So after all the buzz about the movie "AVATAR," I simply couldn’t help myself and fell into the movie frenzy. At first I had ruled it out completely…I just wasn’t willing to pay money to go watch some funky aliens but boy was I wrong. I finally watched the trailer after the movie had been out for 4 days and I just had to go see it. I unlike the many who chose to watch it in IMAX, was content watching it in just 3D (This makes me feel better okay! I wasn’t willing to watch it after 3 days since that’s how long IMAX tickets had been sold out for….booo people).
As I went into the movie theatre, I announced to my boyfriend I was officially putting on my media glasses. I felt a movie with content like this had to be closely scrutinized J
PLOT
James Cameron really hit a homerun with this one…the plot was amazing. It really brought to light what happened in America with the American Indians as well as what happened with Africans. This was ingenious to me, how the Na’vi people represented different types of people groups, not just the American Indians who we pretty much drove out for the sake of territory. I loved how it showed that the Na’vi people were intelligent and had even higher intellectual capacities than the sky people. This was necessary since for decades some have justified colonization as a means of “civilizing” indigenous creatures whose primitive ways of life is limiting. The movie did a good job of showing the reality of wealth driven agendas especially when it comes to super powers bulldozing over smaller ones.
WHAT I QUESTIONED
GRACE
Even though Grace, the scientist who was later killed, was portrayed as a “good guy,” I questioned her motives when it came to the school she ran with the Na’vi children. This was only slightly highlighted with a picture that Jake Sully found of her and the kids. I thought the ideology behind this was that it’s okay to interfere with the lives of indigenous people groups, as long as we’re providing them education. They need that.
JAKE SULLY
Now I know everyone fell in love with this character but I do have a few things to say. Is it just me, or Jake Sully was another John Smith character from Disney’s “Pocahontas?” Don’t get me wrong, I understood that he turned around and helped the Na’vi people, but why was he the hero? Why couldn’t the other guy who hated Jake in the beginning be the hero (sorry I forgot his name). Why does an outsider always have to be the hero? Why does he have to be the savior? And of course he takes the girl and the other guy who I mentioned above is all of a sudden in the shadows. Also, at the end, am I the only one who wondered why Jake stayed behind and became one of the Na’vi people. The script read, “in the end, the Na’vi chose a few sky people to stay behind.” I feel like this is where it should have been made clear that Jake was never going to be a part of them…because he really was one of the sky people and for things to be somewhat back to normal, he had to leave too.
Apart from a few things I questioned and the group of noisy young people who almost ruined the whole experience, I really liked the movie. It may even be my movie of the year, though there’s not much competition seeing I never really go to the movies anyway…HA!
Merry Christmas everyone!
PS: Why is there nothing on google for this movie? I had to steal the picture from a good friends blog (Kevin M). Oh..by the way, the picture is from the movies official website
Good stuff, Elaine--I think you're right on with both your questions and your points about the theme of colonialism in this movie. I guess I'm just getting cynical in my old age! :-)
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