The Problem with Avatar, Part 2

[mild spoiler alert]

I am as free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

John Dryden, 1672

As noted before, the chief problem with James Cameron's Avatar is the writing, and all kinds of derision should be heaped upon Cameron for his unoriginality and also upon the cinema-going audience for lapping it up like groundlings.

The writing especially pales in comparison to the outstanding movie-making done here, the special effects, the cinematography, the pacing, etc. So much is done well that the artificial dialog, the jarring plot conceits, and the crude caricatures really stand out.

The plot is unabashedly similar to Dances with Wolves, FernGully, or Pocahontus. So similar, in fact, that some call the movie "Dances with Thunder-Smurfs." The plot and its resolution is terribly familiar, well-worn, and simplistic. We've all seen this movie before… except here the two sides have even less nuance. The evil side is shamelessly sinister, an army of sociopaths. Yet the noble savages are universally angelic, incapable of corruption.

In fact, this is where we stumble upon the real problem. Cameron is blinded to his bad writing by his philosophical position, i.e. that civilization is inherently evil, especially compared to the "Noble Savage."

For 300 years or more Western culture has seen its liberals, who are embarrassed by their advantages and prosperity, decry evil civilization (of which the liberals still enjoy the benefits) in favor of the "Noble Savage" who supposedly lives a life of peace and harmony with nature. What a bunch of hooey.

There have never been noble savages. Like Charles Dickens wrote in 1851, "[The Noble Savage's] virtues are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense." People everywhere are sinful and corrupt, they lie, cheat, and murder, without the need for technology or civilization to corrupt them.

But Cameron must believe in the Noble Savage, as Avatar presents the primitive people of "Pandora" as incorruptible. Indeed, the movie could be seen as a type of conversion story, the ignorant killer reborn as noble enviro-saint. Perhaps this reveals Cameron's own longing, or Al Gore's. [Note that both of these men are rich white guys with huge houses and private jets, but don't worry, they're deeply conflicted about it.]

If Cameron had wanted to write a better movie, he would have included natives that were traitors to their own people. They could have been giant, blue, cigarette-smoking, alcohol drinking scouts for the soldiers. The evil humans would still be evil, perhaps all the more so, but at least the blue people wouldn't be so one-dimensional. Cameron also missed a chance for the character Tsu'tey (the younger male tribal leader) to become truly jealous and driven by that jealousy to do something terrible. Nope, Tsu'tey gets over the fact that an evil, lying, alien stole his girlfriend and destroyed his home and becomes the alien's "brother" because that alien flies a bigger pterodactyl. How noble.

And totally unbelievable.