar.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm just glad that the Navi had more credibility than the Ewoks when they went to go fight an entire legion of the Emperor's best troops... er, I mean a highly trained and well equipped mercenary outfit in 40k-looking battlesuits and trashed them in a jungle showdown.

 

[RangerWickett]

You got something against Ewoks?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Indeed. The white human male takes what? Two months? To become the bestest Navi EVAR! (Or at least in 3 generations or so).

The Ferngully parallels are almost as obvious as that Pocahontas summary. Dude almost gets killed in the forest, but is saved by Magic Native Chick. Dude and Chick have adventures and fall in love. Big bads make their move. Dude is revealed to be technically aligned with the big bads, but is totally reformed now, man! Big battle scene arrives. Natives start off getting their butts kicked all over the place, but the power of the Earth and the badassery of the Chick save the day.

FernGully at least had the balls to opt out of the happy romantic ending and send Dude and Magic Native Chick back into their separate worlds, both older and wiser. In that respect, it was a more challenging film than Avatar.

One could also spin this into a general "positive message".

Don't distrust every foreigner. He can be just as good as you are, if you just give him the chance. It can be construed as a story of the "superiority" of a certain race or species. Or it can be construed as a story of a successful integration.
It can also be a story about overcoming obstacles. Here is this foreigner that no one really trusts. But he makes an effort to gain the trust, to learn the things that are strange and alien to him, and he exceeds beyond all expectations. Because that is what heroes do. Not white men, not Anglo-Saxons, not humans. Heroes overcome obstacles and challenges. They don't give up. They excel.

There are stories like these where the foreigner is not the "dominant race/species/origin" of the audience, too. Tarzan for example. (In a way, it's a story of both - first the "exemplar of dominat group" adapts to the wilderness, but then he returns to the "civilization". Crocodile Dundee might a be a numerous representative, too.

 

[Klaus]

This might not be the right venue for it either, but the Circvs Maximvs thread on Avatar has been derailed by a tongue in cheek argument about which wall to wall porn movie is the most important movie of our generation, so I'm not going to hold out much hope that any good discussion's going to happen there for a while.

The question of the white man's guilt fantasy and the "mighty whitey" cliche that so permeate Avatar and other movies of that ilk (Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, etc.) is an interesting one. I read an online article recently where it said, rather than have a "mighty whitey" character that the audience can identify with, who after a few weeks of crash courses in native culture is suddenly a better native hero than any actual natives, plus the chieftain's daughter now has the hots for him, why not tell the same story with an actual native character?

Of course, the answer to that is: Robin Hood. Oppressed Anglo-Saxon native who rises up to halt the colonial Normans and put a stop to their exploitative ways, etc.

Another example: Braveheart's William Wallace.

And the Na'Vi were on the losing side until the Primal power source got into the fight.

As for the Ewoks, how different it would've been if the final battle happened on the wookiee homeworld, as originally intended...

 

[shilsen]

One could also spin this into a general "positive message".

Don't distrust every foreigner. He can be just as good as you are, if you just give him the chance. It can be construed as a story of the "superiority" of a certain race or species. Or it can be construed as a story of a successful integration.
It can also be a story about overcoming obstacles. Here is this foreigner that no one really trusts. But he makes an effort to gain the trust, to learn the things that are strange and alien to him, and he exceeds beyond all expectations. Because that is what heroes do. Not white men, not Anglo-Saxons, not humans. Heroes overcome obstacles and challenges. They don't give up. They excel.

I'd say that one could spin it into a positive message if one ignored the context. And the context is that these stories are invariably always about the white man being the one who excels and leads the poor benighted savages to victory. Emphasis on "white" and "man". Avatar, for me, would have been much more interesting if Cameron was intelligent enough to do something slightly different or subversive. For example, having Michelle Rodriguez's character (or Sigourney Weaver's) be the one to go to the Na'vi and do what Sully does. Or having one of the Na'vi come to the humans, learn their ways, and use it to kick their asses. But that never happens in these stories.

There are stories like these where the foreigner is not the "dominant race/species/origin" of the audience, too. Tarzan for example. (In a way, it's a story of both - first the "exemplar of dominat group" adapts to the wilderness, but then he returns to the "civilization". Crocodile Dundee might a be a numerous representative, too.

Wait a second - how is Tarzan not a member of the dominant race/species/origin of the audience? He's very explicitly not only male and white, but also nobility. And Burroughs makes a lot of capital of the fact that it's his noble origin and blood which makes Tarzan as incredible as he is. Hell, he teaches himself to read and write English, simply because being a British lord makes him so smart. There's a reason why Tarzan is Lord Greystoke. It's a total colonialist fantasy, just like Avatar is.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Some movies that I think are sort of reversals of that are the Might Whitey stories are ones staring a Martial Arts star from China or Hong Kong such as Jet Li or Jackie Chan, who goes to America or Europe and saves a bunch of people there. Granted they've usually haven't saved American/European civilization in the movie.

I'm also surprised no one has done comparisons to Dune and Avatar.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'd say that one could spin it into a positive message if one ignored the context. And the context is that these stories are invariably always about the white man being the one who excels and leads the poor benighted savages to victory. Emphasis on "white" and "man".

Sounds a little like your personal prejudices showing here? If you are determined to read it in one way, then nobody can do anything about it, but you are rather quick to dismiss Mustrum's alternate reading.

The discussion is starting to get a little political, so I suggest that this aspect of the subject gets dropped.

Thanks

 

[catsclaw227]

So, who cares if it is a retelling of another story?

It was really entertaining, the visuals were awesome, the technology will be ported to some more challenging stories in the future and everyone (the movie-goers, theaters, studios, actors, producers, CGI techs, etc) comes out of the movie happy.

Aren't we all striving for happiness?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

So, who cares if it is a retelling of another story?

I don't. I care that it was a lazy retelling of other stories. If you're going to spend a gazillion dollars, at least hire good writers and listen to them.

Aren't we all striving for happiness?

That's exactly what I'm doing. I did so in the theater by deliberately shunting my brain away from the plot holes and what not. But I'm not in the theater now. So I shall strive for happiness by asking for better movies in the future.

I can't do that by claiming this was a great film.

Already, Hollywood is probably learning the wrong lessons here. They are learning that pretty CGI is more important than good narrative, good acting, or even plot coherence. They are learning that you can recycle the tropes we rejected as a culture a couple decades ago about ethnic differences by slapping a coat of blue body paint on people. They are re-learning that tech is more important than script and pretty visuals will overcome plot holes you can drive an aircraft carrier through.

These are bad lessons. They will create more bad movies than good movies based on the box office receipts and praise heaped upon Avatar. The last couple times this happened we went through cinematic Dark Ages. Middle-budget films are already going the way of the dodo. Let's not hasten that process.