Avatar

I had an opportunity to see the movie Avatar yesterday. James Cameron and his team should be applauded for introducing a new generation of CGI effects and a form a 3D imagery that is easy on the viewer and a pleasure to watch.

The visual effects were spectacular, and the movie is worth seeing. But I’m sure I’m not the only viewer who was troubled by a story line that could have been compelling, but instead fell back on a tired Hollywood meme that demonizes the American military and has nothing good to say about multinational corporations.

In a nutshell, the story goes like this.

The year is 2154. A multinational corporation has traveled to an alien planet, Pandora, to mine a valuable new element, unobtainium. The native people of the planet, the Na’vi , are an elegant version of the noble savage, at one with Pandora’s environment, spiritual, and, well … just good (not to mention very physical and attractive in their own way). The corporation’s science team has developed avatars that allow a human to inhabit an exact duplicate of a Na’vi’s body (they’re 10 feet tall) and thereby study the culture and try to negotiate concessions from Pandora’s inhabitants. The corporation also has a force of mercenaries, lead by an obviously blood-thirsty U.S marine colonel to put down any rebellion as the corporation thoughtlessly takes Na’vi lands and sacred sites.

A wounded (paraplegic) marine arrives on Pandora to inhabit one of the avatars. At first he’s a Hollywood caricature of a “marine” (hoorah), but as he learns about the Na’vi and falls in love with a Na’vi princess, he begins to realize that the people he works for have evil intent. The rest of the story should be reasonably obvious.

The problem with Cameron’s movie is that it journeys 150 years into the future to tell a story that is 150 years in our past. It is true that the US military and avaricious business interests did decimate the American Indian population throughout the second half of the 19th century (the Europeans and many others did the same in other parts of the world at different times in history). What we did was unforgivable. But to imply that we’ve learned nothing and would decimate an innocent indigenous population today (much less 150 years hence) is both dishonest and insulting. Using dialogue that includes phrases like “shock and awe,” Cameron’s crude metaphor implies that our military efforts over the past decade are somehow equivalent to the story of Pandora. If you take the metaphor at face value, it’s hard not to believe that our current military are a bunch of bloodthirsty scoundrels and that indigenous populations that we have encountered are as pure as the Na’vi. The reality is rather considerably different.

Cameron could have told a somewhat different story within the same theme. It would draw from today’s realities and project them 150 years into the future. Let’s try just one possible variation:

The year is 2154. The planet of Pandora has been invaded by Ta’Li , a people who are fanatic and blood thirsty and want to subjugate the native people of the planet, the Na’vi, who are an elegant version of the noble savage, at one with Pandora’s environment, spiritual, and, well, just good (not to mention very physical and attractive in their own way).

The Ta’Li are brutal—a misogynistic cult that fears all outsiders, murders those Na’vi who question its dictates, attacks other planets without remorse or provocation, cuts off the hands of female Na’vi children who attend schools. All in all, bad aliens.

After the U.S has been attacked by the Ta'Li, a Marine expeditionary force journeys to Pandora to hunt the Ta’Li down. An American science team has developed avatars that allow a human to inhabit an exact duplicate of a Na’vi’s body and thereby study the culture and try to encourage Pandora’s inhabitants to help in the fight against the Ta’Li. U.S forces are tough, but try hard not to harm the Na’vi as they fight the evil Ta’Li.

A wounded (paraplegic) marine arrives on Pandora to inhabit one of the avatars. At first he’s a Hollywood caricature of a “marine” (hoorah), but he learns about the Na’vi and falls in love with a Na’vi princess. As his respect for the Na’vi grows, he realizes just how evil the Ta’Li are and works with the Na’vi to defeat them. Together, they succeed.

Yeah, I know, it’s fantasy, but at least it’s grounded in some semblance of modern reality.

Then again, Avatar is a Hollywood fantasy. It just kind of sad that Hollywood fantasy too often makes America the bad guy refusing to tell us about the real evil that lurks just beyond the margins of even its best stories.