'Avatar'

Why post on 'Avatar'? The world and his wife have seen it and the reviews have been almost unanimous in their declaration: 'Avatar' is a visual masterpiece with a world so real you can almost taste it (and, most add, an unoriginal story which does not diminish the impact of the film).


I'll happily admit I was all ready to be part of the 'Avatar' backlash. I have an inherent stubbornness that means if the world is awaiting something with baited breath and it does look like it will be good, I will react badly to it out of some mulish desire not to be a sheep (please excuse me mixing my metaphors). I saw the trailers and read the articles, and was generally underwhelmed. But, I suppose it helps to understand what you're criticising, so I went to see it in 3-D. Over all: I'm not quite a convert. I'm still decidedly sceptical about its story and characters, and I wasn't all that impressed by the world James Cameron created. Sure, it's detailed, but I suppose I've been spoilt by the level of obsessive detail most sci-fi and fantasy writers put into their work, be it for books, films or video games. When great, beautiful islands suspended in mid-air don't impress me, I think I might be a lost cause. But partly, that's because I've seen it done elsewhere. Hell, I've written about floating islands. I need something a bit more than just 'Oh, look, it's an impressive feature of the landscape' to make me engage. Give me Sanctaphrax from 'The Edge Chronicles' or the weird floating balloon islands from 'Schizm' any day.

OK, so here’s the story: humans come to a planet called Pandora to mine a rare mineral. A tribe of the native species, the Na’vi, live on top of the most plentiful deposit of the stuff. The military want to blast them, the scientists want to study them, and the corporates don’t care what happens, as long as they get the mineral. Enter the avatar project, in which humans pilot ‘avatar’ Na’vi bodies so they can breathe the atmosphere and interact with the locals. Cue green Aesop and conversion of the good guys over to the Na’vi way of life.
It’s been described as ‘Pocahontas in Space’ or, alternatively, ‘Dances with Blue Cat People’.

Sigh. I'm going to have to play Captain Obvious for a moment and say that it is visually arresting. There is a high level of detail that has gone into it. It is pretty alien in places (though not really alien enough to give me the sense of a completely different world, especially with the Na'vi, who while not exactly blue cat people, do not challenge the viewer to engage with them as a truly alien race would). There were sights that made me draw my breath in awe. Even so, I feel like the visuals were the focus of this piece, not the story. Cameron builds the details of the story round the visuals, or more specifically, the story moves to showcase what he wants to showcase about Pandora, but on the other hand the overall structure of the story itself is exemplary. OK, it has a green Aesop that is so sickening in places it makes me long for 'Fern Gully'. Some of the characters are so one-dimensional it's laughable, despite the best efforts of a great cast. But the story delivers exactly what is advertised. It's a predictable fable that could stand as a model of how to write this kind of narrative. Its characters are in broad strokes because with this much scenery to fit in, there is little time for development, so we're expected to fill in the gaps when we aren't assisted by the performances. However, the film is damnably entertaining, especially if one is unfamiliar with the templates that went before. And, frankly, I’ll take something this pretty over ‘Colours of the Wind’ any day. ‘Avatar’ just didn't get me, because snazzy new packaging isn't what makes a new take on an old story. As the Nostalgia Chick said, James Cameron is incredibly good at making money. It's a pity he isn't as concerned with forging new narratives as he is with making new technology to tell them.


There are really cool things: Sigourney Weaver brings a nicely strong performance as a Na'vi-sympathetic scientist, in one of the few characters with decent on-the-page characterisation; I'm now a Sam Worthington fan, because he was damn good as the hero in this, which makes me more enthusiastic about 'Clash of the Titans'; Zoe Saldana is fine as the alien love interest, from what we can tell under the layers of CGI, and I'm coming round to liking her as an actress. The highlights of this film, for me, were Colonel Badass himself Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) whose every scene is made of pure awesome if highly OTT (toxic atmosphere? Miles Quaritch does not need to breathe! Oxygen is for the weak!) and Michelle Rodriguez playing the stereotypical sympathetic turncoat, because Michelle Rodriguez is brilliant anyway, and she brings so much spunk to this supporting character that she was the only reason I was rooting for the good guys by the end of the movie.


It's going to go down through the ages as a masterpiece, with a minority wondering what's so special about it once you get past the visuals, and we will inevitably be bombarded with sequels, prequels and spinoffs. Honestly, I probably won't care beyond the first film. It's a by-the-numbers plotline that sometimes makes me despair for the average intelligence of the viewing public, but then that's me being a total snob. I suspect that people quite like the simplicity of the story and respond to the visuals and nauseating idealism with genuine, open wonder. It saddens me a little that I'm too jaded to be wowed by Pandora, but there are other worlds I care about more.


Also, they really called it unobtanium? Really? That cannot have been unintentional. Makes you wonder if James Cameron is a troper himself...