Okay, this may come off as rather ill-informed, since I admit right up front that I've not seen the movie Avatar, but that's because I feel that from everything I've seen from trailers, heard in a review from The Escapist and heard from others who have seen it, I really don't need to go see the movie to get the major gist of it. And what I've heard has convinced me that while I may enjoy the movie visually, I would be inwardly groaning at the plot, hence I'm not going to waste my money on it.
Since I haven't seen the film I can't really spoil anything, but I will warn you I'm about to lay out the basics of the plot as I've heard it; of course it's nothing you probably haven't already guessed if you've seen more than two commercials for the thing. So here's the basic premise: humanity has developed interplanetary travel and has discovered a planet with a mineral that's highly valuable. But there's a native population on the planet who, naturally, are like space elves in that they live in harmony with nature.
So it should be no shock to anybody with at least a high school education that this movie is about the evil human beings (in particular the military) who want to rape the environment for its resources and the brave tribal aliens who try to stop them. God, I am so sick of Hollywood's liberal agenda. To these people the military has no positive qualities ever and there's no such thing as responsible, eco-friendly industry. It makes me want to puke.
Now I've heard praise heaped on Avatar for its visuals and I will admit, what I've seen has been visually impressive. Even knowing a lot of it is CG doesn't take away from the amazing detail they've put into it. But as a writer, visuals aren't enough for me. If the characters' behavior is unbelievable, their dialogue hackneyed and forced, or the overall plot unappealing, I'm not going to be impressed.
Two things seem incredibly ironic to me here. This movie, from all accounts, has a plot with the usual liberal environmental agenda, and liberals are known for saying they don't like extremes or absolutes. And yet when you bring up things like the military or industry, they seem convinced that it's all bad; how extreme and absolute is THAT?
The other thing that strikes me as ironic is who made this movie. Avatar was produced by 20th Century FOX. That's right; the same Fox corporation owned by Rupert Murdoch, the man so many have painted as a right-wing, conservative anti-Christ, MADE A MOVIE WITH A PRO-ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGE BEHIND IT. But do you think he or Fox will get any credit for this? I wouldn't bet on it.
Now before anyone gets any thoughts about me, seeing as how I'm conservative myself, I just want to make it clear that I think protecting the environment is a good thing. As a reporter, I'm on the environmental beat, and I think that a lot of the efforts people make that I report on are great. I cover student groups planting beach grasses to help stabilize shorelines, environmental groups helping build oyster reefs to bring back the oyster populations and help clean the water, and other sorts of efforts of that nature. Personally I think its a good idea to protect the environment and to avoid harming it.
However, I do see the need to take advantage of natural resources. But I think it should be done responsibly. Harvest trees for lumber, but remember to plant new ones after that's done. Use eco-friendly pesticides to protect crops. Conduct mining operations that do as little damage to the surface ground as possible.
Now, with that out of the way, one last thought. Some people may think its easy to rail on typical political agenda plots without suggesting a solution. But I actually have an idea for what they COULD have done in Avatar to make it a little more politically balanced. It's simple; the protagonist would have been placed in his alien hybrid body and told to gather data on the Na'vi so they could try to find a way to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. The plan could have succeeded, and humans and the na'vi could have begun making plans to cooperate and coexist. But extremists on both sides, military fanatics on one and na'vi xenophobes on the other, wouldn't approve of the peaceful cooperation and would start doing everything possible to destroy the peace and engage in an all-out war between their races. Hence it would be up to the heroes of both races to find a way to stop the warmongers on both sides before peaceful coexistence between the two was shattered.
Now that would have been a movie I would've paid to see.
D
