I know that movie is old news, but I was raiding wikipedia like I often do and I came across this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_in_Avatar
It’s pretty long as far as wikipedia articles go. I saw Avatar in imax 3-D and it was cool. I mean it was long… and it was Pocahontas… but a lot of things exploded and got eaten by those dragon things and got shot, that was entertaining.
My favorite part of that wikipedia article is the claim that it promotes “biped centrism” which is the superiority of anything with two legs. I wasn’t aware there were people out there and angry about anything that has a different number of legs. No matter how you feel about it, you have to appreciate that if we were all biped centrists there would be no racism (unless race starts getting defined by the quantity of legs).
Anyways, I just thought that whole article was pretty funny. Look at all of those interpretations: there’s patriotism, neo-conservatism, neo-nazism, imperialism, biped centrism, militarism, technology, the state, racism, white guilt, religion, China, culture, pantheism, environmentalism and all of their opposites. That’s a lot to read into a movie that’s Pocahontas + Captain Planet + Smurfs.
I have my own theory on Avatar, here’s what it’s about: the economy. We had this beautiful economy (that big tree) and then some people got out of hand (everyone who listened to that scary marine guy) and ruined the tree with their greed but the American people (N’avi/giant smurfs) elected a new leader, Obama (Sam Worthington/guy who turns into smurf) who united everyone under legislation (dragon-looking things) to take back America (Pandora)! Or maybe it’s about Enron and Sam Worthington is a whistle blower. Or maybe it’s about communism: a group of people (smurfs) can defy any odds as long as they work together, although I’ll admit that the N’avi’s apparent ownership of those dragon things and that prime real estate doesn’t seem to fit communism… How about… objectivism? Existentialism? The indie film/music scenes’ relationships with large movie studios/record companies? Think about it. All of human history is defined/explained by Avatar.
On another note, why wasn’t Avatar released over the summer? It’s much more blockbuster than Oscar winner, right? I suppose it’s as long as an Oscar winner… I just realized what’s at the heart of everything James Cameron has ever done! Technology! Let’s look back on his career.
In the Terminator movies, technology has come to life and is trying to kill everyone. Pretty obvious. In Aliens, Sigourney Weaver kills the queen in an exosuit which doesn’t seem technophobic until you consider how they got to that point. Someone on their mission (whose name I forget) tries to smuggle some aliens back to earth to turn them into biological weapons, using their technology. There’s the fear. In Titanic, the most advanced (citation needed, but it was probably the biggest or something… whatever) boat ever sinks and kills everyone. In the Abyss something else sinks (submarine?) and crazy things start to happen and it’s only by their mercy that anyone survives. You’ve seen Avatar. Don’t play that game with me.
Technology always either kills everyone or fails to save them which is odd, because these themes fit how James Cameron makes these movies. They always make heavy use of special effects (that liquid terminator, the shots of the Titanic, the aliens/future technology in Aliens, every second of Avatar) that make or break the movie. James Cameron is afraid that his use of special FX will ruin his movies (“terminate” them) or won’t compensate for their mediocrity (“sink” despite the best effort). His whole career is commentary on his own career, like Eminem. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just an observation I’ve made.
