Welcome, brothers and sisters, to the To Infinity Retrospective, a series I created in preparation for Rise Of Skywalker. On the first day of each month, I review a different space opera. Why, you ask? Simple. I do it to send the sky people a message. I do it to tell them that they can’t take whatever they want, that they can be stopped, and that this, this is our land! And what better way to convey that message than through a review of this month’s film, Avatar. What’s it about? Well…
In the future, mankind has colonized the distant planet Pandora. Because the environment is poisonous, special bodies, or Avatars, modeled off of the local population, must link to human minds to allow for free movement. Jake Sully, a paralyzed Marine, is able to walk again through one such Avatar, and falls in love with an indigenous woman, Neytiri. As his bond with her grows, however, Jake finds himself drawn into a battle for the survival of her world.
Guys, you’ve seen Avatar. Probably more than once. I myself saw it twice when it came out. To date, it’s the highest-grossing film of all time. But why? You could argue that people just liked the pretty visuals, but there are plenty of films that have good effects, and don’t make money. Or you could say, “well James Cameron directed it, and people like him,” but even James Cameron films aren’t entirely bullet proof. (The Abyss, anyone?) So why’d Avatar, a film about giant blue cat people, do so well?
Well, I have a theory. I believe the reason for Avatar’s success was the fact that it told a simple, focused story in a new way, and that new way, coupled with the revolutionary effects, appealed to people. There are many scholars who argue that there are only a set number of narratives in existence, and what makes stories unique is how you retell those narratives. Avatar is a primary example of this. Its plot is a basic riff on the “going native” storyline that we’ve seen in Dances With Wolves and The Last Samurai. Unlike those films, however, which were about real cultures, and had sad endings where the heroes were unable to stop the advance of time, Avatar takes place entirely on a fictional world, and has a happy ending. People like happy endings, and they like movies to not be racist. And while I’d argue that neither Dances nor Samurai is intentionally racist, by having the culture Jake is learning about be entirely fictional, Cameron’s able to avoid offending anyone. Yes, the characters of Avatar are one note, it’s politics are anything but subtle, and Sam Worthington’s American accent is uneven at best, but Avatar tells its story effectively and functionally. It shows Jake changing at a gradual, believable rate, there’s enough time to see the world and learn about the local culture, and the story never gets bogged down with too many characters or subplots. It’s simple, focused, and clear. So yeah, Avatar isn’t a truly unique narrative, but nothing really is. And with its happier ending, and revolutionary effects, Avatar is able to bring something fresh and crowd-pleasing to a familiar formula, which I truly think is praise-worthy.
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