Have Avatar Haters Lost Their Sense Of Wonder?
I walked out of Avatar confused, struggling with certain feelings. The special effects were amazing, I knew that for sure. The 3D, while not yet perfect, was the best I’d ever seen. On the other hand, I also knew that I didn’t care at all for the “characters,” all of whom are less substantial than the floating CGI dust particles on Pandora. The story was predictable and rote, although I thought Cameron told it well enough. Those two opposing opinions within me continued even after I finished my review, bleeding over into discussions in my personal life and online.
Since its release, Avatar has fueled a fiery and emotional debate throughout the online movie community. A majority of movie fans feel that Avatar’s wondrous, transporting effects and Cameron’s ability to tell stories trumps the lack of originality in the screenplay or the lack of depth to the characters. Meanwhile, a vocal minority has consistently hammered at the film’s lack of originality, the flat characters, and the lifeless storytelling. Of course, any movie experience is subjective, and no individual opinion can rightly “prove” itself to be absolutely correct. But, without a doubt, the massive box office numbers – in addition to the glowing reviews – indicate that most people are experiencing something transcendent in Avatar that we dissenters are not.
This bothers me a little bit because it hits me at the core of why I love movies. It makes me ask – have I fallen behind? Have I lost some part of my childish ability to be transported, to be enthralled, to be enchanted, to let myself go off into adventure blindly and willingly and disappear in a sense of wonder?
I certainly had that ability at one time. As a child of the Star Wars generation, I was hard-wired to suspend my disbelief and give in to wonder. Even as I learned more about the technical aspects of special effects, I was still able to turn the analysis off at some point and allow myself to transport into the imaginations onscreen. Films like E.T., Aliens, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park never fooled me with special effects, but I was able to give in to their power, suspend disbelief, and let my inner child roam in the fantasy of each film.
But I seem unable to do that with Avatar, and I’m not sure why.
The Avatar dissenters have a variety of arguments against the film, but most of them fail to work. The argument propped up against Avatar’s weak, derivative storyline does not work, because films like Star Wars and E.T. had been told a thousand times prior, but it never mattered then. While I believe the performances of Star Wars are much more enjoyable than anything in Avatar, the characters themselves are probably written about as well as those found in Avatar. Dissenters often point to the spectacle of Avatar overwhelming the derivative storytelling, but the same argument could easily be made for Star Wars and Jurassic Park. Haters also mention how manipulative Avatar feels, but the very same accusation could be leveled at E.T. or Jurassic Park. So what argument works here?
For me, I’m not exactly sure why I dislike the film. I know I didn’t really like any character in it except Neytiri; I cannot really name any trait unique to any other character in the film except that the helicopter pilot chick is Latino. The editing is not as crisp as in films like Star Wars, and, in terms of sheer transportation, there isn’t a single sequence in this film that feels as propulsive as the T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park, the bike chase in E.T., the truck/motorcycle chase in Terminator 2, or the final battle in Aliens. Still, those are very subjective aspects, and as criticism they do not really hold much weight.
But it is that struggle within myself that I find so disturbing. Has my inner child died? Have I lost touch with the youthful ability to lose myself in wonder? When I think back to more recent cinematic feelings of jubilation I’ve had – Pan’s Labyrinth, Children Of Men, No Country For Old Men, The Dark Knight – I realize that all of those films are darker visions. None of them operate solely on that childish level of pure fantasy; all of them have subtext, adult ideas that stimulate my adult thinking abilities. I felt transported more by the intellectual worlds of those films, rather than the physical fantasy worlds they inhabit.
And that’s a key problem. Although people have read much into Avatar, it’s not operating on a deeper subtextual meaning. James Cameron just wanted to create a kick-ass adventure film with his revolutionary digital toys. To sit through Avatar means to shut off your brain and let yourself be transported to a galaxy far, far away. It is a film made for children, or the children still existing within starry-eyed adults who tightly grasp their sense of wonder.
I guess I must have lost mine somewhere. I see all of the flaws in Avatar, but I feel no wonder. As I watch massive audiences move in and out of screenings of Avatar like joyous, exuberant tides, I secretly wish that my little child of wonder could return just one more time.
Good post. I didn’t dislike Avatar, but it sure didn’t blow me away. In fact, there are at least five films I saw in ‘09 that I enjoyed more: Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, District 9, (500) Days of Summer, Up In The Air.
I agree with those choices… I would add The Cove, Anvil, Up, Star Trek, and An Education to that list of films I enjoyed more than Avatar.
Hey, Ray, I talked a bit with you on this over on Jeff’s site… wanted to say, this is a good article, and I wish I had an easy answer for you, but it definitely happens. You could even blame Hollywood because, like you say, post-Jurassic Park, these sorts of movies have gotten darker and, so, your inner-child hasn’t been nurtured.
But, man, I really can’t go with you on ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’. For me, that movie was what all the haters are saying ‘Avatar’ is; the characters were incredibly one-dimensional, the story was simplistic, and the villains were all Obviously Bad (specifically Because They’re Fascist). But it sure looked amazing.
@sean – you seriously felt that way about Pan’s Labyrinth?? That’s hard to believe. The little girl was a fairly complex character, and so was the nurse character. I thought the “villain” was fairly complex as well; he was “bad,” but also was simply someone who was meticulous and demanding. I’m really surprised to hear you say that, since Pan’s Labyrinth is one of the best reviewed films of the past decade.
Great post, Ray. I had a very similar reaction to all three of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies – which clearly hit the sweet spot between the raging fans, critics and general movie audiences who made those movies such critical and box office hits. I enjoyed watching them, but never, EVER, in all of their 46 hours, felt engaged by them or their characters. What I hear now from the AVATAR-dissenters is pretty much everything I felt about the LOTRs.
Like you, I wondered why I was the problem, and what there was about me that had changed. But of course you’re right: we’ve changed…and the movies have changed. And society has changed. And history has changed. Ultimately we can’t really compare AVATAR with STAR WARS because not only are we not the people we were when we saw STAR WARS anymore, but nothing about our society is the same either.
True, the current younger generation of moviegoers are treated to cutting edge special effects in AVATAR, as well as a level of movie escapism that appeals to them and their sensibilities. Perhaps the thin characters and their conflicts reflect a lower audience standard of such things based on other forms of entertainment currently available – such as the simplistic and prevalent archetypes of reality television or the quickly-satisfied quality of human interaction available through social networking, texting, online porn, all of that.
If having high standards was easy, everyone would do it – so it’s fine to mourn your inner child. I guarantee you that something will come along soon enough to tickle it back into moviegoing euphoria.
@ Burbanked – God I hope you’re right.
Sometimes it’s OK if your inner child dies. Your inner child also thought girls had cooties and that black people were made of chocolate. Come on man, being an adult is sometimes a lonely thing.
@ Donte – Good point. Being white, I wish black people WERE made of chocolate … then they could just eat themselves rarher than use food stamps.
I’m joking, people!! I’m joking!!
sammyray: after some googling, I happened upon this post, and it’s a very fair appraisal of the aesthetic problems of avatar.
On my first screening, I cringed several times. I cringed when the phrase “shock and awe” was employed. I cringed when the smurfs gyrated in unison in their effort to save Grace.
But, I did get sucked in, and went back to watch Avatar in the theater four more times-more than I’ve ever done with any other film. And, in the process of being sucked in, I began to compare Avatar to Star Wars, and to revisit the latter with a more critical attitude (Star Wars IS hokey, after all, when you really look at it, so whence the staying power?)
More important than the more obvious/banal themes in Avatar (environmentalism, race narrative), are the more subversive ones: especially transhumanism, which plays right into the escapist effect of the whole: I went to see the film on my little down time during 70 hour work weeks, and its entertainment really put the hook in me at a certain point in my life.
To come to a point: I eventually hoped and managed to frame the whole bit in terms of Star Wars, which is inevitable for a person of a certain age. The first installment works as a stand-alone piece, but one hopes that things will take a turn for the worse in a second installment, to be resolved in an interesting fashion in the close. What I end up wanting, then, is an onanistic “re-enactment” of Star Wars. What’s more, I actually believe they can pull it off.
For me, two of the most recent “nerd-trilogies” strike sour notes: Although The Matrix Reloaded contains one of the best chase sequences commited to celluloid, there is little left to contribute to the juicy pop-philosophical narrative of the original. Best to have just left it alone.
As for The Lord of the Rings, it’s just so… grey. Yes, I read the books when I was a kid. The whole bit is so grey that I just don’t care. No accounting for taste, right? I bet I’m in the minority on this one.
With Avatar, hope springs eternal. An original (as it can be) story and franchise are directed toward sequels. Sequels which may yet further (and legitimately) cement the franchise within the lexicon, and better yet, earn the descriptor, “the new Star Wars.”
So, it’s like a new Toruk Makto, baby. Or at least I hope so. Anyway I had fun watching it.