Building a Better Avatar
In an earlier post, I said that, with Avatar, James Cameron could’ve told basically the same story with a lot more kick if he’d refined the central conflict. I try not to say things like that unless I can at least sort of back them up. So here’s a short, quickly composed list of ways in which I think Avatar could’ve been made better without sacrificing the central story or themes:
Broadly speaking, I think the key is creating stronger characters and giving them tougher choices, as well as laying out the stakes a little more clearly. So why not start the movie by dropping Sully into an avatar Marine squadron and have them take down a problematic Na’vi tribe? You get a great opening action sequence, you give Sully some guilt later on, and you create a stronger, clearer reason for the Na’vi to mistrust, even hate, humans.
As it is, Sully comes off like a teenager — alternately sulky and irresponsible. Why not make Sully an ultra-dedicated, highly-decorated, highly-capable Marine, someone with a deep investment in the Corps’ values and mission? That makes Col. Quaritch — who would spend the first two acts subtly selling Sully on the duty and honor of their work — more convincing, more compelling, harder to resist.
And why not go further by giving Sully a sick father — also a Marine — back home, one whose disease is only treatable by a medicine made with Unobtanium? Done right, this makes Sully’s conversion more anguished, and thus more powerful.
While we’re at it, why not make Weaver’s scientists more explicitly radical in their preservationism? Make them win the argument about Pandora’s natural value, more or less, but give them some flaws, some overreach. This adds some ambiguity, some shades of gray, to Sully’s choice, and it would offer a compelling clash with Sully’s inherent conservatism.
And how about spending more time giving the Na’vi some specific personality, some unique culture — some Zen calm about the state of the world, or some wariness about blind loyalty, something that makes them a “third way” to the outlooks of the scientists and the military — and perhaps some low-tech tricks that help them fight their technologically superior opponent?
That would also allow for some more interesting battle scenes at the end of Act II and throughout Act III. As Cameron has it, it’s basically big guns vs. big passion. There’s no strategy or rhythm to the action, just spectacle and slow-mo (which drives me nuts given how rigorously constructed the action scenes are in Aliens and T2). The escape scene, in particular, is really lazy. They’re locked up. Then they get out. See how easy it is! There’s almost no tension.
The film could’ve created a lot more tension if, post Hometreepocalypse, it prepped the final onslaught by having the Na’vi send a small, highly skilled strike force into the base camp — communicating with and controlling various natural elements (“the tree vines snake slowly along the ground, then reach up and swiftly knock out the guards, allowing Sully and the rest of the team to sneak by”) along the way — in hopes of taking out (or stealing?) one of Quaritch’s key weapons.
That way, when Quaritch launches the final strike, it’s a little better matched, and, hopefully, the audience understands the balance of power on both sides a little more clearly. As for the final match up, how about letting the Na’vi’s communal abilities play in, giving them, as I already suggested, more control over the natural world — perhaps even allowing them to do what the Na’vi have not done in a thousand years, because the effort (and risk) is too great, and join their powers together in order to become one with it, giving them the option to, say, use the floating islands as weapons, dropping them like bombs from above.
I won’t cover all the details (though if Cameron wants a rewriter for the inevitable sequel, call me!), and there’s more that would need to be done — especially with the Na’vi characters. But in the end, Sully’s sick father is saved by the Na’vi, Quaritch is defeated, the Na’vi’s communal culture proves more robust than Quaritch’s angry, manipulative false honor, which is really just a mask for corporate greed. You get basically the same themes, but you also get a richer, more nuanced, and — hopefully — more action-packed tale.
Please consider changing the name of the blog to “The Avatar Scene”.
— symeon · Jan 25, 04:05 PM · #
Your point about the balance of power gets at one of my niggling little peeves: At the opening, Quaritch gives this big speech about how — due to their carbon fiber skeletons, or some such — the N’avi are exceptionally hard to kill. Except, um, not really: You shoot them, they die. It’s little things like that that really annoyed me about the movie…the internal inconsistencies were kind of annoying. (Another one: Isn’t simply unplugging someone from their avatar supposed to be really dangerous? But it happens a half a dozen times with no consequences. So is it dangerous or not that big a deal? When your movie has less internal consistency than “The Matrix,” you’re in trouble.)
— Sonny Bunch · Jan 25, 04:24 PM · #
All extremely good points.
— paul h. · Jan 25, 04:46 PM · #
Why not make Sully an ultra-dedicated, highly-decorated, highly-capable Marine, someone with a deep investment in the Corps’ values and mission?
Curse you Suderman, I was planning to write something to that effect.
Seriously, let’s examine Sully’s choices again. Option 1: be an unloved, paralyzed nobody working for corrupt, evil corporation. Option 2: become the warrior/savior of an entire planet filled with passionate, wise, and svelte blue people who ride pterosaurs and whose hottest babe is in love with you.
The only real question is what the hell took him so long.
— Tom Meyer · Jan 25, 05:07 PM · #
Symeon,
Yes, mulling over whatever dashing messagey movie is making noise at the box office is an infrequent addiction of ours here; we did the same thing with Wall*E.
— Peter Suderman · Jan 25, 05:25 PM · #
Great additions, I think.
You don’t that would extend the movie a bit, that there were trade-offs in character development? I’m not sure I could survive a 3.5-4 hour movie.
— Geoff in DFW · Jan 25, 06:02 PM · #
One thing I am curious about – where do people get the idea the sky people are Marines? Former, some of them yes. But aren’t they now paid mercenaries kind of like Xe? I think this is where some of the conservative Cameron Hates the Troops rhetoric comes from and I don’t understand it because the paid-mercenary-badguy is a classic film villain.
Otherwise, yeah, the story could have been tighter. I do agree that the capabilities of the Na’vi need some beefing up before the Tree of Souls climax. Some kind of low tech counter to what appears to be overwhelming opposition. When the rhino-things appear it is kind of like the arrival of the cavalry but also over the top in a Wagnerian way.
— luko · Jan 25, 08:02 PM · #
That’s what I’m saying — make it explicit that they’re all ex-Marines; Quaritch some legendary hardass officer, Sully a decorated grunt, etc. etc. Gives it a nice tension between Marine honor — Quaritch brings people in by selling former God-n-country soldiers on the inherent virtue of the mission — and private security force greed.
— Peter Suderman · Jan 25, 08:58 PM · #
James Cameron doesn’t do subtle stories, but yes, those changes might have been better.
On the other hand, would Aliens or Abyss be any better if you made Paul Reiser and whoever played the bloodthirsty military guy in the Abyss more sympathetic?
Ultimately, Cameron likes stories where the character you assumed was right in Act 1 turns out to be really right in Act 2, and really really right in Act 3.
— J Mann · Jan 25, 09:31 PM · #
James Cameron was my idol so i definitely like his all the movies avtar was the terrific movie with awesome special effects…
— buy 8gb cf card · Jan 26, 06:29 AM · #
Avatar now top earning movie of all time
But Gone With The Wind is still ahead in inflation-adjusted terms.
— Keid A · Jan 26, 02:13 PM · #
I’m upset a bit now; I haven’t seen Avatar yet, mostly due to reviews lamenting the thin plot and weak characterization. Now I will go into it imagining the movie that could have been.
— Mr. Ryan · Jan 28, 01:07 AM · #
Mr. Ryan:
“I’m upset a bit now; I haven’t seen Avatar yet, mostly due to reviews lamenting the thin plot and weak characterization. Now I will go into it imagining the movie that could have been.”
Well, he’s mainly only proposing dialog changes. You could… get a foreign language dub of the DVD that you don’t understand, then graft a subtitling by Mr. Suderman onto it. It wouldn’t violate any copyright — it would be like a MST3K podcast for the movie in text.
I proposed something like this for the Transformers movies, but for my purposes, simply leaving the TV on mute achieved my desired dialog changes. Fast forwarding through any part of the movie where there were not robots punching each other helped too.
— Brian Moore · Jan 29, 03:46 PM · #