It’s What’s Inside that Counts
It’s official: James Cameron’s new film Avatar is a hit. So much so that this billion-dollar blockbuster might actual be more financially successful than Titanic which few of us thought was possible. I’ve been hearing nothing but praise for the film since Eddie saw it, so after catching a clip of Live with Regis and Kelly which mentioned the film in my daily groggy haze as I drank my coveted first cup of coffee and wanting to spend the whole day with Cynthia, the stars had aligned to see it. So, after a green tea that tasted rather more like kelp than I had hoped and a chapter of Great Expectations at Borders, Cynthia and I were off for subs, plants, coffee, and entertainment (which, in case you were wondering, is my entire repertoire for amusement here).
After dodging the bullet of theaters without heat (Cynthia finds herself in a perpetual state of hypothermia), it was time for Avatar on a screen which was rather smaller than I had hoped. After the short previews (I’d gotten used to the ridiculously long ads in Parisian cinemas), I was psyched to see something by the man that brought us some of my favorite action flicks (e.g. Terminator 2). After about thirty minutes of plot, I knew this wasn’t going to be challenging classic James Cameron for a place in my heart. Why? Cavernous plot holes. Giant, gaping, ulcerated, stinking plot holes that made me unwilling to suspend my disbelief. OK, sure, let’s say that a completely untrained “pilot” can have his consciousness thrown by an MRI machine with a digital sarcophagus into an alien life form that happens to be genetically compatible with our race despite its independent evolution on a distant planet and can interface with it effortlessly. Unlikely, yes, but surely the apparatus that can read the incredibly complex human neural network could be some sort of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) with a flawless and positively massive wireless bandwidth capable of transmitting all of the signals (i.e. muscular impulses, sensory data, etc.) the human brain produces and translating them for alien hardware with extra parts and different bits might be possible; after all, Skype video calls would have seemed equally fantastic during the Renaissance. Questioning the capabilities of future computers would be foolish given the incredible advances I’ve seen in the twenty years I’ve been using computers which have gone from behemoth monotone unnetworked computers to iPhones, something even the Jetsons didn’t have.
It wasn’t the wildly improbable premise of the movie that bothered me, because that’s part of the fun of science fiction. It was the lack of logic. Let’s assume the military has gone to the trouble to engineer these organic machines from alien DNA which probably cost hundreds of millions if not billions of future world dollars: is it really likely given the hardware necessary to send and receive real-time data from a remote brain that the military would have forgotten a tracking chip? “But wait!” you say, “GPS can’t work without satellites circling the planet and the humans have just invaded: there can’t be a network in place!” True, but assuming the military fits the stereotype that the movie tries to cram them into (i.e. brainless thugs who are slaves to their corporate overlord), a stereotype based on the American military, I’m guessing that there’s no way they wouldn’t have some method of triangulating the position of the avatars. How else do you get the brainwaves to them? A hope and a prayer?
Let’s assume the avatars function on a future technology which does not allow for triangulation or tracking but, being infinitely better than current cellular technology and slinging vast quantities of data into and out of the jungle despite the dense vegetation, which has pushed our willing suspension of disbelief to the “I’m not sure I buy this” stage: we keep watching out of respect to this fantastic director. The movie is beautiful, the dialogue is convincing, and the plot immerses you in a fantastic world that is so intriguing that you want to like what you see. But then there’s that pesky climax where the military strategy of the rogue avatar pilot hinges on a magnetic disturbance so strong it kills all of the instruments responsible for mapping and guidance, and yet the magic brain link and walkie talkies are completely unfazed. Huh? Really? James, those annoying laws of physics are making me question your logic again.
Assuming you’re not well-versed in information technology or physics or that you aren’t as damned pedantic about science fiction adhering to the same physical laws throughout, you’ll probably enjoy the movie. I did and I can be a nerdy pedant. When we get to the thinly veiled metaphor of the American military/government/people and its capitalistically driven imperialist ambitions throughout history and the mistreatment of the “savages” of the moment (Native Americans, African Americans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, or any of the inhabitants in our republics or those countries we’re “saving” from themselves), it’s more pleasing. Well, if you hang to the left politically or belong to one of those oppressed groups. I had trouble trying to determine which, if any, of the many peoples America has roughed up in this way, but as best I can tell, the lanky blue cat-people symbolize a conglomeration of them all. I’m not sure who the target audience is for this film, but the movie clubs you over the head so hard with its message so many times, that it should be fairly obvious to anyone. If you’re one of the millions against the occupation of not only the Middle East by American troops, but of other more peaceful regions which we occupy, the moral inside the digital wrapper should redeem the few bad spots in the plot.
My criticism is fairly harsh, but like I said, the movie was still enjoyable. James Cameron’s heavy-handed delivery of a political moral (one with which I basically agree) is eclipsed by the breathtaking cinematographic value of the film. Computers have certainly come a long way since Tron and one of the first major CG-real life hybrid films, and Cameron’s expert direction in this new and precarious medium is ever obvious. The landscapes are beautifully rendered, the creatures intriguing, and the slightly granola notion of a giant network of life, a Pandorian Gaya if you will, is a pleasant way to remind us that our survival is based on the mutual success of all species and people on the planet, not just the most powerful. This movie is definitely worth the price of admission, and will require further analysis on my part in the future. Still, if you were waiting for Mr. Cameron to expiate Terminator 3 as I was, you’ll need to keep waiting.
