Avatar (FINALLY)

Avatar (2009), by James Cameron

Avatar was okay. Good, not great, and definitely a film that deserved to be seen on the format for which it was designed (3D-IMAX). Director James Cameron's first film since 1997's Titanic was released and eventually became the highest-grossing film (until his subsequent film, this one, which doubled Titanic's $1.4 billion gross. DOUBLED IT. THAT'S NEARLY $3 BILLION FOR ONE MOVIE.) The film is set in the year 2154, when Earth's resources have been depleted and the resources of the lush moon Pandora (home to the indigenous, blue-skinned Na'vi) are being mined and shipped back to Earth. Space marine and newly paraplegic Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is shipped to Pandora to replace his brother, Tommy, who died and was previously part of the Avatar program, in which specially-designed human/Na'vi hybrids are mentally controlled through the aid of MRI-like machines. Jake is sent to accompany the Avatar program leader, Grace (Sigourney Weaver), in studying and trying to gain the trust of the Na'vi, as well as secretly gather intel for Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who is in the employ of corporate leader Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) to help gather the valuable resource unobtainium. Jake then gets lost and it is only with the aid of Na'vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) that he is able to survive the harsh jungle environment of Pandora. Eventually, Jake is forced to prove his worth as one of the Na'vi, and must choose between helping Quaritch, or helping the Na'vi.

That is the entire plot. There was very little to surprise me the first time I saw the film. Technically, the film is absolutely perfect: the CGI and motion capture are extremely well done (although not as ground-breaking as either Jar Jar Binks was back in 1999, or the quantum leap that was Gollum in 2002), and the utilization of the 3D effects was used less as a gimmick and more as a natural extension of the cinematic world that was created. The effect actually added to the depth-of-field of the screen (the first shot of Jake Sully ---bathed in blue light and floating in zero-gravity and pointing towards the screen, where a single drop of water floats--- immediately impressed me), and provided a sense of interaction with the screen that became more and more natural as the film progressed. Weta Workshop's engineers (they're the same team that pioneered Gollum eight years ago) have finally managed to perfect computer-generated fire, smoke and (perhaps the most difficult) water (there is a scene where Jake's avatar climbs out of a river after being chased by some panther-like alien, and the effect of his CGI clothing sticking to him and appearing wet actually impressed me more than anything else in the movie...I'm not kidding. Rendering realistic water effects is fucking hard). The effects work and cinematographer Mauro Fiore's lush photography were impeccable, technically perfect, and absolutely beautiful. If every 3D movie were shot with this amount of care and attention paid to the effects work, and if every science fiction film were this beautiful, going to the cinema would return to being an Event. However technically beautiful and perfect the film looks, nearly everything other than the effects work suffers from almost fundamental flaws that ultimately hampered my enjoying the film.

First off, the characters are entirely one-dimensional. Entirely. Quaritch's personality trait is Evil-Army-Colonel. Selfridge's personality trait is Selfish-Corporate-Yuppie. Grace is Jaded-Open-Minded-Scientist. Jake is Gone-Native-Man. At the end of the film, they are exactly the same. The simplicity of each character undermined the overall richness of the visuals and of the social strata developed for the Na'vi. Neytiri and the other Na'vi (Mo'at, Tsu'tey, and Eytukan) have a rich and fully developed cultural history that is hinted at, but those dynamics sadly never add up to, once again, character tropes: the Na'vi are too perfect and so pefectly balanced with their environment to ever really become too interesting; half the time it seemed as if we were observing a diorama of what a civilization such as the Na'vi would have appeared as to our untrained and ignorant eyes, than as if we were truly observing the continued existence of a race that has existed for hundreds if not thousands of years. The film was plagued horrendously with the “white guilt”, and as a result everything about it seemed trite and heavy-handed.

Having said all that, I still admire and respect the film, but merely on a technical level. The script was horrible, with one dimensional characters, predictable plotting, some slight pacing problems, and (despite all the technical innovations that would make the rendering of any thing ever IMAGINABLE possible) rather limited character design. While the overall message of the film was commendable, it still suffered from being entirely pedestrian in its telling, without any real level of suspense or surprise, and the death of one of the major characters added nothing to the story, except to incite Jake into finally acting out against the military (which I guess qualifies as his character arc). The culture of the Na'vi, while rich and dense, seemed too much a metaphor for Native Americans for me to identify with the Na'vi on their own terms; it seemed as if this film were James Cameron trying to present a message with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, where a scalpel would have been the only tool needed to get the job done; had he given the Na'vi a culture that identified them as something unique rather than merely being a tool for pedestrian messaging, I would have found them to be more appealing. However, since he didn't, I was able to make my own guess as to where the story would go...and failed to be surprised when it progressed exactly as I'd predicted.

Science fiction has often been used as a means of expressing or redirecting the concerns or fears of modern culture: Star Trek used aliens to shine a light on race relations, and the Cold War; Star Wars (the first one) seemingly reinvented the mythic hero style of storytelling, while conforming entirely to that paradigm; and so forth. Name a science fiction television show or movie made since The Forbidden Planet (and you can include Metropolis in there too), and chances are there is a plethora of subtext to be examined (hell, even B-movies like Starship Troopers could be examined in like). Even Cameron's own Terminator 2 and The Abyss (still my favorite film by him) could be be examined under several pretenses (which I might elaborate on in future articles. But with most of these films, the metaphor is subtle and told in a precise way, and it feels organic to the story and to the characters. With Avatar, the message seems so sloppily presented that it came across as feeling a bit weird (the scene where Grace is presented to the Tree of Souls, to become one with Ey'wa, always, always, makes me feel uncomfortable, and I'm not entirely sure why), and, at worst, perverts the characters (who become mechanisms in service of the plot). I feel as if there was a point during the making of the film where Cameron forgot how to write the way he used to, or to direct action scenes in a way that raises the stakes considerably.

Comparing the finished film to the original treatment, Project 880, which was considerably more dense and detailed, makes me think that I would have preferred to watch the original vision for this film than what ultimately feels like a CliffNotes version of it. Despite its runtime, Avatar still feels rushed and cramped, with none of the characters taking any time to develop emotionally, or with any sort of real connection to the audience. The audience feels for Jake Sully because he is the one who has the most screen time, not necessarily because he is interesting, or likeable, or played by an actor who has any chemistry (sorry, Worthington...you've still not grown on me as an actor). For a movie that promised (and delivered) so much in terms of special effects and the movie-going experience, it is such a shame that Cameron chose to display all this prowess on such an empty film.

The epic score by James Horner coupled perfectly with the visuals to create an epic, heroic swell to the film, and may have actually been the second-most-enjoyable aspect of the film (number one being, of course, the visuals). Mauro Fiore's lush cinematography (despite most of the visuals being computer-generated) still added a lovely feel of the exotic to the proceedings. The fact that motion-capture has progressed as far as it has since 2002's The Two Towers (or even The Phantom Menace back in 1999, when it really hit the public consciousness) is impressive, and what Cameron managed to do with the technology is worthy of praise. But, again, it boils down to one simple thing that made this film work as a story....

...the plot just sucked. It was awful. None of the character beats were surprising, and the fact that it was so predictable and rote made the characters that much less interesting; half the time I was waiting for the inevitable plot twist which would cause the character to change. The characters' decisions failed to feel real, as if service was being paid to the characters as people, and not as plot mechanisms, and for that reason I just couldn't give a rat's ass about anyone. And when you think about the ending of the film, it narrows down to a human coming to an alien world and showing the aliens how to navigate their own culture, tame their own world, and become better warriors than they ever could aspire to be (only after he'd learned everything there was to learn about them), and be the only hope to band them all together in order to rid their world of other humans (whose victory at the Hometree was guaranteed by....the same human outdoing them at everything). Also, once the technologically-superior humans are beaten and sent off Pandora, what's to stop them from just sending more ships, more men, and larger weapons? It seems a rather hollow victory in the long-run.

Avatar is a visually beautiful, lush film that fully utilizes the technical potential of 3D, motion-capture, and computer-generated imagery. As a story and a film, it falls apart, and in a few years, when this very pioneering filmmaking technique is used in every blockbuster film, it'll be sidled alongside films like The Jazz Singer or The Birth Of A Nation: very finely-crafted films that are important on a historical sense, but don't really add up to all that much when you finally get around to seeing them (I've gotta say, for a talkie, The Jazz Singer has an awful lot of inter-title sequences). It's the technical achievement and talent brought aboard that matters, but it's merely to inspire the newer generation of filmmakers to take those tools and use them in more interesting ways. How Avatar, a film that was expressly designed for 3D IMAX viewing, will play on a 2D home-theater system is another question entirely: does it live up to repeat home viewings?

Avatar, for the time being, is a beautiful time and a fun ride, like a roller coaster: exciting, fun, and a true experience, but you can see all the twists and turns a mile away, and you're stuck in a chair full of people you'll never think about again in your life.

Star Trek

Star Trek (2009)


It's been two days since I saw this film with a group of friends, and I'm still surprised that a Star Trek film can be this good. Truly, it's better than it should be (given that it's a sequel/reboot of a moribund franchise whose last entry 7 years ago grossed only about $46 million and is in competition with Wolverine of all movies), and as exciting a summer film as it could be. It's not without its flaws (including gaping plot holes and a script that reads as if it was halfway through a rewrite before the writer's strike hit)...but even then I can't not like the film. There's so much more going for it and working that it's impossible for me to hate it, and that's a credit to everyone involved. I mean, really: a packed theatre for Star Trek? Applause at the end of it? Teenagers and middle-agers sitting together to watch a fucking Star Trek movie? (Although I could have done without the couple sitting behind me and making out every five fucking minutes). It's a credit to everyone involved.
Mostly, it's a credit to director J.J. Abrams, who takes many elements that really shouldn't work (including what I can only describe as an eclectic cast, and the aforementioned script) and somehow makes them work. Adn he doesn't just make them work, he makes them WORK. Like, perfectly and nearly flawlessly. His Mission: Impossble 3 from three years ago marked his first foray into feature filmmaking, but even then he directed as if confined by a small television screen: rewatch that movie and note his directorial choice in scenes that should have been explansive and bombastic, such as the bridge heist, or the raid in Tokyo, or (especially) the climatic fight between Ethan Hunt and Owen Davian. It's all so small for a theatre screen.
Well, he fixes that problem with his second film. This is a Star Trek that feels like it belongs on a theatre screen: the sets are expansive, the sound design booming and rich, the battles epic (on a scale that rival Wrath of Khan), some real emotional heft, planets caving in or exploding, and even a space monster or two thrown in for good measure.



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The true scope of the film reveals itself in the open sequence, where we are introduced to Nero, the Romulan villain from the future (or, in actuality, the late 24th century, which is where the last film took place, thus confirming its place as a "presequelboot"), and his ridiculously massive mining vessel. The U.S.S. Kelvin is sent in to investigate the time time distortion that Nero's time travelling causes, and we learn that Nero is searching for Spock. The Kelvin is attacked and its captain killed, and the second-in-command ---George Kirk--- orders the ship evacuated (along with his wife, who is onboard and going into labor as the attack is carried out). They escape and he flies the Kelvin right into the horrendously more heavily armed Romulan ship.
And right off the bat the film makes its own mark, seperate from everything Trek that went before. It's different in almost every respect. The Federation ships are both dirty and ultra-modern (the engineering sections are dripping with condensation, and cramped, with pipes and tubes shooting all over the place; whereas the bridge is like an Apple Store 20 years from now), and extremely streamlined (and feature odd numbers of nacelles...something Roddenberry always opposed). The battle is less calculated than the one shown in Wrath Of Khan, with each commander trying to outwit the other, but is instead desperate and haphazard, both ships seemingly firing at random. Abrams minutely details the damage: in one instance, the impact of one of Nero's torpedoes is shown from the inside, a corridor suddenly explodes and a crewmember is sucked out, screaming, as the soundtrack suddenly becomes silent and what we hear is Michael Giacchino's beautiful score (seriously, with every film he reaffirms himself as my favorite contemporary film composer. His work on The Incredibles and Speed Racer especially go underappreciated). The opening battle, again, is on a scale unlike anything seen in Star Trek since 1982 (even the battle between half of Starfleet and the Borg in First Contact lasted only a few seconds) and sets the tone of the film.
And that tone? Fun. Fun with a capital "F". While the film has its flaws (which I will get to), every actor is giving their absolute all and enjoying being in the film so much that I can't helped but be charmed by everything that occurs onscreen. Chris Pine, as Jim Kirk, plays the role as the cocky, chauvinistic, self-assured cowboy that he usually is in the best of the original episodes. Gone are the dramatic pauses, the melodramatic gesturing, and the grandiose speeches (not that those are bad; in fact, that's what makes Shatner's interpretation great and fun! But it's 2009, and it's time for a different take on the role). Zachary Quinto's Spock is more emotionally open (to the point of engaging in a relationship with Zoe Saldana's Uhura...a relationship that I not only don't agree with, but which abandons ---nerd alert--- the Vulcan mating ritual of pon farr...unless Spock is 28 in this film...whatever), but, at the same time and quite paradoxically, plays Spock with an almost sociopathic apathy. Spock has always been about repressed emotions, not lack of any at all.
The rest of the cast play their roles better than expected (Karl Urban's McCoy was ABSOLUTELY perfect. If the movie were all about him, I would be fine with that. Seriously, it was as if someone had cryogenically frozen the DeForrest Kelley of the 1950's and placed him in the film. Unending kudos to Urban!) John Cho expands Sulu from a bridge instrument to actually being involved in a major setpiece; Anton Yelchin goes a little overboard with Chekov's accent (although him trying to get the computer to understand him was funny) and leaves me to wonder why a 17 year old Chekov would be in uniform so soon...not only should he not be on the Enterprise at that point, but he would have to be 12 at the time he was accepted to the Starfleet Academy; Uhura gets more lines and action in this film than she did in the entire run of the series; and finally, Simon Pegg's Scotty was perhaps the most fun character (and does manage to save the day at the end), but was played a bit too much for laughs...although, even then, he never loses his dignity. In fact, each character gets their moment to save the day, and each actor expands on the characteristics that made the characters individual to begin with, not merely paying lip service to the original actors.
The other actors fare well with their roles also: Winona Ryder as Spock's mother, Amanda, was barely recognizable (a credit to the old-age makeup), and Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike made the role his own, and his fate shows that already the established universe is drastically different from what went on before.
However, Eric Bana's Nero, while a fun nemesis...doesn't really have an interesting MO. He's a Romulan space miner. His wife died when Romulus exploded. He's mad at Leonard Nimoy's Spock Prime (which, in reality, is the Spock from the established universe). He accidentally gets sent back in time to 2225 and blows up the Kelvin, which sets off the chain of events that change history. And then, for 25 years...he just...kinda...waits. He doesn't do anything. A friend said, "Well, he's waiting for Spock to show up so he could use the red matter to blow up Vulcan." True. Except he witnessed everything happen from his ship and probably wouldn't know that there was red matter in Spock's vessel. So...what was he doing?
Spock Prime has never been this emotional before. Ever. At least not without the aid of some spores, or Vulcan ritual, or mind control. But this is Leonard Nimoy showing an aged and emotionally conflicted Spock...but a Spock who also just accidentally went back in time. And I'm used to the Star Trek movies dealing with time travel, but in each of the films it was an active move: the characters didn't just go back in time accidentally. That's what occurs here, and that weakens the villain and, therefore, the story.
And the story is what should matter most in a Star Trek film (or any film, for that matter). Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script is full of massive plot holes (if Spock went back in time by accident, why does Kirk comment that his "going back and changing history, isn't that cheating?"; is it really plausible that Kirk would be marooned on the same planet and hide in the exact cave where Spock Prime is hiding, and on that same planet Scotty is stationed? And, again, what the hell is Nero doing for 25 years?) Little explanation is given as to how exactly Nero's appearance alters the state of Starfleet technology, why Pike and his crew were hanging out in Iowa, why the destruction of the Kelvin is worthy of the history books (maybe that'd explain the advanced state of Starfleet technology), nor as to why Nero, at the climax, is suddenly so adamant on killing Kirk (for all intents and purposes, Nero shouldn't give a damn). It is as if prior to the destruction of Vulcan Abrams was working on the script's latest draft, and after that scene was forced to use an earlier draft (due to the writer's strike, which occurred midway into shooting).
But, even then, Abrams makes it fucking work! He proves wrong the adage that a film is only as good as its script. Because, well, the script is pretty bad (Scotty's lines, while funny, are wildly out-of-character, especially that "nacelle" line). But what he utilizes in the bad script he makes up for with charm. Even when Scotty gets beamed into a coolant tank in a pointless scene that adds nothing to the story or the character, I still cared about what happened and wanted him to get out okay. Pointless scenes that add nothing of merit at all are still so charming as to not be offensive.

The production design is at once both gorgeous and gritty. The designs of the Federation starships adheres to the desgins of the previous films (saucer sections, nacelles), and the bridge looks like an Apple Store expanded on government scale. He retains the sound design while updating them slightly (the communicator sound; the red alert sound; the transporter energizing effect, the late Majel Barrett Rodeenberry as the computer voice), and they all work flawlessly. The Enterprise looks absolutely gorgeous, almost like what the design would have been in the aborted Star Trek: Phase Two television series from the 1970s. Cool color palettes on the exteriors, and bright lighting for interiors...except for the engineering section, which is dank, foggy, musty, damp, dimly lit, and expansive. I find it wierd that every part of the ship except for engineering would be so absolutely pristine and state-of-the-art.
Abrams did what producer Ronald Moore couldn't do: he made Star Trek fun and popular again. And he did it without alienating the original fans. Gone is the baggage of the original actors; gone is the melodrama and the 40+ years of labyrinthine continuity; gone are the dreary sets (just go back and look at the lighting and color scheme of the Enterprise-E) and costumes; hell, gone is all the metaphysical musings by the characters...this is the Star Trek from 1966: bright colors, bright lighting, lots of sex, comedy, adventure and Fun. The stakes have never been higher (characters are killed that you wouldn't expect; Vulcan is destroyed; Spock Prime is forced to live in the past in order to perpetuate his own species), but that doesn't mean we have to be all dark and gloomy and Dark Knight about it. There's nothing to stop a fun film from having real emotional weight and consequences, and Abrams proves it here.
This is a new Star Trek. Just like Batman is new again. Just as James Bond is new again. But this is a new vision of the future, without the cynicism and gloom. Without the darkness that'll come in tow with next week's release, Terminator Salvation (a film I have absolutely no interest in). Star Trek's ---and Roddenberry's--- vision of a future where people work together to overcome their problems is resonant again.
Goddamn it, Star Trek is back, and I'm here for the ride.

For more on how this new film works despite itself: http://chud.com/articles/articles/19369/1/THE-DEVIN039S-ADVOCATE-WHY-STAR-TREK-WORKS-DESPITE-ITSELF/Page1.html

And how the new film is going to affect prior canon: http://popculturezoo.com/archives/2529