Headlines claim that Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time. It has reportedly grossed $2,240,712,214 worldwide. At this point, I cannot help but wonder why that is. Having seen the movie with Katie last night, I cannot express anything but disappointment at the quality of the film. Although it has made undisputed advances in technology and the visuals of the film are sublime, it was not a very exciting movie in any way.
The story was subpar, and the characters were so one-dimensional that I could not really relate to them at all. Their motivations were all incredibly basic. From my point of view, Jake Sully came across as a reckless idiot who was willing to ignore the safety of his own race and the indigenous Na’vi all because he had regained the use of his legs. It was not even immediately clear to me while watching that the Earth was apparently barren of greenery in 2154 because it wasn’t stated clearly until the last third of the movie. Had I known that his appreciation for the jungle was derived from the fact that he had never seen vegetation before, I might have been able to side with him more, but he was really just a bizarre character.
More importantly, the world of the Na’vi did not make sense to me. The whole “bonding” thing between creatures seemed thoroughly bizarre. For some reason when Jake Sully bonds to his dragon creature, it forgets how to fly. What does that mean? Is it essentially a brainless creature with no survival instinct now? Has it become nothing more than a tool for his use, in the same way that the gunships could never function optimally without a pilot? And if that is the case, how is a race of indigenous blue cats that de-brains native life forms any better than mankind? If there is truly no de-braining, then how the hell did that fucking dragon forget how to fly? Did Jake happen to grapple with the one mentally handicapped dragon? (Also, for my girlfriend’s sake, I should also point out that after all that sentimentality of one dragon-one rider, Katie was thoroughly disappointed that Jake just abandoned his dragon for that bigger deadlier one. Classy.)
Another thing that confused me is probably only something that was present to appease the horny and loveless fans of science fiction, but the Na’vi sex scene was a huge issue for me. It seems completely counter-intuitive to me that a race that is entirely different and from a planet in a completely different star system would be stimulated sexually in the same way as a human. I half expected when he was kissing her that she would freak out because the Na’vi mated by joining their hair/tendrils together or some shit. But no. Apparently the Na’vi have sex the same way that we do. Perhaps some of our pornography that was bounced off into space influenced their sexual culture. All-in-all, if the race acts the same way that we do, it doesn’t really seem terribly alien to me. I was digging the whole connected to the planet, the whole planet is connected, hive-mind thing that was going on. It brought back fond memories of Asimov’s concept of Gaia. But it all just fell apart when that sex scene happened.
Did anyone else find it odd that the village shaman woman somehow knew how to transfer the consciousness of an individual from one body to another? Where had that ever come up before? Did they frequently transfer the brains of injured people into one of those black rottweilers or those horses from Phantasy Star Online that sounded like velociraptors from Jurassic Park? I cannot understand how this procedure ever came up before because it wouldn’t be like they had empty Na’vi bodies lying around. It seemed like a very contrived plot device to let us know that Jake could get transfered permanently into an Avatar body at the end of the film, and live happily ever after with his woman. Which begs the obvious question, why didn’t they do this switcheroo to Jake before the big battle? Having your real body lying somewhere else running the risk of getting offed while you’re fighting isn’t a smart move, especially if you don’t guard it. Moreover, it just sends the impression that if the battle goes south, you’d be content bailing out into your human body and fleeing for your life. I’m not buying the logic here. Jake seemed reasonably sensible. He saw that the procedure was available. So, although this plot device to switch bodies was annoying enough, it was even more annoying that they didn’t make use of it in any practical way.
The fact that this movie has been nominated for Best Picture is a huge disservice to the medium. It should get technical awards, and maybe even have a shot at Best Director, but a Best Picture nomination is degrading. What bothers me more than that is it will overshadow the far better movie District 9. If there was any relatively mainstream movie that has the makings of a best picture candidate, it was District 9. The story was compelling, the acting was phenomenal, and everything truly felt legitimate. The interaction between the aliens, their mannerisms, and everything about the prawns was so fluid. Discounting the miracle exception of that fluid that transformed the guy, this movie was a well-contained and well-written piece of science fiction.
Avatar was a waste of time and money. And the fact that it is making 3D into a valid presentation style for films (where it had previously been reserved for novelty shows at theme parks) seems ridiculous to me. 3D should not be the future.