Why People Hate Avatar: A Lesson In Lazy Commentary
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2024
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Avatar has a hidden flaw that's VERY hard to notice. In this video essay, I break down Avatar's worst point of failure (IMO) and suggest how it could have been fixed.
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0:00 - Why People Hate Avatar
3:00 - Avatar’s Hidden Message
8:19 - Cameron Overly Romanticises The Past
12:24 - How To Fail At Messaging
15:12 - An Example Of Bad Messaging
20:29 - An Awful Exploration Of Consumerism
27:57 - Avatar Is Literally Propaganda
30:04 - The Lessons Avatar Can Teach Us
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Written, recorded, & produced by Henry Boseley
Edited by Brandon Reardin
Stock footage provided by Getty
If you want to see that extra video from me on writing exposition, you can watch it here: nebula.tv/videos/the-closer-look-how-to-write-great-exposition
I break down a lot of examples from Avatar, to Revenge of the Sith, and if you like my normal content, you'll definitely enjoy this one!
Have a great day,
- Henry
Thanks
very cool but iasdhgisAHgoashh
I love your content
I tend to hate on the nose stuff, but it isn't always a slip up, but deliberate choice. Zootopia couldn't afford to loose casuals, while powerpuff girls is biting and to the point As satire!
Okay, I usually don't comment on your videos, but this one really spoke straight out of my soul. I love your content and many others do aswell. Always stay the way you are ❤
“Art gets the audience to think; propaganda does the thinking for them” that’s the most succinct and accurate distinction I’ve ever heard
Honey this movie made more money than Avengers: Endgame and Avatar 4 was in production before Avatar 2 was even released. Do you think thought-provoking and deep arguments sell tickets? Only the common denominator (what everybody already agrees with) does.
@@neonbunnies9596 Even if something is simple doesn't mean that it's propaganda. I don't think that this term applies to Marvel movies honestly. It seems to me that you just wanted to boost your own ego and shit all over most people because you're so much smarter than them.
@NeonBunnies ahh money the ultimate qualifier of art
At least with the Avengers films you can remember them after the end credits. The only thing people remember about either Avatar film is how much money they made.
@@berserkasaurusrex4233 That and "CGI good".
"Great writers have the ability to romanticize the things they hate as well as demonize the things they love." I love this line.
It’s sooooo true
@@DanLyndon lmao, what? Sorry, will need an example here
Actually I think everyone has the ability to do that; it doesn't require any deep understanding of things or subtlety. It's the most basic use of storytelling (propaganda, cautionary tales, etc.): you can do it in a bad or good way, that's all. Providing nuance and reflection, and letting the viewer/reader making their own sense out of it, is a way better writing feat imo
hypocritical if you as me
@@DanLyndon Sure they do, stories often have some kind of moral message and that often involves demonizing something.
Despite not hating the films, something that has always bothered me about the ending to the first film is how Jake just totally separates himself from humanity all together to live with the Na’vi, and the films never really touch on how he could possibly help the billions of people suffering on his dying home planet, most of which probably aren’t bad people, and some of which probably have to do these things just to survive. Like, I’m sure many of the soldiers would be against what the humans are doing to the Na’vi, but can’t just totally defect as they have families back home they need to support that are also suffering and struggling to live.
Meh that actually makes sense to me. He's supposesed to be a jarhead thst the world doesnt need any more. Thats a special tyoe if discarded. A character such as himself, especially with him being crippled and being able to nit be crippled, and in a better body no less. It actually makes the choice pretty reasonable imo. Especially seeing the way your old society use jarheads like him to dominate other societys and bend them to their will, honestly if i was him id make the same choice as jake and say fuck humanity. Its pretty based if you ask me 😅
I think the criticism shoukd lie in telling stories that black and white. Which i actually dont have an issue with. The second movie sucked and shouldve expanded more on the world or took more risks.
But having the the first movie, its definitely on the nose and black and white, but i dont hate it cause its like a retelling of stories weve told for thousands of years but in the context of a scifi future. Its literally sci fi cowboys and indians. Like its classic but yeah its definitely kinda shallow
With two though they should've tried to add some depth, maybe another faction of navi that are truly ruthless and evil. That would set some high stakes and would refoect that some tribals are war like.
Having the peaceful tribe we care about take on a violent tribe would be interesting. And maybe thats where the humans come back into the picture, like maybe our current faction having to swallow their pride and accept help from the humans so that they can drive away the other tribe because perhaps they woukd over run them both and flay them all or some crazy shit. That would add some grey area and set sime high stakes while still maintaining the dichotomy of good and bad
@@THE_MOONMAN How the fuck leaving humanity behind "cowardly" just to get legs and girl to breed is based? where's the afterthought in that action? What based is joining Na'vi to make human and na'vi coexist!
He made sure people who are friendly to Navi stayed on Pandora.
a) fuck earth and fuck people
b) avatar is a misanthropic film that's clearly not for you.
I'm also mad that Cameron hired an ethnomusicologist to help write music for the Na'vi that sounded truly alien, creating an entire musical culture for the fictional people, only for Cameron to musically whitewash his own fictional culture but putting in a musical score that sounds like what Westerners THINK non-Western music sounds like. The actual Na'vi music that was written for this two-and-a-half hour movie showed up like only TWICE. I believe it was the UA-cam channel Sideways that put out an excellent breakdown of what happened.
Is there any way to hear this music 😢
Without there being a west to save you, you'd better have been well acquainted with Deutsch, because you'd be speaking it right now. Also you saying the words: "Whitewash" proves you think about race and are racist. Stop hating white people, when White people don't even think about you in their day to day. We have our own goals such as trying to feed our families, and survive just like everyone else. I'm sick of other races complaining about mine, get a life man.
I miss Sideways
Well to be fair, tribal alien composers that wright alien sounding music are hard to come by these days.
He tried some out there ideas but decided to reign them in because it didn't work, as he was going for mass audience emotional engagement, not just to do something "weird and cool". And seeing how Horner's score is amazing and Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, I think Cameron knows what he is doing more than some ethnomusic nerd on youtube
I feel like princess mononoke was a great example of the nuance that can be brought to a message like this. You have the miners who are women saved from "inner city life". A leader who takes care of lepers, and is just doing what she thinks is right. but you also see the animals as having darkness in them too. Maybe not perfectly executed but still less black and white thinking
Absolutely. And human predation is perfectly natural, which is why the Deer God, incarnation of nature, does nothing to stop them. One thing though, the women of the fort work as blacksmiths, not miners 🙂.
@@benji285 I thought they were refining iron, which I guess isnt mining ahah. Its been a long time, I have to watch it again I do recall some something in there related to smithing ahah
I love how this is ALWAYS what people focus on. "Oh, it shows the "GOOD" side of those oh-so misunderstood humans, and it shows the EVIL side of those oh-so horrible animals, so that makes it great" even though Avatar was able to show how dangerous nature could be without straight-up villainizing nature, but no. Showing how evil nature is and how oh-so noble humans can be is totally NOT counter-intuitive to a "pro-nature" story and totally doesn't deter people from caring about nature.
Yes, Shishigami is neither an ally of giant wild boars nor wolves, nor is he an ally of humans. He only tries to balance the whole of nature as a mediator. To him, there is no difference between boars and humans; both are just parts of life produced by the same nature.
Also, Lady Eboshi is one of the best written characters in the ghibli universe, so much there are entire articles written about her in film and script classes cause she has so many layers. Not only she's an awesome antagonist, she also had a past where she was forced to become a sex slave in the red districts and somehow managed to get herself out of that torment by her own, she created that city out of scrap and the first people she took under her wing were other women on a similar situation and the people who were considered scraps from society, so when impending war started to get near her land, she wasnt willing at all to be subjugated again, which explains why she goes to such big meassures including defying a litteral god as a means of standing her ground (to a degree that later comes to bite back at her). Its a trully fascinating character; and I also love that there was also discrepancies and head butting among the animal species too regarding how to deal with all the conflict, and how in the end extremism deals a bad coin to anyone.
It’s just a whole movie filled with “noble savages”. To strip an indigenous culture of the unsavoury things they do (as all cultures do) is to strip them of all nuance, depth, and humanity. You shouldn’t need to paint an indigenous culture as morally perfect in order to decide that murdering them en-masse for special rocks is bad.
I can't believe you just tried to make that massacre argument in the 21st century 💀
what about the elaborate and graphic scenes where the indigenous brutally attack the 'sky people', and not even just soldiers.. did you watch the movie or just repeating Twitter talking points..
The noble savage concept is borderline myth.
It's also sad to the point of comical, that the same political side that loves that concept simultaneously misses no opportunity to call their patriotic political opponents "stupid and simple minded" for living on farms and hunting stuff..
Honey this movie made more money than Avengers: Endgame and Avatar 4 was in production before Avatar 2 was even released. Do you think thought-provoking and deep arguments sell tickets? Only the common denominator (what everybody already agrees with) does.
@@neonbunnies9596 it made more money after endgame was out of theaters, 10 years after its own release, due to so much time in it's initial run, and 4k theatrical release in china, that isnt yet available on home video or streaming, right after endgame. Endgame passed 2.5 billion in less than a third of the same amount of time it took avatar, just 20, vs the latter's 72
For the Kiri sickness part. Also, don't forget that the humans literally made human-navi avatars. Which means that they understand navi biology on a level that no navi at their current "technological level" will ever be able.
Yes!! And to make it worse there are actually good examples of traditional medicine that can help illnesses up to some point, but they don't even take inspiration from this for the films!
Instead of Ronal showing her knowledge from actual resources from the land, sea, herbs e.t.c. all she does is this clishé ritualistic Witch Doctor mumbo jumbo, of blowing air and poking Kiri's stomach!
This could actually have been an interesting scene if the humans and Ronal used their combined knowledge of medicine and technology to help Kiri, but that's just too much for Cameron's simple mind.
Princess Mononoke is everything Avatar wishes it could be
Nobody care about Princess whatever.
@@palmoart Its a great film. Highly reccommend
Those are two different movies, comparing them is a little unfair
@@user-xk5mh2oe9m Ye, because Ghibli movies are actually good
@@user-xk5mh2oe9m two films with remarkably similar plots.
This is why, in my opinion, Princess Mononoke is the epitome of an 'environmental film.' It masterfully avoids painting humans or nature as outright villains, recognizing that the issue at hand is incredibly complex.
Throughout the movie, we witness a portrayal of both sides that highlights their strengths and flaws without passing judgment. In the opening scenes, nature is depicted through the terrifying demon boar that infects Ashitaka, and also embodied in San, a human who has grown to despise her own kind due to her adoption by spirits. San can be seen as the Jake Sully of this story, renouncing humanity because of its perceived 'evil.'
On the other side, we have Lady Eboshi and Irontown, initially portrayed as the antagonists responsible for destroying the natural resources in the area. However, as Ashitaka explores the town, we come to understand that their actions are driven by a desperate need for survival.
Ultimately, the film's message revolves around the importance of finding a balance and moderation in consumption. It advocates for embracing technological advancements while simultaneously respecting and preserving nature. Princess Mononoke encourages us to acknowledge the complexity of the environmental issue rather than resorting to simplistic narratives of good versus evil.
To add to this, understanding the importance of grey areas seems to be one of the main messages of the film, since the main force of evil is created by the hatred of both factions and they only defeat it by working together. Hayao Miyazaki is known for having a strong distaste for black-and-white stories, and I think Princess Mononoke was his way of expressing those feelings.
Such a good movie
Pilgrim's Pass made a video comparing Princess Mononoke to Avatar. It's well worth a watch.
This right here. Nature is great and should be preserved and respected, but to say that modern technology is bad is just... wrong. Mononoke shows why both ideas are valid, the problem is the violence and hate that occurs between the two.
@@Leitis_Fella I went and watched the video from your suggestion. It was a great watch and covered the topic very well
So let me get this straight, the humans made anatomically correct "Avatars" of the Na'vi that can reproduce and psychically communicate with the other animals, but somehow at the same time don't know enough about their anatomy to diagnose the cause of a seizure. 🤣
Not only that, why not clone tulkun brain instead of constantly killing them? They figured out how to clone avatars of the Na'vi, why can't they just clone a tulkun or its brain?
@@larchiel It might be insanely expensive to clone a tulkun if cloning a Navi is already expensive.
@@kinera but what about just it’s brain? Then there wouldn’t be senseless killing of Tulkun for just a little jar. Not to mention the whole entire avatar project is expensive,wouldn’t it also be easier just to make money off of tulkun brain clones without loosing billions of dollars worth of men and machinery. It’s also less dangerous.
@@larchiel Cloning body parts without a body isn't possible now, and might not be in the future. Of course synthesizing the brain juice directly might make more sense but there may be a reason why that can't be done.
@@kinera Synthesizing the brain juice directly from the Tulkun is common sense too! Instead of slaughtering them to extinction, they should just let them reproduce so they can have decades of brain juice haha
I really dislike how one dimensional everyone is in Avatar. There is no bad Nai'vi, they're all so pure and lovely to the point where it makes them unlikeable and sometimes hypocritical. They also have a "holier than thou" kind of attitude that really gets under some peoples skin and causes some, myself included, to actually root for the humans, despite them being horrendously evil.
Also, I love how it's conveniently ignored in the 2nd Avatar that humanity is now no longer fighting for its own corporate greed but for the survival of its own species. This could've been a great plot point and struggle Jake has to go through (loyal to the Nai'vi, or save his species from extinction), but alas, no.
Esa es la misión de Eywa.
When are they horrendously evil?
are you dumb? the 3rd movie is about evil na'vi
@@lalaland2107 The humans were horrendously evil in Avatar 1 when you think they are on Pandora simply for unobtanium. It isn't explained that this particular mineral is somehow pivotal to human survival.
I think there are bad navi.
I think they want to explore that in the next movie with a group that is against the water people and kinda hint at it in the first when theyre rallying tribes as there is hesitation in beliving theyll actually help
I actually had a perfectly good answer for why I didn't like Avatar:
Because Jake Sully never had a real conflict.
Pete Docter said it really well in an interview about the climax of UP - "if the choice is too easy, _then it isn't a choice."_
And the choice presented to Jake, _was too easy._ There was literally nothing tying him to Earth at all. There was no real emotional conflict for him at any point.Think about it. The events of the story seriously ask him:
Would he rather protect the interests of a soulless megacorp and its psychotic paramilitary force who don't see him as anything but a tool to help them get to stripmining Pandora as fast as possible, and then go home to an Earth where his entire family is dead, he lives in an apartment the size of a closet, pollution is rampant to the point where the oceans are poisoned and all the animal species are dead and food is grown on algae farms, and the rest of the planet is reduced to overcrowded, grey hyper-urban squalor where poverty, loneliness and general misery are just facts of life, and also he's crippled/paraplegic?
_Orrrrrrr_ would he rather live on an untouched paradise-planet as part of a tribe of peaceful, perfect, all-knowing, literally flawless people with a literal connection to the planet itself where he wouldn't ever want for anything and also in a healthy body which ALSO happens to let him have sex with the hot blue cat girl who is now in love with him?
Why _wouldn't_ he take the latter choice?
Some of us could explain why we disliked Avatar _just fine,_ thank you very much.
Man, that simple change of making the humans plunder Pandora out of necessity instead out of greed would make the Avatar such a good piece of sci-fi.
Why?
Humanity has plundered plenty of places out of base greed.
It certainly doesn't make humanity irredeemable, but it is very consistent with our history, and the history of imperialism (in the broad sense of all Empires throughout, not just 'the West') that greedy bastards will be greedy bastards.
...thats already what they are doing. Earth is dying. Pandora is a second start.
@@jakespacepiratee3740 yeah but they never make that clear. they have one, **one** line where they say their world is dying and that's it. they never mention how or why it's dying. they never talk about how plundering Pandora is *necessary*.
@@jakespacepiratee3740 honestly, I couldn't really tell. There was no complexity or other side shown about the humans. It was just Navi good, and humans bad. Did that for 2 movies in a row, and will probably keep that up for however many more sequels there are.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp Even though there’s an entire city of humans on pandora who are obviously not all evil? Like of course the people we see are evil, they are meant to clear out the natives.
I think touching on Jake’s disability in the beginning of the film more would’ve been a great way to bring a more realistic view to the Na’vi society- we know disabled people were taken care of since the prehistoric age, but it would’ve objectively been a lot harder for someone like Jake to survive without a wheelchair in the beginning of the film, something the Na’vi don’t have. The seizure was such a missed opportunity to potentially touch on disability and medical issues too
It's not a missed opportunity if it's just a set up for the next movies.
@@GREVIEWS02 Well it wasn't a set up for this movie so I'm not exactly holding my breath for the next decade on a point that will most likely have been forgotten by then
Basically, Eywa is a mega-organism of unknown nature. She created all the species on Pandora through a series of microorganisms designed to clean up the environment, eliminate disease, and control wildlife. Thus there are no evolutionary pressures that break the "peace forced by Eywa. So, the RDA knows that micro-organisms will save the earth from its climate catastrophe. But there is a problem, although the earth still has many resources there are two that have been exhausted, oil and "rare earths", without the latter it is not possible to produce electrical circuits and all the technology of humanity is reduced to the steam engine, and in the process all the industries of the RDA collapse. Unobtanium is the only thing the RDA's economic system can support, so in order to obtain it they convince humanity that invading Pandora is humanity's last hope
you have fallen for revisionism. most native American tribes left the disabled to die alone. Babies who werent considered to be strong was killed. Disney isnt history.
Why would the Na'vi need wheel chairs They didn't have disability in their society.
5:09 One thing I would argue is more closer to evil than what Aonung & his gang did to Lo’ak is when Neytiri threatened to KILL Spider in exchange for her daughter Tuk & we know she would’ve been willing to do it. While I know she was desperate to save her family, her prejudice (as much as we understand it to an extent) still led to her threatening to kill an innocent child just cos he was human & happened to be the son of her enemy, even when said child had lived among her OWN family from the time he was small 😔
my blind reaction to that scene I just had the lingering feeling "she is using him as bait", cutting him as a threat did cut me off guard but it is her emotional state and that is what makes her feel so.. real. observing neyriti she would definitely hold prejudice to humans but I know on a serious note, she is not the type to sacrifice anybody
After watching the deleted part she was Ready to kill him kind of explanes Why he saved hes father
Right before the second movie came out, my theatre had a replaying of the original avatar available that me and some friends went to go watch. The entire time, I felt that same anxious "wait, what..." Feeling film critjc described having while watching. My friends and I walked out of the theatres all a little "hm, well, okay", but we could never really place why. When the full trailer came out for the second movie, none of us wanted to see it. One of us did though, and after she came out just said "yeah, I think we should just watch Puss In Boots". God, The Last Wish was amazing.
A reason is why the first movie mostly just stood on movie tricks (CGI) !
But today that movie tricks arent realy special anymore!
Its so funny to me how often I'll get completely blindsided by praise for The Last Wish, just in the wild.
Like, I'm not disagreeing at all, it deserves all the praise its getting and more. But its just how it'll come from completely nowhere and literally everyone will be in complete agreement on how good The Last Wish is lmao. Its like the Deep Rock Galactic of movies.
@@ghidorah4695it was kind of like a craze in my opinion mqinly because of how we had set the bar too low and how it payed off.
I was going to put Avatar's weird message down to JC researching nothing because he didn't think the Navi were a direct metaphor for indigenous people but then I found that interview where he said Native Americans should have fought harder against being colonised and that's partially what inspired him to write the story. A lot of indigenous people HATE this movie and boycotted it.
Yeesh, that's a pretty messed up take on JC's end.
He didnt say that
The boycotts just brought more attention to the movie, if anything. I'm sure they will boycott the next one as well.
Wtf?
@@Noob-yx1cu My source? My source is that I made it the fuck up!
"The Na'vi were living in peaceful harmony with nature!"
If you want an example of how you do the colonial invader plot right, I heartily recommend Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Because that's a story by an African writer about how the colonizers were able to take over Africa. One of the many points before it ever came to conquest by force was that the colonizers came in and found the cracks in the native society. They found the conflicts, the little failures that brought suffering to people who were easily overlooked, and so on, and then befriended them and turned them against their native culture. One of the things his book basically lays out is that the biggest allies of your enemies can be the people you disrespect while you yourself are in power.
There's a lot more going on in the novel than just that, but I thought that aspect was particularly relevant here, because "peaceful natives living in harmony with nature" is one of the most insultingly infantilizing cliches in storytelling.
I read that book last year.
@@maykechi7752 I read it as well, that one scene where they ended up killing that Ikemefuna kid left me stunned because I didn't think they'd kill him off.
Oh that sounds really interesting.
@@lauraw2526 It absolutely is.
New book added to my list
I think one of the best takes I ever found on "politics" in stories was from a video I watched a while ago. It was that politics in a story are the surface-level aspect to discussions of human nature, because every political system humanity has ever created is at its core a set of rules and prescriptions trying to come to terms with the human condition. A well done political story that delves into the themes of its politics peels away its layers and tackles the core conflict of human nature that the politics aim to address and makes its critique at that deeper level. While poorly done politics simply take a side. Thus creating propaganda.
Thus the phrase "keep politics out of entertainment," is a layman's phrasing of the statement, "keep propaganda out of entertainment," that comes about because the people who are put off by it aren't sure exactly what is so off-putting and thus point to the most readily obvious thing which made them uncomfortable, which was the political message. It is in-a-sense, confusing the thing itself with its method of implementation.
Princess mononoke did a great job with the "reconnecting to nature" aspect. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend
The dumbest thing about the Kiri seizure thing is that when she discusses hearing the voice of Eywa the science dude who has been living on Pandora for like 15 YEARS and studying for like ANOTHER 10 before that who KNOWS about the Eywa trees and that his boss got downloaded into Eywa and knows that Eywa took Jake and put his consciousness permanently into his avatar body.....he's turned into a total strawman atheist in this scene. "Oh it can't be Eywa doing anything, it must be Kiri is hallucinating!" Cameron wanted to have a MODERN MEDICINE BAD, TRIBAL MEDICINE GOOD thing but he botched it because it doesn't fit for this character to say ANY of that.
yeah.
La planta medicinales no son producto de la evolución, son cradas deliberadamente por eywa para curar enfermedades.
That was one of the things that did get me about Avatar 2. I was mostly just mindlessly watching it, enjoying the sound and graphics, and then I heard that line, and just had to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it. Like, come on Cameron. That science dude has spent an insane amount of time among the N'avi, studying alongside Grace and the others, has seen the Tsahik do her thing, and is just like "nah, the electrical signals we were seeing in those plants all the way back at the beginning of this saga mean absolutely nothing - it's just 'textbook hallucination'". A truly disappointing line that didn't need to be in there at all.
Yeah, Cameron is a stellar director but a mediocre writer at best.
Cameron did Norman dirty
Apparently in the next one we’re gonna see an evil tribe of the avatars to show that they aren’t all good. But that’s barely addressing the issue, I want to see the evils within the tribes we’ve been following. Inventing a new tribe that’s most likely going to be one-dimensionally evil is just adding to the issue
I think the main problem is not having depth within the individual characters, theres no real such thing as completely evil and completely good people. In the end we are just people and a story like this needs to contain that kind of depth instead of just slapping "these people good these people bad" onto it
@elainerogers9595 The depth and relatable is what makes character good. I am not even the best writer and I know that.
I dont know why ppl here are assuming there is no conflict between the NAVI, from the way the green navi treated jake and his family when they arrived shows they are ethnic/cultural problems between them.
I think white guilt may play a part in some of this criticism. A majority if most of our movies have a simple evil vs good dichotomy and we dont usually complain.
I believe because the navi reminds some white ppl of how native americans were treated by white americans during coloniization a reaction is coming forth with the incistence of showing the Navi as having darkness amongst them just as the native americans had in real life.
Except this is not real life. The navi are a fictional alien race and perhaps they might actually be a race of ppl that are all good unlike humans, they might be good and evil in the later films.
However my point is that the movie follows a simple abd popular trope that has existed in many movies and story telling. A hero comes from outside the group of a noble ppl, joins them, helps them overthrow the ruthless enemy and becomes their king.
You cannot draw parralels of the navi to.native americans or olden days human. They are a ficyional/fantasy race.
@@hunterzolomon1303You mean the ‘White Savior’ trope?
@@Lobsterwithinternet i know that trope. But it crosses a lot of cultural lines. Where there are stories of a foreigner being adopted by a new ppl and saving them. It doesnt just apply to white ppl. I am a black british guy of nigerian origin. Sometimes i think we give white ppl too much credit for certain things we consider negative. That white hero trope u talk about can be applied to different cultures such as yasuke the black samurai (based on real life) or king jaja of opobo an igbo(nigerian ethnic group) slave who became king among the ijaws (nigerian ethnic group).
Not because we have seen white ppl be saviours of other races in movies means that now it becomes negative when we are talking about freaking aliens.
Come on man.
Oddly enough, Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal approach the issue of energy and razing a planet/civilization for energy much better. The Argent is a miracle substance, "A solution to a problem the world had no answer for" and even the Khan Maykr says "I feel for the humans, I do, but I also have a people to save" illustrating that both Maykrs and Humans are fighting an existential fight.
I love how the internet says people hate things. But in real life of the hundreds of people I meet and talk to most don't hate the things that supposedly people hate according to the internet.
That's because everyone can say anything on the internet without real consequences.
It's funny that for James to create a 'nature movie' that 'demonizes technology', he had to 'make new technology' to be able to film it.
I think the message is more so 'demonizing destruction of the natural world'. Also quite the difference between technology built to drain and take over a world vs new vfx technology😂
You can't be serious man, you're literally doing the meme.
James Cameron: "We should improve society somewhat."
You, an intellectual: "Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent!"
@Aaron-xj2fo you're putting too much thought into this bro
@@Aaron-xj2fo The phrase “we should improve society” is an incredibly empty statement cause it says nothing. James cameron is saying “ we should improve society BY returning to our indigenous roots, abandoning the search for better technology, and revert to being one with nature. The reason for this is because those who are one with nature are inherently good people while those who seek the advancement of technology are fundamentally evil people on every level.” Seeing as you’re so “intelligent” yourself you mustve grasped that right? Do you need help grasping why thats a dumb message?
@@edun4513That person is just quoting a meme word for word, for what it’s worth.
I like how the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy understood that there are really evil and hateful elements in both the human and the ape societies. What results from a quest for liberation from oppression can turn into a burning hatred that leads to incessant war until one side is completely destroyed. I kinda wish they they had a Na'vi version of Koba.
even planet of the apes went too deep into "humans are complete assholes, and they are also stupid".
Eh, those movies are their own can of worms when it comes to generic science fiction and CG effects taking prominence of all else. It doesn’t help that like Avatar those films are becoming a safe haven.
That navi guy in the first movie that distrusted Jake and neytiri's ex fiance could have been the Koba of the Navi side
But instead that character turned 180 and suddenly became submissive to Jake for some reason and then got killed off
Yes, or X-Men 1
@@Channeleven2345789gereric? those films have more things to say about society than avatar and his black and white message of
Nature = good.
White man = bad.
And yes they are woke as shit yet people like ben shapiro and critical drinker barelly notice it because "wow pretty images with no politics"
20:29 the hilarious thing about the what if you do in this part, is that *is* the story. Cameron has explained in other media that Earth actually is dying, due to over population, and that Unobtanium is necessary for sustainable intersteller travel. I.e. Earth is so f'ed up, the largest ekspedition since ever is being funded to facilitate an evacuation of Earth.
Now, of course, this is other media, and therefore can be completely disregarded as not a part of the movie. But I just found it funny when you went over that what if scenario.
That's my main issue with Cameron... He says all these things, has all these meticulous lores, but he does not show any of it in the film so it's the same as nothing.
What's the point in saying that in an interview when he's just gonna gloss over it in the story and make the narrative black and white anyway? Most people who watch Avatar don't even catch any of this.
The thing I found haunting about these movies were the message that Indigenous way of life is the ideal way of life, combining it with Avatar being a story about colonialism, but failing to bridge fiction and reality. The films so finely slipped into the different "Savage" tropes that harm our perspective of reaily. There are Indigenous people still around, but still they are portrayed like artifacts from a different world. It almost feel like when the Danes took Inuits from Greenland back to Europe to put them on display, or Saami from Northern Norway. Still Indigenous from around the world are treated either like lesser humans or like these etheral beings who know something greater. Still they're facing oppressions for a huge number of reasons, many because their lifestyle doesn't fit the modern world. I saw an article that Native Americans boycotted a cinema because they were furious a multi-million franchise about what they have and continue to endure is forgetting them. It feels like, especially with these films, that we as humans will always struggle to see all of us as the same.
If you know of John Smith from Jamestown and his whole situation dealing with the native tribes, he was successful because he saw them as people. Not like "oh were so equal you are such an advanced noble people" but seeing they were also very smart and ruthless to where he had to play his cards right or they would swoop in and take every advantage they could. It was a sticking point where some of his bosses saw them as almost childish and played their hand putting Jamestown in a dangerous situation. It was all about shrewd politics on both sides playing back and forth where despite the British being a massive empire the Jamestown settlement was at a massive disadvantage to the local tribes and could be wiped out if they messed up. I mean John was captured and was going to be killed because he left himself open and the only reason things worked out and he got the ability to work as a diplomat was because Pocahontas took a liking to him (from his autobiography thats pretty much his reasoning, she thought he was handsome and decided to keep him alive). This is pretty typical to most of the early interactions where tribes see what advantage they can get out of the new players on the block in the regional politics against other tribes or in raiding the settlers. Its why we hold the story of thanksgiving so high because the Pilgrims and local tribe became friends altruistically and had a peace which lasted until every person who was there at the first feast had passed away with zero conflict between them, even though at the start the Pilgrims had nothing to offer and were starving to death.
In the case of Navi, I can accept they are "better" than our real life counterpart because their biology allows them to be empathetic by definition (the antennae connection that make them empaths amongs themselves). So it kinda explains how they should be kinder, and do not develop a need for slavery or unexplained sacrifices.
But it doesn't make the story any better, and the most faulty parts of Avatar's lazy writing doesn't relate to this, but to the lack of nuance on the plot itself and the humans as real people.
Unlike a different Avatar that was an example of great commentary in a kids show no less!
The whole time I was thinking about how much better ATLA is at commentary despite being meant for mainly kids. It has so many layers. It shows good and bad fire nation people, good and bad non-fire nation people. This Avatar just feels.. shallow.
Princess Mononoke also explored this nature vs humans theme much better than this did
@@naruchancutie1 Heck, there are good and bad people in the Water Tribe which two of our main characters come from. Plus some who are simply stuck in the old ways of thinking and who probably won't ever think otherwise.
@@claytonrios1 Exactly! No nation was exactly free from bad people. Ba Sing Se was corrupt and controlling its people just as the fire nation does.
I think Jet was an amazing character too because it showed what happens to a person consumed by hate. So much that he was willing to wipe out innocent people. The fire nation were the main aggressors of the series but they weren’t the only people in the wrong for their actions.
Likewise, there were good people from the fire nation like Jeong Jeong and Sokka’s master. Iroh as well though his past was not good. It showed how good kids were exposed to propaganda at an early age as well.
Such a well done show.
@@naruchancutie1 Heck you could say that the Ember Island Players episode works as a recap episode and a way to show Fire Nation propaganda in action right before the series finale.
What makes it a little annoying when comparing the Nav’i and the Humans as colonialists and indigenous, is that the film is set in a science fiction planet that apparently isn’t hard to survive in if you’re a Nav’I.
While there are predators they rarely attack, you don’t need fire because everything glows in the dark, there doesn’t appear to be any diseases or poisons to worry about, it doesn’t get too cold or too hot, they bond with nature and animals using tendrils in their braid, and the mystical or spiritual beliefs that they practice are real do to some weird energy across the planet.
When compared to living in nature in the real world, there are a lot of risks and you need to worry about surviving more than just singing and dancing. You need fire for worth and light, you can die from diseases, poisons, and so on, food can become scares do to famine, you can freeze to death or die from heatstroke, there are predators everywhere and other animals that will steal your food, and many of the spiritual practices that they did are often not supported by medical science, basically you are vulnerable to nature unless your strong enough and smart enough to survive in it.
But again, unless you’re a Nav’i, Pandora is almost the Garden of Eden.
The whole thing just feels so artificial, doesn't it? One could be forgiven for thinking Pandora was some kind of alien ant farm...
I doubt he'll do it, but I would absolutely commend James Cameron if he revealed that Pandora was an elaborate supercomputer built by another alien civilization. It would actually make so much more sense if the planet was actually built by a far more advanced race of ETs to cultivate new life for resources, food and possibly even slave labor/lab rats/organ donors.
Eywa could be the computer's OS, using information downloaded from the Navi's organic USBs to monitor and maintain a near-idyllic ecosystem. That way the Navi were pushed just enough to thrive in a primitive society, one which can be easily exploited by their hidden makers, all the while lacking enough pressures to drive them to invent more complex tools, weapons or medicine which would make them difficult to manage.
And every millennium or so, the makers return to harvest the planet's life and reset the OS, moving on to the next artificial planet in line until it cycles back around a million years later.
@@goji3755Eywa is shown to have some control over the biosphere of Pandora and might be able to control the evolution of animals on it. I would like to have a more in depth depiction of the relationship between Eywa and the na’vi and maybe have Eywa learn about earth and try to spread to it both by trying destroying the humans damaging the system and by manipulating the na’vi to spread the seeds of Eywa to earth.
@@goji3755I mean tbh (it isn’t mentioned in the movie so iirc) but there are rules in pandora (put by Eywa ?) about not using wheel, not using steel (and a third one I forgot ?) which mean that it’s very much possible that Pandora IS a garden of Eden created by Na’vi ancestors to not recreate the error of the past (being a species so intelligent that it destroys itself) or by other aliens for whatever reasons
lack of nuance works on both ways im afraid. this movie(s) failed to portray humans side of the story. aside from one or two verbal confirmation, there was no sense of urgency. nobody was acting like the humanity's future is at stake. every human was busy with playing minigolf, gleefully decimating forests while sipping coffee or flexing with how their 3d printer can create buildings.
and now 3rd movie on its way. i suppose they expecting us to get excited for ash tribe, but... its just feels like too little too late
We are Life is deadly we all die, we ard animals and we die as any other animal. The greatest dangers never came from other animals but from a lack of water (death in days), lack of food ( death in weeks), lack of shelter in colder regions (death from exposure), Danger of wounds which would not allow us to gather food or hunt.
From what I read Camero does plan to show the dark side of Navis in future films as well as the good side of humans. However, It doesn't excuse the lack of balance between good and evil when we look at humans vs Navis in Avatar 1 and Avatar 2.
In the first movie you definitely felt the schism between good humans and bad (the scientists vs the hired guns) this argument that all humans bad in first movie is just total trash. I do wish there were some evil Navi though.
@@jesserochon3103 I was aware of those good humans being there, however, Navis is still presented as the right side in this conflict again and again. We do need to see the bad side of Navi to balance things out. To see the human military do a favor for Navis, especially when Earth is dying, to try the make peace would be a nice change of things. Avatar 2 missed that chance for example by showing that humans the most advanced medical tech is pathetic compared to shaman "healing". We could have had that medical help from humans was essential to save Jake's adopted daughter. Have the leader of the water tribe react to that.
maybe when 3, 4, and 5 come out itll all tie it together
Fun fact around 7,000 years ago there was this thing called the Y Chromosomal bottleneck where 90% of male bloodline died out making a major genetic bottleneck. X Chromosomes didn’t have this same bottleneck so it can't be something like famine or natural disasters. The current hypothesis is that wars were wiping out large percentages of the human male population at a time. This is also about the same time when we start seeing first fortifications being constructed.
Now conflicts between hunter gathers definitely did happen (we have cave art of battles) but for whatever reason they either weren't as common or weren't as devastating.
Something that stuck out to me in the way of water was how humans in it were killed with no remorse, like if I remember correctly there was a scene where one of those subs were damaged so the humans got out and tried to escape but were purposely tangled up by some plants to have them drown.
Tbf those people escaping the sub were hunting children.
There are a lot of moments where humans are killed in pretty brutal ways and are just brushed aside as if its nothing too bother about,
the only time where it felt heavy was in the first movie where the aftermath of a Na'vi attack was shown, the soldiers all wiped out and their remains utterly decimated
Oh, but that wasn't even in the movie, it was a deleted scene, which makes this worse
Honestly, I thought it was pretty ballsy, tbh. Not a lot of media has the guts to show humans getting killed in such a brutal way without trying to make you sympathise with the humans. They didn't even hide the human's faces with helmets, like most media does when they try to dehumanize humans, and honestly, I kinda liked this. I don't need helmets or such to NOT feel bad for humans. I don't need to constantly be talked down to by media how I'm supposed to feel bad for a human just because they're a human. Humans, in general, are already non-sympathetic IMO.
Goes both ways. I hate how both the humans and the Na'vi are brutal and ruthless to each other. Like all.
@@baalfgames5318 Um
I felt the same during that Seizure scene. Like she has an alternative medicine solution. It's like demonizing medicine and unfortunately we know real people who happily jump onto alternative medicine.
I didn't experience the scene the same way at all. The movie never says the shaman actually cures her, she just happens to wake up at more or less the end of the process, but really, to me it's still "shamanism" without proof. And it's not that the medicine isn't working, they don't get to actually help because they are chased away before having the time to do anything, unceremoniously..
it seems they REALLY wanted to promote primitive or alternative medicine.
they could have used ALIEN medicine instead: like using their brain-jack head-tail to allow another smurf (or a special tree) link with her mind to stabilize the seizures... like a vulcan mind meld.
aliens have different physiology, make use of that!
@@Nerh4k It’s not alternative tho. Kiri was raised Na’Vi, and that stuff is what Na’vi medicine is. That is what ours was before we formally discovered drugs.
Max and Norm didn’t actually help much either. Sure they diagnosed a probable cause.
There are also a variety of ways you could view it rather than hop right to “ah their making my beliefs look bad!”
Like maybe it could be a foreshadowing of how the next movie goes? Maybe Kiri has another seizure and when Metkayina methods fail, Max and Norm save her.
@@Nerh4k Also, their medical equipment is the equivalent of a very advanced first aid kit, being handled by someone who is a medical adjacent scientist rather than a doctor, while they're trying to diagnose one of a very small number of human/Navi hybrids.
The ultimate point of that scene, IMO is to intertwine the scientific and spiritual worlds of the Navi and Humanity, much as Eiwa has a scientifically understandable basis (a planet spanning slow neural net woven in to the biosphere) does not detract from the spiritualism experience by the Navi tribes.
I see that scene more like the Na'vi have achieved the same advancements as humans have, just instead of technology and electricity they use their own herbology and religion (although their religion is obviously different than ours with the scientists actually having proof).
So maybe they aren't demonizing medicine, it's showing us an alternate reality if humans went down a different route.
I think it would be hard to make Jake a likeable character if he would basically betray his own kind while knowing that they were on the verge of extinction. Maybe it could work if the general human population wasn‘t informed that thes were on the brink of running out of important resources, in order to avoid mass panic. Maybe only the higher ups knew the importance of the mission and when they realised the importance of jake‘s relationship with the tribe and how he was starting to „switch sides“, they would deliver the news. At that point, already having built this strong connection with the tribe and fallen in love with neytiri the morale dilemma could be way more impactful.
One of the first scenes of avatar 2 has a human ship touching down with giant thrusters that set the forest and all the woodland creatures ablaze. It was so cartoonishly evil I rolled my eyes
I disliked the latest Avatar for three big reasons.
1) As a throwaway line they say earth is dying and people would be coming to the new planet to stay. Then they have humans as the unambiguous villains of the film. I spent much of the movie wondering why it thought I would root against my own species’ survival.
2) Cameron then shifted to what, in that context, was a side show. He made his whole movie that references earths impending collapse about whale oil.
3) Finally, expecting me to believe the naavi (a hunter gather culture) would be any match militarily for humans that came from the other side of the galaxy is dumb. I’m sorry but an entire fleet of warriors shooting arrows on the backs of dragons are no match for a single F35. The naavi wouldn’t even see what killed them, let alone be able to stop it. Expecting me to forget that took me out of the movie completely.
A Mig21 or an F5 would have been enough to drive their “Airforce” away. And those Jets carry like 6 missiles MAX.
Omg yes finally someone said it. I find sully incredibly selfish for turning sides and not having sympathy for all his fellow humans left to die on earth, but sympathises for new creatures he never belonged with without human technology.
And they couldn't figure a way to cohabitate? I find it hard to believe given how advanced human tech is. Even colonising a tiny part of the planet would be more than enough for human survival without killing all the natives.
it's basically a version of native tribes Vs colonisers, the aliens wouldn't stand a chance, I was so irritated while watching the movie.
I don't have an issue with humans being painted in negative light when the deserve it.
Deforestation, Hunting Whales, etc.
But it's very weird that they don't acknowledge the fact not EVERYONE is like that. Look at Grace.
They should of understood not everything is black and white and that you cannot define humans as simply good or bad.
Not to mention we were supposed to be rooting for the protagonist and his viewpoints even though he thoroughly was responsible for everything bad that went on to happen in the first place. If he did his job as a messenger properly and just mention that his species were there for the unobtainium reserves, instead of boning the chief's daughter, the entire discussion could have gone a lot smoother in the first place. there could have been atleast hope of better negotiations rather than outright war, or at the very least, even if war was inevitable, atleast the Navi would have been more better prepared against the threat.
And yeah, lets send all the humans back to their dying planet for the faults of their ancestors which they are trying to escape from and not even think of a compromise that would atleast give them back something.
Avatar could have been a great film with if they executed the ideas and exploring both the positives and negatives rather than pushing on one message hard. If the Navi acknowledged the ambiguity of the human's condition and managed to grow past their differences and struggles to find common ground in the ending, I am sure it would have been impactful. However, Avatar and its sequel just served as what would come to be wrong with movies and franchises as of late: Distracting the audience with visuals while feeding them half baked ideas.
Basically, Eywa is a mega-organism of unknown nature. She created all the species on Pandora through a series of microorganisms designed to clean up the environment, eliminate disease, and control wildlife. Thus there are no evolutionary pressures that break the "peace forced by Eywa. So, the RDA knows that micro-organisms will save the earth from its climate catastrophe. But there is a problem, although the earth still has many resources there are two that have been exhausted, oil and "rare earths", without the latter it is not possible to produce electrical circuits and all the technology of humanity is reduced to the steam engine, and in the process all the industries of the RDA collapse. Unobtanium is the only thing the RDA's economic system can support, so in order to obtain it they convince humanity that invading Pandora is humanity's last hope
honestly a real easy way to show that both sides have their ups and downs is in that seizure scene. Kiri has a potentially life altering incident that, despite the tribe's best efforts, cant be healed with natural means. the humans do however help. not just completely heal, mind you, they help her recover, with physical therapy, some type of mobility aid (they have exosuits, there's no way they dont have something akin to a wheelchair just more advanced), maybe medicine for her condition. its not an *immediate* recovery, but its better than what the tribe would realistically do, which is leave her at home and possibly abandon her if she's too much for the tribe to support.
I find it absurd that the story presents that human technology is enough to ENTIRELY REPLICATE the biology of a navi to the point that their artificial avatars can breed with them, but somehow they have any upper hand in any medical way
I feel like this would have been a great way to show how the two methods could have worked together. Maybe the technology identifies what the problems are but the humans don't know what to do about it but the Na'vi do have history with this sort of thing and now that they know what the problem is, there actually is a means within their own culture to cure it. By working together they could have saved her. Maybe they could avoided some side effects the traditional ways have.
It was already in that movie just to prove that alien voodoo is 100% more effective than evil human science
@@ReddFoxx1562 Knowledge about biology doesn't equal knowledge about medicine. I wouldn't know how or why humans would've collected as many medicinal studies and data about Navi that they could help in a specific anomaly as shown in that scene. It's not something that happens often with Navi, so how would humans know what it is and how to treat it? The last movie implied, that a ton about this planet, the neurological links etc is still not entirely understood, which is why they employed scientists to research it. We're not talking about humans trying to cure human indigenous folk, but alien indigenous folk. So what looks like magic woowoo to us might be just the very thing that works on this planet, who knows. I don't think the scene is as absurd or hard to believe considering we're not on planet earth in this movie.
@@megalodon4586 ....are you trying to assert that having knowledge in the field of biology would be completely useless to every doctor in a medical field?
If I am correctly informed, the next movie will be about the fire navi (inspired by the above mentioned raiding natives) and they will be the antagonist, while the humans will be trying to protect their new colonies full of newly arrived civillians. (Earth is bust, they have to go to pandora.) If this is all true, it will be a good if a bit late fix of these problems. (I was disapointed about this aspect of the previus movies too.)
Then well get the.. earth navi and the air navi. If he can churn them out before he dies ofc.
If the Na'vi were truly a peacable people, in total harmony with nature, then the concept of warfare would be utterly alien to them and there would be no need for any warriors. They wouldve been curmbstomped even harder.
Not daring to depict the more questionable side of native peoples is a pattern present in both fiction and the mainstream narrative in the real world. What's sad about that is that it dehumanizes them.
there were also natives who willingly followed the whites because they wanted revenge on other tribes who robbed and pillaged them in the past
Yeah, this is true for a lot of “progressive” media, so scared of portraying their minority characters in any negative light that they end up dehumanizing them. It sucks
@@neonbunnies9596 .. dude, stop copy and pasting.. you're only making your argument appear weak and wrong by doing that garbage.. it's not even that you're wrong, it's almost like you're just being obnoxious on purpose to make your point annoying and therefore dismissed all the easier..
Even if you didn't want to highlight those aspects of native peoples in the real world, I think they still could have introduced a nuance. Maybe there could be a realization that human weapons and technology are better than what the naavi have, and therefore the naavi characters could have developed a greed in obtaining that technology and stealing it from nearby tribes and humans. That's just human nature, so to speak, and it could have added some depth to the discussion of greed and man-made stuff vs nature.
yeah making all natives appear all bad or making all natives appear all good are both dehumanizing. instead of treating them like backward primitive people or like perfect paragons of nature who can do no wrong, what if we just treated them like actual people?
Avatar is just so shallow, everyone talks about how in-depth the nature and animals are but the universe is as shallow as a puddle, it’s like a good looking children’s book taking itself too seriously
I agree so much with this comment
Honestly, I think a movie that tackles this super well is Princess Mononoke. It shows both sides and I just can't hate or prefer any side because I understand both.
@@naruchancutie1 I think the reason so many Western films end up so black and white is Christian influence, that attaches the good and evil dichotomy to everything. When you watch films from Asia, you're more likely to see films without an antagonist. Heck, the film Hero has the assassin and the assassin's target coming to agree with each other.
Yeah, the second movie really smacked me in the face with those recoloured water dinosaur models and coral reefs lol
@@Edax_Royeaux Yet many black and white stories are beloved. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter...
This is why I love Andor, because it shows real people on both sides of the story. You really get a sense of many people working for the Empire who are simply trying to live their lives, like you described in your video. The Empire was not created from scratch by only recruiting evil people. Nearly everyone working for the Empire was previously working for the Republic. When the Republic was changed into an Empire, it wasn't some unexplained magical instance of every person who used to work for the Republic are now suddenly evil. Andor makes that clear by showing the different levels of society and how individuals on each social strata react differently to the new regime.
And what you said about writers disproving their own ideology is why I love the Daredevil series (the original 3 seasons, that is). Other characters in Daredevil's life constantly confront him about whether or not his methods are sound. There is an underlying theme of Daredevil's actions stemming from internal pain as opposed to pure and noble reasons. When he first meets Punisher, you can see Daredevil aggressively confronting him for how he does things, and yet his issues with him are very similar to what other characters in Daredevil's life have actually been confronting him about.
When Daredevil speaks to Punisher, you can feel him projecting his own pain and intentions onto Punisher, and his louder-than-usual speaking voice adds to this feeling that Daredevil is in denial about his own personal methods and aims his judgement outward instead of inward like he should. Absolutely brilliant in my opinion. The show doesn't take the side of any particular character, but instead zooms out to analyze EVERY character's intentions--and I mean EVERY. The show can feel like it's more about competing ideologies than competing characters--yet the writing makes every character so real and 3-dimensional that you are sucked into the story without feeling preached at.
The lack of research and knowledge about the Avatar universe, then proceeding to make sweeping statements is astounding. They are hardly presented as completely virtuous: in the first film, Neytiri said how the first Toruk Makto united the fighting clans, then in the second film Neytiri has scars on her face which is reported to be from a battle with another Na'vi clan. Moreover, the third film is showing a 'fire' Na'vi clan that are meant to be 'evil'. I am really passionate about the franchise and have watched a few critiques of the film, and most are based on lack of knowledge and improper research leading to incorrect conclusions.
I also think Jake Sully is just not a very compelling character in the first movie. He didn't have much reason to send with the Na'vi at first and certainly didnt have much of an arc. The second movie gave him more motivation to do things
His brother would have been a better protagonist. (I think he was a botanist in love with nature)
Yeah, we know nothing about his life in earth other than he was in armed forces and lost his legs...
An absolute example of lazy writing.
no, don't give the second movie props for giving him the bare minimum of having him act as a parent. he's still a boring waste of space and so are his children and so are his beloved blue people. it's teaspoon shallow trash.
I dunno. I hate him even more in the second movie. He is like a toxic father
He’s a mediocre character that nobody cares about
When I watched Avatar 2, I had a strong impression that there ALMOST was an arc for Sully, but the writters just didn't notice it? In how, even though still very militaristic in a very human way, Sully was determined to 100% fit in whichever Na'vi society he landed on, no matter what - even at the cost of his family's well being. When the kids were bullying his kids and then his son almost got killed in a prank and everything, and yet he kept saying "apologize, we are guests here", instead of being actually concerned about them. What good is being "hidden" for safety if your son is gonna be pranked to death? Is it really worth it?
Of course, in the end they and the sea Na'vi just became bffs, so like, yeah. But that though just kept popping into my mind while watching.
Oh yeah, also there's the way the adults didn't seem to care about the human kid at all, with him even being threatened at the end. I kept thinking maybe the kid would switch sides, or in the end when he already didn't maybe he'd leave his father to die since he realized he does more harm than good at this point, but nada. Nothing of it is ever adressed. He pretty much just leaves the guy alive for Sully to have to kill him again in a third movie or something
Yeah thats a good point actually, looking at sully in the second movie did kind of piss me off, because he has no trace of human left in him, he just becomes an apologiser trying to fit in as much as possible, and that sends a pretty shite message to the audience
@@etherdeef4303he is basically trying to culturally assimilate and that is the most shitty way I have seen some one assimilate into a culture.
@@etherdeef4303One would even call that a traitor to his own species. Like instead of learning from the Na'vi and bettering himself and his own species, he just joins them because...humans are evil? Great message lol, be a traitor to your species.
It's why you can't take this movie seriously in any way.
@@etherdeef4303 nah, sully became more human than ever in the 2nd movie. Raising his kids so incredibly human, being a misogynistic ass.
The message is right: humans are shit and forever will be.
“Great art sets out to reveal the truth, whatever that truth might be” is a RAW af line that resonated with me as a creative more than anything I was expecting from this video
Oh my god, the sugorney weaver's character nearly dying in the second movie and the shamans being unable to do anything for her to the point that they have to go to the humans to get a cure could have been such a compelling twist on the approach he took till now.
I can think about a lot of reasons that’s a terrible idea:
• as an American Indian, we drove a bunch of animals extinct before Europeans came-as did Aboriginal Australians, a number of Asian cultures, and the nomadic European peoples. Humans have never lived in balance with nature, because we are part of nature (and thus change it).
• we are trying very hard to preserve species that colonists drove to near-extinction, but also those that we neglected. Because we have a lot more tools now.
• making indigenous cultures the ideal means that often people accept things they shouldn’t, or at least accept things they hear uncritically. For instance, not every AmIndian tribe has more than two genders, but also not every one with two genders disallowed trans people before the Victorian era. For something easier to swallow, the Navajo haven’t had a modern female leader, but they may have historically, depending on who you ask and which sub tribe you’re a member of.
• it’s sometimes just much more interesting to explore what these cultures really ARE if you’re going to waste four movies on it
Edit: also I could tell you exactly why I hate these movies. It’s just the white savior trope. Literally just the white savior trope.
So you're a racist.
Whiteman bad
Did well it until you went woke at the end. How is it a White savior trope, you know the world's actual minority, when the overwhelming vast majority of villains in these movies are White? It White btw, not white.
Are you white if you are in a body that is not white, or human at all? And what other chance was there? Someone defected. It's a common arc. What's the harm? Sadly, Jim spent too much time building the world and had to cut out the scenes about the characters, but those deleted scenes are publicly available. Once you see what was cut out, people are a lot less 1 dimensional (still not good to have them out of the theatrical cut in the first place).
Jake literally changed species. And don't forget that Jake was constantly moving the plot forward by giving information to the RDA - he's the reason they had accurate maps of Hometree. So is it really white saviour? Or is it a character arc independent of basic tropes? It's up to interpretation but I've given you my thinking.
Avatar's issues are proof why EXECUTION MATTERS. You can have great ideas for themes and stuff but if you don't execute that properly, its not going to be that good. And I think Avatar's problem with execution is best highlighted by comparing it with Princess Mononoke, which is what Pilgrim pass did in his video. PM actually served as one of the inspirations for Avatar and have similar themes and ideas. But its the execution that drastically set them apart.
It had actual nuance by showing how some people benefit from the modern world compared to how things once were, in the movie it was the women and lepers who were given a place in iron town under lady Eboshi.
I studied this film in my final year of school and dug into every ideology and I always found the IMPLICIT reading of the films far more interesting. On a base level, the EXPLICIT reading of environmental connection and conservation is very basic and missing some sensitivity. However, I think this is because James Cameron's focus was actually the IMPLICIT meaning. He was HEAVILY inspired by the Vietnam War. The Helicopters in the film are designed like Hughey Helicopters used in the Vietnam War and the sound effects are taken DIRECTLY from the sound of Hughey Helicopters.
I think James' true Goal was to criticize the 'Industrial Military Complex By directly copying the basic layout of the Vietnam war. It highlights the American greed and need for senseless war against other people purely in the pursuit of money. The deep-rooted connection between the American economy and military use. The similarity between the NAVI's ability to use their environment to help them fight the Army who are so focused on technology and cannot navigate the jungle, is a direct comparison between the soldiers of the American and Vietnam Army's. He makes a mockery of the American military but unfortunately, that message is very lost on American audiences.
He undermines his own message by making Jake Sully the hero of the film. A white, ex-military man who was injured in service becomes the savior of the environment against senseless war. He puts a lot of effort into saying that war driven by the USA's greed is stupid, to then undo it byt having the protagonist who "saves the day" be exactly like the people he is trying to criticize. So the audience instead disconnects from Cameron's criticism and sees themselves in Jake, who then becomes the good guy. the "good old American who always fights for whats right" when EVERY OTHER AMERICAN MILITARY PERSONEL IS EVIL in the film. It causes the audience to just skip over an entire message.
As someone who was enamoured with the Avatar films, aside from a basic plot line, my main problem with Avatar is the Na’vi themselves. They feel like a mish-mash or cherrypicked cultural identities from POC that are boxed into cute, completely innocent characters that are digestible to a western audience. Hell even the character designs reflect this. One of Neytiri’s original designs had 4 eyes, for crying out loud. That would make sense considering most animals on Pandora have multiple sets of eyes but noooo we gotta make her attractive to human men 😗
Dawn of the planet of the apes would be a good example of your pitch for an improved avatar film. It gets you on the apes side, but also gives a case for the humans side aswell.
Also Princess Mononoke.
Definitely
The Way of Water and the Planet of the Apes movies are already mostly the same writers so I am not sure you would be telling them anything they don't already know.
@@kinera - Cameron remains as the main writer.
@@kinera not even close, dont compare this blue shit with POTA
I went to watch Avatar 2 with my mom for my birthday this year and when we left, she was quick to point out that we don't see any disabled Na'vi, which begs the obvious question of how do they treat their disabled?
There are a lot of things I generally like about Avatar (well, mostly the worldbuilding, the story is bland at best) but Kiri's seizure really struck a nerve with me, since I had just lost my little brother to a seizure less than a month prior. At the moment it was incredibly triggering, but now in hindsight I kinda feel insulted by it and the implication that the cardiac arrest could've easily been fixed without our high-tech machinery
En el deep lore de Avatar se explica que la "medicina tradicional" de los Na'vi no es producto de la evolución, fue creada por Eywa específicamente para ayudar a los Na'vi. Contienen una serie de micro organismosb diseñados para reparar a los na'vi. Esto hace imposible enfermar a un Na'vi, por eso tienen que usar potentes neurotoxinas en puntos específicos para matar.
keep in mind that pandora is the most hostile place known to man kind, there are probably disabled na’vi but they likely don’t survive dispute the clans efforts.
as far as kiris seizure… the navi have very different body structures then humans and in the movies they are using technology based on humans, because when the events of the first movie take place not a single navi was willing to be the RDAs guinea pig and allow them to deeply study how their brains work. they allowed them to take dna to make the avatars but that’s it. and mind you juri was being taken care of the physic who have connections with eywa so they likely know more then humans.
Right, the problem with that is that the commenter wasn't complaining about the internal logic, but about its implications. The internal logic can be wonderful, but it's worth jack if its allegorical & metaphorical implications aren't good.
@@ruesneptune
No. They don't know more then humans. Not even regarding themselves. These Navi don't even know what their eywah is. The humans do. The Navi think it's some god. Of course they do, they're neanderthals essentialy. They don't know anything. And they don't know a thing about themselves either. Humans can clone a god damn Navi and put their own mind in them. We are quite literally comparing stone age people to space aliens. You can't point at a neanderthals and claim he knows more about his own biology then some space alien would. It's a space travelling alien. It will have every biological fact regarding the neanderthal figured out in two seconds. Meanwhile the neanderthal will think he can save himself from poison by rubbing his cheeks. (Which are literally the case in Avatar)
@@ruesneptune If they can literally make Avatar bodies and download humans into them they know their biology inside and out already. If they didn’t know how their brains work Jake wouldn’t have woken up being able to think and speak and reason, or he wouldn’t have woken up at all, and we wouldn’t have had a movie.
Anti-consumerist and anti-industrial messaging in a very high budget, highly merchandisable movie, made with very powerful computers, by a major corporation that relies on highly developed infrastructure just falls flat as hypocritical.
Well, no... It's not Dances with Wolves in space.
It's Disney Pocahontas in space; which is just Dances with Wolves; which is just historically inaccurate real Pocahontas.
So it's actually the *4th* level of lazy abstraction telling the same damn story.
...Don't mind my username, I just wanted something with a pun, but I did bother to learn the source material.
Had they actually given a damn, there's plenty of indigenous stories and creation myths from all over the world that have never gotten the mainstream attention they deserve, but gods forbid a high-budget film in this century have any kind of originality or risk involved.
I'd recommend some Central-African parables, for instance. They've got some really solid ones.
Also, the plot point of 'Unobtanium' being critical for stopping environmental collapse on Earth through enabling fusion power IS CANON - but it's only mentioned in the tie-in videogame, which to my understanding had a plot that was signed off on by James Cameron himself... It just... Never made it into the movie proper, for some inexplicable reason.
nah, the worst crime these movies commit is sometimes confusing people when you're talking about the last airbender.
With the ideas of for and against you bring up, it’s why I find the idea of Spider as a character interesting. He represents a way to show how the Na’vi aren’t perfect, how his silent rejection by them shows that they cannot accept someone like him. How he represents two worlds and neither can fully accept him as he is.
With the direction Cameron is going it looks like this aspect won’t be explored which is a massive disappointment. I would love to see a character represent the balance between the two ways of life.
I disagree! (with your last concern, at least).
Spyder's inclusion is obviously intentional, especially for that reason. I don't think it's any coincidence, either, that he is so involved with Kiri -- another character caught between two worlds (being the child/reincarnation of Dr. Grace). They're clearly meant to compliment and contrast each other.
This essay seems to ignore that, in my opinion, so that it can make its points without having to address all nuances that don't support its conclusions.
I really hope I am wrong. What irked me a lot was how the movie just kind of glosses over that Spider is tortured and then is maimed by the people he suffered to protect and wants to be like with all his heart. His character is incredibly fascinating because of this imo.
I would love the next movie to address this exactly like I imagine but I’ve learned to take a grain of salt with Cameron’s sense of nuance and subtlety.
I think this essay does have some good points though. A more complex humanity would be more interesting. They hinted at this slightly with Ardmore (female general) mentioning that she’s not here for resources but to ‘make Pandora the next home for humanity’. That would be so much better to show, that everything humanity is doing is because they need to save as many people as they can. Money brings them to Pandora because Earth is dying. So every dead Tulkun and every piece of mined Unobtanium (or whatever resource they do next) represents dozens of lives saved with the money it makes from the highest bidder.
That to me seems like such an interesting idea. I’m just not sure if Cameron is thinking about it like this from what he’s talked about. But again I would LOVE to be wrong.
Well in th next avatar they're going to introduce an evil Navi clan. This was always th plan. So all this complaining is a waste of time.
@@kevinhowe3280 I don't completely agree with the video but I think we should only talk about what actually exists in movie form. It seems too easy for the writers just say 'this or that is coming in 5 movies time'. That's too much of cop out
@@scalpingsnake I mean it's already been shot. Avatar 2 and 3 were shot simultaneously and James thought this entire story up years ago from a dream. They have an entire biology made up for this planet but ok
I viewed avatar 2 as a story about running away from your problems, or avoiding them, won’t protect your family. As those problems you flee, or avoid, will find you and your family.
No wonder why I still chose the humans instead of na'vi in the avatar game
Human v Navi feels a lot like Harkonnen vs Fremen. What made Dune such a good book was the fact that the interaction it focused on was between those two factions but mainly on both of their relationships to House Atreides, which was led by a person with a moral compass who (at least in the books) was also manipulative and very vocal about the littlest things he did to garner positive public opinion. The Fremen were also realistically described as a society with their own strengths and flaws
You hit the nail on the head with this. I feel like in a way, Leto I. is used as a moral compass throughout the entire series. Everyone is judged in relation to him, his enemies are the villains and his friends are the good guys and his descendants' worth is judged by how much they are like him (Miles is considered the perfect man and soldier precisely because he is Leto's spitting image). This could backfire easily, but a brilliant thing that Herbert did was that he doesn't compare the other characters to Leto as a person. He compares them through the eyes of other characters to the image of Leto they have in their minds. Leto is this fixed point of moral goodness because that is how the other characters see him. He is a complex character with many dark aspects (like the manipulative tendencies, anger issues, pride etc.) in addition to the good ones, but when he is used as a point of comparison to other characters, it is through the eyes of Jessica, who loves him, Gurney who would lay down his life for him, or Stilgar who greatly respects him as a leader. Even in the later books, he is looked upon as the epitome of all that is good about the Atreides, but again, that is the legend, the mythologized version of him.
Herbert manages to have his cake and eat it too by creating an incredibly complex character and then flattening him in the eyes of other characters so he can use him as a fixed point of morality.
I mean, that's not really what Dune is about, but okay.
Dune is more about the subsumption of cultures, thinking people, etc . . . Into a Messianic Cult of personality that is under the control of nobody, not even the Messiah. To some extent, Paul's moral compass does not matter. A major theme of Dune is that even with his precognitive visions and insights, Paul cannot change certain aspects of the future without leading to unacceptable outcomes anymore than we can divert an avalanche once it has begun. The sum of decisions, the unleashed potential energy that began long before he was even born, cages his life and options.
It's a parallel metaphor with the biological systems of Arrakis itself. To change Arrakis into a garden world is to change it irrevocably by releasing the tremendous amounts of pent up energy within its biosphere, the cycle of the Sand Plankton/Trout/Worms.
You are missing the part where the Freemen sweep across the galaxy in a genocidal jihad and kill hundreds of billions of people and that Paul is absolutely appalled by this future yet finds himself incapable of avoiding it...
...so yeah freemen good, harkonen bad is not the story.
Yeah there was a recent video by Alt Shift X called ‘The Real Dune’, and it hints at how ppl misinterpret Atreides as wholly good. Its pretty clear that Leto himself used propaganda apparatus, he sends Duncan as envoy to negotiate with the Fremen, to use them as ‘desert power’. Important word being ‘use’. The Avatar movies are like the very superficial readings of Dune as white-saviour narrative. Anyone who thinks Dune is that narrow-minded should read Dune: Messiah. Those books know pretty clearly how complex the issue is beyond good or bad, and explores all the consequences of religious fanaticism and this white-saviour trope embodied in Paul. Avatar, on the other hand, indulges in white-saviourism completely
@@Bustermachine’that’s not really what Dune is about’. Okay dude. Its someone’s interpretation/analysis, and the political themes are fucking MASSIVELY evident in the book. There’s a lot of themes, you describe some of the environmental ones, but the OP comment describes the other sort. To deny one and praise the other is so stupid to assume you know the author’s sole intent. Dune: Messiah makes the political themes and moral ambiguity even more clear.
After watching someone else’s critique of Avatar, it occurred to me that Selfridge would be instantly more human if he learns that the board of directors back on earth intend to replace him because he’s “under performing.” And he learns this just as Jake Sully is arriving on Pandora
That would have been great, especially if they followed along with him being sympathetic to the Navi. That his sympathy towards them is slowing profits/isn't producing enough resources to keep earth alive, and that if he doesn't increase production then he'll be replaced with someone worse.
This is such a more interesting concept in general. Remove the concept of cloning and just have it be about Humanity colonizing Pandora to get the Unobtanium. Have Selfridge be the protag who brings his family with him to the planet, he loses his well paying job because he is too compassionate and doesn't want to fuck over Pandora and the Navi while mining for the Unobtanium. You could go the extra mile and have his spouse leave him behind to return to earth after the fact. So he says fuck it, straps on an oxygen mask and takes some tech to try to trade with the Navi in exchange for him joining them. Only to then find out he is not the only human who felt the same way.
Not only that but you could contrast it by having a Navi character who is willing to fuck over their own people and land for the sake of co-operating with the colonialists and profiting from their deals. There are plenty of historical figures throughout history that you could base them off of.
The Noble Savage is not only a horrible story trope and an ahistoric factoid, but it is also a disastrous philosophical position.
I just wanna share: I watched Avatar 1 for the first time a few months before Avatar 2 came out, I remember enjoying parts of it, but when it was over I was thinking almost exactly "I wonder what big mean white man will be the bad guy in the next one." To my surprise it was THE SAME ONE (but *blue*) lmao. It might just be a symptom of how bad the writing decisions were, but still.
That is recognizing reality not bad writing.
I feel like the lack of subtlety is really damaging, lots of terrible things that happen aren't caused by 'evil people being evil' but normal people making the choice that's easier for them and collectively adding together to cause terrible harm, removing all the nuance to this extent stops any examination of why people are making some of the decisions that look damaging
What harm could black-and-white idealistic thinking do? It's not like Cameron's message could possibly dovetail with support for freedom-fighters, who simply wish to return a far-away country to the stone age by smashing local government and industry.
That epilepsy scene baffled me so much, felt like they just dropped that plotline in an instant. Didn't realise that the shamen cured her
That scene pissed off the epilepsy community. Like GJ Cameron.
@@Ouchimoo v understandable, pure nonsense
Ironic since in many cultures epilepsy was seen as a sign of the gods for this person to become a shaman.
@randallbesch2424 no kidding, I thought she was going to be a direct link to Eywa considering she's hinted to be the reincarnation of the female scientists, Grace, that died in the first movie. She would have been an amazing shaman character.
Unobtainium being suddenly worthless makes no sense. The sequel claims that the brain juice was known about even during the first film, yet it wasn't a priority. Sure, it makes sense that it can be highly valuable, but no sense that unobtainium would be completely neglected just to keep the ultra-wealthy alive indefinitely. They are two completely different, and highly lucrative, applications.
Good video, lots of interesting things raised. I do have some additional things I feel might be worth noting though (I haven't watched the films but a lot of this is on the ideas you raised, not the content of the film itself).
The first thing I wanted to note was on morality of the two factions, how black and white it is, how to make it less black and white, but also pitfalls around that.
One of the biggest pitfalls you can actually have there would be making specifically the natives one big group.
I have a species in a setting I'm making called the Voropsy who are very low tech. There are many different voropsy socieites with their own traditions, cultures, dress, lifestyles, etc. from hunters of the forests who worship a god of blood and hunting and wear furs and hides and bone jewelry from their prey, to rich traders who clothe themselves in just gold ornamentation and promote story telling and theater in their culture, to nomads known for wearing vibrant multi-coloured garbs using dyes made from plants from all over their planet.
Doing it this way is a) more realistic, b) allows for a vastly more interesting setting, and c) lets you avoid the other major pitfall of putting accidental racism into your work via stereotyping.
Say in Avatar the director and writers did try to add things to the native's society to add complexity and make them not paragons of virtue, but those things happened to be cannibalism, human sacrifice, and being "savages." Well boom you just made them the racist stereotype of real world native americans. But lets say the native peoples were many different peoples. Well, now even if one has cannibals and another sacrifices natives from other tribes you avoid the stereotyping by not representing all the natives and all their cultures, but just being one culture with a bunch of others who don't do that, who have other issues and other virtues.
Would this be hard to do in 6 hours of content between the two movies? Yes. But it doesn't have to be a major focus with a dozen of fully fleshed out cultures. It could just be, say, three cultures where a lot of the differences were visual, where they aren't all fully worldbuilt to save on time, where only a few differences are directly called out when plot relivent, with other differences being alluded to with small interactions and stuff in the background, and maybe you could even have a subplot of two rival tribes who hate eachother having to set aside their differences to defeat the megacorp and struggle to do that.
The second thing I wanted to note was on the corperation as an antagonist/villain. This could work perfectly fine as you said, it just depends on how it's done. As I said before, I haven't watched the movie so I don't fully know how it's done, but I can expand on some things you mentioned.
The first thing is with poorer and developing nations having to do things that damage the environment, which is true. One way I could see this being incorporated is with the corporation propagandizing to its employees about now "It needs to do these things." You could then later have one of the employees defect after understanding it's propaganda. I could see there being a confrontation between them and a higher up who knows it's propaganda and goes something like:
The Higher Up: "I hate to do this as much as you, but we need to do this. So many nations on our homeworld need to. It's their only option." (reinforcing the propaganda)
Defector: "Are we from one of those nations?" (challenging the propaganda)
The Higher Up: (Remaining silent, unsure how to respond to the challenge)
Etc.
(Also yes he dialog is probably shit, it was written in like a minute for the example).
I do also like your idea for having it be that to save their species the humans NEED to harm another environment. They don't want to, but they have no other choice. However, that might not be right for Avatar specifically, it might be better as part of a different conflict for a different film.
Last thing I wanted to mention was specifically on the shaman healing scene because I think it could have been really good for showing how both sides (the technologically advanced and the ones in tune with nature) can have value with the simple changes of make medicine the answer but with help from the natives who better understand the way their body works. One has the technology to heal, the other has the knowledge of how to use it. I mean, afterall, even if you have advanced medical technology, it's not like you just immediately know the anatomy and shit for an alien species you just recently made contact with. I think it would just make sense in universe and add depth to the story and message.
15:53 I think what makes that scene not just bad messaging but outright dangerous is instead of using a fantastical medical condition or have the shaman use healing spoodge or something a medical EXPERT says conclusively that Kiri is having a seizure- a very real and life-threatening medical condition- then the shaman woman swats them aside and does- as TCL says- outright witchdoctoring with no actual medical procedures involved. At that point they may as well have treated a bullet wound by pulling it out (bad idea) or sucking out venom from a snake bite (also bad idea).
I immediately thought of the quack cures for autism and covid that have been going around the last few years, that moment made me feel sick.
Okay fine... Something you could say about Avatar, is that the Na'vi basically live in
an eco-theocracy of sort. Where religious leaders, like Neytiris mother are holding
the highest authority in society and the will of Eywa has to be respected, no matter what.
En el deep lore de Avatar se explica que la "medicina tradicional" de los Na'vi no es producto de la evolución, fue creada por Eywa específicamente para ayudar a los Na'vi. Contienen una serie de micro organismosb diseñados para reparar a los na'vi. Esto hace imposible enfermar a un Na'vi, por eso tienen que usar potentes neurotoxinas en puntos específicos para matar.
@@alisha8099 True but that moment could have shown how important it was to adapt.
But wasn't the point of this scene that whatever she had wasn't whatever the HUMAN medical experts thought? She got the 'seizure' from eywa, a literal planet. It looked like a seizure and could be thought of one, but the only thing that could fix her was a natural remedy. one from eywas creatures. We have to remember that while it's possible na'vi have similar medical issues to humans, they're still litterally aliens on a fantasy planet.
Kiri being diagnosed with epilepsy really annoyed me as I thought you know it might be at least mentioned in the plot again. I also was really curious how the bad guys would find them, like how many places would Jake let them invade before he revealed himself. But no they just used her having a seizure as an excuse to bring in the humans which therefore led them to their location 🙄 Very lazy screenwriting.
Well it was said that she should not connect with the home tree anymore or else she might die. Pretty sure that there will be a pay off and this is why they chose to write it like this. Using this setup as the reason for the humans to find them…that’s lazy especially when it could have been so much easier aka some tribe just knowing about Sully and telling the humans because idk…humans threaten to execute some children 🤷🏼♂️
pilgrims pass has a great video called "avatar vs princess mononoke: how to have a message" which i highly recommend
I am ok with the idea of the na'vi not knowing violence. But I would love if the movies pointed out how war changes them, makes them different, corrupts them, creating a message about how war itself and not the humans is the real threat.
I think you give a generous interpretation that Cameron was attempting to make a good story and wasn't actively making a piece of propaganda. I think Cameron is very, very aware that the story of his Avatar films so obviously falls into propaganda territory. The films are extremely reliant on the latest in technology to make, and he's used lots of advanced tech in all his diving endeavors. The propaganda is intentional.
Also, the character of Selfridge is probably a direct nod to Harry Gordon Selfridge - one of the pioneers of modern consumerism.
How does relying on latest and advanced Tech qualifies the Movies a propaganda ?
Isn't that more like Hypocrisy ? Calling for Primal Lifestyle while cannot function without several Non-Environmentally-Friendly Industries
It's strange that people who hate tribal films are people from white colonist countries. It's like asking Trump to be the spokesperson for Black Lives Matter. How about asking people from Asia, South America, and Africa? Avatar is widely beloved here in Asia and a huge chunk of its box office comes from here..
For me the problem with Cameron's writing is that he's refusing to let nuance enter the chat, so to speak...?
The issues involved, as they exist in our real world, have many complicated facets. E.g. yes we vitally need certain extractive resources to maintain a technological society. But no, they don't necessarily have to be sourced as destructively & exploitatively as they are now, and we don't have to use them in just constructing things which will break or be discarded in a year or two & then be unrecycleable.
Similarly, the colonialist territory-grabbing & refusal to consider compromise depicted amongst the corporate humans in Avatar is not at all unknown in our own world, and nor is the jingoistic violence of Quaritch? But they all come across as kind of cartoon characters because they too lack any nuance, seemingly not having been given any personality or background outside of these 2D flat characterizations.
My guess is that maybe Cameron's crew chose to oversimplify all their characters & messages so they could focus instead on spectacle and action? Again, not even slightly uncommon in blockbuster films!! 🙄 Just disappointing, as it would've been great to see a more thought-provoking plot that could rise to the level of those incredible visuals....
@@anna_in_aotearoa3166 I'm going to suggest that nuance isn't always to the benefit of a story. Or if it is, it might only be to show that not all nuance is genuine, sometimes nuance is just obfuscation. The reality is that the RDA and later the military enforcers of the second film are shown as callous and brutal because they are the pointy end of an extractive industry that is under virtually no higher oversight. Those are never friendly or nuanced at the pointy end.
A good example of this is listening to the CEO of 'Fair Phone' which has gone to great lengths to try and ethically source raw materials for their very repairable on long life supported smart phones. To their credit, they really do seem to be trying. But it is very hard and the results so far are imperfect.
He likened sourcing some of the raw materials they needed to trying to employ an addict while leaving that addict in an addictive environment. They got their supplier for one element to work with an ethical source, turned around, and six months later they'd switched back to a cheaper, more polluting, more harmful to their workers, mine in violation of their contract.
Now you can see that there's nuance here, but the nuance is not actually at the point of extraction.
And that's here on earth, where reporters and normal people could plausibly go and inspect these things. Pandora is in another star system and gate kept behind earth's small fleet of starships.
@@Bustermachine Good point re the need for (& lack of) oversight! If the contractor or subcontractor you've hired to do the extraction is operating not on an ethics-based model, but instead a shareholder-based one, then it seems highly likely that quick money will eventually beat out doing things right...?
Of course on earth we do try a range of solutions to restrain this tendency in terms of auditors, regulatory inspectors, embedded observers etc.... with mixed success. Interesting to contemplate how that might deploy in a multi-planetary context; distances would be exacerbated, but then presumably any society that could achieve sustained space flight would also have comms solutions that could effectively bridge that gap...?
A big thing people don't really consider is how little we knew long ago. I feel the medicine scene gets worse when ya consider the Na'vi probably don't even know how the stomach works, or what a lot of their own organs are for. They know their herbs and medicine and spiritual beliefs and weird magic, but they don't know how a brain functions or what's causing the systems in a body for the seizure. It's SO easy to go "Hey, long ago they had it alright" when you fail to realize what wounds, what troubles, etc.
Also, just go full Warhammer and own up to it. Make humanity completely evil, I love those trailers and videos that change the tone to humanity fighting against the Na'vi as being heroic. That'd be so cool.
My thing with the medicine scene is that like, Na'vi aren't humans, I don't know how much they should apply human biology/medical science to them
They're just as likely to solve a headache by drilling a hole in the skull and letting the demons out.
>warhammer
>humanity =evil
nice cope. we're the protagonists of that universe, and for as flawed as we are, we're the only ones worthy to stand the test of time there. or are you going to make up some copes around "muh tau"?
@@DioBrandoWRYYYYYY humans are 100% definitely evil in warhammer. everyone in warhammer is evil. that's the whole point. humans don't get a win just because they're the "protagonists", protagonists can still be the bad guys.
@@elizabethb4168 i think there'd probably be a more graceful or explicit way to handle that aspect, but yes, that's my thought too. na'vi are obviously gonna understand how to treat na'vi better (or at least, more reliably) than humans would.
I read about one of the movie’s themes and it says,”Understanding other cultures,” and yet Jake Sully was willing to abandon the humans who need the resources that the planet need in order to save Earth
I love the vehicals in avatar so much, and is probably one of the most well designed in movies, especially with the flying vehicals and that air raid scene
I watched "Avatar" in class recently, and I was watching the scene where they fight the military to defend their tree, and the tree gets destroyed, and I just thought, "Holy shit, this entire movie is literally just the Noble Savage trope!"
And white savior. A white dude literally comes in and saves the natives from their plight, disguised as one of them. It's Pocahontas, but if John Smith dressed himself as a native and painted himself to look like one.
Holy shit this entire movie is just dance with Wolves
@@qc6265did we watch the same movie?
Are we talking about the first one?
@@qc6265 dances with wolves is so different to avatar and the onto thing that connects them is a very very basic telling of a similar story. If you actually look into the characters and what drives them and the actual plot points in avatar and why they happen then you can see that it’s really nothing like dances with wolves. there is a really good video by localscriptman about avatar and he goes into why it works the way it does
When you mentioned the Medicine Woman bit and how she easily trounced future medical tech I had a thought to the old, live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, the Next Mutation. Yes, I know, not a favorite but hear me out.
Early on the new dragon based villains are using some elixir that seems to make one of their guys stronger. Much stronger. The turtles get a hold of it and analyze it; Donatello via science and new girl Venus via magic and... both come up with nothing.
Come the next fight Donatello realized *why* both of them couldn't work it out; it was a placebo.
Honestly, if you want Avatar done right look at Princess Monoke.
I think a good example of complex storytelling about the whole of a sentient species would be The Day the Earth Stood Still. Humanity as a whole is judged and found wanting. But the judge is made to see that the matter of Humanity's right to exist autonomously is much more complex because we're not just capable of Hate, Murder, Exploitation, Destruction, Depravity and Chaos, but also capable of Love, Bravery, Compassion, Posterity, Divinity, and Creativity.
As a big Avatar fan who has seen a lot of commentary on why people dislike the films, I think a big thing to consider is to not take the movie at face value. The viewer just has to understand that since both movies are in the perspective of the Na’vi, it’s obviously going to be biased in its portrayal, but when you look at it in its entirety, there is no black/white or good/bad side. The humans are fighting for a good reason, to protect the survival of the human race since Earth is experiencing catastrophic problems, but their methods often occur at the expense of others like the Na’vi. The Na’vi cooperate with some humans but their true intent is for the survival of their people and they don’t seek a long-term relationship with humans (they would get rid of them if given the opportunity even though they know what’s at stake for humans and Earth). I do agree however that I think a more complex (good and bad) portrayal of the Na’vi and humans could’ve helped make the movie more complete and could’ve helped character building. That’s why I think that moving forward, like how we saw in Avatar TWOW, the movies will show how the Na’vi are capable of “bad” things like Lo’ak being tricked into almost dying by Na’vi teens, how the Metkayina and other clans hold hatred for the humans, and the rumored villains of the third movie being a Na’vi clan (but of course there are not many details out yet). Also, even the “evilest” human Quaritch was capable of kindness since he gave up an opportunity to kill Jake Sully to save his son Spider since he loved him. I hope they do go deeper into Quaritch’s complexity about fighting against the Na’vi while also being a father, and how he could feel conflicted because of it.
It’s also important to note that there are many complexities that are cut out of the movies for the sake of time, especially in the first one, that I highly recommend people watch because it truly adds another layer of depth to the movie and it explains why certain events happen like why Jake turns against the humans, Selfridge’s character development, and “extra” scenes that add more substance to some characters like Jake, Norm, and Trudy.
Several of Hayao Miyazaki's movies explore humanity's relationship with nature and technology. Princess Mononoke as mentioned in other comments, but also Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and Castle in the Sky. Even Spirited Away has a brief message with the Stink Spirit / God.
Takahata's movie Pom Poko also explores our relationship with nature.
The movies explore these themes and issues without being preachy and so therefore remain entertaining. People can find them by looking but still just be an entertaining movie for those that aren't.
I wrote my university dissertation on Miyazaki's movies so analysed them to death.
A line from Dark Souls 2 that's highly apt about Cameron's motivations in his story decisions: "No matter how tender, how exquisite, *a lie will always be a lie.*"
Kinda like how the fanbase thinks having interesting lore automatically means the stories of the games are good when they are as bare bones basic as one can get
@@jeremyallen5974 Yes, the wikipedia approach to storytelling is definitely a flawed one.
@@cheezemonkeyeater not to mention the endings are lousy as well
@@jeremyallen5974 Are you talking specifically about Dark Souls? Because the ones I played seemed fine.
@@cheezemonkeyeater so long as you don't mind getting zero payoff for your struggles outside of a ten second clip that resolves nothing before smash cutting to the credits
The best movie I’ve seen with a message of don’t destroy nature is Princess Mononoke. It didn’t argue “man bad, nature good” but instead called for balance. It showed that the people of Iron Town needed to harvest the land to protect themselves from invading forces. They are only painted as in the wrong when they try to kill the forest spirit.
25:52 ...except that's what Unobtanium actually is.
They just forgot to prooperly explain it in the movies & also failed to write the humans as anything but strawman villains
During the holidays I vacationed at Malaysia Borneo Sarawak and stayed at an indigenous longhouse for a period of time. They were a great community, with culture and all that and they were very harmonious with nature and each other, and they also had a history with human head-hunting. Basically, merely a century ago, if you wanted to prove you were a man/adult in the community, they would have their adolescent men raid neighbouring villages and kill and cut their heads as souvenirs, doesn't really matter if the victims were old or young, man or woman, just bring back a head, and you are a man.
Yeah, our native guide admitted they were quite grateful that the Brookes helped abolish the practise.
interesrinf
I immediately threw my phone on the ground & destroyed the corporate hotel im currently staying in, the second i heard that i'd be happier without them. Now im joining the rebellion in cuba or guam or something. Thanks for the wisdom!
Glad to see your harmony with nature has restored your access to the internet and UA-cam to post this comment. Living with nature really does only provide good things and no form of recession in any way.
@@collectiusindefinitus6935 i keep having to destroy these phones
I attacked one end of a USB cable to my head and the other to a tree. I am now more enlightened and healthier than ever. I also plugged it into a cat and now the cat and I are able to talk to each other.
@@chazzitz-wh4ly wow i gotta try that!
Star Wars, for example, has several political messages. For example, in the first movie the rebels represent the Vietnamese and the empire represents the United States of America. And the prequels are primarily about that any democracy can be overthrown at any time if you are not careful and can become a dictatorship. At that point, the republic had existed for 1,000 years, 1,000 years of democratic government with 10 years of secret preparation, three years of secret execution, and the final blow delivered in just 24 hours, the democracy died
"wanting for nothing, living in perfect harmony" hehe is Cameron part of the WEF 🤣
Honestly, I think a movie that tackles this super well is Princess Mononoke. It shows both sides and I just can't hate or prefer any side because I understand both.
And Miyazaki managed that with one film barely over 2 hours, and yet Cameron still feels like he needs at least 3, close to or over 3 hour films just to get to that point for a change.
As someone who likes (not loves) these movies, I see why people hate these movies and see why people love these movies. To me why I like these movies because they’re a bit of a escapism, to engross yourself into a fantasy world and just enjoy the movie.
The people who love these movies aren’t really going in there looking deep themes or complex characters, they’re looking to just jump into the world of pandora and admire it without looking for anything deep and just enjoying the movie.
Not to say the people criticizing the movie is wrong though god no, these movie deserve criticism, they deserve to be be critiqued. Media, whether it be tv, games, etc,etc,etc deserves people to look deeper and actually criticize it.
If it’s just for escapism why not just make a fake documentary on pandora.
Even then part of the escapism is the characters and these characters are boring
@@Betito1171 Exactly, I'd love a docu. At least then the logic and plotholes wouldn't ruin the worldbuilding
Might be able to chalk this up to being like 13 years older now than I was when I saw the first Avatar, but I felt like the first Avatar movie succeeded better at being escapist. I think it's easy to relate to a guy in a wheelchair who occasionally tunnels into a more capable body and becomes free to roam a jungle on another planet with cool new animals to ride and a USB port in their hair. That's super cool. In the second movie, he's kinda just a dad with disobedient kids and I don't think they evolved any of the world's mechanics in an interesting way, so it didn't really capture my imagination as well.
@@thatcherfreeman the second one felt like the first one but just longer lol
@@paradoxtatorstudios9681 It probably doesn't help that I made the mistake of watching Avatar 2 in 3D and that made it harder for me to get immersed because between the HFR and the 3D glasses, it kinda felt like a video game. It looked better whenever I closed one eye lol
It's not saying good things about either movie that normally I'd be tempted to rewatch the first one just to see if you're right, but ngl, despite feeling better about the first movie when i walked out of the theater, I have no interest in rewatching it.
YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD PERFECTLY!!! I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS ABOUT THIS MOVIE FOR YEARS AND NO ONE HAS LISTENED TO ME! THANK YOU! 😭
You're one of the very few film critics who correctly pointed out the falseness of the "noble savage" myth, especially when it came to Native Americans. Most westerners genuinely believe that the natives were all good, peaceful people until the 'evil' European colonists came in and 'ruined' everything. I'm glad that you shed light on this topic.
I would like to suggest Sideways' video on Avatar as a companion video to this one. It's about the original ideas for the soundtrack, and how Cameron "colonized" the fictional culture of the Na'vi (particularly it's music) to better fit his ideas and bias of what tribal/ alien music sounds like
Chill out. He was making the most expansive movie ever made. Avatar franchise are movies for the masses. This is not James Joyce.
@@sebastian11346 Oh no! someone critiques lazy writing and Cameron's hypocrisy in his work! How dare you engage with the media you consume!
@@crazydragy4233 I dont even know what that means.Can you be more specific?
@@sebastian11346 his work isn't free from criticism just because he spent a lot of money on it
@@TheDinisPT Agree. Of course i agree. Avatar has many critics for more than ecade now. But i think it is important to remeber that these are expensive movies. And i choose to defend him (Cameron), before everything, beacuse these are very expansive movies.
A major reason they are hated rather than just disliked and ignored is how it's pseudo depth was pushed hard by the film industry, fans, and Jamees Cameron. If it had been "Hey, here's a film with great special effect and a fashionable message about nature and capitalism," then at worst people who didn't like it would've just said it sucked and moved on. But then we got articles about how it was some sort of spiritual awakening. People started having post-Avatar depression, wanting to off themselves to be reincarnated as a Navi, spending all day at the theater watching the movie over and over. Avatar fandom became a cult, and this was promoted by the press and James.
Myeah. People love to go on about the internet hate of things but usually there's 3 times as many people adoring the thing just as extremely and "illogically"
Wait what that actually happened?
@@spectroelectro3772 Yeah lol, people we're genuinely obsessed with Avatar when it came out. Painting themselves blue, getting into jumpsuits and all sorts of weird stuff
@@crazydragy4233 Why am I not as suprised as I should have been?
@@crazydragy4233 bro that's just a normal fandom thingy, have you evet heard what a cosplay is, smh ppl really running out of things to hate
I genuinely think that Cameron might be one of the best world builders out there but as a writer, I’m pretty sure I’ve met better writers in highschool
People love a struggle. Whether it's between rivalling ideologies, characters and their morale or a world between itself, the Struggle (TM) is something that's been essential to a story since the gladiators tackled lions.
Avatar has no struggle. It's as shallow as it looks, unless you're looking for a movie that presents a new world with factions and varying characters. And based on the marketing of the films & the game releasing soon (just found out about that), that's all they focus on.
It's simply a matter of reluctance to engage with the story and stay in the worldbuilding process. That's their biggest setback.
It's sad because Avatar, visually, is one of the best movies I've ever seen, but the writers failed to meet the same standard set by the art team. If the writing was good as GoT or LoTR it could've easily been one of the best films ever made.
The movie had no 'writers' it is 100% a James Cameron vision both in the visuals and plot. It just goes to show how incredibly lopsided the mans talents are.
I mean, the writing of your two examples isn't exactly stellar to begin with, so Avatar isn't that far behind in that sense.
GoT and especially LOTR are great because of the genius minds of Martin and Tolkien. It’s not a shame for Cameron to „lose“ against writers like that.
@@philipmelaas317 Bro said Tolkien's works aren't stellar ? 💀 Please go pick up a book bruh
My biggest issue with the films remains how the RDA is shown to have such great tech. And its only a fraction of humanity. Yet they engage in such dumb actions which they shouldn't need to.
Like they have the tech to reach other solar systems, build a well defended city within months with automatons. Why not use the same tech to colonize Mars and/or Venus (flying cities).
Or they have the tech to fuse alien/human beings, can clone entire bodies and make you functional immortal by having a Back Up of your entire concisnoius. Why do they hunt the whales for immortality brainjuice? Can't they reverse aging with their awesome biotech? Or produce the brain juice syntheticly or via just clonening the part of the brain which makes it?
ironic part is that the rock they need too mine in the movie is important cause earth is close too being on its last leg. but this first film never addresses it, most people later found out about this from the video game tie in movie logs or scenes that hint about it