So, James Cameron, if killing only begets more killing…how about violence in the media? Don’t depictions of violence lead to real violence?
Somewhere in the new film AVATAR, the Way of Water, one of the gentle Avatars (those tall, thin, willowy creatures with expressive animal-like ears) tells several younger avatars that their race learned, long ago, that killing only leads to more killing, so they stopped killing.
Maybe so, but you’d never know it to watch Cameron’s new film. The extremely violent scenes of destruction and killing go on and on and on and on — the movie is 3 hours long and at least one hour is devoted to violent war. Of course, the Avatars might say that the violence is caused by an invasion of the Sky People — namely humans like us. And they/we are particularly insidious this time around because they/we’ve melded the mind set of tough, mean, bloodthirsty Marines onto Avatar type bodies.
The theory is that the hybrid Marine-style Avatar will be less likely to be detected and destroyed by the real Avatars once they intrude on the Avatar planet environment. A very clever invention indeed, worthy of our devious, war-mongering species. However it doesn’t seem to work that well since the hybrids immediately show their true colors by viciously confronting the first young avatars they encounter.
In any case, the real, honest-to-goodness Avatars can now claim that they were compelled to adopt violent ways, including AK7-type super-charged artillery, to defend their homes, their families and their ways of life.
As it turns out, different tribes of Avatar reside in different habitats. In fact when the Avatars we know from the original film are fleeing the Sky People (us/we), they choose to alter their way of life from being jungle/garden creatures to becoming ocean creatures. Their adaption forms a large part of the movie (an hour at least) and is easily the most beautiful part. It is totally enjoyable and enthralling to glimpse (through our 3-D glasses) the gorgeous underwater vistas of coral, seaweed and sea creatures — many of which used to exist on our planet but have recently been decimated by pollution, rising sea temperatures, excessive visitation by human divers, etc.
The 3rd hour, I’d say, is devoted to petty fighting between the “teen-age” Avatars who display the same hot-headed temperaments as hostile gangs in Chicago or LA. They swagger across the screen in their tall willowy shapes and call each other “bro” (how did that evolve?) and try to impress one another with their hair-raising stunts and to act ultra-cool around their feminine counterparts. Frankly, I would give this element of the film a median score on the Rotten Tomato index as being rather trite and predictable and silly.
But overall this film was rated a 74% by the Rotten Tomato critics and 94% by the audience. This high audience-pleasing score is not surprising since the film attempts to incorporate something for every film-goer: There’s the powerful Papa Avatar protecting his wife and brood; there are the restless avatar teens out-doing each other with their misconduct and finally there are the vistas of beauty and serenity for the anti-gun, anti-violence, vegans among us who long for peace and progress on the global warming front. We’ve largely given up on this planet but we are all hoping there might be another planet in the solar system that’s half as beautiful as the one we’re currently destroying. And we’re willing to join the Avatars, funny ears and all, to find this beneficent place.
In any case, James Cameron, I truly admire the creativity and imagination that went into the creation of this film — it’s awesome! But, please, next time around could you tone down the violent battle scenes and the teenage jargon — we already get plenty of that on our screens large and small.
