I’ve heard all the criticism of James Cameron’s Avatar.
The plot is predictable.
The bad guys are two-dimensional.
Visual effects don’t substitute for story.
All this is true.
But Avatar isn’t simply a movie with great visuals that happens to be making a ton of money because people are shallow and love gimmicks.
Avatar is making a ton of money because it has incredible world building and audiences care about what happens to the characters.
In November, I attended an all day workshop given by screen writing teacher Michael Hauge. The workshop was an eye opener in a number of ways but the one lesson that keeps coming back to me is about how to get audiences to bond with characters.
One quick way is to create a sympathetic character. But that’s not always possible, especially if you’re writing a difficult character. The next way is to put the character in a sympathetic situation.
And look how Avatar starts….spoilers below the cut….
Jake Scully is staring down at the dead body of his twin brother. Not only that, the camera pans out as Jake and the audience watch his brother be cremated.
Jake, in a wheelchair, is watching his life virtually go up in flames as he’s about to assume his brother’s existence.
This is all done with visuals and restrained emotion, which is what makes Cameron a great filmmaker. He instinctively trusts the images to get his point across. He always shows just enough and never too much.
Cameron never says outright that we should feel sorry for Jake in the wheelchair who’s so useless to society that the only job he can take is to take over his dead twin brother’s life. But that’s the message.
Jake never feels sorry for himself but we know he bitterly resents his handicap. By the time Jake slips into his Avatar body, we’re rooting badly for him to walk again.
The moment Jake throws off all the med techs to experience joy, his story becomes the audience’s story.
We care.
At that point, we’re ready to forgive all of Jake’s reckless behavior later in the movie because we understand it. He’s a man who’s just figuring out how to live again.
Cameron is a master at doing this. Look at Sarah Conner’s first appearance in The Terminator. She doesn’t do anything heroic. She’s at her everyday normal job as a waitress and she’s not very good at it. But she’s confronted by a series of very demanding customers and a bratty kid who puts ice cream down her apron. We like her. We’ve all had days like that. Similarly, by the time the incredible visuals kick in in Avatar, we’re bonded to Jake.
And that’s where the world building takes over. It’s not just incredible technology and visuals on display. Cameron has done something much more difficult than that. He’s built an entire world and an entire culture that feels real.
It’s not just that the 3D effects make us want to touch the flowers and the dragons. We want to touch those things because we want to be with Jake on Pandora. This is because Cameron’s world is fully realized.
It’s a wonderful lesson for writers. World building matters. Characters can’t exist in white space. Settings will just sit there and look pretty but they won’t engage unless they feel as real to the writer as they do to the audience.
The visuals and the story are complementing each other because the world building and the special effects are fully integrated into the story, not some gimmick to enhance it.
As someone who’s been working hard on world building over the last year, this is a good lesson for me. And it’s not just a lesson that applies for those writing fantasy and science fiction.
What I learned while doing the final revisions of Above the Fold is that it’s not enough to put characters in a contemporary setting and describe the setting. The setting must be as much a part of the story as in any imaginary universe.
For me, that means it”s not just New York City.
It’s Trisha and Grayson’s New York City.
It’s not just the world of Pandora. It’s the world of Pandora as seen through the eyes of Jake Scully.
That’s why it works so well. That’s why people are going back to see the movie again.
Boy – was Avatar ever a big-screen example of everything Michael Hauge taught us! Even all the “I See You” stuff! 😉
Anyway, James Cameron is a master at creating a bond between viewer and character. He even manages to make love stories that women don’t have to drag men to see. 🙂
I liked your take on the cremation scene, but I also saw it in a different light. IMO, the coffin looked a lot like Jake’s future pod. I considered the crematorium and the pod setup both as transformational vessels. And yet Jake’s “trial by fire” would be in the pod which would allow him (spoiler) to be reborn on Pandora.
Yes. Cameron seems to have an instinct for the iconic visual and phrase. Yes, the Titanic scene of the bow became quickly parodied but that’s because it was so immediately striking.
Cameron’s a visual *genius*, he really is because he doesn’t just give us amazing visuals, he gives us amazing visuals that evoke intense emotional connection.
I like your take on the coffin/pod. There’s no reason two images can’t be evoked at once. 🙂 And there’s an echo back to that when Jake says at the end “it’s my birthday.”
“I See You” is going to last like “Come with me if you want to live,” even though it will likely get parodied as much. 🙂
I’m not disagreeing with what you say, since I do think our sympathy with Jake does indeed get us into the story.
But I’d also have to point to Zoe Saldana’s performance as Neytiri as what really takes us all the way into the new world. It can’t be easy acting in front of green screen AND with motion capture that is going to distort/animate your acting. Yet, it is Neytiri’s passions, and her emotional responses that cue us to the real significance and joys of Pandora. We feel with her as well.
You have got to be kidding.
While pretty, Avatar was one of the most predictable, shallow, and lifeless movies I have ever seen.
Many people have problems with it.
The feminists have some valid points about the women being merely props for the male protagonist and antagonists.
The Afro-centrists have valid points about the Navi (played by black and Native Americans) being saved by an unimpressive white man.
The movies buffs have valid points that it rips of Dances with Wolves, Ferngully, Dune, and The Last Samurai…. See More
Even the fan boys had valid points that the military strategy used to fight their battles was borderline retarded. And how does a tree which stops ALL transmission still allow him to use his body (which requires transmission)?
All these things are (to me) forgivable.
What is hard to forgive is the complete lack of character development.
There was no background. Why was he so unlike his genius brother? Why was he so interested in getting his legs back? The Answer: because he was.
Or the antagonist: why was he so driven? Did maybe his wife die to the Navi? Did he come from an environment where nature was something to be overcome? Did he feel morally driven to be the one to do so?
Or the businessman? Why was he willing to kill? Was he merely evil or did he see himself as doing the greater good? Did he even struggle with the choices he made on a merely pragmatic level?
At least these characters got some screen time. We didn’t even get a chance to imagine the Navi might have a perspective on what’s happening around them. Should they fight? Should they make peace? What are the costs of each? Completely ignored.
Every character is flat “Avatar” of their role.
In a good story, the hero must have a great (heroic) obstacle, they must attempt to overcome that obstacle, and they must be changed in the process.
There was no significant obstacle. He was never really shown to have difficulty learning Navi skills or ways. He never had any real moral qualms or psychological struggles. He wasn’t even at risk of suffering any physical harm!!
He was in no way changed by the end of the movie. He wasn’t kinder or meaner, more contemplative or even more rash, his military strategy didn’t even show an increased concern for the welfare of the animals and trees around him.
At the end of the movie, he is still the same stupid frat boy that wants to be the biggest and baddest, but he has decided that he can be bigger and badder in a blue body than a white one.
Obviously, I disagree. I thought it was pretty clear why he was different from his brother–he preferred action to thought and that stays the same throughout the story.
But what he does learn is that his actions have consequences, sometimes consequences that he can’t anticipate. He transfers his allegiance from a tribe that only cares about itself (the hired guns) to a tribe that cares about all living things. A much better use of his might, so to speak.
But, absolutely, not everyone is going to see it this way. 🙂
Skinner, I’m not going to say you are wrong about your points. Frankly, I consider the script itself to be mediocre at best (and so the fact that it won a Golden Globe as a “best picture” irritates the heck out of me). But the fact remains that the story is indeed touching a lot of people, and it would be stupid, as writers, not to look at why it is doing so.
Yes, the story is copied off better done things. (One friend called it “Dances with Smurfs” which I love!) And it is tritely put forward.
My problems are some of the stupidity on the writing level. Some you have pointed out. One that got me is when Grace explains to the Colonel that all the lifeforms of Pandora interconnect, as a “network”. In a good science fiction, this lecture would have gone the next step and she would have said, “The whole damn planet is sentient, you jarhead idiot. It WILL respond when you attack!”
I also despise the underlying “message” that “Humanity sucks. To be humane you have to stop being a human.”
I think a lot of people are carried along by the spectacle of the visuals — and they are gorgeous. I do think some of the sequences go on too long, and will get duller with repetition.
As for the casting matters? That’s a whole different discussion. Still, any occasion to watch/listen to Wes Studi is fine by me.
But again… consider the issue that Corrina is actually looking at — WHAT is going on with the actual storytelling that is hooking the audience? Gripe about it as sloppy storytelling all you want, but the box-office figures show that SOMETHING is hooking people. So what is it? Cameron has indeed created a fascinating world (though there are a couple of logic gaps in its presentation), and simplistic though the story and characterizations are, they are conveyed in such a way that the audience rides along.
Me, I’d give all the credit for that to Zoe Saldana. She’s the one that breathes real life and passion into what’s going on. Most of the rest of the cast are painting by numbers, pretty much.
Sorry Sarah, but the box office figures may or may not say something about the quality of the story.
There are great movies with amazing storylines that do horribly at the box office and movies with virtually no storyline that do well.
I submit Transformers as evidence that (while it was enjoyable) solid storyline matters little to many people.
And the “Dances with Smurfs” is a SouthPark reerence.
Fabulous review there, very well written! I’ve not seen Avatar yet, but this article has really helped to shape my opinion of it before I go to see it!
In response to Sarah Beach, I’m afraid I’d have to agree with what Skinner said about Transformers…that really is a story with no storyline. Hearing mixed reviews about Avatar, I’m yet to decide whether the apparent storyline is for me or not. I guess I’ll have to follow the masses on that one and go to see it!
It sure sounds like a very popular film…maybe I’m too “outside-the-box”.
Thanks!
Avatar is a fascinating movie in a lot of ways. I do think while the plot is predictable, parts of it surprised me. There’s some other interesting little bits in symbolism too. Jake initially identifies himself as “jarhead” tribe, somewhat in jest, but it’s his reality at the moment. It doesn’t stay that way, however.
And I enjoyed the hell out of Sigourney Weaver in this movie too.
Great post!
Thank you!
Thank you, I appreciate that.