Avatar

It’s the movie everyone’s talking about – and seeing multiple times.  3D?  IMAX?  Big blue monkeys?  Socialist propaganda?  What’s not to like?

 Well, let’s start with the positives.  The special effects were VERY good; not incessantly thrown in your face or headache-inducing.  None of this nonsense of rockets, spears, etc. coming straight at you.  And unlike “Spiderman” and similar computer-animated movies, here it had a subtle touch to it that was remarkably realistic.  When Neytiri stroked “Jakesully”’s face, you really thought it was happening.  I doubt many people truly believed Jabba the Hut was talking to Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in front of the (“what the hell is an”) Aluminum Falcon, especially since the conversation was lifted, almost word-for-word, with the same one he had with Greedo in the cantina.  And of course Pandora itself, with its bizarre wildlife, fluorescent flowers, and floating mountains, was certainly eye and brain candy.

 Plot: the arrogant white capitalist Americans need “unobtainium”, a rare resource apparently only available on Pandora, sitting right under a huge tree where blue-skinned 8 foot elves live.  In an attempt to “bargain” with the elves, 3 humans, including Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and arrogant smart-ass scientist (Sigourney Weaver, basically resurrecting her “Alien” movie character here) are “avatar’d” into elf bodies to infiltrate and win the hearts and minds of the elves.  In the process of doing so, they learn that these one-with-nature elves have zero interest in anything Uncle Sam might have to offer them, and also feel themselves a part of the tribe.  The jarhead grizzled veteran (Stephen Lang) and smartass corporate type (Giovanni Ribisi, resurrecting Paul Reiser’s “Aliens” character) decide “to hell with it, we’ll simply go in and take what we want anyway.”  So there are (A) lots of cool explosions, (B) lots of dead and unhappy elves, and (C) a final showdown between the good (elves) and the bad (USA), naturally and predictably assisted by the humans in elf form.  

 As undoubtedly impressive as the film was visually, I give it an F- for plot.  Do we need ANOTHER “Americans are gung ho assholes” movie?  We already have “Team America”.  That movie was far better at putting our “F**K YEAH” attitude into proper perspective, as irreverent as it was.  Obviously the special effects weren’t nearly as impressive, but the message and politics were 1000x more on-point.  I suppose it’s far easier to take political lessons to heart when presented in 3D IMAX with blue elves on an exotic alien planet, than cheap marionettes or poorly animated Colorado schoolchildren.

 I thought Neytiri (Zoe Soldana) sounded like Eartha Kitt.  I have to wonder: is the popularity of the movie because of the plot, or the Orange Sunshine?  I’m hoping Cameron pulls a DW Griffith, following up this “Birth of a Nation” (awesome visual film with terrible political plot) with something like “Intolerance”. 

 Here are some related movies:

Dirty Deeds.  This is a mobster movie made back in 2003, taking place in Australia in 1969, with John Goodman, Bryan Brown, Toni Collette, and Sam Neill.   In case you’re wondering, the AC/DC song does appear in the film – twice (unfortunately the band itself is absent, but in 1969 Bon Scott was still in the Valentines, and AC/DC itself didn’t form until 1973).  A major character, the top mobster’s nephew just back from Vietnam who wants to start a pizza place, is played by Sam Worthington, aka Jake Sully.  It’s been several years, but he looks more or less the same age.

 Surrogates.  This is a recent Bruce Willis movie taking place in the near future.  Although not based on a Philip K. Dick story, the author was clearly ripping him off – just as Rush were ripping off Led Zeppelin for the first album.  The plot is completely different from “Avatar”, but a substantial element is very similar.

            In the future, in Baw-ston (where the movie takes place, but the technology is available worldwide), android technology has reached the point where people can stay at home and live vicariously through robot android “surrogates”.   These are nominally robot replicas of the original person (not 8 foot tall blue elves) though the surrogate can be a different age, gender, or race from the host.  Like “Avatar”, the host remains stationary in a remote location, hooked up by computer to the surrogate. 

            By this point in the timeline, almost everyone, except for a small minority of militants, has embraced the technology, so the streets are full of these bizarre walking mannequins.  Actual flesh & blood people are slammed as “meatbags”.  Willis plays a Boston FBI agent investigating a bizarre set of murders:  someone has developed an electrical device which can not only destroy the surrogate, but zaps and kills the host as well.  Theoretically the original human is immune to harm which befalls the surrogate, which is an obvious advantage to using them.  There is also a “reservation” of militant humans who hate surrogates, led by a “prophet” (Ving Rhames).  Even more curious, the original inventor of surrogate technology, Canter (James Cromwell) was frozen out of his own company and has an axe to grind with the current management.  1/3 of the way through the story, Willis’ own surrogate is destroyed, and he narrowly escapes being zapped – but it means he has to go around himself.  I found the movie creepy – in a “A.I.” kind of way – but also compelling.

 Space Cadet, by Robert Heinlein (1948).  A bit like Red Planet, or a prequel to Starship Troopers (I guess you could call it Starship Troopers Jr.), more of an older book with no politics or sex, about young men training for the Space Patrol, what we would think of as a space academy, almost like the newer Star Trek prequel.  I picked this up at a used bookstore for $1.55.  I liked it.

            Remarkably, there is an “Avatar” element in the story.  One of their brash, trash-talking comrades at the space academy, Burke, quits the academy and gets a cushy job with his father on Venus.  His 3 comrades end up in a Patrol spaceship responding to a distress call sent by – none other than Burke, who had gone into some Venusian village in search of the story’s equivalent of unobtainium, was unsuccessful at bullying the natives into relinquishing the ores, and gotten himself captured.  He was expecting the Patrol to send in a regiment of space marines to wipe out the natives and rescue him, instead the 3 guys (their officer is wounded and unconscious) show up and manage to patch things up with the natives and get some old ship running again.  Burke shows the same arrogant attitude towards the natives as the Giovanni Ribisi character in “Avatar”, while the three comrades (Matt, Tex and Oscar) are pretty much Jake Sully, minus the avatar or busted legs.