So, Avatar

[owlmoose]

It didn't annoy me as much as I was afraid it was going to.

But.

Everything everyone has said about it is true: Dances with Smurfs, Pochahontas in Space, a white liberal guilt fantasy, oh, and, yes, it's stunningly beautiful. The CGI, in particular, I found nearly seamless -- I had the sudden realization, about halfway into the movie, that everything with the Na'vi had to be CGI, and felt both awed and a little dumb. (Anyone else feel like they were watching a video game during the segments where Jake and Neytiri are running along the ground, and the ground turns bright shiny blacklight colors with each step?) The 3D didn't work as well for me, especially not during the action oriented scenes: I felt like it all turned into a big colorful jumble, almost impossible to focus on what was going on. It probably didn't help that my 3D glasses were pretty battered, but I think it's still a limitation of the technology.

The racial politics... well, although not quite as bad as I expected, they were still pretty bad. Other things that bugged me: the complete lack of subtlety to James Cameron's "message". The Na'vi are too perfect to be real, and the humans were mostly cardboard cutouts: the weaselly management type who cares more about his shareholders than protecting life, the jarhead general who is clearly itching to blow up the natives, the grunts who sneer and cheer at the prospect of joining in, the scientist who is blind to the fact that her corporate masters only tolerate her experiments as long as they further the goal of getting more unobtanium (what was I saying about subtlety?). When the lead Marine referred to going after the Na'vi who were massing for an attack in retaliation for the destruction of their home tree as "fighting terror with terror", I literally rolled my eyes. Way to mash up your diatribe against the Iraq war with stern messages about colonialism and environmentalism, there. It's kind of a mess, politically, and maybe it's a mess with its heart in the right place, but when you step directly on the what these people need is a white dude trope in the process, I have a harder time giving you too much credit.

From another review that takes on the racism angle:

By the end of the film you’re left wondering why the film needed the Jake Sully character at all. The film could have done just as well by focusing on an actual Na’vi native who comes into contact with crazy humans who have no respect for the environment. I can just see the explanation: “Well, we need someone (an avatar) for the audience to connect with. A normal guy [read, a white male] will work better than these tall blue people.” However, this is the type of thinking that molds all leads as white male characters (blank slates for the audience to project themselves upon) unless your name is Will Smith.

I would totally have watched a movie where Zoe Saldana filled the Jake Sully role. In fact, I might well have been first in line. Hell, give me the adventures of Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver (the naive but also pretty damn awesome scientist), and Michelle Rodriguez (a Marine pilot who switches sides), and I'll go see it every week. Can that be Avatar 2? (Oh wait, no, it can't. Because two out of those three characters are dead. Which gets into the sexual politics of the film, which are not quite as bad as the race issues but still worthy of discussion, but that's another post.) It's long past time to expand our storytelling modes to focus on different kinds of stories and characters, and I eagerly await the day that awesome special effects are utilized in their service.

Comments

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Having not spent enough time in meta, that's the first time I've read the "what these people need is a white dude" trope, and OW.

OW.

Ow.

I will be remembering that, yes.

I kept seeing bits of this movie and thinking, "Oh, look, it's Bhujerba!"

I wonder how different it would've been without the white dude. And yes, Michelle Rodrigez's character... AUGH, not enough screentime for one of the more complex, interesting characters in the story, who is female.

One of the few non cardboard cutouts, in other words.

This movie was shiny indeed (and better with 3D glasses that work), and I confess a guilty pleasure that I actually enjoyed it, much like The Fifth Element with all its horrible sexism, racefail, and What These People Need Is a White Guy. But I hate talking about why I enjoyed it, because I know it sucked in so many ways.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I secretly (although not so secretly now) really liked The Fifth Element; I watched it only because people were calling it the next Blade Runner with respect to the visuals, and to my surprise ended up enjoying it quite a lot. I don't remember the sexism, and I was a lot less attuned to racefail in those days, but I don't doubt that both were there.

I largely agree with concertinette, below, that Trudy was no so much *actually* complex as that she had the potential for complexity, and that she was played by Michelle Rodriguez, who I adore, but I also wish we had gotten more of her, and especially that her death had fulfilled more of a purpose rather than being random casualty #337.

[concertinette.livejournal.com]

I dunno, the Michelle Rodriguez character also seemed anything but complex to me. Any such drama needs one side-changer; it's just the way scripts go. One person is converted to Side B because the society is perfect and the chicks are hawt, one because of science/environmentalism, and one abandons side A because she discovers it is Wrong(tm), and brings a solution to an otherwise impossible moment for our heroes. Sure, they could have made her into a complex character, but she definitely wasn't. As-is, she's not someone I'm interested in hearing more about, especially by those writers, because it would just be formulaic backstory and sentimental schlock. The role is modeled on what is generally a complex and interesting character in other literary appearances, but that doesn't make her automatically a strong character. But yes, if they were going to flesh a character out, you could actually imagine hers being relevant.

But yeah. A really pretty movie. My favorite part of the 3D was the little fluffy dandelion things and the little sparkles that were in the far foreground wafting in front of my face. I agree it didn't add much to the fight sequences.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I think I responded to two things with Trudy: a) she was a two-dimensional character in a story full of one-dimensional characters and b) I really like the actress. So it's not so much that she was a good character in an absolute scale, but I saw the potential for her to be one in a way that I didn't see for most of the other characters.

I like the dandelion fluff things, too, although they reminded me more of jellyfish.

[pearlrose86.livejournal.com]

This sums up a lot of my thoughts on the movie really well. It's pretty, but the storytelling is shallow at best. Also, I was really annoyed about all the dead women characters as well.

I'd say more, but I think you've covered it all really well so far--so a wholehearted "I agree!" is about all I can add, really.