Analyzing the Arguments in Avatar

Reading the first sample paper, I was struck by the writer's observations about Toy Story.  I had never analyzed the film because it's a kids movie; I viewed it as being escapist and nostalgic rather than critical or rhetorical.  I can see that the screenwriters had used exaggerated comparison to be funny, but I'm not sure that they were trying to prove a point about families.  Science fiction, on the other hand, usually contains a message hidden within the story that can apply to the viewer's life.  But movies don't always work on both levels, sometimes the meaning is valid, but the movie isn't entertaining, and sometimes the story is entertaining, but the meaning is lost in the setting or special effects.  The latter is the case for the movie Avatar, a film with incredible animation but lacking a coherent message, mostly because of the Cameron's failure to effectively utilize exaggerated comparison.

There are conflicting messages in Avatar from the beginning.  The music has strong African influences, Pandora's vistas are a rain forest, and the protagonist is a Caucasian veteran.  On face value, one might think that the movie is about racial inequality, because the Na'vi seem to be distinctly third world, and all of the humans seem to think that they need to be educated and westernized.  The trouble with such an argument is that there are people of all races in positions of authority within the ubiquitous and unnamed “Company”, from African American, to Indian, to Hispanic.  Therefore, all of the exaggerated comparisons that could be made between these backwards blue aliens and Native Americans or Amazons or Africans do not seem as valid.  Yes, these individuals who work for the Company have been homogenized, but they do remind us of the failings in our own history that we disapprove of in the present, so surely they have been overcome in the future, as well.  That they haven't seems unrealistic, leaves the viewer wondering how these Humans can be as ignorant as Cameron claims.

As it turns out, in the future, everyone is equally taken advantage of by the Company, and the economy is still down, despite the fact that the Company can afford to make “a significant investment” on spaceships and clones.  Cameron falls back on an old cliché for his bad guys, which has gotten a little old after using it in both Aliens and Titanic.  The viewer can immediately draw several parallels between Avatar and Aliens, whether it be the evil and removed Company with a far reach, the Marines that are eager to kill aliens, the hydraulic robots that sentries are strapped into, or Sigourney Weaver strutting around telling us that The Powers That Be are idiots.  But one starts to wonder just how bad the economy is, if they've got a monopoly on Pandora mining this rare ore, and somehow have the ability to fund a huge military operation, on top of the even more expensive scientific one.  Some viewers probably won't be able to get past the Company and its employees as antagonists, and yet the protagonists work for the Company, as well, while we're left wondering why the Company (or at least their mercenary branch) completely ignores the scientific findings that they've spent so much on.

The military presence is problematic:  Marines are stupid and will follow any orders that the Company might give, we're led to believe.  So being violent is wrong?  Maybe not, because the Na'vi turn out to be warriors, exceptional ones, though they have strong religious ties to Pandora as a nature goddess as well.  Which is an odd direction to take the story in, in a way.  Of course the backwards natives are religious, one might think from a modern perspective, and yet they revere the environment, which is what we are expected to do in real life, as well.  Only, somehow, the Company and military seem to have forgotten that, despite the fact that they have purportedly already destroyed Earth's environment.  So now Cameron is not only insulting the military, but the viewer as well.  We're so stupid, that we're destroying the planet on purpose, even though we know what we're doing, both now and again in the future.  The odd thing about his position is that most people in the military are more conservative and religious.  I suppose that would make them anti-environment in his view, but wouldn't they also be more likely to recognize the Na'Vi as also being religious?  Which could open an entirely different can of worms with conflicts around the world, but he somehow dodges this by making it seem as if all Humans are now religious-neutral, instead of making this just another repeat of westerners trying to convert the natives to Christianity.

This does not change the fact that, at the heart of the matter, Cameron is arguing that Nature is aware and should be elevated to a god-like status.  The Na'Vi are able to interface with horses, pterodactyls, hammerhead buffalo, panthers, and even trees.  The trees make one huge brain, with the power to give life.  So how does this compare to our own planet?  Anyone who has seen the Lion King knows that we are connected in a Circle of Life, but everything about Pandora is carefully orchestrated and interconnected in such complex ways that it's rather hard to believe that such a world could exist without being designed to be so.  If there is an Eywa, is he also arguing that God, or at least a god (perhaps Mother Nature), exists?  It's all rather vague, and he never answers the question.  Instead, the outcast soldier rallies the warriors to defeat the technologically superior Marines, which leaves the viewer feeling skeptical that such an ending is even probable.  Still, he poses interesting questions.