Ptop Gun, or Savants Seal

Copyright 2010 Ben S. Pollock

Show me your hands. Good, they’re clean. Thumb check, everyone. Twitching and ready to turn up or down? Yes, it’s movie day.

I haven’t caught any stories that note James Cameron is the kind of director who sometimes drops into a shot a wink at a movie that inspired him or relates to that particular scene. The homages in his Avatar, though, were the first thing that caught my mind. My attention, not my mind, stayed arrested by the latest in fantasy visuals. But every day since I saw the epic, its memory grows sourer.

Avatar’s beginning, where hero Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) awakes and sums up his immediate circumstance, looks and sounds similar to Martin Sheen’s first morning in Apocalypse Now. Impressive, until one realizes that Cameron inverts the plot and theme of Coppola’s 1979 retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

You can see elements of many recent war, fantasy or ptrek movies in Avatar, and that’s one of the fun things about it. It’s either Cameron ptipping his hat in respect, or there’s only so many ways a militaristic fantasy like this can go. The show has Transformer like robots, and there’s several pties to PTop Gun, hence the ptitle of this Brick. Ptop Gun has jets, not running and flying horses. Avatar’s planet (or moon) Pandora has an assortment of ground-hugging creatures, furry or scaly, and the winged cold- and warm-blooded creatures have some pterodactyl in them. My Beloved saw links to Dances with Wolves and the Matrix movies. I do advise paying the $2 extra to see Avatar with 3D glasses; the spectacle is a mental and nearly a physical roller coaster.

Now that I’ve dismounted and my head has stopped spinning, I’m mad.

Going undercover

We can’t go further without trying a summary. Way in the future, the (apparently) American government runs a long-term expedition to Pandora to help a corporation get a needed mineral. This world is populated with almost-like-earth animals and people, the Na’vi. [Pandora presumably is not a Na’vi word.] The project has a scientific component led by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) in a Stanford T-shirt (the actress is an alum). The military side is led by Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Jake is in between them, a Marine replacement for his Ph.D. brother who died. Avatars are test-tube grown Na’vi (very large test tubes), each of which is controlled by a human in a trance. Jake’s not one to move much anyway, having lost the use of his legs from previous military service. The corporation would prefer the Na’vi’s cooperation in mining the mineral but has the government’s permission to mow down the slender, tall, blue Na’vi like it did American Indians. The colonel is impatient, while Grace has grown to love the people and their planet. Jake’s avatar heads in, as a spy, and “goes native.” Will he help the indigenous people?

That wasn’t so bad. Not quite as long as the original text of Where the Wild Things Are.

Others have found racism in Avatar. It’s not. Cameron is using broad outlines of familiar history, that’s all. But it is a wonder why evangelical Christians aren’t up in arms over the movie’s spiritual component. The humans express no religion at all, except perhaps in cursing (which like sex adds realism, don’t you know). The Na’vi are fervent in a made-for-Avatar animism-slash-Buddhism, worshiping the spirits of the land and air (which humans can’t breathe) so far as the former, with reincarnation as a nod to the latter. I’m not offended, except at Cameron’s theological shortcuts. But why aren’t other viewers? The “Force” of the Star Wars stories is similar window-dressing but the way George Lucas used that — with fewer narrative explanations, by the way — was both more minimal and more believable, and could be integrated into Western religions: “Use the Force, Luke,” means little more than trust your senses, skills and upbringing, and believe good is better than evil and can triumph.

Of course the Na’vi would have a back story including a belief system, because that is seen as helping the audience. (Good stories didn’t always need added psychological profiles.) Like popcorn, this show likely will pass through children with little absorption. But books and other movies have been burned for less.

My problem is its theme. There’s three routes for movie themes. The first is the expected, explicitly presenting a story’s underlying message by plot turn, often with one character explaining it to another — Hollywood feels obligated to do this and almost by definition indies don’t. [A right-by-us moral is how R-rated violence gets a PG-13.] The second is subtlety, with a moral hinted at, for viewers who can’t leave without one. [Old kids’ cartoons and new sex comedies get by with an absence of morals.] And the third is demonstrated in flicks like this: the movie is so fun, who cares about the empty-head extremism it espouses?

‘Jarhead’ kind of demeaning?

From the start, much is made of Jake’s lack of intelligence. He is an empty vessel, and the question is how much new knowledge will he retain, as his life will depend on it. He knows he’s opposite in smarts from his late brother. Grace regrets it, while the colonel sees Jake as a perfect soldier (Marine here, actually). [Grace is so tough she smokes in the sealed human habitat — go figure.] Jake gains the trust of the Na’vi. Before him, Grace’s avatar has been accepted. Grace’s avatar is missionary-like, teaching fascinated Na’vi children English and so on. Jake starts to learn the Na’vi language and begins a romance with a Na’vi princess. He comes to be repelled by the greed displayed by the conquering capitalism of the government, military and corporate interests.

We in the audience are to root for him, and this makes it opposite of Apocalypse Now, despite Cameron’s nod toward it. Col. Kurtz (a late, memorable Marlon Brando role) has gone native and rules a Southeast Asian tribe despotically. Sheen’s character, Capt. Willard, is sent to stop Kurtz.

Avatar is anti-intellectual: Book-learning is a waste. Ignorance allows unerring instinct. Science and reasoning distract. Does that remind anyone of any recent national political candidates?

Yes, one of the dichotomies of America is a passion for the application of education versus gut decisions. That makes Sarah Palin popular and before her George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Being a sort of savant though is the perception they gave; I’m not too sure but that all three of these folks are darn smart.

What’s with Avatar, though, is that its message is left-leaning: respectful of indigenous peoples, environmentally careful (the U.S. expedition is happy to destroy Pandora to get the mineral), with lots of chanting and hugs. When the Na’vi get in touch with their roots, it’s for mystical healing gathered ’round the base of a tree.

Republicans have been successful by pairing the know-nothing element with the savvy: Reagan and George H.W. Bush, George II with Dick Cheney, and Palin with Naval Academy graduate John McCain.

New Age same as the Old Age

Lefties, the movie shows, can find value in tossing away manuals. It’s the essence what can be called New Age beliefs and practices, which often use snippets of Eastern religions. When Democrats have a popular goof, they tend to lose races by not pairing them off like Republicans. Democratic know-nothings tend to run and win local/state races.

Impressionable movie goers of any age might be presented with ignorance as an ideal, but wouldn’t balance and contrast strengthen the story?

It’s repugnant that the liberals push a blank-headed seeker as the epitome of how to save the universe from destruction caused by greed. It’s one of those cases where the left and right are so extreme they reach around and touch.

The movie’s one smarty, Grace, is shown as one who can’t see the holy trees from the forest due to too many brains. The colonel to me is a tough warrior chief. MB resented that after his introduction his lines and behavior descend to caricature. The other main characters have a little arc of development. I’m not a snob; I’ve enjoyed all the recent Spiderman movies. That’s a real comic book series — Avatar’s an original screenplay — but even Spidey’s enemies have back stories.

For New Year’s Eve, two days after we saw Avatar, MB and I rented a DVD of last summer’s Star Trek prequel. It cemented my feelings. The young Kirk and Spock meet, and board the brand-new starship Enterprise, having attended a futuristic version of West Point (or perhaps an interplanetary Air Force Academy). I’ve not followed the Trek saga closely, but all of its main characters and often its villains rely on everything — their wiles to be sure but also their intelligence, backed by schooling. This Star Trek has its faults — the time travel explanation was muddy — but its special effects were pretty good, too, and with enough depth to the characters and enough logic to the plot. It has pacing and wit, too.

If Cameron has a message, it’s that he gets to be smart and we don’t have to be. That’s being charitable. Maybe the famed director is manipulating and patronizing us film lovers while mastering the latest in special effects. His message is honorable: Corporate greed is hurting the Earth. But our real planet’s rescuers will need every advantage, not just a bit of magic and talking to animals through hair braids. I’m glad I saw Avatar, I had fun, but it deserves nothing higher than the technical Oscars.