Why People Hate Avatar: A Lesson In Lazy Commentary

I think the weakest aspect of the Avatar films is not how film 2 was a good 30 minutes longer than it needed to be or how it would be nice if some of the characters had more depth instead I believe Avatar's weakest aspect is the fact it engages in lazy political commentary now it's fine for a story to set out to have a political message absolutely A-Okay but as we'll explore throughout this video essay when you've set out to have messaging in your story in the same way Avatar does that will be detrimental to the quality of your story what takes us further down the rabbit hole is how when people criticize these films they have a super hard time nailing down the reason why I have chatted with so many people over the years who loathe the Avatar films but when I asked them why most can't come up with a good explanation ask them why they hate The Last Jedi or the recent Disney Live Action films and they'll rattle off a ton of well-considered reasons without effort but for some reason with Avatar they have a much harder time just defying their stance and don't get me wrong right as some people do have very good reasons some people are quick to criticize the characters as having just no depth at all or they'll point at the stilted exposition or even the hackneyed plot if I hear one more person say it's basically Dances with Wolves in space I'm gonna I'm gonna bloody lose it okay but those are all fair critiques yet with that said though there is still a noticeable quite fascinating dissonance between the degree of dislike the Avatar films get and The Average Joe's ability to verbalize why they dislike them so much it's a very interesting anomaly in film criticism and it's weird stuff like this that I live for as a film critic and I'm far from the first to notice this either movie overload made a video recently on why he thinks this is and his theory is that Avatar is basically the Nickelback of films that people only hate Avatar because hating it is the popular thing to do and that's why people can't explain their dislike because it's not a sincere opinion they came to on their own rather something they absorbed from others I'll be frank I couldn't disagree more strongly with him on this one because while that's surely the case for a handful of folks I believe the real answer behind this all for most people at least is how when characters and films say this somehow Palpatine returned you can point right at that bad dialogue and say ah yeah this is why the film's crap or you can point at the slow pacing stilted acting maybe even the bad CGI all of which are obvious things to point out as being garbage but when there's something rotten about the ideas of a story you can't pinpoint them in the same way because usually they're very subtly woven into the text and it's a rare day the Creator will slip up and is silly enough to explicitly say the message of the film aloud what this means is the poorly handled ideas trigger our subconscious and only our subconscious meaning we're left thinking what a load of rubbish yet we can't explain why because we haven't consciously processed the themes while this is circumstantial evidence it does allude to the fact that these films dropped the ball on a thematic level and in order to realize what the sloppy commentary is that triggered so many people subconsciously we need to look at the two main factions the navi and those pesky villainous humans the basic plot is how the navi are living in Paradise where all is going well everyone is living in harmony with nature that is until the human Corporation arrives with all of their machines Golf and consumerism then threaten the navi way of life in the name of consuming all of the natural resources in the area the navi are blatantly the good guys and the humans are blatantly the bad guys it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's a lot of allegory going on here the corporation is a stand-in for Human Society is going wrong in the current day we're detached from nature we don't appreciate the beauty of the world around us and we're so focused on progress consumerism and Industry that we no longer care for nature this can be clearly seen in how Parker and film won the big cheese in charge endlessly belittles the indigenous culture those trees were sacred to the omotakai in a way you can't imagine you know what you throw a stick in the air around here it's gonna land on some sacred turn for Christ's sake that character's full name is Parker Selfridge all you have to do is reorganize that surname a little and what do you get selfish the guy who's the Incarnation of the toxicity of our modern day culture of capitalism that the leader of this evil Corporation is literally called Selfish the commentary made here ain't exactly subtle guys uh there was even a deleted scene in Avatar one that showed Selfridge realizing the error of his ways realizing how evil he and his company was after blowing up home tree so then he decided to shut everything down until quarrett seized command the pure evil of these greedy humans is directly contrasted with the pure good of the navi and when I say they are pure good that is not an exaggeration while we meet Navi who are stubborn and slow to trust Strangers Like natiri's brother or that Shaman woman in film 2 those Navi eventually reveal themselves to be good people deep down the only instance I could see of any Navi doing some something that could be argued to be outright evil is when those kids leave Jake's kid marooned out in the middle of the ocean even then Jake's kid manages to reconcile with them all later on meanwhile everyone on The Human Side is a bad person from Courage to the guy whose name is literally Mr selfish to the general who tortures teenagers while interrogating them to the ship captain who finds great Glee in killing sentient whales to the biologist who loathes himself for working alongside these evil monsters and knows deep down he has sold his soul to the devil that's why I drink of the people in the human faction who weren't evil such as Grace or Their scientist dude or this pilot woman they all defect when they realize just how evil this faction is just how evil the allegory for current day Society is this right here is what the movies say modern culture has detached itself too much from our natural world and it's therefore twisted and wrong the right way to live is to be just like the Primitive locals who are very in tune with the nature and thus live in harmony if only us watching can be just like Jake forgo our modern ways Cast Away our computers and phones stop asking how we can exploit what Nature has to offer us and focus more on being one with nature like the navi we will live richer lives for it I struggle to think of reasons why that's a inherently bad thought because there is nothing wrong with someone wanting to cherish the natural world around them so with that being the case with me being totally aware that this is a fine message for any story to give I can't help but ask why do I still feel this unease in my gut every time I think about the messaging in these films like something about this whole ordeal has always felt wrong to me in some abstract way but I could never grasp why how can it be wrong because the idea we should be more in tune with nature is actually a totally valid one it was while watching Avatar 2 that it all clicked together for me as to why this all is it was when we were watching that scene with the whale hand you know where the captain is all happy and maniacally villainous at the idea of killing this beautiful sentient creature and then we have the sad music plays the whale calf cries at its dead mother that was when it finally clicks for me oh my God the reason why these two films feel so ideologically bollocks is not because of the ideas being explored rather the way they're being explored on a personal level I very much see the value in the idea that Cameron is peddling because there is incredible wisdom to be found in our past not just in how our ancestors were wise in ways which we are currently not as a society many would argue that the ancient Greeks while being less technologically advanced were a wiser Society than our current one there is also a very compelling point to be made that as a modern society we have lost touch with nature like so many of us when we learn that another coral reef just got bleached or 1 000 more species just went extinct just to react with apathy and it's quite depressing that quite beautiful parts of our world are just dying and people just don't really give much of a damn in theory the message of the Avatar films should have gone down great but it didn't because Cameron couldn't have explored this idea more lazily he presents the navi who let's be honest are standings for our human ancestors from thousands of years ago as quite literally perfect and as we all know our ancient ancestors were exactly like the navi harmonious and virtuous and morally Superior to current a society in every metric a take the Aztecs for example everyone loves the Aztecs they lived in harmony with the rainforest they had wonderful art they had these beautiful buildings and wait wait what's that the Aztecs were also an expansionist Empire who engaged in slavery and they would routinely kidnap people from rival tribes then murder them in gruesome rituals to appease their gods geez Jesus Christ I'm sure that was just the Aztecs right because surely at least most of our ancestors were exactly like the navi peaceful and loving because they were so in tune with nature let's look at America before it was colonized with all of those Natives and all of those bison ah look at that a truly peaceful harmonious utopian society where all of the indigenous loved one another singing Kumbaya until the cows came home oh that's that's just lovely let me just open this history textbook here to verify that and oh no oh no oh no wait what many of the Native American tribes long before any colonists arrived would routinely raid other native tribes during which they would well do this and the rules of the list of the Plains Indians of which Comanches were won that if you were captured as an adult male you were killed tortured to death either quickly or slowly depending on how much time they had if you were a baby you were killed they couldn't deal with the baby baby was they were Nomads and they were on their horse and they were probably escaping from whatever raid they had just done they couldn't deal with babies um a teenage girl or a young woman would possibly be killed but likely turned into sort of a Slave oh yes the epitome of virtue now many native tribes from all around the globe engaged in horrific Behavior such as what I just outlined so why does James Cameron fail to have the navi commit any of those acts and some are moves on to that saying well it's the tone of the film you can't really have any dark hacks in the film but that doesn't pan out when you think about it for more than five seconds because the movie does have raiding innocent drives and genocide and torturing captives the humans do it it's the humans who engage in all the horrific repugnant war crimes in all likelihood here's what was going through Cameron's head when he was making these films oh man some of these ancient tribes did things that were absolutely horrific I should somehow weave this into my story perhaps not depicting these nasty acts on screen gotta keep that PG racing after all but hinting at them and having a strong subtext that the navi are a people capable of committing atrocities just as much as humans are oh oh oh no that's right I want to convince my old audience that this way of life is the ideal they should strive towards therefore I will not depict them having slavery which was extra common in many ancient civilizations I will not show them having human or in this case Navi sacrifice or show them torturing the prisoners they've captured both of which commonly happened all throughout the world thousands of years ago because that might undermine the political message I'm out to Peddle I would never dare depict such cultures as they were in the real world because if I depicted things as they existed in reality that might undermine my agenda instead I'll give a hyper romanticized depiction of these cultures I wish to prop up and excessively demonize the things I'm out to tear down I will straw man the things I want to criticize and straw man the things I Want To Praise basically the actual messages being spread in these films are irrelevant here what I'm critiquing precisely are the methods through which Cameron delivers those messages and How Deeply problematic said methods are and I imagine a few people are commenting right now well it's in the Escapist fantasy it's unfair to judge a story's message with this level of scrutiny when it's a non-serious story based around escapism sorry but no you don't get to have your cake and eat it too you don't get to lay out fairly loaded political messages like these as a Creator then Retreat hiding behind the protection of saying because my movie has Escapist elements you are strictly banned from critiquing the political aspects of my work and thus I've achieved every artist's dream I have rendered myself immune to criticism either you make a film that tackles serious ideas and treats them seriously giving them the proper exploration due or you make a film that does not tackle such ideas it really is that simple like if you want to make a film like Dungeons and Dragons that has nothing to say politically knock yourself out go for it but the moment you add in loaded political ideas like consumerism and capitalism and whatnot it is your duty as a writer to give them an honest exploration and certainly not a biased exploration where you only depict the things that bolster your personal beliefs ignoring the evidence and arguments that might undermine them God knows Cameron did that with these films and crucially to hammer home why this is such a problematic way of exploring ideas in fiction we need to create a table let's have two columns one for the ancient Navi way and one for the modern human way then two rows one of reasons for it being good the other reasons why it's bad if we plotted the points the movies make it would look like this Cameron totally fails consider what could be potentially good about our modern technology driven way of life and he totally fails to consider what could be potentially bad about the indigenous way of life what you're seeing on screen is the Avatar franchise's method of exploring its core ideas in a nutshell and this is why I think so many people are so subconsciously turned off by this franchise why so many don't like it but have a very hard time nailing down why simply what you're seeing on screen is not just bad writing it is abysmal writing it is genuinely atrocious writing and if anyone disagrees with me here I will fight you in the comments I will die on this hill because in a well-written story The ideas explored do not look like this they instead look like this with all four sections on the table thoroughly explored here's a great example of what's problematic about these two movies let's look at the scene in the way of water when Kiri has a seizure she nearly dies then there's a confrontation with the human scientists and the navi Shaman the humans try to use their various medical Technologies and medicines but it just doesn't work then the shaman woman comes along says stand aside you silly humans with your silly medical machines then she does some witch doctoring blows Air at her belly and suddenly she wakes up from her serious medical condition good as new there is something about that beat that made me squirm in my seat when I was watching but I only together why it did while writing this essay we don't clock it in the moment because we're immersed in the film but when you properly analyze what the story is saying here it starts to feel so bloody stupid like obviously these natives know the nature of medicine better than these Advanced humans with all of their science and technology and hundreds of years of running double blind randomized controlled trials who cares if these Navi have yet to discover that bacteria is you know a thing that exists who cares if these scientists have sophisticated medical equipment and access to hundreds of thousands of scientific research papers their methods are nothing compared to this Shaman's masterful technique of blowing air at her belly button imagine this Shaman walking into a modern day hospital just imagine it it would look like this like look at you you silly humans with your dialysis machines says the navi everyone knows the real cure for kidney failure is to swim to the bottom of the ocean killer puffer fish then present it as a sacrifice to the blood God these movies are so convinced of their own ideology they are incapable incapable of confessing the idea that sometimes maybe in just some specific situations modern society might be better at things than the ancient Society this franchise is fascinating it's absolutely fascinating it really is because when great writers had had to explore ideas they give the devil his Jew they have the ability to cast aside their personal bias and play Devil's Advocate to their own point the Creator will consider why everything they personally think is great is actually quite bad and they will consider why everything they hate is actually quite good and all of that careful impartial thought will weave its way into the story where the audience will not get a piece of propaganda they instead get a rich thought-provoking exploration of the true dynamic between these two issues rather than a boring binary exploration so shallow calling it an exploration at all would be an act of generosity I'm looking at you Avatar when I say that truly great writers truly great writers they have the courage to romanticize the things they hate as well as demonize the things they love Avatar is just the strangest franchise there are so many things about it that are honestly great yet so many others like this that are real head scratchers this extends to the movie's Exposition they have some fantastic moments that are the epitome of show don't tell then other moments that are ludicrously bad like that god-awful unobtainium line I wanted to talk about this for a while but while it is a fascinating topic it's not within the scope of this video and it's not the kind of video that performs well on YouTube but I'm happy to say that I just made that video on how to write great Exposition where I break down examples both good and bad from Avatar to Joker to Revenge of the Sith and why the Darth plague us the Y scene is one of the greatest examples of exposition I have ever seen I really went all out with this one and you can watch it right now but not on YouTube instead on nebula the sponsor of today's video there you'll find this essay on Exposition in my all-new script doctor Series where I basically make video essays like I normally do but get way more in depth and don't give a damn about getting clicks or views my only priority here is making the most useful interesting videos possible for you guys on the craft of Storytelling because that's my focus these videos wouldn't perform well in the algorithm but on nebula that isn't a problem because there is no algorithm there me and some other creators founded nebula in 2019 and it's not meant to replace YouTube but rather be an extension of it a place where you can not just watch all of our contents totally ad-free but even cooler it's a place where we can let our creativity loose and make all kinds of wacky videos for you that we think you'll love but would never work on YouTube I am really pleased with how this Exposition video turned out and you can check it out right now all you've got to do is click my link in the description and grab nebula with 40 off a yearly subscription making it only thirty dollars a year and by the way the vast majority of that sign up fee is given right to me when you sign up so it's helping me out massively when you do it like this video wasn't edited by me but an editor I've just hired and soon I'll be building an even larger team to help produce way more content for you guys those of you signing up for nebula using my link are making all of that possible so thank you so much if you have but anyway back to Avatar and how problematic its messaging is there's something important to be said here about how it handles the topic of consumerism in the films the RDA the human faction is a company who are looking to earn as much money as possible ruining the environment in the name of profit that's the only reason whether on Pandora as Mr selfish says himself that's the only reason ruining the environment in the name of profit now there is a compelling point to be made that some companies around the globe like Nestle for example do exploit regions in the name of profit that is true it's happened a lot throughout human history and if the movies had been purely a critique of capitalism's most toxic toxic companies that could have been a really viable approach like James Cameron has already done that in his filmography with aliens in that film we see weyland's yutani being such a slimy Corporation they're happy to send innocent civilians to their death in the name of acquiring the xenomorph for research purposes and making a tidy profit and that film despite having political commentary is one of the most beloved sci-fi Classics of all of human history it's easily the best military sci-fi film I think ever released like if Avatar had grappled with the same kind of topic that could have gone down great the problem is the movies get really murky here and instead of critiquing just the toxicity of these kinds of companies they spill over into dealing with the theme of consumerism in general there are lots of examples to prove this take the moment when they play Jake's diary and it seals the fact that negotiating with the navi is impossible they're not gonna make a deal Light beer some blue jeans there's nothing that we have that they want to that I have to say to James Cameron you crossed the line frankly I don't know what Jake's talking about because I imagine the navi would actually love the idea of having antibiotics and other medical Miracles that prevent painful deaths imagine the Improvement in child mortality the navi would have if they had access to Modern human Medical Technology but all right let's just ignore that fact in the same way Cameron did because it's inconvenient towards the larger message he wants to send let's look at consumerism in general now I'm gonna freely admit that this next bit is easily the most tenuous part of this entire essay and it's one based not on anything objective rather my subjective perception of what the themes are feel free to disregard all I'm saying next if you disagree with my interpretation but my reading of it is that the film's around to say something much larger here that the human way of unsustainably exploiting nature is fundamentally evil and the right way to live is to be just like the navi wanting for no nothing living in pure harmony with the nature around us reading between the lines that really does seem to be one of the morals the movies are pushing and this was a very sloppily handled idea because it totally fails to capture the actual true nature of living in modern society Cameron is straw Manning the ever-living crap out of this issue because most of what we're doing in harming our planet today is not because we're greedy and care not for nature like the RDA seems to but because it's a sad necessity sure you can point out oil spills and say they're bad that's more or less what Cameron's saying in loose terms just stop exploiting the world around us stop harming the environment job done problem solved Bob's your uncle it couldn't be simpler but what Cameron fails to address is the crucial counter argument of what is the alternative because we simply need oil for our society to function and it will break down without it it's so easy to say just don't do anything nasty environment when you don't even address the quest question of like how that would upend Society if we just suddenly stopped doing that it's easy to say just ban coal entirely as like from the globe no one can ever burn coal ever again but the problem is is yes coal is terrible for our atmosphere it is awful but many countries aren't that rich and they need to burn coal otherwise they've got no electricity or heat the RDA an allegory for current society and our horrid consumerist Tendencies are basically just greedy capitalists who want money and nothing more but this is not how the world actually is like I admit again the foundation of this little bit of the argument is is a bit of a leave I I made an assumption here that this was all intended from Cameron's part so do take this with a pinch of salt but I'd argue that he has oversimplified the extremely complex nuanced topic of consumerism into being just about greed and that all we have to do is just not be greedy and everything will be fine and this is part of why the film's messaging fails to land and leave any kind of impact on us because he fails to capture the reality of the situation of being alive in the 21st century uh don't believe me well here's a suggestion for a fix and let's see how well it works let's have unobtainium be a vital resource that humans need not just want but need instead of it being this luxury superconductor that sells for a high price what if they rewrote it so unobtainium is a material that Earth desperately needs because it solves a catastrophe brought on by our unsustainable treatment of our planet perhaps it impedes an Ice Age going on because of our CO2 emissions or perhaps it's miraculously good at capturing carbon from our air or it's a crucial ingredient for Fusion an environmentally friendly energy source and fusion can't be done at scale without this miracle metal if you ask me such a change makes the allegory work way better the humans are no longer monstrously greedy monsters they are instead doing everything they are out of pure necessity which is exactly what it's like in most of the real world Cameron ignores this core truth around the issue of consumerism so if we implemented this truth into Avatar if we had the RDA no longer be just a soulless evil Corporation but instead a task force created by the UN who were given a blank check and need to extract as much unobtaining as possible because Earth will crumble into a total ecological collapse without it and then when we have Mr selfish come along he's no longer xenophobic and villainous in terms of hating the navi disregarding them as filthy Savages he instead is a sympathetic villain because he respects the navi he thinks there's actually something quite admirable about them but he has a family who are dying back on Earth just like everyone else's family is and he's exploiting Pandora and plundering its resources because he must otherwise how else will he secure the safety of his loved ones yes killing these natives is tragic says Selfridge but sadly it must be done now in another sort of way the humans would all be victims of a nasty circumstance Society has thrusted them into a position where they have no choice but to be environmentally unfriendly because they can't survive any other way which is exactly what it's like in the real world now when you look at quarreich he's no longer a man of Pure Evil he's instead a man who's fully committed to the idea of killing the navi for the greater good of his species and merely by changing the context of the RDA courage is now a much more complex character for it despite the fact we've changed literally nothing about his dialogue or decisions he is just a man prepared to do anything it takes to save his species oh my God if they'd done that the Avatar films would have become so just provoking like so intriguing like so impactful in terms of the ideas they're exploring and that is just meme using feel free to disregard everything I just said if you disagree with my interpretation of cameras intentions here oh but back to being more grounded what I find most Insidious about the Avatar films is they're not truly films like Dungeons and Dragons or it's just Mindless fun because the movie he does have a political message it wants to send but it's not a film like everything everywhere all at once that sincerely grapples with the material giving deep honest provoking explorations of the ideas presented it's this weird Frankenstein between the two of those it's pretending to be Dungeons and Dragons It's masquerading as I turn your brain of popcorn flick meanwhile it's got a ton of political messages it's very sneakily trying to indoctrinate into you and on top of that there's almost like this hubris behind this franchise because Cameron is so confident he's right so absolutely sure that his message is the correct message that the movies never stop to seriously consider whether or not that message is actually right or not why should I play Devil's Advocate to my own point when it is so obviously blatantly the correct point that is a thought that has paved the way to hell for millions of people throughout history and it's problematic for an artist to have it while injecting ideas into their story to say the least there's a reason why so many people are so turned off by Avatar but have a hard time nailing down why it's because on some level of their subconscious the audience knows the Avatar films are manipulating them that the films are propaganda and I know that's a very loaded term you don't throw it around lightly so let's Google the definition of it to verify that statement according to Google the term means information especially of a biased or misleading nature used to promote a political cause or point of view okay let's see how the film size up is Avatar promoting a political cause that that that's a check right there and crucially is it misleading people by willfully ignoring all possible counter arguments that might undermine that political message as we just strongly established absolutely I hate to say it I hate to say it but the Avatar film was quite literally are propaganda they fit the technical definition for the term if you ask me art and propaganda are two sides of the same coin and there is a crucial difference that separates them art gets the audience to think propaganda does the thinking for the audience I know this sounds counterintuitive but with a great story with a great piece of art it's actually okay if the creator sets out with an agenda a lot of what modern movie critics are babbling on about about how politics has no place in Hollywood politics should never find their way into our films ever at all it's if that's just simply rubbish to me look at 1984 one of the best uh dystopian novels ever written in fact just look at the dystopian genre in General it's impossible to make a dystopian story that isn't extremely political in some nature look at animal farm it's a fascinating deconstruction of communism a very political book or to to give a more pop culture example look at Revenge of the Sith and how it depicts how democracies fall into becoming dictatorships very political um Animal Farm was outright saying communism was bad it had a very strong agenda yet it's still widely regarded as a great piece of art you can't get more political than that what I would say is that it is fine to set out with a political agenda while writing your story but crucially what you must do like any good student in an exam is show your working the writer must fully explore every aspect of their argument all points for and crucially all points against and if in the end the conclusion of this exploration is a political message that person nonetheless just created a great piece of art because they did their due diligence as a Creator there's a golden rule the commentary in stories I think because how can you as the writer know whether or not you're setting out to say is actually the truth and even assuming it is how do you convince the audience that it is the truth there's only one way to do that you make your story be a critique of the very idea you're trying to say you do all you can to bombard and belittle your precious ideas you put yourself in the mental space of your ideological enemy then use every dirty trick you can think of to disprove your own ideas and if at the end of all of that the idea is still left standing you have made a truly great work of political commentary which has provided wonderful Food For Thought to your audience and crucially if after Playing devil's advocate to your own point you actually disprove it are you undermine your own political opinions not only have you groaned Having learned something new you have still made a great work of art nonetheless because you're exploring the idea in an honest way you still created fascinating Food For Thought for your audience out there because you're playing into the idea that great art sets out to reveal the truth whatever that truth might happen to be don't be the Cowardly artist cowardly meaning you're afraid to expose your precious ideas to arguments and facts that might disprove them because if your idea you wish to spread does not survive when exposed to the truth then evidently it was never an idea where spreading in the first place it is is your job as a writer to do the exact opposite of what James Cameron did with Avatar the more you avoid the Avatar way of doing things the more fascinating and impactful your stories become there is a lot to break down around Avatar both good and bad so I've analyzed a lot of Avatar's World building more specifically how it's conveyed to us in my video how to write great Exposition that's now up on nebula I look at tons of examples from Revenge of the Sith to Joker to Jupiter Ascending as I break down the really tricky task of doing Exposition well if you're interested in learning more about this aspect of the craft that hardly ever gets talked about do Click by Link in the description and check it out on nebula today I get a payment for every month you guys stay subscribed to nebula which makes my income so much more reliable meaning I can hire staff which I've just started doing meaning I can make more videos for you guys and at a higher quality too signing up on nebula does a far better job at supporting my channel than donating on patreon Ever Could in all honesty and you guys get some new videos from me out of it too but thanks for watching keep writing and I'll see you guys next time on the closer look

Channel: The Closer Look

Views: 608,011

Keywords: avatar, how to, writing, avatar 2, review, video essay, the closer, closer look, the closer look, creative writing, why do people hate avatar

Id: RGx8rYbRVR4

Length: 34min 25sec (2065 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023