The Truth About the Avatar
James Cameron’s Avatar has been under heavy scrutiny since its debut at the box office. Many have attributed its success to nothing more than stunning visual, distracting audiences enough for them to overlook a poor storyline and terrible dialog. Its disappointing night at the Academy Awards, where it failed to win Best Picture or garner James Cameron as Best Director, only added fuel to the barrage of attacks from online blogs and movie critics. The same critics who at one time condemned the Academy for failing to properly recognize cinematic achievement, are suddenly all on board, and praising them for making the right choice in their selection. A movie should be considered a great film when it captures the audience’s attention – whether through imaginative visuals, intriguing plot, or compelling dialog – send a message that makes the audience think, and does it with flair in a way that gives those in attendance a new experience. Avatar easily carries all these qualities.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Visually, Avatar is astounding. Over 10 years in development, it’s obvious the time and effort by James Cameron was well spent. With a budget over $300 million US and new technology developed for the movie, it created animated characters with facial expressions and features identical to those of the actors while they were filming the scenes. The movie features a world (Pandora) with vibrant colors, amazing computer integrated scenery, and employment of 3D industrial holographic technologies. A movie can be a wonder in many different ways. Because it favored a particular element, it should not lend credence to it not being a great movie, or seen as only visually entertaining. One must inspect all there is to realize the beauty within Avatar.
To realize its greatness is to remember one very simple fact, one so simple that most consider it trivial. However, it is of tremendous importance that we remember – Pandora does not exist. Pandora, nor its inhabitants, is real. The wildlife, the exotic plants, the Na’vi and how they interact with nature were all created by James Cameron for Avatar. In other words, this world’s origin is James Cameron’s wildly imaginative mind. The world of Avatar displays wildlife with unique characteristics – trees that glow upon contact, fungi that engulf itself when in danger. The movie also introduces a new form of humanoid-animal interaction via nerve endings between hair and tails. Let us not forget the Na’vi dialect developed solely for the movie.
One, especially as a movie critic, must not fail to recognize that a movie can achieve legendary status in many ways. The critic must realize that a great movie does not always need to have an original story, or dialog so witty that the audience will quote it for years to come. A great tale can be told through words, visuals, or character development. Telling it through one over another does not make it a better story or worse.
The telling of the lore only needs to spellbind the audience and instill some kind of a moral message enough to better the watchers’ lives. Avatar brings audiences on the edge of their seat for the entire 162 minutes, and makes it feel like a 90 minute film. All the while, it delivers a sermon that questions our morality in the face of profit. Avatar is a great film, but not because it was shot in 3D, or featured animated characters with an uncanny resemblance to real actors. It is a great film because it embodies the characteristics that all great films possess.