Thundersmurfs are blow
Friday, 8 January 2010 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtSo, Avatar. The current Big Thing. The guilty pleasure that everyone is raving about because, yes, well, script not up to much, but gosh is it pretty and also groundbreaking 3-D and motion-capture technology yadda yadda. I went into this expecting a lousy script but a lot of pretty - I was perfectly open to being seduced, hell, I swallowed the shiny blue roofies all starry-eyed and waited for the inevitable from the nice man with the big gun whispering all the sweet nothings about the size of his budget. Except...
I hated it. God, I hated this film. This is possibly the only big-screen experience I've ever had where I've sat there for the entire duration thinking "God, I hate this" at approximately ten-minute intervals, and I should tell you I've sat through George of the Jungle with a tolerable degree of amusement. Also, given that Avatar clocks in at over two and a half hours, that's a lot of ten-minute intervals. That was one truly god-awful sophomoronic script: I was outraged by the triteness of its clichés, offended beyond belief by its politics, nauseated by the fact that it dared to proffer itself as science fiction in any sense of the word given how very deeply unthinking it was. And not only did the world-building blow goats, I didn't even like the much-vaunted visuals. I am very deeply horrified by the fact that it's generating Oscar buzz.
Let's get the politics out of the way first. I've built a completely unsuccessful but bloody-mindedly satisfying academic career out of refusing to do postcolonial theory at any price, but apparently it's settled on me over the years, like dandruff. James Cameron seems to have brought it to attention, quivering. That, kiddiewinkles, was orientalism in action. That was the Noble Savage, that was. See their excitingly undeveloped civilisation! see how they live in tune with Nature, with a capital Nate. See how they need the Great White Hero to save them, because they're all tree-huggy, which is good! but means they can't save themselves! because technology is bad but ours and therefore good! and only knowledge of it will save them! They're all tree-huggy and anti-killing but of course they have to fight, because that's the only possible way to explore conflict and incidentally make a massively block-buster jingoistic scumwad film! See how they use their cute, exotic bows and arrows and flying reptile things, and die, like little doomed blue Smurfy rag dolls, when you throw all this exciting masculinist giant clunky technology at them. Kapow boom blood fire destruction of priceless habitats stylish shots of horse-things in flames, this is really evil but isn't it fun?!. Oh, and they're pretty and feline and exotic, if very, very primitive, and the Big White Hero gets to screw the native women, too. Did I mention I hated this film? Christ, I hated this film.
This is, of course, the plot of Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves or The Word for World is Forest: even the glowing reviews have noted how done the script is, how it's been told before, and better told by anyone I can think of off the top of my head. The lame and laboured rehash of any colonial bloodbath, past or present, has absolutely no validity unless it offers us some kind of new insight, new emotion, new lesson. Otherwise it's perilously close to self-satisfied wallowing. Gosh, look how we've improved, we almost never do that sort of thing any more, and we're properly horrified at all the naughty people who do! But it's OK! Your film doesn't have to have any more than 2-D heroes and villains (and, dear God, was that Colonel a giant great lumbering stereotype with an extra helping of trite) if it has 3-D visuals instead!
This was also not good science fiction. Giant elongated blue catwalk models with tails and Spock ears do not an alien nation make. I was expecting wonderful things of Pandora's landscape and creatures, and they were... pretty. In a sort of lame, expected way that was altogether too close to Earth. I mean, here's the result of a legendarily arse-busting, stupidly huge multi-million-dollar effects budget, and all I can think is that the film's a bit unimaginative? Primitive nature-worshipping natives, check. Floating mountains, check. Horse-analogues, check. Mystic Communication With The World, check, and hel-lo Sheri Tepper, you did it a lot better and more numinously. Dragonriders of Pern (thanks,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
smoczek), check, and oops, who the hell let them in here? Reptile things. Rhinoceros things. Star Trek aliens, i.e. humans a different colour and with odd freckles. Remember Alan Dean Foster's Flinx series? Try Mid-Flinx for a jungle planet with colour, weirdness, difference and a sense of genuine threat, which Pandora actually didn't have, being composed mostly of pretty floaty things, odd noises, bioluminescence and perfectly ordinary large-scale trees.
I don't actually have a problem with the particular brand of science fiction which abandons all real scientific coherence in favour of a good story: Doctor Who, for example, generally pulls that sort of thing off with aplomb. But in order to do that you need to focus on the emotional and conceptual implications of the story, which needs to be, you know, actually good in some ways. Avatar made a half-assed attempt at rationalising the Na'vi's interaction with their world (oooh giant planet-wide neural network!) but absolutely none at rationalising why they're basically people who've gone through a combination of Willy Wonka's blueberry de-juicer and gum-stretching machine. And in terms of any self-aware use of the classic sf tropes and themes he's plundering: gosh, no. Adaptation to the avatar is instant and satisfying, no exploration of the alien or alienation. No real attempt to grapple with Sully's paralysis and the implications it has for his embrace of the avatar. This was not about consciousness, culture or even colonialism, it was about creating a pretty world and setting fire to it, repeatedly and loudly.
And the 3-D? Non-event, in my book. I liked the little parasol floaty things, but they were a bit insubstantial to carry the film.
It's official, children: the human race has lost the cultural plot. We're doomed. We're at the stage where we're wallowing in our own bloody colonial history with the sadistic abandon of five-year-olds pulling the wings off bluebottles, and we accept it enthusiastically because it's in the name of more proficient tinkering with computer whizzbangs than ever before. This film made me cross and frustrated and nearly burst trying not to erupt out of the cinema in a shower of diss immediately thereafter, thereby wrecking everyone else's evening. I'm more than somewhat piqued that everyone else got the enchantment thing and I seriously didn't. I wanted that enchantment - I wanted to be able to submerge myself in the embrace of a wonderful world for a couple of hours. Guess not.
I hated it. God, I hated this film. This is possibly the only big-screen experience I've ever had where I've sat there for the entire duration thinking "God, I hate this" at approximately ten-minute intervals, and I should tell you I've sat through George of the Jungle with a tolerable degree of amusement. Also, given that Avatar clocks in at over two and a half hours, that's a lot of ten-minute intervals. That was one truly god-awful sophomoronic script: I was outraged by the triteness of its clichés, offended beyond belief by its politics, nauseated by the fact that it dared to proffer itself as science fiction in any sense of the word given how very deeply unthinking it was. And not only did the world-building blow goats, I didn't even like the much-vaunted visuals. I am very deeply horrified by the fact that it's generating Oscar buzz.
Let's get the politics out of the way first. I've built a completely unsuccessful but bloody-mindedly satisfying academic career out of refusing to do postcolonial theory at any price, but apparently it's settled on me over the years, like dandruff. James Cameron seems to have brought it to attention, quivering. That, kiddiewinkles, was orientalism in action. That was the Noble Savage, that was. See their excitingly undeveloped civilisation! see how they live in tune with Nature, with a capital Nate. See how they need the Great White Hero to save them, because they're all tree-huggy, which is good! but means they can't save themselves! because technology is bad but ours and therefore good! and only knowledge of it will save them! They're all tree-huggy and anti-killing but of course they have to fight, because that's the only possible way to explore conflict and incidentally make a massively block-buster jingoistic scumwad film! See how they use their cute, exotic bows and arrows and flying reptile things, and die, like little doomed blue Smurfy rag dolls, when you throw all this exciting masculinist giant clunky technology at them. Kapow boom blood fire destruction of priceless habitats stylish shots of horse-things in flames, this is really evil but isn't it fun?!. Oh, and they're pretty and feline and exotic, if very, very primitive, and the Big White Hero gets to screw the native women, too. Did I mention I hated this film? Christ, I hated this film.
This is, of course, the plot of Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves or The Word for World is Forest: even the glowing reviews have noted how done the script is, how it's been told before, and better told by anyone I can think of off the top of my head. The lame and laboured rehash of any colonial bloodbath, past or present, has absolutely no validity unless it offers us some kind of new insight, new emotion, new lesson. Otherwise it's perilously close to self-satisfied wallowing. Gosh, look how we've improved, we almost never do that sort of thing any more, and we're properly horrified at all the naughty people who do! But it's OK! Your film doesn't have to have any more than 2-D heroes and villains (and, dear God, was that Colonel a giant great lumbering stereotype with an extra helping of trite) if it has 3-D visuals instead!
This was also not good science fiction. Giant elongated blue catwalk models with tails and Spock ears do not an alien nation make. I was expecting wonderful things of Pandora's landscape and creatures, and they were... pretty. In a sort of lame, expected way that was altogether too close to Earth. I mean, here's the result of a legendarily arse-busting, stupidly huge multi-million-dollar effects budget, and all I can think is that the film's a bit unimaginative? Primitive nature-worshipping natives, check. Floating mountains, check. Horse-analogues, check. Mystic Communication With The World, check, and hel-lo Sheri Tepper, you did it a lot better and more numinously. Dragonriders of Pern (thanks,
smoczek), check, and oops, who the hell let them in here? Reptile things. Rhinoceros things. Star Trek aliens, i.e. humans a different colour and with odd freckles. Remember Alan Dean Foster's Flinx series? Try Mid-Flinx for a jungle planet with colour, weirdness, difference and a sense of genuine threat, which Pandora actually didn't have, being composed mostly of pretty floaty things, odd noises, bioluminescence and perfectly ordinary large-scale trees. I don't actually have a problem with the particular brand of science fiction which abandons all real scientific coherence in favour of a good story: Doctor Who, for example, generally pulls that sort of thing off with aplomb. But in order to do that you need to focus on the emotional and conceptual implications of the story, which needs to be, you know, actually good in some ways. Avatar made a half-assed attempt at rationalising the Na'vi's interaction with their world (oooh giant planet-wide neural network!) but absolutely none at rationalising why they're basically people who've gone through a combination of Willy Wonka's blueberry de-juicer and gum-stretching machine. And in terms of any self-aware use of the classic sf tropes and themes he's plundering: gosh, no. Adaptation to the avatar is instant and satisfying, no exploration of the alien or alienation. No real attempt to grapple with Sully's paralysis and the implications it has for his embrace of the avatar. This was not about consciousness, culture or even colonialism, it was about creating a pretty world and setting fire to it, repeatedly and loudly.
And the 3-D? Non-event, in my book. I liked the little parasol floaty things, but they were a bit insubstantial to carry the film.
It's official, children: the human race has lost the cultural plot. We're doomed. We're at the stage where we're wallowing in our own bloody colonial history with the sadistic abandon of five-year-olds pulling the wings off bluebottles, and we accept it enthusiastically because it's in the name of more proficient tinkering with computer whizzbangs than ever before. This film made me cross and frustrated and nearly burst trying not to erupt out of the cinema in a shower of diss immediately thereafter, thereby wrecking everyone else's evening. I'm more than somewhat piqued that everyone else got the enchantment thing and I seriously didn't. I wanted that enchantment - I wanted to be able to submerge myself in the embrace of a wonderful world for a couple of hours. Guess not.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
The little parasol floaty things were the enchantment
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:24 am (UTC)Re: The little parasol floaty things were the enchantment
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:44 am (UTC)Though I'd have preferred if he'd gone with lion-centaur avatars like in Poul Anderson's original story.
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:48 am (UTC)I can forgive a bit of dubious science or plot convenience if most of the rest of the movie (or book, or whatever) is so good that the bad part is forgivable. I handwave Star Trek's science because I love its space opera politics. I handwave Doctor Who's science and the recent conceit of everything being All About Earth because I really like some of the stories (although I still loathe RTD's incoherent finales and can't wait for Moff Tiem.). I liked the Underworld movies in spite of all their silliness and ripping off of WoD -- partially because they portrayed an ass-kicking female hero with a noncombatant male romantic interest, which is a rare and precious trope inversion.
It's a lot harder for me to ignore bad characterisation, obnoxious politics or a blatant lack of plot logic. I can't unsee them. No matter how pretty the movie is, I can't enjoy it and I definitely can't immerse myself in it if I *can't believe the story* because it is screaming "hello, I am a bad movie plot".
Everything I know about Avatar and everything I know about my reactions to previous movies makes me pretty sure that I would have about as much fun watching it as you did. So I won't. :)
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 07:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:00 am (UTC)Derivative Avatar plot summarised - theme toon!
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:01 am (UTC)Re: Derivative Avatar plot summarised - theme toon!
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:12 am (UTC)Re: Derivative Avatar plot summarised - theme toon!
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:17 am (UTC)Dammit, I thought I was being all stoic and repressed and stuff. Really, really didn't want to inflict my hatred on y'all. Still haven't forgiven the Idiot Depressive Ex for deflating my giddy high after the first LoTR by dismissing it comprehensively in two sentences as we stepped out of the cinema. I wonder if he has any idea how close he came to death.
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:22 am (UTC)Except my line of "bad plot destroys pleasure" is drawn a bit differently to yours - I also really didn't like Star Trek, for similar plot-related reasons. God, that thing was full of ginormous holes. At least its politics weren't as bad, though - I actually enjoyed bits of it, unlike Avatar, where I would have enjoyed feeding its bits through a wood-chipper. Chortling.
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 09:46 am (UTC)The correct response to Bean: The Ultimate disaster Movie does not permit this reaction because by the time 10 minutes is gone, so is the viewer.
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 10:18 am (UTC)More to the point - why were the na'avi the only Pandoran animals without 6 limbs and blowholes? On a light-gravity planet (actually, a planet where gravity seems to be optional) why so many animals with lots of sturdy limbs?
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 10:26 am (UTC)Avatar II, III
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 10:40 am (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jan/07/james-cameron-avatar-sequels
Re: Avatar II, III
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 10:46 am (UTC)At least I can boycott them. Or, if dragged protesting to the cinema, make sure I watch them drunk.
no subject
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 12:32 pm (UTC)So far, I'm passing off all zoological inconsistencies with the argument that the entire ecosystem (including the world-brain) is clearly the product of conscious alien design and tinkering. At least, I hope that's where the sequels go...
ETA: extemp, your Captcha codes are particularly surreal today. It seems to be asking me "who ninnies?" plaintively, to which I can only reply "Me, for needing to justify the ecology of a made-up world to myself"
that's no moon.
Date: Friday, 8 January 2010 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 10 January 2010 04:55 am (UTC)My burning question (and I admit the logic I had beaten into submission with drugs may have been surfacing at that point was this):
The floating mountains right...they float... and the way they got to the floating mountains was through the "vortex" or by shimming up those vine bridges. So if the major battle is in the floating mountains I'd love to have seen the bit where all the rhino/dinos shimmed up the rope bridges--that would have been cool.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 10 January 2010 06:02 am (UTC)"Bush doof" is my new favourite term. I assume "doof" from the "doof doof doof" of the trance beat?
Someone agrees with you on Avatar!
Date: Monday, 25 January 2010 01:15 pm (UTC)Worst movie of 2010
Date: Saturday, 1 January 2011 09:50 am (UTC)Re: Worst movie of 2010
Date: Saturday, 1 January 2011 10:01 am (UTC)If it's any consolation, by this stage I can almost talk about Avatar without actually gnashing my teeth - at any rate,my immediate social circle have relaxed a bit about heading me off at the pass when it's mentioned. The pain does fade, apparently ;>.
avatar
Date: Monday, 21 May 2012 05:06 pm (UTC)(i have read your verses for stupid students already, so please do not beat me too hard for my possible inablity to form coherent sentences, my pointed refusal to use capitals - especially "i" instead of "I," or my occasional hopelessness at the more complex punctuation. i admit to keyboard laziness, the little "i" is an e.e. cummings fan-thing, and of course i am as bloody-minded now as i ever was as a youth - which was rather long ago now...)
dee
Re: avatar
Date: Monday, 21 May 2012 06:32 pm (UTC)i wonder,
Date: Tuesday, 22 May 2012 06:58 pm (UTC)x dee