blue cat people
Jan. 19th, 2010 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosdriseREMINDER: Drama Boyfriend Playoffs - Conference Championship voting is still open HERE. Vote now!
I saw Avatar this weekend. If you have any desire to see this film do so while it is still in theaters. I saw it in IMAX and it was so worth the price of admission. The second time I saw the new Star Trek it was in IMAX and has since ruined all smaller theaters for me.
Visually this movie is pretty much stunning. It's just consistently beautiful. The 3-D was pretty cool, but it gave my eyes a work-out.
Plot-wise? ... not so much with the stunning. Having watched it (or even having read the description) left me feeling like I'd seen this before only with less blue people. I think it was called Dances With Wolves. Or was it Last Samurai? Pocahontas? ...FERN GULLY??!
What I'm getting at here is that while the visual effects were completely game changing there isn't anything new when it comes to the actual events in the story. It's completely been there done that.
As I read reviews of the film a lot of noise has been made regarding the racist nature of the story. This isn't unfounded at all. The greatest example being the "noble savage" in regards to the Na'vi.
One theme I see repeated over and over again in reviews is the idea of the White Guilt Fantasy, a story designed to assuage the guilt of a history of oppression. It's the story of a white man who becomes a member of the group he had been oppressing and in turn saves them.
Avatar is this movie. Here, the Oppresive White Military Force is represented by an... oppressive white military force. The mystical native inhabitants are the Na'vi and Jake Sully, the white outsider, is pretty much their messiah.
I can see this, but I just can't get myself all hot and bothered about it. Mainly I see it as lame story-telling. It's boring. Jake Sully is our lens into the world of the Na'vi because he's an outside just like us. I don't particularly have a problem with that, it would be better if Sully were in the least bit interesting.
A movie about the Na'vi princess Neytiri (by FAR my favorite character from the film) rising up to lead her people in a crisis against an impossibly strong opponent would have been a great deal more engaging, but that wasn't the movie made. Unfortunately.
As it is, we get Sully. Fine. This is where it gets tricky and people start having a problem with it. He basically becomes a sort of folk hero in the span of three months in order to save the Na'vi from themselves. Which kind of negates everything that was said previously about the Na'vi being better than humans. They needed the white man to save them (on his giant lizard bird). It's disappointing and weak.
But honestly? I don't have a problem with it. Everyone I saw the movie with was able to recognize it for what it was. And if the worst thing about the movie is that an outsider joined the tribe of natives because he came to understand and appreciate them I honestly don't see the harm.
I take far more issue with New Moon which basically tells young girls it's OK to hole yourself up in your room for three months if your boyfriend dumps you.
I saw Avatar this weekend. If you have any desire to see this film do so while it is still in theaters. I saw it in IMAX and it was so worth the price of admission. The second time I saw the new Star Trek it was in IMAX and has since ruined all smaller theaters for me.
Visually this movie is pretty much stunning. It's just consistently beautiful. The 3-D was pretty cool, but it gave my eyes a work-out.
Plot-wise? ... not so much with the stunning. Having watched it (or even having read the description) left me feeling like I'd seen this before only with less blue people. I think it was called Dances With Wolves. Or was it Last Samurai? Pocahontas? ...FERN GULLY??!
What I'm getting at here is that while the visual effects were completely game changing there isn't anything new when it comes to the actual events in the story. It's completely been there done that.
As I read reviews of the film a lot of noise has been made regarding the racist nature of the story. This isn't unfounded at all. The greatest example being the "noble savage" in regards to the Na'vi.
One theme I see repeated over and over again in reviews is the idea of the White Guilt Fantasy, a story designed to assuage the guilt of a history of oppression. It's the story of a white man who becomes a member of the group he had been oppressing and in turn saves them.
Avatar is this movie. Here, the Oppresive White Military Force is represented by an... oppressive white military force. The mystical native inhabitants are the Na'vi and Jake Sully, the white outsider, is pretty much their messiah.
I can see this, but I just can't get myself all hot and bothered about it. Mainly I see it as lame story-telling. It's boring. Jake Sully is our lens into the world of the Na'vi because he's an outside just like us. I don't particularly have a problem with that, it would be better if Sully were in the least bit interesting.
A movie about the Na'vi princess Neytiri (by FAR my favorite character from the film) rising up to lead her people in a crisis against an impossibly strong opponent would have been a great deal more engaging, but that wasn't the movie made. Unfortunately.
As it is, we get Sully. Fine. This is where it gets tricky and people start having a problem with it. He basically becomes a sort of folk hero in the span of three months in order to save the Na'vi from themselves. Which kind of negates everything that was said previously about the Na'vi being better than humans. They needed the white man to save them (on his giant lizard bird). It's disappointing and weak.
But honestly? I don't have a problem with it. Everyone I saw the movie with was able to recognize it for what it was. And if the worst thing about the movie is that an outsider joined the tribe of natives because he came to understand and appreciate them I honestly don't see the harm.
I take far more issue with New Moon which basically tells young girls it's OK to hole yourself up in your room for three months if your boyfriend dumps you.
