Movie Review, AVATAR, Dec. 23, 2009

Writer and Director James Cameron’s AVATAR*
- My two cents worth.

By Harish Trivedi


Plot summary: In the future, Jake, paraplegic war veterans, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture. When his brother is killed in battle, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully decides to take his place in a mission on the distant world of Pandora. There he learns of greedy corporate figurehead Parker Selfridges’s intentions of driving off the native humanoid "Na'vi" in order to mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland. In short big businesses plundering the poor people and exploiting their natural resources etc. Jake is also promised spinal surgery that will fix his legs, Jake gathers intel for the cooperating military unit spearheaded by gung-ho Colonel Quaritch with Star Trek inspired hairstyle. Jake infiltrates the Na'vi people with the use of an "avatar" identity, begins romance with beautiful alien Neytiri, the restless Colo moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand - and fight back in an epic battle for the fate of Pandora…with ample room for a sequel
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"Whaddaya mean 'we' white man?" - A dialogue line from a cowboys and Indians movie.

"Savage Indian" myth was made popular American literature and into the scripts written for the early motion pictures. The myth has been used to advance the drama of the story without regard to historical fact in many cases. The concept of the taking of Indian lands which "nobody owned" by the white man in the early nineteenth century. And beliefs and culture of American Indians are seldom portrayed accurately in the Hollywood motion picture.

There is an old movie about a trapper living in Canada in the 1930s who adopts the ways of the wild, finds love among the Indians, and fights to protect the land he loves…



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Now compare Avatar with Dances With the Wolves where in Kevin Costner’s character - A Civil War veteran John Dunbar wants to see the American frontier before it is gone. He is assigned to an abandoned fort, where a Sioux tribe is his only neighbor. Dunbar quickly makes friends with the tribe, and discovers a white woman who was raised by the Indians. He gradually earns the respect of these native people, and sheds his white-man's ways. Not soon after, the frontier becomes the frontier no more, and as the army advances on the plains, Dunbar has to make a decision that will not only affect him, but also the lives of the natives he now calls his people.

The last part of Avatar is very reminiscent of Custer’s Last Stand. In Avatar, the crazed Colonel mounts an attack on Pandora which meets Custer’s fate and predictable results. James Cameron even throws in Oliver Stone’s movie Alexander inspired final attack of the elephants on the Colonels team.

There are also scenes where the native people of Pandora look at Jake with suspicion, the natives of Pandora getting together singing and dancing like a version of Kumbaya and the constant beat of movie theatre high volume drum beats and esoteric musical instruments to convey urgency, importance and high drama.

Oh, CGI (Computer generated imagery) how we love you!

Avatar does have awe inspiring staged scenes and graphic imagery; this film represents shows disparity between self-perception and the white culture's - meaning Hollywood-inspired interpretations of American Indians. Here it appears in the form of Pandora culture but the people there look like Native Americans.

The imaginative art direction includes fiber optic lights that we now see on Christmas trees, string lights and jelly-fish like creatures crawling all across the screen from time to time. Strange looking horses and eagles enhance the films fantasy look. The audiences are required not only to suspend their disbelief but also their intelligence. In short, I think the movie is highly over-rated.

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*Avatar means incarnation in Sanskrit.