Avatar

(2009) dir. James Cameron
viewed: 12/28/09 at AMC Loews Metreon 16, SF, CA

James Cameron (Titanic (1997), among others) has finally unleashed his Avatar on the public.  Long in incubation, expensively technological (nearly 70% Computer Graphics, including much motion-capture), and promoted as the greatest thing (this week or last) since whatever the last greatest thing was, this movie took a lot to make and is dragging in viewers and money.

And it looks pretty slick.  Mostly.

The first 5-10 minutes of a movie can be really telling for me.  Usually, I’m not so into the narrative and I am thinking to myself that it’s going to be a long two hours.  Or conversely, as in the case with Avatar, I was kinda getting psyched up.  It looked good, it was moving, and I was ready to be entertained.  And it’s entertaining.  And it’s 3-D in most cases.  In my case.

But the movie, for all its visual flair, is also somewhat compromised by its own art design.  The alien race (the good guys in this case) are the Na’vi, giant blue people who vaguely resemble tigers, too.  Which is hard enough in and of itself.  All acted and performed via motion-capture, the movements have a vague realism, and facial expressions can recall the actual faces of the actors for whom are represented by the digital blue figures.  You see, the irony is, that all of the Na’vi are “avatars”, or beings representative of real other beings, who act them out like puppets.

Only, in the story, the humans have to construct “avatar” bodies to compete and make friends with the Na’vi (though this doesn’t ultimately make a lot of sense).  And the humans are mostly evil, representatives of corporate greed and military might and rightness.  And they are after the destruction of the homeland of the blue folks in order to harvest “unobtainium”.  That is the kind of science fiction nomenclature that I might make up.

The film echoes significantly of Cameron’s Aliens (1986), featuring Sigourney Weaver again coming out of cryogenic sleep, and whereas the African-American captain popped a cigar instantly in his mouth after coming out of his sleep, Weaver demands a cigarette.  But it’s also the other archetypes: the space marines, even with a butch female pilot (Michelle Rodriguez) and a sleazeball corporate money-grubber, this time Giovanni Ribisi and not Paul Reiser.

It may just be that there are only so many character types in James Cameron’s playbook.  Because these “aliens” (in Avatar) are the hyper-idealized humanoids, none of whom have an ounce of body fat between them.  They are also idealized as a race more in touch with the planet (the land), though the planet is also more in touch with them.  But their treatment at the hands of the corporate militia is as “monkeys” or some other epithet meant to consider them “below human”.  Which justifies their destruction.

So, we got genocide.

And as lushly as the planet is depicted (Pandora is its name), it also sort of reckons of black-light design, Spencer’s Gifts circa 1984, and the magical music that accompanies this display tells us, “See, isn’t it wonderous? Isn’t it beautiful?”  It’s day-glo in the dark.

Certainly, if the film is to be seen, it should be seen on the big screen, probably with the 3-D glasses since that is how they intend to show it.  The IMAX showings keep selling out ahead of time.  But if it isn’t seen now, how will it be seen in the future?  The movie with the blue giants.  With a New Age-y bent.  And any “wow factor” that the visuals play on today, well, they might not age so well.  Especially on the small screen.

Time will tell.  It usually does.