Avatar: Thoughts

I occasionally venture to the theatres when anticipating one of the great films of my lifetime.  I’m not providing a review here, just some thoughts, so it

CONTAINS SPOLIERS.  DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED IT YET.

I’m going to discuss something further than the typical “Pocahontas” theme here.  Although I think that particular political (and environmental message) is still very pertinent today, it could not be missed.   Instead, I’ll focus on what I was pleased to find added a third dimension to this story.

As Grace put it, Pandora is composed of electrical synapses, every living being forming a complex system similar to the human brain.  And of course, my Arts One critical thinking skills kicked in, and I started questioning the symbolism behind all the action.

As I see it, this film can be interpreted to criticize a sickness, an insanity—and do not consider that word as the medical condition we describe it as today, rather imagine it as an illogical attack on the mind.  I use this word because it is “insanity” that Neytiri tries to rid Jake Sully of.   Each tree cut down was causing mental damage to brain cells.  Otherwise, the mind is formed of complex and beautiful electrical relations.  And of course, I’m going  to the explain the “spirit tree” thing as some sort of weird representation of complete consciousness.   In many eastern philosophies, the mind fully conscious (in other words, the collection of all beings in Pandora all at once) is the pathway to connect with“Ai’Wa” or God.  Grace, when she was dying, could not quite connect with the tree as she was still contaminated with the “insanity.”

[I suppose another way to interpret the "everything is connected" message is as Pantheism.  Ok, so I JUST looked this up and found a Huffington Post article on "panentheism" found in Avatar here, if you're interested, but I'm not.]

So what is my view of the “insanity”?  Think of how heavy on technology and science the human side is.  They had avatars for goodness sake, and the presence of science was emphasized many times through the film –you see it in the obvious contrast between Jake Sully and the other avatars, Grace’s words about being a scientist not believing in fairy  tales, and so forth.  However, I would interpret this as an unregulated science—the mission was, after all, in search of unobtanium.  This kind of science is only one of the ways in which, perhaps, the real meaning of “insanity” can be brought about. In general, I’d label the insanity has the egotistical refusal to connect with the spirit tree and other beings.

I think we all also noticed in the story a significant female presence.  The spirit shaman, the god as a “mother,” Neytiri, the pilot woman  and Grace all had important roles to play.  I would have liked to see Pandora more matriarchal, just to see what it would look like—although perhaps the equality there was the result of a female-run society

Overall, I would not name this the best movie ever.  Partially because it is an expensive retelling of Pocahontas, contains too many war scenes (which I zoned out of), and includes a predictable love plot.  I also did not like how Jake ends up becoming one of the Na’vi, I’d rather have seen him return to the human race (or possibly dead, but that’s just me being cruel.)  I would definitely recommend people to see this though.  When you get this harsh with a critique, you know you’re using a double standard, and that it is in fact worthy of many Oscars.