Avatar (2009) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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This film gives the term Blue Man Group a whole new meaning.

If you’re one of the hundred people who hasn’t seen Avatar, the high-grossing film in the world, then this article is for you. If you have seen Avatar, then maybe there are some details about this insanely detailed science-fiction epic that you didn’t know. Either way, welcome to Pandora!

First Impressions

The trailer shows a paraplegic man getting a second chance at a new life when he joins a military group on an alien world called Pandora. They are there to mine a rock worth millions, but their mining is threatened by the blue indigenous aliens. The man gets the ability to transfer his consciousness into a cloned alien creature so he can work with the other aliens. But he must make a choice about his life and his allegiance as all-out war is declared. It’s another blockbuster epic from James Cameron. This is Avatar.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In the year 2154, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a depressed, paraplegic soldier, is informed by two men that his twin brother has died. He now has an opportunity to fulfill his scientist brother’s work by traveling for six years to reach the verdant, jungle planet of Pandora. On the planet, the Resources Development Administration (RDA) mines unobtanium, a lucrative mineral. They are managed by Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and guarded by a paramilitary group led by the intense Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Jake is part of the scientific team, led by Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), which has learned how to genetically build an Avatar–a hybrid of human and the alien Na’vi DNA–which a driver can control through a symbiotic link.

Jake was chosen due to sharing DNA with his brother, making him a quick replacement candidate. Grace is not impressed by his military mindset, but Quaritch feels he’s just the person to get them the necessary intel on how to move the Na’vi from their home tree, which sits over the largest deposit of unobtanium around. Jake takes control of his avatar and is amazed to be walking again, but gets separated from the group when they are attacked by local fauna. He is found by Na’vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who believes the planet’s spirit Eywa has chosen him. Returning with Jake to the tribe, warrior Tsu’tey (Laz Alonso) doesn’t trust the abomination sent by the ‘sky people’, but the spiritual leader Mo’at (CCH Pounder) councils the chieftain, Eytukan (Wes Studi), that Jakesully (as they call him) may be of help. Neytiri is tasked with training him in the ways of The People.

Parker and Quaritch give Jake three months to learn the ways of the Na’vi and get the “blue monkeys” to move from their gigantic home base called Hometree. He goes through much training with Neytiri including learning how to hunt and bond with the indigenous fauna. Tsu’tey takes Jake to pick an ikran–a reptile-like bird, also known as Banshees–which bonds with the rider for life. Jake’s connection is powerful and the freedom of flying opens his eyes to the beauty of the world. Grace realizes Jake is working with Quaritch and may be at cross-purposes to her research so she moves the scientific team deeper into the jungle away from the main base. Soon, Jake believes that his real body is now a dream, preferring to stay in his avatar with Neytiri. Quaritch tells Jake he’s done well, and will ship out the next day to have his legs repaired. Jake asks to stay one more day for the ceremony which will make him “a man,” and one of the tribe.

After becoming a part of the Na’vi, Jake and Neytiri mate with each other. She awakens to find a giant RDA bulldozer clear-cutting the forest towards them. Jake returns to his avatar just in time, and using a rock destroys the cameras on the truck. Seeing this as treason, Quaritch shuts down the avatar machines and arrests Jake. The colonel allows Jake to deliver a message to the Na’vi so they may hear it: the humans are coming to destroy Hometree and they must evacuate. Quaritch launches a strike with all the airpower he has. Using gas, missiles, and other incendiaries he kills Eytukan, decimates a portion of the clan, and topples the gigantic tree–spreading the aliens into the jungle. Neytiri feels betrayed by Jake and tells him to stay away.

Jake, Grace, and another avatar driver, Norm (Joel David Moore) are locked up but are freed by Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez), a helicopter pilot who has gone AWOL. She flies the team, and their avatar bunker into an area called the floating mountains, where magnetic anomalies cause machinery to act weirdly. Grace is shot in their escape. Realizing that he needs to unite the clans of Na’vi, Jake takes a risk to bond with a creature bigger than the ikran, called toruk. He becomes Toruk Makto, the Rider of the Last Shadow, and returns to Neytiri and the survivors to unite them. Taking Grace to the Tree of Souls, they attempt to move her consciousness through Eywa and into her avatar, but she dies before that can occur. While Jake recruits other clans, Quaritch organizes a strike against the Tree of Life to stop the Na’vi once and for all.

Jake bonds with the tree, praying to Eywa to help in the battle. Thousands of Na’vi join in the battle against the human military. They stop a bomber from dropping its payload on the people and decimate the air force, causing Quaritch to bail out in an AMP Suit–a large mechanized exoskeleton. When things look dire for the Na’vi, suddenly the various animals of the planet join the fight, presumably spurred on by Eywa. Quaritch tries to destroy the avatar chamber that Jake is in, knowing that it’s his chance to defeat the traitor. Neytiri arrives and kills Quaritch, saving Jake’s human body from the toxic air of the planet. Tsu-tey dies in the battle but makes Jake the leader of the Na’vi. The humans get sent home, except for a few like Grace and Norm who are allowed to stay. Jake is bonded to the Tree of Life and has his consciousness transferred into his avatar body, for all time.

“The Na’vi say that every person is born twice. The second time is when you earn your place among The People forever.” – Jake Sully

History in the Making

James Cameron’s Avatar, not to be confused with the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008), was another epic production from the writer/director/producer that had brought the world The Terminator, T2, The Abyss, Aliens, True Lies, and the award-winning Titanic. It is the most groundbreaking science-fiction film since the release of The Matrix, only a decade before, and follows in the steps of George Lucas’s Star Wars in terms of world-building. Avatar creates a detailed and vibrant alien world with a detailed ecosystem, culture, and topography inspired by a multitude of sources, which became the highest-grossing film of all time. It was Cameron’s second time as director of the highest-grossing film of all time, after Titanic (1997), an honor which had only been held by Steven Spielberg. That film was bumped from its perch by Avatar, allowing Cameron to claim the #1 and #2 slots at the same time, just as Spielberg had a decade before with his hits E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park. Avatar held on to the title for 10 years until the release of Avengers: Endgame in 2019, but two years later Avatar re-emerged on top after a successful re-release. For purists, Avatar ranks only #2 in highest-grossing films when adjusted for inflation. The leader in that category–by tickets sold–is still Gone With the Wind, a record that may never fall.

Like Lucas and Spielberg before him, James Cameron is a director who is constantly breaking new ground with his films. Both The Abyss and Terminator 2 featured new leaps in digital character design which led to films such as Jurassic Park and the first fully digital dinosaurs, The Phantom Menace with its first digital main character, and the advancements that would come through Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Weta Digital, the company responsible for motion-capturing Andy Serkis’ work as Gollum, was tasked with the special effects in Avatar. They created a filming space (known as a volume) and enhanced techniques to capture large body movement along with small facial features allowing the animators the ability to incorporate an actor’s performance with a digital character. In one sense, Avatar is an animated film. Most of the sequences on Pandora, especially those with the Na’vi, are fully digital, as they include digital characters on fully digital landscapes and environments. Even scenes within the human fortress, which utilize live actors, were enhanced with digital set extensions and other technological overlays–such as holographic maps and readouts.

For all of its popularity and technological breakthroughs, Avatar has received a lot of flack about its borrowing of visual and story elements. To many, this epically long film about a white man finding his purpose with a tribe of Indigenous peoples seems very much like another epically long film about a white man finding his purpose with a tribe of Indigenous peoples, Dances With Wolves. Swap out space mining for manifest destiny, Na’vi for the Sioux, and ikrans for wolves, and it seems very similar–story-wise. Some joke that the word Na’vi actually stands for “Native American Virtual Individuals,” after their analogous characters in Dances With Wolves. Still, other people see elements of the Pocahontas story in Jake and Neytiri’s romance. These inspirations are not denied by Cameron, who also cites influences from diverse films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia, and FernGully. An unsung influence for much of the design of Pandora comes from the artwork of Roger Dean. Dean, an English artist, deals primarily with fantasy landscapes which include floating landmasses, strange archways, and lush forests. His artwork is primarily associated with the progressive-rock band Yes, and its offshoots, including Asia and Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, & Howe. While a lawsuit by Dean against Cameron was dismissed, there’s no denying that somebody involved in the visual design of Avatar listened to a lot of records in the 70s and 80s. Note the artwork from An Evening of Yes Music Plus or Keys to Ascension and deny that no infringement took place.

Genre-fication

Regardless of where Avatar takes its inspiration from, few can deny that it does what only a few other sci-fi films have done in building a vibrant and realistic world–not just in Pandora, but the future. The key to successful worldbuilding in film, regardless of whether it’s a science-fiction film or not, is to create sets and props that work together with the story and characters to paint a larger picture of the things that are left unsaid or that might go unseen. It’s the background characters in Star Wars or the glimpses of real-world technology in The Matrix that help flesh out an audience’s imagination about what else might exist in this world. Avatar creates a well visualized future world complete with technological advances, and an alien world that only hints at the depth of its ecosystem. As seen in this first film of the Avatar franchise, Pandora seems like a lush, tropical planet–akin to the one-ecosphere-planets in the Star Wars universe. Future films explore that that is not the case. But for the jungle and mountain realms depicted, and all of its indigenous flora and fauna, Avatar does not fall into the trap of explaining what everything is.

Low-budget films, and some bigger ones as well, oftentimes will make the mistake of needing to explain what is being seen on screen as if to justify its inclusion or enlighten the audience. Cameron only pauses the camera on some of the strange plants that Jake encounters, as a way to show his wonderment with this new and different beauty. The film does not have Neytiri pointing to everything and telling him what they’re called. For one, that would be boring, but it also removes some of the mystery surrounding the creatures. Repetitive viewings reveal to sharp-eyed viewers that all of the animals of Pandora appear to have six legs and other related appendages–such as the “bonding” interface cilia. There is a realism and hierarchy to the world that audiences can grasp relatively easily with its panther-like, rhinoceros-like, and monkey-like creatures, while still leaving room for imaginative play and wonder.

Avatar also continues Cameron’s fascination with the military in space, aka Space Marines. His 1986 film Aliens focused on the Colonial Marines (“the good guys”) fighting against the xenomorphs (“the bad guys”) to protect humanity. Audiences got an up-close look at their gear, their jargon, and their ferocity. This depiction defined the way that the military was depicted in sci-fi films, including Starship Troopers up through Ender’s Game. Yet the military is not seen in a favorable light in Avatar, with the exception of Jake and Trudy–who become a conscientious objector when the real nature of the operation is at hand. The entire group is fronted by Quaritch who is a tough-as-nails drill instructor, and also equally as hard in a fight. Several times he is seen putting his own safety at risk in order to get the job done, which includes bursting into the toxic atmosphere of Pandora while holding his breath so that he can take the final shots at one of the insurgents. However, Quaritch doesn’t work for himself. He takes orders from Selfridge and others at the corporation RDA. The role of the evil corporation is another long-standing sci-fi trope that Cameron includes. Like Paul Resier’s spineless Carter Burke in Aliens, Selfridge is equally a corporate stooge. He only takes one thing to mind when looking at the issues on Pandora: is this something that will delay the mining project? He is wholeheartedly out for the bottom line, hiding behind the guise of doing his job to enforce the dominant rule.

Societal Commentary

The main theme of Avatar follows the corporate goals that Selfridge lays out, and it’s a theme that is introduced even before arriving on Pandora: the strong prey on the weak. It’s stated in a voice-over by Jake as he witnesses a man abusing his girlfriend in a bar on Earth. Even at this time, Jake understood right from wrong, yet as a paraplegic he was unable to fight these abuses. He tries to. He wheels himself over and yanks the barstool out from under the abuser, bringing him down to Jake’s level before pummeling him. Unfortunately, he is stopped by friends, and even the girlfriend, who somehow is unable to see the help she’s being provided. Jake then becomes fortunate enough to join the Avatar program, which allows him to walk again–balancing the playing field. Yet he does not ally with the military that trained him or the corporation that paid for his improvements. He again sees those groups as bullies preying on the perceived weaknesses of the Na’vi. However, in reality, they are only technological weaknesses. The film makes it clear that the empathy and connectedness of Jake and the Na’vi are their greatest strengths.

Avatar also has things to say about racism and colonialism, two other themes that it addresses. Quaritch, as the primary antagonist of the film, is not necessarily racist in his actions. At least not by virtue. His treatment and vitriol against the indigenous people would probably be the same disgust and hatred he would feel against any enemy he was forced to fight. His attitude as a dyed-in-the-wool jarhead appears to be that the enemy must be vilified and denigrated so that the soldiers can do their jobs. And that job is to protect the company at all costs. Selfridge on the other hand calls the Na’vi “blue monkeys” as a slur to also lessen the sentience and intelligence of the Na’vi. He just seems ignorant and unwilling to listen to those around him that are smarter. As the one in charge, he has been tasked with returning a precious metal to Earth, and that’s what he’s going to do. This occupation of the native lands and exploitation of the resources on Pandora is a modern look at the colonialism that has been practiced throughout time. Could anyone look at the humans, in general, from Avatar and believe that they are doing the right thing? Not hardly. A willingness to commit genocide, whether terrestrial or alien, is not the side that heroes fight on.

Perhaps the most important theme that Avatar has to share is about the environment. This is something near and dear to James Cameron and something he practiced on set. Reportedly he had the caterers serve only plant-based meals during the film, due to his convictions about climate change and ecological abuses. His hero is one that comes from the technological mighty race of humans from Earth. They are compared to a species that worships the interconnectedness of all things in their world, which appears backward to many of the humans. But this connection, this empathy, towards the environment and the planet is shown as the righteous path; one that Jake must learn to see. The Na’vi’s greeting is the words “I see you.” But not in the literal sense, as Jake comes to understand. They are “seen” in the context of understanding their part in the cycle of life and rebirth. It is a sign of respect and togetherness which most humans cannot understand. Jake’s final act before leading his new Na’vi brothers and sisters against his own people is to ask the great spirit of the planet, Eywa, for help. He is told that such requests are never granted, yet the spirit mother answers by “seeing” him and sending the wildlife of the planet to aid in the battle. To believe that actions don’t have consequences is a selfish human failing. Avatar shows that on a global scale. If you put hate and destruction into the world it will be revisited upon you, but so can kindness and love be returned. It’s all about the person you want to be.

The Science in The Fiction

Avatar is also quite thoughtful when it comes to the ideas of science and technology. The first thing that audiences are exposed to is the trip to Pandora takes five years, nine months, and 22 days to accomplish. During that time, much like in Aliens, the crew of the space vessel is put into stasis for the duration. This is also the time used to grow the Avatar bodies. These fully grown Na’vi hybrids don’t just appear overnight. They are cloned versions of Na’vi, mixed with DNA from the human operators so that the neural linkage between humans and aliens will work. Due to the human elements mixed in, these Avatars can easily be identified by the five fingers they have on their hands. Native Na’vi only has four, which is useful for the aliens as they can quickly tell who really belongs with their tribe and who may be an infiltrator. The way that the humans “drive” these avatars is very similar to last week’s film Surrogates, in which humans inserted their presence into androids that resembled them and remotely controlled them about their daily lives. This is a fully organic connection between the human brain and the Na’vi body. The one thing neither film discusses is the WiFi network needed to keep the characters in contact with their Avatar. However, Avatar does suggest that the consciousness of the characters is shunted (via imagery of a wormhole-like tunnel) into the body of the Na’vi, rather than being fully telepresence.

The idea of humans linking to a Na’vi body is echoed by the link that the Na’vi have with their planet. Most mammals shown, and some trees, have the ability to bond with one another through tail-like appendages filled with cilia. From a technological standpoint, Pandoran life is capable of joining the network of another living being, with the planet itself being one interconnected neural network encompassing the entirety of the landmass. This eco-network is not just a fantastical sci-fi plot device. A type of aspen tree in Utah, the Pando, appears on the surface to be a grove of trees. But in reality, it is an interconnected network of root systems yielding one single organism. Pandora is this but on a global scale. When Grace tries to quantify this, she argues that there are “ten to the fourth connections between each tree, and ten to the 12th trees on Pandora,” which works out to ten to the 16th, or ten quadrillion (1,000 trillion). The human brain has about 100 trillion neural connections putting the wonder of the planet in scale.

And for those who like cool tech in their sci-fi films, Avatar has plenty of that. Besides the telepresence abilities of the Avatar project, RDA uses some nifty three-dimensional holographic maps of the area. Having a 3D representation of landscape or terrain would be extremely helpful–unless it was being used to plan the genocide of a people. The military uses an assortment of scaled-up helicopters and other airplane-like devices. Cameron utilizes humans near these planes to show their massive scale. He then shows the massive planes looking like insects next to some of the trees on Pandora to generate its impressive scale. Humans have adapted to living on a planet with a toxic environment by having a very easy source of oxygen with their full face mask system. These portable breather apparatuses never seem to run out of air, and the only concern is having it damaged or removed. Finally, Cameron updates his idea of the Aliens load-lifter, with the Amplified Mobility Platform (AMP) Suit, a robotic exoskeleton that mimics the movements of its onboard wearer. Unlike the Avatars, these suits require the operator to be a part of the unit, rather than controlling it remotely–like with a drone. It makes for some exciting screen moments as Quaritch actually is put into the fight with the Na’vi, but also showcases the dangers faced as the operator is exposed to the dangers of being in war.

The Final Frontier

One thing that I recall from the initial release of Avatar is the subtitles used in the film for when the Na’vi speak. As with films like Dances With Wolves, care was taken to create a language for the alien characters so they were not just automatically speaking English. People watching the movie today on streaming services do not get the same visuals as what was shown in theaters, which utilized the font Papyrus to identify their language. There is some silliness to the arguments about this, but in terms of immediate readability Papyrus is more of an artsy font. It doesn’t have the commonality of a Times New Roman or Garamond and thus might be a little harder to read at a glance. Over time, the level of hatred for this font has grown in leaps, nearing the hatred for the most derided of all fonts, Comic Sans. Perhaps some of the backlash is just towards James Cameron and his wanting to do things his way. It’s not something that makes or breaks the film but can be an amusing diversion in the overall popularity of the film.

With Avatar being such a popular film, the reveal that the ore being mined on Pandora is called unobtanium became a much bigger joke to a larger audience. Mentioned in some sci-fi literature in the 20th Century, the first public mention of unobtanium was in the 2003 film The Core, where it is an alloy that protects the outside of the drill vehicle as it passes into the Earth. It’s humorous since the core component of the word comes from unobtainable, suffixed with a common tag for elements. What makes Avatar’s use different is that it’s not a single throwaway line, but the MacGuffin of the entire film, getting several mentions and several visualizations as a floating, glowing rock.

James Cameron conceived other stories within the pantheon of Pandora. He began working on ideas for sequels to Avatar soon after it was released but was unable to complete the first sequel for over a decade. Elements of future films were reportedly filmed with the second film, Avatar: The Way of Water released in 2022. With its release he also announced a whopping three other sequels, bringing the total Avatar franchise to five-films, stretching into 2031. The third film is scheduled to be titled Avatar: Fire and Ash and be released in 2025, with films four and five coming in 2029 and 2031. The Way of Water continued to expand the world of Pandora with more groundbreaking storytelling and visual effects. It succeeded in returning the entirety of the cast from the first film, regardless of whether they survived in that film or not–which makes for a tantalizing tease. There’s no arguing that the look of Avatar is an amazing spectacle. Your individual take on the source material may just depend on the level of cynicism you feel for your fellow travelers on the blue marble we call home.

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