by Larry Klaes
We continue Larry Klaes’ look at the James Cameron film Avatar, noting the technology with interest, but also examining the people involved and the always relevant question of how we deal with other cultures. How plausible are the creatures depicted in the film, and what sort of artistic choices forced Cameron’s hand? On a broader level, what sort of a future will humans make for themselves if and when they develop interstellar flight?
The starship that transported our hero, a Marine named Jake Sully, to Pandora made only a brief appearance at the beginning of the film. While nothing much was really said about this vessel, it did at least bear a resemblance to a craft that might actually operate in space at least during the next few centuries. This is in opposition to the starships of Star Trek and Star Wars, which often tend to be ‘sexy’, sleek to the point of being needlessly aerodynamic in the near vacuum of space. I do not recall the type of propulsion used by the starship in Avatar, but apparently it could attain high relativistic velocities, as the crew was in suspended animation for just over five years, which would be just about right for traveling from Earth to the Alpha Centauri system. Now whether we will have such a starcraft or any kind of manned starship by the year 2154 when the film takes place is another matter.
Now about the humans in Avatar: It seems that 150 years in the future people haven’t changed all that much, even though they do have some expectedly neat technology. But the people themselves don’t seem all that transformed by it, either physically or socially. This future society does have the means to repair major injuries, apparently – if the one injured can afford the care – and they do have the Avatar Program which allows people to place their minds in a genetically formed body of a Na’vi. But otherwise they seem to be a lot like us, which will probably remain true if we don’t do anything radical to ourselves over the next few centuries. Plus, just as with the aliens in Avatar, I realize the filmmakers didn’t want either party too different from their human audiences of 2009, for otherwise they would risk causing viewers to become unable to relate to the characters, even though ironically they have attended this film knowing they will be transported to what is supposed to be an alien world.
The Plausibility of Aliens
This brings up another point: Just how possible are the Na’vi and their environment? Will we find other alien intelligences who are even humanoids, to say nothing of having thought processes similar to ours? Or will evolving in similar environments bring about similar physiologies? Note how there are many different types of creatures in the oceans of Earth, but their liquid ecosystem brings about similar physical features across a wide spectrum. Perhaps we might expect to find similar looking organisms swimming in the global ocean of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. I must admit, however, that once I got past the exoticness of being introduced to Pandora in 3-D, I was a bit disappointed at how familiar many creatures seemed, such as the animals the Na’vi rode: They bore more than a little resemblance to Earthly horses, just as those doglike creatures which attacked Jake early on resembled wolves or hyenas. I still have to wonder how anything complex could live on Pandora so long as that moon remains so close to its huge parent planet. By all rights the little moon should be suffering massive quakes and eruptions of lava, but I saw no evidence of such activity.
The ‘goddess’ Eywa, the complex biological organism every creature on Pandora seems to be a part of, had potential to be more interesting as a type of serious Gaia concept. However, much of the biology of Eywa was lost in the spiritual and New Age aspects the film emphasized. While it is certainly understandable that beings like the Na’vi might only see Eywa as a deity, I found it a shame that the concept and entity could not be further explored in a more scientific manner, but then I suppose that would turn Avatar into some kind of nature documentary, albeit fictional.
A Realistic Human Future?
My next point is the motives for humans being on Pandora. While the need for resources and land and the removal of any group that happens to be occupying the place where those resources are by a stronger group is an unfortunate but age-old reality on this planet, how plausible will it be once our civilization expands into the galaxy?
I was disappointed that Cameron made it seem that most of humanity occupied one planet, the one it came from, when it was obvious that the society of 2154 was a spacefaring one. The presence of manned starships would presume a serious colonization of the Sol system, yet we are told that Earth (meaning human society) is in trouble if it doesn’t get its hands on a mineral called unobtanium, which costs ten million per kilogram. Well, that price is understandable if one needs to haul a precious mineral across 25 trillion miles of deep space! It also seems fairly ridiculous for a society that should be occupying much of an entire solar system, where there are plenty of planetoids and moons and certain planets whose resources can be exploited.
I know the whole premise of Avatar is to teach present humanity about taking care of Earth’s environment and respecting other species of all intelligence levels, but as both a long time space buff and science fiction fan, having Earth remain the focus of humanity to the point where if things go wrong there all of humanity is doomed while at the same time the race possesses the ability to explore and colonize other star systems seems incredibly narrow-minded to me. However, I have to keep in mind that Avatar is designed to appeal to a wide common denominator. Folks like me who nitpick may be acknowledged at best, but in the end the most relatable story rules the day. Again, this is why those who care about the public comprehending real science need to latch on to the themes in Avatar and utilize them to explain how certain things really work in our world.
Motives for the Great Voyage
So this leads us to the ultimate question: By the time we are ready to explore the stars and colonize alien worlds, will we actually do so? Will it be necessary to spread out into the galaxy? I think so, but I also have to wonder if the ones who do such actual interstellar exploring and colonizing will be very different from us, certainly much more different that the humans in Avatar. Will this mean that such encounters as depicted in the film will not happen, because the beings that do leave Earth will not be much like us, if at all? And the aliens we come across may not resemble much at all certain native peoples of our planet’s past and present.
The point that is often missed in plans for interstellar exploration and colonization is this: Whether we go into the galaxy with peaceful intentions or for reasons of empire, the odds seem good that the intelligent species out there may have serious difficulties in relating to us in any meaningful way, and we may have similar issues. Will it eventually lead to new understandings on certain levels, or will we ignore each other, or actually try to destroy one another either from fear or a lack of awareness of the intelligence of the other?
It will be very interesting to see what really takes us to the stars. We hope it will be for science and expanding humanity’s frontiers of knowledge, but just as with Apollo, science may have to hitch a ride with the plans of politicians and corporations which have other agendas than advancing human understanding. This may explain why we have yet to find others in the Milky Way galaxy, either nearby or far away.
One thing is certain: The Universe itself has its own agenda, consciously or otherwise. We may hope not to act as the company did in Avatar when it comes to other less advanced species, but at the same time we should consider the possibility that someone out there sees us as potential prey. Or random non-biological acts such as supernovae may threaten us with their arbitrary methods of destruction. We need to be ready as a society and a species to truly wake up to the fact that we live in a massively large Cosmos that perhaps has not destroyed us yet by the mere fact that we got lucky when it comes to rolling dice with reality. Hopefully one of the goals from our cosmic awareness is to respect other species no matter different they may be from us.
Avatar might just be another popcorn flick with more expensive special effects. Or perhaps it might be the film that inspires members of its audience to turn the dream of interstellar travel into reality. As with so many things in our existence, that choice is up to us.
Just so you know there’s a “Pandorapedia”(http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php) that explains most of the stuff that wasn’t elaborated on in the movie. For example the starship has two hybrid fusion/matter-antimatter engines and a photon sail. And the powered armor suits are stated to be used extensively on the moon and Mars. Also most of the technology in use on Pandora is old military surplus from the 21st century.
Great article, Larry! I enjoyed both halves. I particularly liked your concluding section, very eloquent and moving. If Cameron turned gold into lead, you managed to turn some of it back to silver.
My main disagreement with the movie was the general Anthrophobic mindset it was based on.
Actually, does anyone think there is room for a companion guide to Avatar that explains the themes and science embedded in the film?
I did not like the film at all. It was chock hull of cliches. Five toed aliens looking like bigger, tailed, blue humans all among other creatures with completely alien anatomy ? I means WT… ? How is a nose/mouth breathing hind leg walking tetrapod supposed to evolve from six legged creatures that have separate orifices for breathing in their chest ?
. But such anthropomorphism was almost acceptable, compared to the fact, that the entire film was one long exercise in the “noble savage” and “technological civilization = greed, plunder, destruction only” ludditic cliche.
So the film defeats the very purpose it was created for. Because technology is not the problem a ludditism is not the solution. For example humans managed to completely de-forrest the Easter island ( destroying their own civilization in the process) w/o anything but stone tools. And it was our technology that caused us to understand what is going on with, for example the ozone hole, and ultimately to stop it. Take the untold ice age fauna our paleolitic ancestors hunted to extinction. Nobody cared about them as we try now. There were no noble savages, and there was no golden age in the past, Think about it, guys.
Two days after seeing it, some of my friends are still talking about it. Not in a “kill kill” way, but in a what happened, what was happening, questioning way.
I still think this movie does so much good for people thinking about science, space, life out there, etc…
Scientist and PhD’s are a small percentage of the population.
-Zen Blade
THT: You mean other than the books “Avatar: A Activist Survival Guide” and “James Cameron’s Avatar: The Movie Scrapbook” both published by Harper Collins Publishers? I’m not sure how in-depth into the hard science either goes but from the selected previews HCP provides of them, I’ve gleaned that the interstellar ships they use are antimat, they crew goes into cryo sleep (without the cold), that unobtanium is a superconductive material and it’s even explained how it from on Pandora, unobtainium combines with the moon’s strong magnetic field to create the floating mountains, that the avatars are indeed controlled through what is called a psionic link unit. There are other little nuggets of “science” from the movie, but how much there is or how close it is to be more fact than fiction is debatable. I may go to the bookstore and pick the books up. It’s been a long while since I’ve been able to really geek out. :-P
Hmmm. I thought it would be superconducting. Must be rather heavy, though, if their reactors can’t create it. Definately in the ‘Island of Stability’ said the exist somewhere beyong the trans-uranic elements. If the world was composed mainly of it, it would explain the gravity. Strong magnetic field = easier to keep the atmosphere. Especially with a molten superconductor…
Not seen the movie yet. Will, when/if I get a chance (I’m in a ‘small’ town in Korea). Many of the comments remark on the derivative nature of the plot, and on the preachiness of the message (but hey, remember the original star trek?). My comment here is that even ‘Unobtainium’ is not a new name: it activated a ganglion and I have just found the term in my copy of the book that accompanied the recent movie “Core” (like I said, I’m in Korea, my selection of reading material is limited, get off my case…. :-) ). Couldn’t they have thought of a novel name? “LevitateTheMountianium”? Further comments have reminded me of my pet peeve in (almost) all SciFi: the humanoid nature of the aliens. Common ecology notwithstanding, I see no need for alien intelligences to be humanoid. Six-legged, separate-breathing-and-eating-orifices aliens would be great. I understand the need to not … er … alienate the audience, but some imagination would be truly refreshing.
djlactin,
I might be cynical here, but I suspect that the Pandora aliens are humanoid so that the main character could fall in love with one f them.
Pandora’s forest looks too earth-like and it resembles the old sci-fi novels about Venus in the 40s and 50s.
Again, I think that if the place had been too alien, it would have been difficult to get the necessary emotional attachment so that the viewer could side with the aliens.
… I see no need for alien intelligences to be humanoid. Six-legged, separate-breathing-and-eating-orifices aliens would be great. I understand the need to not … er … alienate the audience, but some imagination would be truly refreshing.
I agree with djlactin – Lem’s Solaris and Fred Hoyle’s Black Cloud come immediately to my mind as good examples of the Absolute Foreign to us humans. I believe we must think of E.T. in these terms, even if we can only contemplate possible scenarios from our human point of view.
The AVATAR starship is a twin-antimatter rocket which tows the rest of the rocket on a cable. It has an auxiliary lightsail.
http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star
The design is accurate, based on Dr. Charles Pellegrino’s Valkyrie design.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3aj.html#valkyrie
This is because Cameron hired Dr. Pellegrino to design the starship.
http://www.charlespellegrino.com/index.htm
As it turns out, Cameron and Pellegrino had worked together before. This is because Pellegrino is also one of the leading experts on the Titanic.
The online wiki (http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php) describes the ISV that travels to Pandora as being launched via a massive laser system, which boosts it to 0.7 c, then the ISV uses a hybrid fusion/antimatter propulsion system to deccelerate at Alpha Centauri and then to accelerate back to 0.7 c for the return trip, deccelerated by the laser boost system back into Sol Space. It accelerates at 1.5 gee, thus the boost/brake phases are less than 6 months. Quite a well thought out description is available on the wiki – I’m impressed. But then Jim Cameron is a physics graduate so I’d expect nothing less.
I think once evolution produces a species of 2 gender social animal with the mammalian type of reproduction, a form of convergent social evolution will occur resulting in the way individuals socially interact with their peers being close enough to our ways for humans to relate to, we don’t have problems understanding the social interactions of other social mammals on this planet.
The hero interacts with the aliens in a form approximating theirs, so it shouldn’t matter what they look like. Also, since the avatars are chimeras, you realize that Jake has condemned his beloved to barrenness. Bad move, because she’s the leader of her clan and the Na’vi (yet more originality!) have hereditary chiefs.
Er… no. The Avatars only contain a small amount of Human DNA; mostly, their Na’Vi. Where did I find this out? Where else – Pandorapedia, the section on Avatar’s.
You’d think they’d rely on Eywa to pick the chief of theirclan, though… I guess Cameron had an imagination drought. Too caught up in accounting, probably :)
They contain enough human DNA to have five fingers instead of the Na’vi four. This means the differences are sufficient that the gametes from the two species won’t be able to form a viable zygote.
If you consider the Pandorapedia anything but handwaving after the fact (and sloppy minimal handwaving at that), I have a truly lovely bridge on Rigel IV I’d be happy to sell you! *laughs*
It’s still handwavium, but it’s the handwavium that goes with the story.
Do they have five fingers, and the Na’vi four? Then again, that isn’t the barrier you might thinkit would be. People with six fingers (Hexadactylism?) can, yes, successfully mate with the rest of humanity. And they can pass that trait on.
Handwavium is correct — but imagine how people would react if a historical drama had Tudor courtiers riding skateboards. ” Oh, only a killjoy would cause such angst to the writer/director/creative genius!”
The bogus science in Avatar was a minor portion of my complaint, in any case. The film is contemptuous of its audience, dumb, boring and profoundly racist. Its designer essentially said “We made the aliens blue instead of red or black, so that we could do a feel-good Tarzan movie without all them pesky PC worries.”
Bottom line — if this film is today’s definition of visionary, I for one cannot wait to go somewhere else. Except there’s nowhere left to go and the Avatar fanboy mindset won’t lead to building of starships.
Physics is easier to get right than biology. And perhaps there’s some explanation for the apparent convergence of forms between the two species? Egregious errors in SF films is something physics aware fans have had to endure for years. Biology might just have to wait its turn.
Well, the reason is obvious – the Na’vi didn’t evolve.
The main issue I take with the move is it’s overall Anthrophobic message: the ‘we humans would just mess up anything we touch’ mentality.
Although, the company was the only group to reach the moon, because of the cost. One wonders why governments or scientific organisations hadn’t mounted any expeditions..
Adam, what makes you think that biology in SF films hasn’t contained egregious errors from the get-go? Just because there’s no Phil Plait around to discuss good/bad astro/physics in each and every SF or disaster film doesn’t mean that biologists haven’t had to grit their teeth in theaters and conversations. Peggy Kolm and I occasionally comment on a movie’s biology, but more in terms of creativity, plausibility and consistency than accuracy. In spite of this, Peggy and I still get the “Can’t you just relax and switch your brain off?” comments.
Hi Folks;
While making no attempt to promote any form of faith-based agenda here nor any form of spiritualism, from a purely sociological perspective a a highly conservative pro-life Catholic, I hold that all rational forms of life, i.e., all persons, deserve our reverential respect and love and this by corollary includes any ETI peoples we may encounter as we venture out into the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond.
These ETI peoples would have to be treated as our brothers and sisters in manner commensurate with the respect and love we owe every human person. As a human person, I could not partake in any plans to subjugate any ETI civilization and hold it to be the inaliable right for all human and any ETI persons to the fundamental natural right for freedom of expression, the pursuit of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Regarding how we might travel among the stars and galaxies, a number of ideas have dawned on me over the years as to their potential significance.
Truly, if arbitrarily high gamma factors can be reached perhaps such as by many pass stellar drive and fry maneuvers or by other means, then apparent velocities of arbitrarily high multiples of the speed of light and travel into the future of the same arbitrarily large number of human life times, ship’s reference frame, becomes possible.
In the limit that the speed of light is somehow reached exactly, the associated gamma factor of infinity would permit the craft to travel an infinite number of light-years through space and an infinite number of years into the future in one Planck Time Unit, ship time. The Planck Time Unit is tp = {[h/(2 pi)] G/[C EXP 5]} EXP (1/2) = 5.39124(27) x 10 EXP – 44 seconds where h = the Planck Constant = 6.62606896(33) x 10 EXP – 34 Joule Seconds, G = the Gravitational Constant = is 6.67428 x 10 EXP – 11 (meter EXP 3)(kilogram EXP – 1)(second EXP -2), and C = the speed of light in a vacuum = exactly 299,792,458 meters per second ~ 300,000 kilometers per second ~ 186,000 miles per second.
A gamma factor of literally infinity such as the infinity of the Cardinal value of Aleph 0 or the infinite number of the number of integers would enable the craft to travel any finite distance including an arbitrary ensemble or even any infinity scrapper number of light-years in 1/(infinity) seconds if one assumes that time is infinitely divisible. Thus, travel distances of truly cosmic portions in space and through future time, but which are nonetheless finite, might be spanned by the space ship at an effectively quicker than instantaneous rate, ship’s frame.
The reasoning behind this conjecture is that if the time taken for the ship to travel an infinity scrapper light years is 1/(infinity) seconds ship time or is equal to zero seconds, then the time it takes the ship to travel a much shorter but still humongous distance of truly cosmic proportions of an ensemble of light years is effectively [1/(infinity scrapper)][1/(infinity)] where the absolute value of [1/(infinity scrapper)][1/(infinity)] is less than zero or more appropriately, less than what I will call conventional zero.
By infinity scraper, I mean a number so large that it cannot be expressed using the conventional notation of powers, and powers of powers even if all the material in the universe were turned into pen and ink.
See http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/cyc/g/graham.htm for a description of such a number. The term infinity scraper is analogous to the term sky scrapper although an infinity scraper is only a 1/(infinity) portion of infinity as is also any other finite number no matter how large.
Note that an infinity scrapper is roughly equivalent to an infinity scrapper times an ensemble wherein these two terms are loosely defined. A good example of an ensemble is the number of possible thermodynamic, statistical mechanical, states in an every day macroscopic sized physical systems. A good example of an ensemble is the number 10 EXP 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or ten raised to the power of a trillion-trillion.
Also note that according to the renowned mathematician Georg Cantor (late 19th/ early 20th century), there exists an unlimited series of Cardinal infinite values of ever greater size such as Aleph 1, Aleph 2, Aleph 3, and so on forever. Any one for Aleph (Aleph 1), or Aleph (Aleph (Aleph 1), or Aleph (Aleph (Aleph (Aleph 1), and so on with out end.
The cardinality of Aleph 1 which is the second lowest Cardinality is the number of real numbers which is greater than Aleph 0 or the number of integers, by a factor of infinity. Heck, even between just the two integers of 0 and 1, or between 1 and 2, or between 2 and 3, etc., there are an infinite number of real numbers.
Note that highly theoretical exotic travel methods such as warp drive at superluminal speeds, wormhole travel, and teleportation do not involve time dilation, and thus do not involve time travel into the future except for the possibility of teleportation and wormhole travel into the future and so inertial travel through space somehow at velocities exceedingly close to C or equal to C might permit far more profound travel distances in space time and time travel into the future than any super-luminal warp drive or any teleportation and/or wormhole travel could enable. I simply cannot foresee warp drive, wormhole travel nor teleportation enabling travel distances through space time and time travel into the future that is on the order of an ensemble, and infinity scrapper, or even an infinite number of light years distance from the Milky Way Galaxy and of such huge number of years into the future respectively.
Truly, good old fashioned relativistic inertial travel through space time at speeds ever closer to the speed of light are possible according to the good old fashioned early 20th century equations of Special Relativity although building such star ships or should I say galaxy ships or even cosmic ships, will require enormous efforts at first wherein the engineering hurdles will be Herculean, the inspiring pioneering visions profound, and the financial and collective resolve of and support by the public, extreme. However, we humans can rise to the occasion.
Back when I was in High School during the late 1970s, there use to be a television sit-com show with a theme song that went something like, “Moving On Up! To The East Side!….”. Well Special Relativistic travel through space time enables us to in theory move on up into the future to an arbitrary extent and to travel arbitrarily great distances though space at the same time.
Einstein in a sense paved the way to not only harnessing the awesome power of the atom, but also the way to potentially unlimited distances of travel through space and forward travel through time, an then so at an early 20th century time that some folks might consider primitive.
My intuition tells me that the story of special relativity and general relativity has not yet been fully written, but together with the tools of nuclear physics, atomic and nuclear quantum theory, classical electrodynamics, solid state physics, modern chemistry including nuclear chemistry, and modern social science and medicine, we can reach for the stars. I believe that a massive UN mandate to develop the appropriate hardware, mission control software, and human factors engineering can enable we humans to lauch our first space ships to the stars by 2050.
To do such is a profound human calling. This is our call and and our time.
I will be away from Tau Zero until after the new year and so I would like to wish the folks of Tau Zero and Tau Zero Centauri Dreams including Marc Millis and Paul Gilster as well as all of the readership of Centauri Dreams a Great and Happy New Year!
Jim
Tobias, your insistence that the Na’vi were “designed” and hence didn’t evolve smacks of (un)Intelligent Design. Yet even if you assume that all of Pandoran life started as someone’s toy project, the entire flora and fauna need to mesh in situ, on the planet. This means that they would co-evolve even if they were put on Pandora as quasi-pre-formed entities. If each species was put down as a final product, nothing but disaster would ensue.
This brings me to two unique problems that biologists face, which I discussed at more length in On Being Bitten to Death by Ducks. The first is that whereas physicists and astronomers no longer have to deal with flat earthers and geocentricists, biologists still have to struggle with evolution deniers at all levels of society and politics. The second is that scientists in all other disciplines, from astronomy to computers, presume to know biology as well if not better than biologists and write books and treatises to prove it.
Does anyone know if James Powell and Charles Pellegrino have published any papers on their antimatter ship that are available online? Nothing on arXiv or viXra. Already had a look at:
http://www.charlespellegrino.com/propulsion.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Valkyrie
Cheers, Paul.
I think it is interesting how so many people have different interpretations of what this movie is about. Perhaps this is more indicative of each of our own mindsets?
I think a very viable interpretation is that the main character (jake, right?) simply began to see himself as more of a Na’vi and less as a human, and that was the key to allowing him to appreciate the Na’vi lifestyle and in fact turn against the human lifestyle.
But, that being said… I think the condemnation in the movie is not so much a condemnation of humanity as it is a condemnation of certain choices that certain humans make to put their values and their interpretation on the meaning of life over the interpretations of others to the point where one no longer values other world views. In other words, tolerance and understanding are good. Exploitation and manipulation are bad.
-Zen Blade
Athena… what I meant was the SF films (a notable few) have finally gotten around to honouring physics accuracy – artistic license aside. Biology isn’t as cut and dried as physics and doesn’t have as much of a nerdy following as physics, so it’ll just have to wait its turn before a director and writer finally “get it right”.
Don’t know how I got here, but I’ve been following “Avatar” threads on a number of sites (must’ve been a link). This is one of the more insightful, for me, because of the passion among the contributors to bring science to the discussion of the movie. It seems like a persistent need, especially where SF and “fantasy” spring forth (and mix it up, in the case of “Avatar”). And, I would hope that much more than has been the case, the voice of science in its most advanced understandings will become much more a part of such cultural works.
I would agree with some who have posted here, that there are instances where adherence to such understanding in such works might not be rigidly demanded. In the case of “Avatar”, my guess is that some better understanding should have been approximated, if not completely satisfied. I think Cameron could have relied on science more, maybe even much more. Your insights are much appreciated, and some new doors have been opened.
But, more than anything “Avatar” is about the future, or even if we will have one at all, much less one worth having. Cameron should not be faulted, certainly not in any cynical fashion, for calling attention to the deadly, driving dynamics of the modern (Earth) world as they might get carried into the 22nd century. Still less should he be taken to task for the audacity to pose, in total antithetical opposition to those dynamics, a vision of an entirely different way of life. This is what Cameron has given us with “Avatar”, and he’s done so with conviction and passion.
My main problem with it all is that I don’t think it will work to try to return to some idealized form of “primitive communalism” populated by “noble savages”. At the same time, there is a fundamental vibe we might look to. In its primitive, basic (yet, as envisioned, highly evolved) expression, there is, in Pandora, a group of beings who are a conscious collectivity, freely associating, mutually flourishing, and who are, in their dance of life with one another and their home, free of anything resembling our own insane realities, constructs, and deadly machinations, except of course what was visited upon them.
Still, anything similar we might bring into being would likely be much different. The vast means and forces here, in the clutches of and at the behest of exploitative and blind global “dementors” call out to be liberated, so that they might become the common property of humanity as a whole, which as a conscious collectivity of mutually flourishing, freely associating beings will use these means only for the good of all, and of their home and worlds beyond.
It will take revolutions, every sphere of science, and tons of imagination.
So, while there are problems with it, for opening THIS door in the way he has, James Cameron deserves a very appreciative nod. I’m speaking from the heart of a communist.
Adam, no worries! I just used your post to make an important point.
DR, that’s an excellent summation — especially the fact that we will need a fusion of focused purpose, knowledge and imagination to overcome a looming dead end; and that no matter how much we regret our destructiveness and its consequences, foreseen and unforeseen, we cannot return to an Edenic existence, having irrevocably chosen the Prometheus/Lucifer path.
However, Cameron is not the first or only one to point these issues out in SF/F. Self-examination of this sort started with such works as Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest. And the issue of white privilege is too pronounced in the film to ignore, something noted by several other bloggers besides me:
When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?
Avatar: Totally Racist, Dude.
I am actually curious if anyone who visits Centauri Dreams is 1) non-white and 2) non-male (besides lonesome if noisy me).
Athena Andreadis, thanks so much for bringing Ursula LeGuin into the discussion. I haven’t red “The Word for World is Forest”, and I don’t know when it was written. I will seek it out. I have, however read “Left Hand of Darkness” (superb), and “The Dispossessed” (my favorite of hers so far). And, I have also read, previous to your post above “When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like ‘Avatar'”, and have intended to answer it. My first take on that blog was of disagreement. But, I want to give it a much better look and think it through.
I’m curious to know what would have happened if a black guy – or white woman – had been the hero/ine, instead.
Really, people – all you need is an injection of C.S. Lewis into stories, specifically the concept of Hnau.
“This means the differences are sufficient that the gametes from the two species won’t be able to form a viable zygote.”
Since when do we know whether alien ‘from another planet’ gametes from two species won’t be able to form a viable zygote? Please cite the study on alien (specifically Pandoran) DNA where you got this information. My Encyclopedia Galactica states that they haven’t used sexual ‘reporduction’ for centirues and instead rely on agamogenesis. They simply keep the tradition of mating for companionship reasons.
“Note how there are many different types of creatures in the oceans of Earth, but their liquid ecosystem brings about similar physical features across a wide spectrum.”
Exactly. Plus any 4 legged alien animal with a head will remind you of some animal on earth. There are just that many variations of animals here. Nature in general optimizes for effeciency. That’s evolution. So you probably will not see many things that are too freaky. Some, but certainly not most. A giant 5 legged horse with the head of a small cobra and no neck for example will not live very long. However, duck billed, egg laying, venom spurred, milk oozing, titless mammals that are almost nothing like other animals do exist, nature can throw curve balls.
Tobias, minority and/or female characters in circumstances like those of Jake Sully end up dead no matter how heroic they are. They’re rarely allowed any nookie — and never, ever do they end up as leaders, chiefs or messiahs.
DR, happy to meet another Le Guin lover! Besides her book, there’s a whole slew of SF out there that deals with despoliation (broadly defined) and truly irreconcilable differences between groups that may all be right — rather than Avatar’s childish black-and-white. Right off the top of my head I can recommend Hayao Miyazaki’s Mononoke Hime; Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean; James Tiptree’s Your Haploid Heart; and Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and its sequel.
Bounty, your post has so many errors and logic lapses that I won’t bother to parse it, especially when we’re discussing “science” as bogus as that of Avatar.
I highly recommend to all acquiring the recently published book
titled The Age of Wonder authored by Richard Holmes not only
because it is a great and fascinating book in general, but also for the
section that pertains to Avatar in terms of one culture which deems
itself superior encountering another culture it looks upon as inferior.
The African explorer Mungo Park was assailed by bandits during an
expedition in 1796. The bandits took almost everything Park had and
didn’t even bother to kill him because they viewed Park as “a feeble
white man beneath contempt.”
Park was also taken care of by a native woman who invited him into
her home and made him dinner and a place to sleep. She and her
visiting femiale relatives actually sang Park to sleep with a song that
he later realized was about him as a poor lonely white man far from
home and any help whom they pitied.
To quote from the book (page 217):
“The women reversed all Park’s assumptions about his travels in
Africa. He realized that it was he – the heroic white man – who was
in reality the lonely, ignorant, pitiable, motherless, and unloved
outcast. It was he who came and sat under their tree and drank at
their river.”
I have the feeling that had Avatar happened in reality, Jake Sully
and all the other avatars would have been pitied but hardly emulated,
or rejected outright or worse by the Na’vi.
Let me second Larry’s recommendation. I’m about a quarter of the way into The Age of Wonder right now, and while I have yet to see Avatar, I do know that the book is absorbing and hard to put down. I’ll go see the movie after I’ve finished it ;-)
“Tobias, minority and/or female characters in circumstances like those of Jake Sully end up dead no matter how heroic they are. They’re rarely allowed any nookie — and never, ever do they end up as leaders, chiefs or messiahs.”
That *wasn’t* what I’d asked. What I wanted to know was, if Jake Sully had been black or a woman, would people be accusing Avatar of being racist/sexist/etcist?
BTW, the reason Jake Sully ended up leading the assault was not because he was in any way superior to the natives. It’s because he had both a) military experience and b) insider knowledge of the humans. The Na’vi initial assault failed because they lacked enough information about the humans – information which was supplied by Jake.
I fail to see what is etcist about the film, expect for it’s (maybe) Anthrophobic overtones.
The correct term is anthropophobic, not anthrophobic. You may note that I specifically did not say that Avatar is sexist. In my review of Avatar I actually praised Cameron for showcasing strong women, even if he gives them regressive motives for bravery. The only bright spot about the Na’vi, in my opinion, is that they don’t seem to practice labor division by gender. As for the “humans are bastards” trope, this happens when a director can’t be bothered to put any time and effort into building complex characters and situations.
As I said in an earlier comment on this thread (and even supplied pertinent links), I’m not the only one by far that came to the conclusion that Avatar is racist under its “Dances with Wolves” sheep skin. I won’t spend more time explaining what’s “etcist” about it. The use of that term, and the mindset that it denotes, precludes further conversation.
There is, still, quite a long way to go toward shattering conventions in film (and generally in society), conventions which promote images and roles too much in line with some weirdly warped and skewed standards. And these in turn reinforce perceptions and values which are still doing harm.
How, do the creators of modern cultural works determine what “types” (or “archetypes?”) will be portrayed in what roles? Really, why couldn’t someone like Cameron consider casting someone like “Gabby” Sidibe or Mo’nique (from “Precious”) in their lead roles? I ask this in all seriousness. It would be beyond the pale to even consider it. But, why? We should ask them. And, we should ask ourselves. Then, we should confront the answers.
And, for crying out loud, let’s all start to clear all this ridiculous “type-set” crud out of any calculations and manifestations in the world. And definitely, clear this crud out of our eyes. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. But our eyes have been filled with crud. The revolution we need has to be made in this realm as well. (But, I found more than one bright spot in the Na’vi, taken as a whole.)
Avatar was a good movie. Visually impressive, good dramatic storyline, engrossing, thoughtful, and quality overall.
Athena, I was reading your replies with interest, although I disagree. I wasn’t going to comment back until I saw this:
especially that last sentence.
One thing I can’t stand is the practice of tar-and-feathering someone or something as RACIST, and once that happens, they can’t possibly say anything. They don’t count, they’re RACIST, unless they apologize profusely and walk on eggshells!
I disagree with that sentiment. While racism is a major problem, the word must not be used as an emotional hair-trigger to silence ideas that are disagreeable. Throwing the word RACIST around should not end all discussion with its imbedded implications. As far as Avatar, it did not contain racism, but it did contain the Noble Savage, Neotribalism, and Environmentalism ideas. The Na’vi are tribal, literally connected to nature, and conveyed as culturally/morally superior to the technological humans. The Na’vi being good is reinforced by their anthropomorphism, intended to gain the audiences sympathy. The main character Jake Sully ends up switching sides from human to Na’vi, rejecting human civilization, industry and technology in favor of a tribal, more natural existence.
While I don’t entirely agree with those ideologies, their presence in the film was not overbearing, and did not take away from the drama and entertainment. But there was no racism or white guilt to be found anywhere in the film, in spite of numerous attempts by pundits to read race/racism into absolutely everything. The ideas were
Noble Savage – Na’vi are technologically primitive, yet morally/culturally superior,
Neotribalism – Na’vi tribal lifestyle and culture portrayed as superior, and Environmentalism – Connection to Eywa/Gaia, beautiful environment, and the bad guy humans seeking to destroy this for resource exploitation aka unobtainium. In fact, it even says in the movie that humans ruined the Earths’ environment.
“Why couldn’t someone like Cameron consider casting someone like “Gabby” Sidibe or Mo’nique in their lead roles? It would be beyond the pale to even consider it. But, why? We should ask them. And, we should ask ourselves. Then, we should confront the answers.”
Exactly.
Dan, if you bother to read my review of Avatar you will find out that I made statements very similar to yours regarding the movie’s message. However, I must disagree with you on one crucial point (leaving aside the by-the-numbers plot and non-individuated characters). There was plenty of white guilt in the film, including the feel-good bandaid repair. And the delineation of the Na’vi as Noble Savages is fundamentally racist. Jackson’s infinitely superior Lord of the Rings had the exact same message about despoiling a world, without needing to force and manipulate the audience’s response. But then Jackson had a much better scenario to work with and he respected his source material.
I’m not saying that anyone shouldn’t discuss this further. I simply said that I, personally, am done with that part of the conversation — in part because I covered the topic in my (too many) replies here and also in my article; and in part because when someone uses dismissive terms like “etcism”, it means that they don’t consider the issues covered by that term worth contemplating.
Because there wasn’t anything that ends with the suffix -ism in a negative sense that *is* worth discussing in the film?
Like I’ve said before, Jake Sully had two advantages over both the Na’vi and the other Avatars ‘drivers’ – knowledge of the human compound, and military experience.
Plus the entire thing with Eywa…
But I fail to see how it had ‘white guilt’ in it. Do you really think Cameron had that in mind when he came up with the idea? Conversely, do you think he was thinking ‘oh, I’ll cast a white male as the main character to show how inferior the Na’vi were to him’.
Really, I think you’re just reading to much into it that isn’t there…
Tobias Holbrook: “But I fail to see how it had ‘white guilt’ in it.”
Surely you jest? Or are you being obtuse on purpose? White messianic complex is writ as brightly all over Avatar as the neon tetra colors of the Pandoran flora and fauna.
Oops, I should’ve put some more spaces in that reply. oh well…
Athena, thanks for the link. It’s understandable that you don’t have unlimited endurance for online debates. But I still maintain that Avatar was not racist. I believe that the race/racism label is thrown around too hastily. While I can see the argument, I believe the ideas in Avatar were not about white guilt, but rather Luddite romanticism and environmentalism. As far as Jake Sully being a white male, I don’t see it as the “white man leading the savages”, rather, his role was to reject human civilization and embrace the Na’vi, and his leading the resistance was a part of that.
I probably won’t sway you, but I believe that imperialism and tribalism can be independent of race in spite of the association. Environmentalism in particular is not tied to race.
Anyway, Lord of the Rings was definitely superior – but then it had great source material. I too dislike Ewoks, as I dislike all childish things in Star Wars (which I’m otherwise a fan of). As far as Avatar, its not the most brilliant work of fiction – but its a good blockbuster, and it pushed 3d forward.
Dan, I agree with you that imperialism and tribalism are independent of race. To give a prominent example of the former, the Aztecs were widely hated by their neighbors for brute imperial force (which included routine human sacrifice as a sign of dominance, the infamous “Wars of the Flowers”). The various genocides in Rwanda, Eritrea, etc, are signal examples of the latter.
However, Avatar specifically milks the very tired trope of The Chosen One and does so in a way blatantly calculated to make its target audience (which is transparently white male) feel good. Jake Sully is generic and bland — an unusual move for Cameron, who created characters in broad but vivid shorthand — precisely so that people can slip into his shoes as easily as he slips into his avatar. And to cap this, the rewards he receives are completely disproportionate to his efforts.
It seems to me that Avatar is “racist” in what the TV Tropes website calls “Mighty Whitey” or “What These People Need is a Honky”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MightyWhitey
This is where a caucasian person can out-native a native.
The trope goes back at least as far as the movie “Lawrence Of Arabia”
Winchell: Exactly! To quote Annalee Newitz:
“Avatar is a classic scenario you’ve seen in Hollywood epics from Dances With Wolves, Dune, District 9 and The Last Samurai, where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member.”
@Athena, indeed. The Aztecs were brutal in their day. I was also thinking of the subjugation of Celtic tribes by Ancient Rome.
And I agree that Jake Sully is very bland and standard issue so that the audience can easily step into his shoes. And Jake Sully’s turn to the Na’vi against human civilization is intended to go down just as smoothly, since the romantic noble savages and their beautiful environment are always better than technology and industry. I wouldn’t call this racist – I’d call it patronizing.
Avatar did patronize the audience to some extent. But although I noticed that, it did not ruin the film, at least not for me personally. There were enough good points, most of which I’ve described here. Another good point to me was that the villain (the colonel) was a rational character who I couldn’t dislike.
Well, here goes…In my post above, I tried to say that images and types that are rolled out before us (people in general), can introduce and/or reinforce perceptions and values that cause harm. In the case of already warped and skewed conventions, of the sort that permeate our culture, they do cause harm, even if the intent is nothing of the sort. There has to be a consciousness about this kind of thing. There has to be a straining against and a breaking with all such conventions. This is no more deeply evident than in portrayals of women (vis a vis males of all nationalities) and of non-white nationalities (vis a vis whites of both genders).
To me, racism implies bad intent. I doubt that Cameron has this. I would refer people to (just for a quick glance) wikipedia’s entries on “Avatar”, Cameron, themes, etc. There are some interesting sources quoted. And, Cameron speaks for himself. Let’s judge him based at least in part on his intent.
However, I posed a serious question to his kind. Why wouldn’t they consider casting people who would by all present “standards” be considered beyond the pale? His answer would likely have to do with market and demographic potentials (and even that is very loaded in its own right). Without digging into this deeply, we can’t really be scientific (!), and why shouldn’t we strive be scientific even in such apparently elusive domains?
The objective effect of any of the conventional stereotyping has to be scrutinized. While I think Cameron is not racist, by sticking to some “tried and true” methodology, he is not helping us break down some of the barriers we need to.
There are others which he seems to have taken a wrecking ball to. So, he’s put some big holes in a big wall. But, we all want to topple the whole thing. We should try to find the ways to bring Cameron along for the whole ride. And, maybe there will be some lessons in the Na’vi way of seeing that he himself will learn.