Avatar the movie

Just to clarify, I certainly wasn't claiming that the allusion to the beer commercials and Canadian culture was accidental, or doubting that every single frame of a film like this is laboriously crafted and thought-out. That would be pretty naive. I'm just not clear on how accurate it is to talk of it being "James Cameron's film", to what extent the film's themes and details were his responsibility. Discerning this is made more complicated for me, personally, because I've seen making ofs that indicate opposite extremes - some films really being the director's film, and others being a very collaborative effort on every level.

I'd like to go back a step, though, and return to the point about referencing current events, 'politicizing' art, being cheap and distasteful, because I sensed that that's where our real disagreement lies. We seem to have fairly similar and accurate understandings of what was actually being done with Avatar, but disagree about whether or not it's to the detriment of the film, which I'd like to explore more.

The analogies to America's recent foreign policy (Iraq, oil, et cetera) and to the history of the Native Americans are the obvious ones. Why do you not think that these cheapen the film?

I'll approach it the other way and try to answer why I do. I find them patronizing, because playing them straight, as Avatar does, sort of implicitly assumes that I won't notice them, or am not already aware of these real-life moral issues and need to be spoon-fed my moral lessons in an indirect way. It felt like the film was trying to teach me something, and its tone throughout hammed it up so strongly that it felt as if these moral lessons were meant to be surprising and eye-opening to me.

It's possible I'm simply misunderstanding the film's intended effect upon an audience. As annoying as intentionalist dependency is, I think an insight into Cameron's motives might have spared me this discomfort while I was watching Avatar. How do you understand the straight-faced inclusion of such allusions and analogies, that they don't seem patronising to you?

(incidentally, as a Lit graduate, could you please resolve in my mind once and for all whether 'patronize' should be a Z or an S >.< )

Is Picasso's Guernica distasteful because it is explicitly "about" the Spanish Civil War?

Vis, you don't need a lecture on moralism: what do you need? In any case, there was no lecture, unless you supplied it yourself. I was not told to consider the destruction of the big tree a negative thing; as I said earlier, that really depends upon your (existential) perspective which is somewhat unique. It so happens that I did consider it that. Is Picasso glorifying or condemning violence in this picture?

The plot of Avatar has nothing concrete to do with the Iraq war except for some vague points. I think JC the author has said it is about colonialism but nothing more specific. So in fact, you can consider it a very poor parallel -- that does not matter or affect the significance of the action in the film. The parallel is too fragmented, eg, really it is mostly because on the one side you have "marines". Of course there are mercenaries. That's all. Mercenaries are not so unique either. Since the film seems pretty straight, I think it's safe to assume we do witness the truth of the critical events. Not much is hidden or unexplained. But in saying, I think the destruction of the big tree was a poor choice, etc, etc, I am not saying anything about the Iraq war. At the same time as I have my head too full of existentialism, perhaps you have yours too full of political punditry? Again, I think this was a theme but I did not experience the movie as being preoccupied with political commentary either. There were some "sickly sweet" scenes I would associate with Disney, and which always seem politically charged to me, but they did not predominate.

Omg, I think I just jizzed. We've been talking about the Guernica constantly in Aesthetics, it's our token example for illustrating different theories

And on-topic: hm. Good point.

More on this later, I'm meant to be writing about Islam at the moment.

edit - right, the other thing I wanted to return to in more detail was the other main bugbear many people had with the film, and probably the one that's been picked up on most frequently by critics - the unoriginality of the storyline.

I won't insult your intelligence by spelling out, as so many have already done many times, how borrowed this film's plot is. And unlike the stylistic choices, they are not borrowed from other Cameron films and do not, therefore, precisely constitute a progression of his own work. The Last Samurai, Princess Mononoke, Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas. I like all of these films, and I like Avatar (a point which might have been unclear until now ) but they're so similar it gets hard to swallow.

Do you think unoriginality is a bad thing in this respect? Personally I overlooked it at the time, along with most of the movie's (seeming, to me) flaws because it looked so gorgeous, was so well-paced and the subplot of his character's arc - the shift away from his own real body, the issue of his disability and liberation from it, his inauguration into the tribe - was so engrossing that I just didn't care. But now, in retrospect, the borrowed nature of the plot is starting to grate a little. I know, we all know, that Cameron could have brought something a lot more original and fresh to the table if he'd been so inclined.

No debate love?

How's Cameron's movie supposed to be original in your viewpoint ?

Er, it's not, that's my point. You mean how could it be? Well, it'd be absurd to insist on absolute originality - that's probably impossible. But almost all good works bring an original, personal touch to familiar ground, or mix things up in different ways. They develop ideas. As enjoyable as Avatar was, its original touches were purely on the visual level: the plot was incredibly lifted, and didn't develop any ideas other than swapping out the token indigenous race and mixing in some sci-fi hallmarks.

Went to see it again last weekend. The 'fight terror with terror' line bothered me less this time because I realised it's actually perfectly plausible in context.

As to your original question, mk, of whether explicit reference to current events diminishes a work - I still don't know. Trying to decide just has me going round in circles.

Hi boiled_elephant, I guess you're into Pocahontas? and Last Samurai? So you're also into Patch Adams?

How was the plot incredibly lifted?

It was just exactly the same. Pocahontas, Avatar, The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves were totally interchangeable. I still haven't decided whether unoriginality is a bad thing, mind. That's kind of the issue here.

Just in case it isn't clear, I do like Avatar.

I think the iMAX had a lot to do with the movies success. More so than the plot, the characters, or anything else.

I can't wait to see how Alice in Wonderland turns out in iMAX. If there's anything better than a Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp playing one of the whackjob characters, it's a Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp playing one of the whackjob characters IN YOUR FACE with iMAX 3D.

I would certainly hope so if you are prepared to spent at least 6 hours of your life watching it in the cinema