Humans are the worst, aren't they?

The Tall and Blue Of It

By this point nearly everyone on our planet earth has heard some basics about James Cameron's epic, colossal, revolutionary (or is that preachy, incindiary and bloviating) Avatar. Humans have laid waste to mother earth and naturally seek to exploit the resources of another planet, that is in habited by the indeginous Na'vi tribes. Scientist have developed the means to create hybrid Na'vi, which humans occupy by some brain sharing transference device — so that we can look, act and talk like the locals to learn their ways, gain their trust; and as the military industrial complex wishes — steal their stuff. All the typical Cameron foils exist, an unnaturally agressie military presence, the level-headed clan of scientists fighting "the man", and "the man" just looking for money at any cost.

The film is stunning to watch — especially in 3D — and for that alone I recommend seeing it in the theatre. Its hard to fathom that 90% of the film computer generated. But that's not substance. The substance of the film is rather common. Not merely because its a combination of a long episode of Mutual of Ohama's Wild Kingdom, and Dances with Wolves; but its our American history. And with that history comes the guilt of wishing things had not gone differently. Cameron wishes to obsolve his guilt, while finger-waging at the masses for not taking care of mother earth (which will in turn force us to destroy another planet somewhere else).

Do I wish we hadn't duped the American Indians, killed their tribes, taken their land, driven them to small plots of land in remote parts of the country? Of course I wish that hadn't happened, but it has. Its a nice exercise to go down the magical "What If" train; like Philip K. Dick in "The Man In The High Castle" or recently with Quentin Tarintino with "Inglorious Basterds" but a multi-millionare brow-beating us from a Hollywood studio (on land which probably belonged to someone else whom the early settlers ate their sandwiches and forced to small tents in the woods) seems disingenuous at best and overtly preachy at worst. But none of that had to do with the film itself. Did I like the film?

Here's an aside, so be ready: I'm a pretty sensing fellow. By sensing I mean my senses strongly influence my perceptions of the moment. Say for instance you're a restaurant and there's subtle smell of pinesol and throw-up wafting from the bathrooms, that destroys my ability to enjoy the food. There was a pleasant and subtle fresh perfume smell in the theatre, which aided to the crisp, clean, spotless and dirtless planet atmosphere of Pandora. I think that if that smell were of hot dogs, musty cheese and dog breath I'd have a tough time enjoying the film.

I liked Avatar. I think. But I also didn't. I felt more lost in the visuals than experienced the story. I felt entertained but also yelled at. I sympathized with the Na'vi, but had moment sof uncanny valley which reminded me of the story — which was not only reminiscent of many stories before it (and not in a bad way, afterall, it is our history to some degree) but also a guilt-laden message of "all you people suck" (but please ignore that I spent $500 million dollars to tell you this, money which could easily have been spent on the poor, the hungry, the programs and resources to help the very planet I'm preaching to you about)". I thought it was beautiful, but a shallow and simplistic manipulation, which I tried to push aside and let the story unfold and tell me something — humans are the worst, aren't they?

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6 out of 10 stars