Avatar: Screening Report
Summary:
The story of James Cameron's Avatar has been seen time and time again in films like The Last Samurai or Dances With Wolves. A soldier is ordered to infiltrate and spy on a group of indigenous people, in this case the group are aliens of a different planet. The soldier soon finds he likes the aliens and decides to abandon his former role and fully join them. He soon rises up to leadership and helps them defeat the other humans, all while finding a love interest in the form of the group's Princess. They succeed but at the cost of losing the tribes home.
What Genre is Avatar?
Avatar's genre is firmly placed in Sci-fi/Fantasy. It takes place on an alien planet very different from Earth in both the creatures found there and the geography of the planet. It doesn't truly do anything plot wise to stand apart from any other run of the mill Sci-fi flick, although it does also dip into tropes and ideas shown in Eco-friendly focused films such as FernGully.
Colonialism and Avatar:
While watching this film and others that fit into the White Guilt category like The Last Samurai or Dances With Wolves, I can't help but feel like films like this portray something very close to what is seen in the poem The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling. The poem basically described that all other people in the world are the burden of the White Man, that they are privileged to be lifted up from the savage lives they live by the white man. We see this in Avatar in the way that the na'vi would of most likely perished at the hands of the military without the help of Jake Sully.
Avatar: An exceptional film?
Avatar is widely acclaimed for being the current highest grossing film of all time, having beaten James Cameron's previous best Titanic in the box office. It's also touted as being visibly stunning with amazing use of CG to create a vast and impressive world while also immersing people in it with what many see as some of the best uses of 3D seen in cinema.
I completely concur with the representation of colonialism in this film. You mentioned it's similarity to the poem The White Man's Burden . I agree this is clearly evident through the plot. Coming at it from a different perspective, could we possibly draw from Ben Franklin's perspective in Remarks Regarding the Savages of North America in the portrayal of Jake Sully's Character?
ReplyDeleteAlthough we have seen the plot numerous times before, Avatar is definitely represented as its own through its incredible use of CGI and the artistry behind the creation of an entire new world, race, culture, and language. While the concept has been doubled over, Cameron definitely made it his own and the movie definitely profited from it.
ReplyDeleteIn class, we discussed "The White Man's Burden" and its themes of colonization. The connection to Cameron's movie and the character of Jake Sully is definitely something I can recognize within the movie, but I wonder about the direction the movie would have taken without Jake Sully becoming the leader, if it would have been possible at all.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the 'Eco-friendly' themes and ideas found in Avatar should've been more pronounced. It was mentioned here and there but I believe that it would've given a better lesson to the audience than the 'White guilt' remake. The few scenes that put inferences on being eco-friendly are when Dr. Augustine argues for the preservation of of the new plant species found exclusively on Pandora, or the scene when Jake tries to show 'Eywa' how humans supposedly 'killed' their earth mother by desecrating and polluting the land. These scenes show a basic regret that some people have over the current circumstances of the Earth, but they also show how some people like Colonel Quaritch and Parker Selfridge only care about the potential profits that can be made from exploiting the land. This idea of land only being worth the resources can be taken from it, makes me wonder if one of James Cameron's hidden themes was to point out how humans are willing to sacrifice any and everything, even to their own detriment and the detriment of other people, just for financial gain?
ReplyDelete