MilordSuccotash

When we first caught wind that sci-fi patron saint James Cameron's space epic, Avatar, was not only finally hitting theaters after fifteen years of pre and post development, but that it was going to change our entire blockbuster movie-viewing experience forever, we were so sold on the promise that we converted to Cameronism, hoisted this other J.C. as our personal savior and made plans to turn the film’s premiere into a Mecca-like journey to the promised land.  Then we saw the theatrical trailer and soon realized that for a decade and a half, Cameron wasn’t craftily calculating his second coming but had instead turned into cultist Jim Jones and developed a live action adaptation of FernGully: The Last Rainforest starring, um, the Blue Man Group? Charlatan!  We had no plans of drinking the Cool-Aid, and to add insult to injury, the trailer made the film seem like a rehash of other films (as if Dances With Wolves had somehow married Dune and convinced the other to go vegan).

The plot of the film hasn’t swayed these judgments even after seeing it.  Get this: After his brother, a scientist, is killed, crippled military grunt Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is promised a second chance to walk if he agrees to take his brother’s place as an Earth ambassador on a distant and dangerous planet called Pandora.  To strike successful diplomatic relations, Jake must make a Conradian journey to the heart of a sacred region inhabited by the Na’vi, a spiritual tribe of ten foot tall blue aliens who nest in an enormous “Living Tree” that sits atop a rare and precious mineral –  Earth’s only purpose for being on the planet.  Sully doesn’t simply walk to the tribe as himself, but uses 22^nd century technology to mentally control the body of a lab manufactured Na’vi native, his avatar.  With his human body safe inside a “Link Chamber” and his consciousness harbored in a Na’vi avatar, Sully joins the tribe and learns the ways of the Na’vi with hopes of convincing them to give up their home so that Earth can happily drill and profit from the mineral rock beneath their feet without causing conflict. 

Though none of this at all sounds as original as we were promised, and aside from being hammered over the skull with jar head jargon, clumsy exposition and pointless voice over narratives (Yes, even during montages), there’s much more to discuss about this film than whether or not it lived up to the hype.  To answer the question though, it absolutely and most unfortunately does not.  But the question of hype is probably better suited for those who have not yet seen it, if only because there is a certain unexplained satisfaction with Avatar.  A feeling that for close to three hours you sat rather riveted and compelled by a tribe of blue people who, to some degree, were never physically there but seemed so real, brought such an impressive sense of humanity, and not only had more emotional resonance than any of the true human actors in the film (Shamefully, Sigourney Weaver included), but more than many of the big blockbuster films within the past decade.

What if with Avatar Cameron is sharing a new sense of what we’ll call his cinematic religion, his dedication to exploring the reaches of computer graphics as a growing film ideology?  We’ll play with this a bit and call it "Cameronism".  And with it, let’s suppose he imbues the belief of something beyond concerns of plot and hype, showcasing an overall theory of entertainment that does not rely on technology for technology’s sake, as we’ve seen with similar blockbusters throughout the decade (a la Jackson’s King Kong and Lucas’ dreadful Star Wars prequels), but instead actually raises questions for the big dumb mainstream blockbuster movie genre:  Did you feel something? Did these characters strike you emotionally or move you?  Yeah?  Well, joke’s on you because they’re not even real! 

Yes, that’s actress Zoe Saldana as the Na’vi Chief’s daughter, but could she have pulled off such a tragically romantic show of emotion playing a human character? Of course, but Avatar challenges this by Cameron allowing the real actors to play second fiddle to the superior CG characters.  Even Worthington’s human Jake disappears into his CG counterpart, so much so that you wish to see a film entirely filled with nothing but the blue tribe, hating when you have to return to the clunky humans we’re ideally more familiar with.  Not only is the Jake character growing annoyed with being erroneously plucked from avatar to his crippled reality, but so have we grown the same for the human characters, or rather their crippled acting.  We’re jerked back and forth from the Na’vi to the humans, and we hate it because the human characters are so flat, annoyingly clichéd, boring and oafishly comical.  Was this Cameron’s purpose?  Was this his parable?  To point out the ironies in how much this motion capture technology can outshine, play with and blur the lines of human emotion and realism?

Possibly.  And this is how the film, in the end is an overall success.  Cameron may be using not only the predictable plot as a tired and obvious allegory for how our capitalistic and militaristic society is pretty vile, but more importantly experimenting with our all too familiar attachment to the current form of blockbuster escapism; films with mindless explosions and characters without depth - Destruction in the name of profit (like how the military carried on in the film...get it?).  With Avatar, the weight of oversaturation the blockbuster genre has been carrying in recent years is shaken off a bit (just a bit), and is salvaged and preserved by the performances of the Na’vi, the true stars of the film.  There’s some triumph in this as the film reveals itself as really an avatar of a better blockbuster.  A blockbuster that believes it is better than average, is only slightly better than average, but in turn, promotes the possibility of demanding more, even from itself.   This should be the renewed movie magic and puppetry for those audiences who beg only for film-as-entertainment.  And for those audiences, Cameron certainly knows how to play on their emotions finely, with not a surgeons precision, but with the precision of a conveyor belted assembly line for Big Macs –  Avatar is comfort food for a blockbuster moviemaking pastime when things like a few emotions and explosions were really all you had.  And it was good.  It was good with Elliot and E.T., Han Solo and Princess Leia, or even Newt and Ripley – Avatar is nowhere near that good, but it’s a turn back in the right direction.

Believing in Cameronism is paramount to finding that same balance in this CG era Babylon where everything is possible, where we never exclude the kitchen sink but, in the process, always manage to leave behind the humanity of the picture.  What Cameron is saying here is, Hollywood, your overstimulated audiences aren’t fulfilled without some sense of authenticity through the digi 1s, 0s and dashes.  If but for only a Friday night and a set of 3-D glasses, it seems worth it don’t you think?  It’s what keeps audiences clapping and cheering several times during and after a movie like Avatar.  It’s what they came to the movies for, to have a renewed sense of religion.  Something that reminds them to believe in something, anything.  Even if it turns out to be Cameronism.  

Spiritual mysticism aside, we can only give thanks and blessings that J.C. has brought a somewhat tasty Big Mac (with plenty of cheesy-ness) to this Last Supper, or less figuratively, the end of this decade.  And though not cholesterol free, we hope other Hollywood jesuits of differing denominations will take a few recipes from the Cameronism cookbook, opting to provide some kosher meals for those who teared and cheered during Avatar.  We vote for more Cameronistic attributes in the next decade’s blockbuster canon, but taken up a notch.  If not for us, then for the devout Cameronists who walked out of the theater not sadly overhyped or tremendously elated by the film, but if asked, would have been more than happy to spread the good word that yes, they had seen Avatar. . . And it was good (in the biblical sense).  

Mighty Milord! Without Sucka! Succotash!

Trailer for Avatar In Theatres December 18, 2009.