Avatar: Born to be bad

In 1977, a film came along that remade the entire industry. It ushered in the era of the blockbuster, introduced rafts of new technologies and marriages of old, integrated symphonic music into popcorn cinema, and demonstrated that the audience had become so familiar with the vocabulary of science fiction that they no longer had to be sold on the concept in the story. It was the most successful film up to that time, influenced the popular culture of a generation, was responsible for at least half of all content on the early Internet, and resulted in some of the best jokes on Spaced.

It was also one of the worst films ever made with a plot that was stitched together with a cleaver and dialogue so bad that one of its stars conned the director into killing his character off early so he wouldn't have to say any more of those god-awful lines.

Yes, I'm talking Star Wars. It was beautiful. I well remember back then how incredibly impressive it was sitting in the Odeon with the first chord of John Williams's score, the story so far roller, and the unforgettable opening shot of the spaceship that went on forever with all ray guns blasting.

God, it stank.

I never thought I'd relive that time of youthful innocence, but I have. I have seen Avatar.

God, it stank.

I know I said I wouldn't see it until it came out on Pay Per View, but it's the Christmas hols and I was outvoted by my wife, daughter, and the five-year old neighbour boy who went with us, so it was jumbo popcorn and 3D specs all 'round.

First, let's get the praise out of the way. The CGI is very impressive. The resolution is very high, the textures are detailed to the point where you could almost touch them, the lighting effects are excellent, and the motion capture technology is state of the art. In fact, it works too well. It's the first time I've seen the subtleties of facial expressions captured properly, allowing the actor to really come through. This is great if the subject is someone who has some real acting chops like Sigourney Weaver. For others, this is not an advantage. The tag line could have been, "You will believe that a CGI character can overact". Overall, however, the effect of all the computer animation was that I kept reaching for the game controller, which is where I suspect most of the CGI techs cut their teeth.

As for the much-vaunted 3D, I merely found it distracting for the first five minutes and then I forgot about it entirely. On the upside, the Polaroid glasses are much more comfortable and don't give me a headache the way the old bichromatic jobs did.

The plot? If you've seen A Man Called Horse, Dances With Wolves, Soldier Blue, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, The Last Samuri, or even Dune, the Endor scenes from Return of the Jedi, or pretty much any trendy lefty film since 1972, then you've seen this film–over and over again. Civilised man meets primitives, man is accepted by primitives as one of them, man turns traitor and slaughters his civilised brethren. If you're into written science fiction, if you've read Poul Anderson's "I am Joe", Clifford D Simak's City, Alan Dean Foster's Midworld, Harry Harrison's Deathworld Trilogy, Ursula le Guin's The Word for the World is Forest, Eric Frank Russell's "Symbiotica", or just about anything else written since 1935, you know the fantastic side of the story. I'd include Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alex Raymond as well, but the poor men have already suffered enough and our hero isn't John Carter or Flash Gordon by a long chalk.

Short version: Paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully is sent to Pandora, the tropical moon of a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centuri to pilot an "Avatar"; a genetically engineered duplicate of the Pandoran natives. Using a padded coffin strung with magic Christmas lights, Sully can connect his mind to his Pandoran body so he can move about freely in the moon's poisonous air and make contact with the natives to learn more about them and negotiate peaceful relations. He's a bit of a cipher and, given the plot, I'd have been happier if he'd been written as a 22nd century Harry Flashman (Flashman and the Blueskins!), but...

Unknown to Sully or the altruistic missionaries scientists who created the Avatars, the evil military commander and the evil corporation that apparently runs the evil military in 2154 not-so secretly plan to wipe out the natives because it's so gosh darn more fun than haggling over mineral rights. In a burst of incredible originality, Sully learns the ways of the natives and when he discovers the evil Earthmen's evil plans to evilly destroy the natives with great evilness, he turns traitor, leads the natives (who follow him out of curiosity) into battle, and slaughters thousands of his fellow humans without a touch of remorse. The human survivors are then frog marched aboard their spaceships back to Earth and the natives and Sully live happily ever after–or until Earth Command sends an orbital bomber force to wipe them all out a month later, but the film doesn't explore that detail.

James Cameron worked on getting Avatar to the screen for fifteen years, though from the plot it seems more like since 1968. Indeed, the frog march ending reads like a Vietnam War protester's wet dream. During the climactic battle I kept waiting for our hero to scream, "Damn you, Bush!" while Dick Cheney whizzed by in an attack helicopter with Tony Blair in the Gunner's seat.

The entire film is a beautifully imaged cliche fest. The military are mindless killers lead by a commander who is just itching for an excuse to take the safeties off for no readily apparent reason other than racist blood lust. Of course, he and his men a) have all the brains of a wet teabag b) make every mistake imaginable and c) have never seen the Endor bit in Return of the Jedi, so it's no wonder that a 22nd century force is taken down with bows and arrows. Any other director I could excuse this from, but James Cameron? The man who coined the phrase, "Nuke the site from orbit"? Doesn't he even see his own movies?

The natives, on the other hand, are without exception brave, noble, wise, in harmony with nature, have perfect teeth, vote Labour, recycle, buy only Fair Trade coffee, and drive Prisuses. They even react with horror if someone exhibits a knowledge of fire. Rousseau would feel his dinner coming back around this bunch. Mind you, for all their virtues, not a one can hold a bow string for toffee. And they have yet to discover anything resembling a sense of humour or the ability to speak in other than the most stilted of sentences. Though they live an idyllic existence, they do suffer, as do the Earthmen, from one pestilence of civilisation: The Action Girl cliche that was old when The Swordmaster's Daughter hit the stage in 1894. It never works unless the writer and director really think it through and here it's just embarrassing. When our native princess went into a knife-wielding crouch toward the end of the film, I literally burst out laughing. Dejah Thoris this Pandoran is not.

Okay, but suspension of disbelief and all that. Sorry, I'm all for it and will suspend with the best of them, but the flying mountains wrecked not only my suspension, but my shocks of tolerance and leaf springs of credulity as well. As in Titanic, Cameron imagines that imagery will cover every plot hole and excuse his dogged refusal to pick up better plot opportunities that would have improved his story immeasurably. Instead, we have a nearly three hour diatribe about Cameron's ideal Gaia-worshiping aliens who are literally connected to their world fighting off wicked Earth capitalists who deserve no better fate than to go back to face extinction on their own dying planet. It's a message that is not only offensive in its self-loathing (especially when I drop $12 for the privilege of his insult), but also because Cameron, who produced at least two excellent films back in the '80s, has prostituted his own art to share his loathing with the rest of us.

But, say other reviews I've read, don't be so negative. It's only a movie. Forget the plot and just go with what's on screen. At that point, I merely sigh and answer with two words: Star Wars.