Thoughts on James Cameron’s Avatar and “Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out”(jseliger.com)
jseliger.com
Thoughts on James Cameron’s Avatar and “Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out”
http://jseliger.com/2009/12/27/thoughts-on-james-camerons-avatar/
9 comments
"I didn't take this movie as either anti-corporate or anti-technology."
Agreed. I think many people are reading way too much into this plot. Sometimes a story is just a story.
Agreed. I think many people are reading way too much into this plot. Sometimes a story is just a story.
I haven't seen it yet, but I assume it's just a regurgitation of a "noble savage" story.
I want to make a movie about a technologically and culturally advanced people who encounter a primitive race. The primitives have high murder & infanticide rates, endless stupid tribal wars, etc. The technologically advanced people force assimilate or drive off the primitives and live happily ever after. The End.
I want to make a movie about a technologically and culturally advanced people who encounter a primitive race. The primitives have high murder & infanticide rates, endless stupid tribal wars, etc. The technologically advanced people force assimilate or drive off the primitives and live happily ever after. The End.
Watch any old western :)
There are, fundamentally, two different ways to approach science fiction, exemplified by Star Trek and Star Wars. The "Trek" style uses a "weird" setting to enable social commentary that would otherwise be either unpalatable or simply impossible. In the "Wars" style, the "weird" setting is the whole point: the reader/viewer can witness world-building on a grander scale than would otherwise be possible, and the plot can include elements that the audience would never otherwise swallow.
There's almost always some crossover between the two, but it's important to remember that each is very difficult to do well. Very few artists are skilled at both. A work that tries to focus on both, as Avatar does, usually fails.
Avatar is an excellent example of world-building, on possibly a bit too grand a scale for a movie: there are a handful of things that should have been explained away or lampshaded, but the explanations just wouldn't fit into an already-too-long movie. Where it falls flat is in its attempted social commentary.
There's almost always some crossover between the two, but it's important to remember that each is very difficult to do well. Very few artists are skilled at both. A work that tries to focus on both, as Avatar does, usually fails.
Avatar is an excellent example of world-building, on possibly a bit too grand a scale for a movie: there are a handful of things that should have been explained away or lampshaded, but the explanations just wouldn't fit into an already-too-long movie. Where it falls flat is in its attempted social commentary.
I would imagine that the limited resource on earth would sell for an incredibly high price before getting depleted. Thus Earth would become a conservationist society, careful not to waste resources or produce too many humans.
It is hard to imagine that the incentive for space travel to find new source would be outraced by extremely fast usage of resources.
Plus there are asteroid belts to mine, and probably tons of them in the system that that Avatar is occupied.
From my political perspective, this is mostly a libertarian film that pit a peaceful tribe who rightfully homestead the island against a fascist corporation that was granted evil government privilege.
Though I can't help but think that most people will think this is about environmentalism and planting tree and that greedy evil free market corporation ruins everything.
It is hard to imagine that the incentive for space travel to find new source would be outraced by extremely fast usage of resources.
Plus there are asteroid belts to mine, and probably tons of them in the system that that Avatar is occupied.
From my political perspective, this is mostly a libertarian film that pit a peaceful tribe who rightfully homestead the island against a fascist corporation that was granted evil government privilege.
Though I can't help but think that most people will think this is about environmentalism and planting tree and that greedy evil free market corporation ruins everything.
Now let's not let realism get in the way of a good movie! Every story gets a few points where you suspend belief, then the rest has to make sense in that context. For this one, let's say that it's an exotic material that has only been found on Pandora. Unrealistic, but so is the fact that the aliens are humanoid shaped.
"Capitalism won when it learnt how to sell anti-capitalism."
I think I read that somewhere...
I think I read that somewhere...
I saw the movie yesterday, and I also watched "District 9" yesterday. I'm kind of amazed at how the 2 movies approached the same basic idea - humans oppressing aliens - and ended up entirely different. While I enjoyed all the visual effects of Avatar, I think District 9 had a more interesting treatment of the idea, mostly because it was less utopian.
District 9 is a movie about refugees made by a refugee.
(spoiler alert)
A lot of the themes and messages in Avatar are very common in science fiction, in particular the parallels with the story of Dune are striking:
- greedy corporation seeks to exploit a resource with little regard for the native population (spice/unobtainium)
- saviour from same race as greedy corporation is accepted into native population and through a mythical prophecy, becomes leader and unites tribes against greedy corporation
- native population and their natural habitat are massively underestimated and through help of saviour defeat greedy corporation
A lot of the themes and messages in Avatar are very common in science fiction, in particular the parallels with the story of Dune are striking:
- greedy corporation seeks to exploit a resource with little regard for the native population (spice/unobtainium)
- saviour from same race as greedy corporation is accepted into native population and through a mythical prophecy, becomes leader and unites tribes against greedy corporation
- native population and their natural habitat are massively underestimated and through help of saviour defeat greedy corporation
This is a bit off topic, but I related Avatar to Rudy Rucker's Postsingular. Same theme of technology becoming irrelevant when faced with superior natural/supernatural alternative, which I think reveals what we subconsciously desire, try and fail to create with technology.
Just like Postsingular made me wish someone would figure out how to strum the "lazy eight", Avatar left me wishing life on Earth came with an organic USB cable.
Sorry if there's a spoiler in there...
Just like Postsingular made me wish someone would figure out how to strum the "lazy eight", Avatar left me wishing life on Earth came with an organic USB cable.
Sorry if there's a spoiler in there...
Cameron's thinly veiled message clearly seemed to be that the corporations are out to destroy the earth and everything green causing overpopulation. The whole thing seemed kind of juvenile, especially when you consider the abundance that has been caused by corporate competition, which has in turn directly lead to decreasing birth rates in developed countries. The two factors, overpopulation and corporations destroying the earth for resources, are contradictory.
I think people are reading too much in this movie. The only message from Cameron I got out of it was; wow look at all the cool things I can do with computers, I can make glowing plants and dinosaurs fight fighter jets. How awesome is that!!!
The story was entirely incidental to showing off cool tech and exciting action scenes. We might as well discuss his anti-technology stance in Terminator 2.
The story was entirely incidental to showing off cool tech and exciting action scenes. We might as well discuss his anti-technology stance in Terminator 2.
I disagree. Corporations don't have to have any goal to "destroy the earth" or "cause overpopulation". Pursuit of short-term profits while externalising the risks and wastes is bad enough. If you consider the "the abundance that has been caused" you should also consider the common tactic of trying to ignore and hide the drawbacks (e.g. tobacco industry) and drag feet on any effective action to change thigns (e.g. recent Copenhagen climate conference).
The changes advocated at Copenhagen only make sense if your financial future is tied to either green tech or carbon trading. If the stuff was economically viable or offered
an attractive alternative (e.g. Tankless water heaters never run out of hot water. Plugging in a car should be much cheaper and easier than visiting
a gas station.) it wouldn't require legislation.
If the stuff was economically viable ... it wouldn't require legislation
I think you're missing the point if what I said. Lots of things are economically viable to a corporation if it can externalise the downsides (either by dumping the wastes or getting a bailout when it make mistakes) or simply get the legislation that favours it (google "oil industry tax breaks" for an example).
You can't get away from legislation. Bailouts are legislation. But making polluters pay requires legislation. There is no mythical free, unlegislated market that will magically do the right thing. There's only good legislation and bad legislation.
I think you're missing the point if what I said. Lots of things are economically viable to a corporation if it can externalise the downsides (either by dumping the wastes or getting a bailout when it make mistakes) or simply get the legislation that favours it (google "oil industry tax breaks" for an example).
You can't get away from legislation. Bailouts are legislation. But making polluters pay requires legislation. There is no mythical free, unlegislated market that will magically do the right thing. There's only good legislation and bad legislation.
Don't polluters already pay? The proposed measures are designed to curtail carbon emissions, aren't there already supply side taxes on carbon generating fuel sources like oil and natural gas. Has carbon actually been scientifically proven to be the sole driver of global warming? By scientifically, I don't mean using a computer model with fudged numbers generated by interested parties with poor programming skills. If it isn't testable and repeatable it also isn't science. The models have made predictions that haven't matched reality thus far, why would we believe they are going to start matching reality in the future?
Aren't there other more pressing forms of pollution than CO2 emmisions? What about strip mining, particulate emissions, and methane? Is this really about curtailing emissions, or creating a lucrative secondary trading market and taxation system to benefit people like Al Gore who are both heavily invested in carbon trading, and part of the legislature.
Aren't there other more pressing forms of pollution than CO2 emmisions? What about strip mining, particulate emissions, and methane? Is this really about curtailing emissions, or creating a lucrative secondary trading market and taxation system to benefit people like Al Gore who are both heavily invested in carbon trading, and part of the legislature.
Whoah, that's a whole lot of rant you've got pent-up in there.
this was submitted by the author himself only 19 hours ago:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1018100
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1018100
It's more anti-military / anti-imperialism than anti-corporate. Yes, the bad guys are a corporation, but I get the feeling that they did that to make the film more marketable. Americans probably would have a much harder time cheering for the aliens who are slaughtering US Marines. But very little about plot would have changed had the bad guys been military instead of a private corporation.
As for anti-technology, I think it's more about the dangers of abusing power of any kind, including the power that technology lends us.