Avatar stands as a wildly uneven summation of director James Cameron's career, embodying every good, bad, awe-inspiring, and downright silly and embarrassing thing about the self proclaimed King of the World. While being touted as the next revolution in movie making, what's most striking about Avatar is how derivative just about every single thing in it is: second hand memories of every science fiction, fantasy, and colonialist tale ever told in every medium abound, and the lack of good storytelling makes the presence of these cliches pretty much inexcusable. The world that James Cameron's film inhabits may be fully realized, but the gateway into that world - actual thematic substance - is virtually nonexistent.
In Jean Luc Godard's In Praise of Love, two characters discuss the massive success of the ex-biggest movie of all time Titanic in a restaurant, and one character states "Why bother saying or writing that Titanic is a global success? Talk about its contents. Talk about things, but don't talk around things. Let's talk on the basis of things." Substitute the word Avatar and Godard's observation is relevant all these years later. It has become virtually impossible to discuss the movie on its own terms, as almost any criticism of the movie can quickly be met with "2 Billion dollars worldwide doesn't lie" or "The numbers speak for themselves" and, yes, both of these observations are correct, but they don't necessarily speak to the actual quality of the movie, merely to the power of the media in creating an 'event'. Anything becomes an event if you say so for long enough, and Cameron was touting that he was looking to redefine movies before a single camera had begun rolling. All the controversy and speculation surrounding Avatar has only assisted in advertising it even more.
But the so-called revolutionary elements have been done before, and done better. The main selling point of Avatar is that it creates its own unique world and submerges the viewer into it via 3D technology, and even people critical of Avatar have cited that the world is immersive; I have seen very few criticisms of the creature and ecological design of the film's setting, Pandora. This is what really makes-or-breaks the film, subjectively speaking - if the viewer finds the cinematic world convincing and enjoys being in it, then it naturally follows that they will enjoy the movie (I have read reports that some people actually "experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora", a notion that, if true, makes me depressed and suicidal). Speaking for myself, I never forgot that I was looking at a computerized forest populated by computerized creatures. Though one can't help but marvel at the scope of Avatar's planet, it reflects a stunning lack of imagination on Cameron's part, as it's ultimately nothing more than a cartoon forest. The creature design leaves much to be desired, as well, because all of the animals look like their earthly counterpart with a skewed color palette and odd flailing limbs.
The obtrusive 3D doesn't help matters much; Cameron filmed the live-action portions with two 3D cameras in an attempt to mimic peripheral vision and, while this idea sounds intriguing on paper, it simply does not work. It makes characters look like cardboard cut outs (which is fitting, really), any implication of depth of field flies out the metaphorical window, and it can occasionally be disorienting, as Cameron will occasionally use a rack focus and the foreground, the pane that is popping out from the screen, will go out of focus. The animated portions don't fare much better, though they're at least watchable, as I don't recall any bone-headed directorial decisions on the level of the rack focus catastrophe. Cameron actually managed to make me physically uncomfortable while watching a movie, and at certain intervals I had to take off the 3D glasses in order rest my eyes. I've seen Avatar twice, once in skullfucking IMAX 3D, the other in my decidedly non-skullfucking home in 2D, and I must say it played much better in traditional 2D; though the inherent silliness is still present, it goes down much smoother, even though it's plain as day that Cameron composed many shots strictly for the purpose of throwing stuff at you, cheapening many of the moments designed for emotional impact. It's always about the spectacle in Avatar.
And as I noted earlier, the spectacle isn't even particularly well done. The action sequences are loud and incoherent - visual noise that, in many instances, isn't even context appropriate. Cameron's big finale is one of the most hypocritical and ideologically confused sequences of the last few years, one that includes the gleeful and wanton slaughter of the SFWM (stupid fucking white man) in his third act epic battle extravaganza. Cameron falls into the trap that Terrence Malick so wonderfully avoided in his masterpiece The New World: Cameron demonizes the SFWM imperialists in cartoonish broad strokes and fetishizes the natives in a manner that is simplistic, disturbing, and kinda perverted - Cameron stated in a Playboy interview that he told his special effects crew that the female Na'vi "got to have tits, even though that makes no sense because [their] race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals". In Cameron's world, the natives are pure, wise and uncorrupted - so much so that an early scene details the female Na'vi, Neytiri, in mourning over some wolf-like creatures that she killed to save the life of the protagonist, Jake Sully, who is foolish enough to thank her for saving his life. "Don't thank! You don't thank for this. This is sad. Very sad only", says Neytiri, proving her love of the planet and respect for all forms of life, though as far as I could tell not a single tear was shed nor a single moment of silence observed for all the SFWM that are killed in Cameron's big finale. In spite of Cameron's blatant anti-American baiting (no small part of its worldwide success, I would wager), he is little more than a cinematic equivalent of George W. Bush, using an act of terrorism - the raping and pillaging of Pandora, including the destruction of a sacred tree, which is a blatant hijacking of 9/11 imagery - to justify further acts of terrorism, slaughter, and destruction.
Cameron has never been known as a wordsmith - even his previous works, many of which I like very much, are sorely lacking in this department - but Avatar's spoken word is about as poorly written as anything I've ever heard in a Hollywood blockbuster; the script is stuffed to the brim with movie trailer style one-liners and scene punctuations. I wouldn't mind such awful writing if I could find other things to admire but the story, visuals, and acting don't exactly pick up the slack. Many have excused the banal writing because they find the visuals so dazzling, but I was never particularly dazzled; when on Pandora, Cameron's camera is constantly moving (so as to impress us with things flying out of the screen), and we never get a particularly good look at the planet because Cameron doesn't believe in static shots anymore, I guess (so 20th Century). What we're left with is a poorly written and badly acted cinematic light show - flashing fluorescents and whooshing sound effects, but no technique or substance behind them.
Avatar is an ingeniously marketed but ultimately empty piece of exhibitionist technology. It is expressly designed to be seen and disposed; the film doesn't linger on a single image, emotion, or idea long enough for anything to register. Like the 3D process Cameron employs, Avatar is just about throwing things out at you, attempting to delight and wow you with its sights and sounds, but its effect is ultimately numbing. James Cameron has shown himself to be in roughly the same film making class as George Lucas: a man who has always been on the forefront of pushing cinematic technology further, but in the CGI-era when anything that can be imagined can be put on a screen, they have allowed technology to override the human interest in their movies. In spite of the fact that Cameron waited 10 years for technology to catch up with his grandiose vision, he was probably better off when a lack of technology forced him to imaginatively make a movie.
In Jean Luc Godard's In Praise of Love, two characters discuss the massive success of the ex-biggest movie of all time Titanic in a restaurant, and one character states "Why bother saying or writing that Titanic is a global success? Talk about its contents. Talk about things, but don't talk around things. Let's talk on the basis of things." Substitute the word Avatar and Godard's observation is relevant all these years later. It has become virtually impossible to discuss the movie on its own terms, as almost any criticism of the movie can quickly be met with "2 Billion dollars worldwide doesn't lie" or "The numbers speak for themselves" and, yes, both of these observations are correct, but they don't necessarily speak to the actual quality of the movie, merely to the power of the media in creating an 'event'. Anything becomes an event if you say so for long enough, and Cameron was touting that he was looking to redefine movies before a single camera had begun rolling. All the controversy and speculation surrounding Avatar has only assisted in advertising it even more.
But the so-called revolutionary elements have been done before, and done better. The main selling point of Avatar is that it creates its own unique world and submerges the viewer into it via 3D technology, and even people critical of Avatar have cited that the world is immersive; I have seen very few criticisms of the creature and ecological design of the film's setting, Pandora. This is what really makes-or-breaks the film, subjectively speaking - if the viewer finds the cinematic world convincing and enjoys being in it, then it naturally follows that they will enjoy the movie (I have read reports that some people actually "experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora", a notion that, if true, makes me depressed and suicidal). Speaking for myself, I never forgot that I was looking at a computerized forest populated by computerized creatures. Though one can't help but marvel at the scope of Avatar's planet, it reflects a stunning lack of imagination on Cameron's part, as it's ultimately nothing more than a cartoon forest. The creature design leaves much to be desired, as well, because all of the animals look like their earthly counterpart with a skewed color palette and odd flailing limbs.
The obtrusive 3D doesn't help matters much; Cameron filmed the live-action portions with two 3D cameras in an attempt to mimic peripheral vision and, while this idea sounds intriguing on paper, it simply does not work. It makes characters look like cardboard cut outs (which is fitting, really), any implication of depth of field flies out the metaphorical window, and it can occasionally be disorienting, as Cameron will occasionally use a rack focus and the foreground, the pane that is popping out from the screen, will go out of focus. The animated portions don't fare much better, though they're at least watchable, as I don't recall any bone-headed directorial decisions on the level of the rack focus catastrophe. Cameron actually managed to make me physically uncomfortable while watching a movie, and at certain intervals I had to take off the 3D glasses in order rest my eyes. I've seen Avatar twice, once in skullfucking IMAX 3D, the other in my decidedly non-skullfucking home in 2D, and I must say it played much better in traditional 2D; though the inherent silliness is still present, it goes down much smoother, even though it's plain as day that Cameron composed many shots strictly for the purpose of throwing stuff at you, cheapening many of the moments designed for emotional impact. It's always about the spectacle in Avatar.
And as I noted earlier, the spectacle isn't even particularly well done. The action sequences are loud and incoherent - visual noise that, in many instances, isn't even context appropriate. Cameron's big finale is one of the most hypocritical and ideologically confused sequences of the last few years, one that includes the gleeful and wanton slaughter of the SFWM (stupid fucking white man) in his third act epic battle extravaganza. Cameron falls into the trap that Terrence Malick so wonderfully avoided in his masterpiece The New World: Cameron demonizes the SFWM imperialists in cartoonish broad strokes and fetishizes the natives in a manner that is simplistic, disturbing, and kinda perverted - Cameron stated in a Playboy interview that he told his special effects crew that the female Na'vi "got to have tits, even though that makes no sense because [their] race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals". In Cameron's world, the natives are pure, wise and uncorrupted - so much so that an early scene details the female Na'vi, Neytiri, in mourning over some wolf-like creatures that she killed to save the life of the protagonist, Jake Sully, who is foolish enough to thank her for saving his life. "Don't thank! You don't thank for this. This is sad. Very sad only", says Neytiri, proving her love of the planet and respect for all forms of life, though as far as I could tell not a single tear was shed nor a single moment of silence observed for all the SFWM that are killed in Cameron's big finale. In spite of Cameron's blatant anti-American baiting (no small part of its worldwide success, I would wager), he is little more than a cinematic equivalent of George W. Bush, using an act of terrorism - the raping and pillaging of Pandora, including the destruction of a sacred tree, which is a blatant hijacking of 9/11 imagery - to justify further acts of terrorism, slaughter, and destruction.
Cameron has never been known as a wordsmith - even his previous works, many of which I like very much, are sorely lacking in this department - but Avatar's spoken word is about as poorly written as anything I've ever heard in a Hollywood blockbuster; the script is stuffed to the brim with movie trailer style one-liners and scene punctuations. I wouldn't mind such awful writing if I could find other things to admire but the story, visuals, and acting don't exactly pick up the slack. Many have excused the banal writing because they find the visuals so dazzling, but I was never particularly dazzled; when on Pandora, Cameron's camera is constantly moving (so as to impress us with things flying out of the screen), and we never get a particularly good look at the planet because Cameron doesn't believe in static shots anymore, I guess (so 20th Century). What we're left with is a poorly written and badly acted cinematic light show - flashing fluorescents and whooshing sound effects, but no technique or substance behind them.
Avatar is an ingeniously marketed but ultimately empty piece of exhibitionist technology. It is expressly designed to be seen and disposed; the film doesn't linger on a single image, emotion, or idea long enough for anything to register. Like the 3D process Cameron employs, Avatar is just about throwing things out at you, attempting to delight and wow you with its sights and sounds, but its effect is ultimately numbing. James Cameron has shown himself to be in roughly the same film making class as George Lucas: a man who has always been on the forefront of pushing cinematic technology further, but in the CGI-era when anything that can be imagined can be put on a screen, they have allowed technology to override the human interest in their movies. In spite of the fact that Cameron waited 10 years for technology to catch up with his grandiose vision, he was probably better off when a lack of technology forced him to imaginatively make a movie.
