Thoughts on Avatar

I noticed a few posts before with references to Avatar. I saw it three times in theaters, and I have some thoughts.

First, the film is a triumph of artistic design. Every frame of the film is gorgeous, imaginative, realistic, and otherworldly. James Cameron, the film's director, did an amazing job creating an entire ecosystem, replete with coherent inter-species relationships that follow the classic "one broken rule" law of sci fi (i.e. in good sci fi, you change/break one aspect of they physical world but keep the rest consistent, which is a forms a solid basis for a "what if" scenario). I've never flown through a jungle on a pterodactyl, or been chased over a waterfall by a giant panther, but after seeing the movie I feel like I have. And it was great.

Second, the story and characters are actually what make the movie a triumph. Cameron is known for creating sympathetic characters that back up the crazy experiences he drums up (for those not familiar with his oeuvre, he created Terminator 2 and Aliens, both classic sci-fi releases that transcended their genres thanks to good writing), and Avatar is no different. It's a love story, combining a "noble savage" sensibility with touches of Pride and Prejudice, Braveheart, and Hook. A mash-up, yes, but a successful one in my view. Who wouldn't want to fly into the sunset with a warrior queen at his back, leading and protecting his people from the skies and sleeping in a gigantic tree?

But to respond to criticisms leveled at the movie, I'll go back to the "one broken rule" bit. The major change in the film is the literal interconnectedness of every living being on the planet, which lends it a bit of classic Asimovian "Gaia" geek cred. I've seen the film lambasted for this and for the politically liberal message it's seen to convey, but I have to admit I wasn't bothered by either. The politics are easily ignored, as the greedy corporation has long been a whipping post in these sorts of movies. If you don't like Avatar's faceless corporation, I'd have to ask how it's different from Weyland-Yutani (from Aliens and its brethren) or Cyberdine Systems (from the Terminator films), and thus why this film is more political than either of those.

As for the new-age bits, I wonder if this objection indicates a tendency in modern Christianity to react dogmatically rather than rationally. We believe our faith because we have good evidence to support it, no evidence to disprove it, and personal experiences on which to build a relationship with God. If, however, it was somehow proved that Jesus Christ was not divine (I don't know how this proof could be effected, but let's just say it could be, for argument's sake), I'd have to go back to my worldview and reconsider it from the ground up. I don't know that my morals would change, or that any visible differences would show up in my conduct, but I would be forced to consider that my faith was not based on fact, but on fiction. Now transpose this philosophy to a distant planet in which there's a scientific basis for a sort of planet-level pantheism, and realize that in this situation, to ignore the planet's spirit and the interconnectedness of everything would be to ignore the facts. To blow off the religion of the natives in that world would be the same thing as an atheist ignoring Christianity in this world; to do either within the scope of those respective environments would be ignoring the truth. Within the reality of the movie, this is the correct response, I think. Cameron is posing a "what if" scenario, and intellectual honesty requires me to side with the natives as long as I'm inside the scope of the work.

Driscoll's objection, if I've understood it, is partly that the film is a glorification of backwardness, and thus defies God's command to man that he go forth and subdue creation. Taken out of context, this makes sense, but within the scope of the film it's clear that the humans want to strip the planet of its resources and move on, as they've apparently done on other planets including their own. To me, this is off; ruling creation doesn't mean plundering it, it means helping it to grow to its fullest potential. To use a grotesque example, Driscoll's point seems akin to glorifying rape because God created sex and proclaimed it good. Technology has allowed us to produce more food than we could in past history, and to ship that food to areas of the world that would otherwise starve. It's allowed us to create beautiful buildings, to go to the moon and to the bottom of the ocean, to cure diseases, and these are good things. It's also given us new, horrible ways to kill each other, to kill ourselves, to waste time, to overindulge appetites without effort, and these are not good things. So to object that the movie stands against progress is facile; it's standing against the abuse of technology, the abuse of culture, not technology or culture itself.

So to sum up, I liked Avatar. As long as it's kept at a distance and not taken as gospel, it's a good time spent in a beautiful world with intriguing characters and a moving love story. To read it as a treatise on how we should live is taking it farther than it should, and is likely mean to be, taken.