Movie Life
If it is your intent to see Avatar: The Way of Water, I would not read further. It’s not that there is intentional plot spoilers, but in discussing aspect of this movie that make it a bit more disappointing than you might expect, or perhaps have you second guessing your decision to spend twenty bucks and three hours at a theatre, when you can just wait to view it at home, pause, use the restroom- because the way of water may make you want to go.
Let’s start with this. The main criticism I hold for this movie is the same I held for the previous: the philosophy is too black and white. There are so many nuanced, shades of gray, and a myriad of colors that could be explored, but the message here is clear HUMANS ARE BAD, everything and everyone else is good. This is so true, it makes you wonder why Jake doesn’t just kill himself because he is still human.
So, if you want to be beat up, Cameron provides lots of whips to remind us of how we have failed as a species. That’s not being debated. Humans could do better by this planet, by all species, and towards each other. But to say all humans are bad, testosterone is bad, that fails to capture the reality that there are billions of humans who actually care for their families the same way the indigenous people of Pandora do. It also fails to capture if Earth is truly dying, and it was human ways that killed Her, then that path is unsustainable, and a tiny little moon will not be a remedy for the inevitable death that awaits humanity.
Either humanity learns this lesson here, or we go the way of the dinosaur. There are miniature lessons that iterate what humans have learned about race, and mixing races, in the movie but again, they aren’t nuanced. They’re trite. Worse than cliché. The philosophy of the whales who believe it is wrong to kill, and the one that did becomes outcast, and yet- all the indigenous people kill, especially when protecting their own, seems a bit hypocritical. They can’t relate to a whale that watched it’s pod decimated by an Ahab character hell bent on profiting off of one substance, discarding the whole wale?
And if Earth is in such bad shape, how would an elixir that made humans live indefinitely be helpful? You’d still need food, plants, animals, a naturalistic system. Seriously, you could have things that keep you healthy, but if you have lifestyle that kills you, then that substance is merely a band aid, and if you kill enough of those creatures, then goodbye band aids.
Earth technology is great enough they can clone people and put their memories in a new body, and that’s not immortality? More than that, they could clone that creature and make an infinite supply of the remedy without having to hunt said creatures?
It’s the small things that matter when it comes to movies.
Enough small things make big things.
There is a reason I like seeing Cameron movies. They are usually smart and fun. Okay, Titanic wasn’t too sophisticated in the dialogue, but it was fun. Terminator was great. I enjoyed the first three, though perhaps 3 less than any. I stopped after that- something went missing. Alien$ was super fun, super smart, and I can still watch it today and find it enjoyable. The fact that Cameron wasn’t brought back for any of the subsequent Alien movies is probably why I hate the franchise. The Abyss, even before I saw the editors cut, became my number 1 movie. It’s awesome. And Cameron was right, I would have sat through three hours of the Abyss at the theatre! People sat through Dances with Wolves.
I like Cameron. He has established a criteria for what a good movie is. It’s not just cinematography, but it’s acting, good stories, it’s music, and it’s great dialogue. Avatar: the Way of Water just looks good, it has no substance. I didn’t even like the music.
And so, people sat through Dances with Wolves and Cameron wants to keep feeding us Dances with Wolves themes? Cameron is the man who improves on themes. How many years was he sitting on this? 12 years before he committed to filming and we don’t have better dialogue than human bad, others good? We don’t have a bad guy that is more sophisticated than holding kids hostage?
Seriously, you want to change a trope, release the kids and tell them, “I got a message for you traitorous father. I am going to kill him. Go.”
Traitorous is actually fair. If Earth is dying, and human can be retrained, as clearly Jake was, then isn’t the message if you want to save the Earth you must have a philosophy that allows you to live with nature. You have much healing to do, but you can recover?
If the message of war is clear, there are no winners in war. Eventually wars become so destructive that the planet looses. Earth could bomb Pandora from orbit and there would be nothing the little folks could do. If they really wanted Jake dead, dropping nuke after getting airlifted would have resolved that story arch.
Even this bad guy traded a hostage for a son he barely knew. That’s something. He cares? He’s not even human anymore. And that is a nuance that could be explored, because he is not human, and not native, and so his loyalties might be subject to change?
On merging with the flying beast, could he not have revelation and be more like Jake?
Back to the human child, who is essentially Mowgli; they couldn’t fly the kid home, but his mother went home and left the kid? I don’t believe that. Other scientists stayed, mother would have stayed. Isn’t that Cameron’s new message, mothers are superior to fathers? If mother got killed in the battle that sent Earth packing, kid doesn’t have any loyalty to the mother and father he lost? No anger issues? He’s just a perfect Mowgli singing, “just the bare necessitates” which include a never ending breathing mask? Just saying, not a lot of consistency here. And the other humans just fed this kid and let him run amok?
They let the aliens raise him. But the aliens didn’t raise him. Per the narration, they tolerated his dumb ass. They spend the whole movie calling him names, and then get mad that the true natives call them names because they’re half breeds?
What have we learned? Nothing. They’re just like us. Give them a hundred years of our tech, they’d be trading their own families for tech.
Some of the scenes are badly cut, and so the transitions are not smooth. I expect a movie that is 3 hours long means that the transitions between scenes would more fluid. Kind of like the way of water, it just rolls into the next scene. This movies has enough going on that they didn’t need the Virgin Birth story recapitulated here. That’s a human philosophy, and surprising part of a patriarchy? Come on, you can’t mix woke philosophies with Christianity, can you? Right when we are about to find the answer to the questions, that scene ended badly.
Oh, Cameron’s a Christian after all. Unless, he is referring to Osiris. He’s Egyptian pantheist before the one true religion of the Son(sun) God came round? Great mother is Isis? Ah, some themes just never die.
There is a quite bit to this movie not to like. Each annoyance separately, perhaps mildly irritating, but all together- it actually detracts from the story. Really, there is no story other than human is bad. If I wanted that I could have stayed home and watched the news for free.
Going to the movies can be an escape. Cut out the ‘human bad’ story, and going to Pandora is awesome. I would like to imagine there are worlds like this out there. I would like to imagine our world was like this. I can imagine Earth could be this again. But if the latter could be true, we need better story telling than you’re bad lets go to war.
Seriously, I would like to have movies with less graphic violence. I have seen enough. The violence in this is gratuitous and unclever. Such as this big last battle where the whole village is attacking and then suddenly gone, leaving just Jake and his family fighting. Seriously? Everyone just went home without finishing the job? It would make sense if the entire village had been killed off, but nope, Jake and survivors return the village and they’re all there, looking like, what took you so long?
AND JAKE SAID: “This is my fault I got to leave” oh, poor me my human side is bad and I will just bring trouble everywhere philosophy as opposed to “What the fuck? You just left me and my family there to finish the job? Maybe if you stuck around and helped, you cowards, my son would still be alive!”
Fuck, if there is not truth in that. What water goes around comes around. Mind you, the urge to pee again is strong and now I am deliberating can I hold, it’s almost over right? I am not longer in the movie, but worried and I am going to make it to the urinal. Does Cameron hide movie shots in the credits. Can I go now?
If the Way of Water is harbinger of for what is to come, I may be checking out here. Previously, humans spent thirty years and had but one permanent settlement, but in this one, they built cities in a year, big enough they send supplies to each other by train. Which is kind of stupid, because if each craft that landed had everything it needed to build an entire city in a year, they don’t need to send supplies between cities!
Blowing up the train scene was something that could have been cut. It wasn’t necessary at all, but a plot contrivance for weapons which means, humans aren’t all bad. They make great weapons. And packing crates. You can always count on finding undamaged packing crates after big explosions take out the cars.
Originally humans came for unobtanium, now humans want the elixir for life, and we will kill to get it. Unobtanium wasn’t enough, we needed to throw immortality into this thing. Earth is dead, but we want a new home? A horde from earth building cities every year, Pandora is dead on our arrival. Terraforming plants would alter the atmosphere so human could go without masks.
We’d enslave the blue people by making them wear masks with batteries that have to be recharged so they come to us bringing gifts or they don’t breathe. Seriously, that one kid’s breathing mask lasted how long without recharging?
I am so irritated with the lack of story, detail consistency, and sophisticated dialogue that I am not invested in the people at all! Seriously, there is an emphaisis on the importance of family. I have a family. Is my family less important than theirs? Is yours. So, is there a better way to resolve the existential angst our species is experiencing other than war?
War just delays the inevitable. We need a way to live together.
Unless Jake turns the blue people into a space faring, sophisticated society, they will not win a war of attrition, with humans sending the billions from earth that are looking for a new home, because there home is dead. Humans will be many and hungry and fighting for their lives, and the lives of their families. A hundred years later, Pandora would be dead, and humans will be right back where they started, looking for a new world to destroy…
Because that’s all we do? Come on, Cameron. If we can envision or create brave new worlds, why can’t we invent a better, a more sustainable philosophy than to iterate themes that have been destructive from the get go?
For someone who keeps saying guns are bad, as evidenced in your second Terminator movie, why do you keep making bigger, better, and bluer warriors? That’s where this is going right? Jake is going to war?
Okay. Nothing new under the sun.
