Movie Analysis :: A Different Look At Avatar (NSFW Language)

Since I'm not going to always be able to update with my own posts(analyzing movies is something I do for fun, after all. And movies are, like, 90-120 minutes long!), I will try and find other interesting analyses from across the web. When I find an essay, I'll provide a link, the author's name, with a little synopsis. I won't just steal an article and post it as if it's my own. If it's a video, like the review below, I will embed it and provide a link to the creators website.

Here is a funny Youtube take on Avatar from www.redlettermedia.com. It makes some excellent points about the film's social and business goals, as well as being a fun review of the movie. I especially appreciated his comparison of the Na'vi and creatures on Pandora with Disney characters. He also agreed with my take in that the military is shown in a very bad light for little reason other than to make the bad guys simplistic. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find the creator's name)

This is slightly NSFW for language. Enjoy!

The Future of Movies

The world of recorded arts is coming to an important crossroads as we enter the second decade of the 21st century. Film has been around for over 100 years, recorded music more than 75, and mass broadcast television for over 60. Even the "written word" is finding itself having to evaluate how it will survive over the next 10-20 years.

I'm not saying that any of these are in trouble. I'm not even saying that the way these arts are produced by artists is having issues. This discussion is not about the artistic side of filmmaking. It is all about the business of movies. And that business is rapidly changing.

In the not too distant past movies were only available as strips of cellulose run over a light and projected on a large screen with the help of a lense. This made movies only available to the people who had the means and the equipment available to project these films in a darkened room. There was no after market for films. Movies in the 20s were made and were easily translated for many countries because there was no soundtrack, these movies would play for years moving around the world to mass audiences in even remote places to earn a profit.

With the advent of television, movies could now be recorded to a video tape and broadcast over the air to millions of viewers who watched these images play through a cathode ray tube. Viewers not only watched movies, but they also consumed new, original weekly programming mimicking the radio programs popular in the 20's, 30's and 40's. They wouldn't have to save their pennies to go to the local theater to watch their favorite serial any longer. TV shows could give them the same type of entertainment and do it for free by using advertising to turn a profit.

When the film audience diminished because more of them stayed home to watch television, the movie studios fought back with color films, widescreen, and even flirted with 3D. These things helped to distinguish film just enough from television that audiences began to come back. Even when television introduced color the audiences would still go out to the theater to see the newest film.

That's the way the movie business has been for more than 50 years with relatively little change. As television improved, studios would pump more and more money into their releases, making bigger effects, hiring the most desired actors, and using television as a primary vehicle to advertise their films.

Today the buzzword in film and other recorded arts is digital. With music, we no longer buy record albums or even CDs. We're beginning to watch television at web sites offering video on demand services. Movies are being delivered to your home through the internet as well, but this still has yet to really catch on. The way we receive our media is changing, and changing fast.

Where does this leave the movie industry? In recent years, the industry has been bolstered by DVD sales. During the years when the profits from movie theaters declined, the movie industry could brag about home video sales. But in 2009 DVD sales dropped 13% from 2008. DVDs are no longer the cash cow they were 5 years ago.

Except for 2009 (which was a record year for Hollywood), box office has been flattening out throughout the first decade of the 21st century. This isn't to say that Hollywood has lost money; I don't know if they have or not. But ticket prices have risen faster than box office, which means Hollywood is seeing diminishing returns when you account for inflation.

This flattening trend is easy is easy to detect when looking at actual numbers. Avatar and The Dark Knight have been huge money makers. But if you dig into the details of the profits from those films, you'll see that when you account for inflation, The Dark Knight no longer ranks 3rd in all time domestic box office, but 27th. Avatar even drops more dramatically to 52nd (according to Box Office Mojo on the date of writing this article). This doesn't even begin to take into account the huge cost of these films incurred by the studios.

The way the movie industry has operated for 100 years seems to be coming to a close. The rise of high definition television and internet distribution may just be the nail in the coffin for multiplexes around the world. There are already many people who wait for the Blu-Ray release of Hollywood blockbusters, and with the advent of HD internet distribution more and more will choose to consume movies at home.

There also seems to be a trend towards a loss of older theater goers. The latest interest in 3D is being driven by younger movie consumers. The studio films seem to be skewing younger and younger. Just recently Sony studios decided to re-boot Spider-Man, a billion dollar movie franchise, and put the hero back in high school. There can be little doubt that the studios' main concern is to grab the younger viewers since they're the ones consistently spending money at the movies.

With younger people being the driving force behind box office, movies are in real trouble. Younger people are not the ones with the money, their parents are. At some point, as a night at the movies increases in price, parents may become less willing to shell out $20 to $30 for a movie and some snacks. Younger audiences also tend to be more fickle than older ones, meaning the income from younger movie goers could dry up quickly if movies become passe to a younger generation.

Movie studios, like the music industry, are going to have to take notice of streaming their properties over the internet in the very near future. Internet distribution will become the primary way that a majority of entertainment consumers will watch film and TV. Ticket and popcorn prices will continue to rise further spreading the consumer entertainment dollar thinner and thinner. The movie studios' only option will be to compete for the crowded home market, which will also include competition from smaller companies taking advantage of the easy distribution model the internet offers.

Obviously this trend will not occur overnight. Movies like Avatar show that people are still willing to pay the prices (even the "3D tax") being demanded at the box office. But devices like the Roku player, the latest video game consoles, and HD televisions and Blu-ray players that access internet content, will continue to eat into the profits of big box office productions.

History is filled with analysts predicting the end of movie theaters. Somehow, movies have always found a way to keep ahead of the curve and continue to rake in the cash. But with the high quality and lowering prices of HD televisions, and the easier distribution of HD content over the internet, the movie industry is about to face it's most difficult challenge. It will take a long time for this to occur, of course, but like any technology avalanche, once it brgins, there will be no stopping it.

3D or not 3D, That is the Question

I think I'm through with 3D movies.

Okay, I know that's not true. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland releases in March and I am an unadulterated fan of is. Also, have become a nice activity that my nephew and I do together, and the kids' movies coming out seem to all be in 3D.

But I think that when I can, I will avoid 3D.

If you read (and beleive) all the reports, the  big movie studios are in trouble. The rising costs of making movies with the decreasing number of ticket sales, they tell us, is making it more and more difficult to turn a profit by simply making movies. (This is hard to buy, mainly due to huge hits like Avatar and The Dark Knight listing among the top money makers ever.) They also tell us that DVD sales have plummeted, and this is forcing them to make more audience-pleasing (i.e. unoriginal) films than ever before.

One of the schemes they've come up with is to offer 3D films. 3D isn't new, of course. We're all familiar with the photo of an audience from 1950s staring at the big screen through their red and blue spectacles. But they say that the technology today is better than ever and that the world should prepare because the 3D revolution is here.

For most of its history 3D has been a novelty. The red and blue days of the 50s produced some dreadful 3D horror films. When seen today, the 3D doesn't even seem to work properly. One finds themselves staring at a distorted picture while looking at the person next to you and asking, "Do you see the 3D yet?"

The 1980's were a lot better for 3D. I remember seeing a 3D movie as a young child and reaching my hand out in front of me trying to grab an asteroid floating in the air. But people complained that the 3D gave them headaches and made them ill, so that 3D era died a quick death.

Now 3D is back and we're supposed to believe that all the kinks have been worked out and that 3D will become as synonymous to audiences as surround sound. We're also supposed to anticipate the coming of 3D televisions, and ESPN and the Discovery Networks are ready to go with their version of 3D entertainment.

I'm not one to predict whether 3D is a permanent fixture in our multiplexes or not. Others will argue that sound was considered a passing fancy to critics and filmmakers of the 1920s. But, given its track record, I think this current run of 3D may prove, once again, to merely be a novelty, even one that lasts longer and does well financially the next few years.

The main reason I dislike 3D is the strain that 3D tends to put on the eyes. While some younger readers may not feel it, 2 hours into Avatar my eyes began to tire of trying to focus on the ever-changing 3D image. Slate.com had a good article explaining why our eyes attempt to focus on the 3D image projected on a 2D screen. (The Problem With 3D)

Something different happens when you're viewing three-dimensional motion projected onto a flat surface. When a helicopter flies off the screen in Monsters vs. Aliens, our eyeballs rotate inward to follow it, as they would in the real world. Reflexively, our eyes want to make a corresponding change in shape, to shift their plane of focus. If that happened, though, we'd be focusing our eyes somewhere in front of the screen, and the movie itself (which is, after all, projected on the screen) would go a little blurry. So we end up making one eye movement but not the other; the illusion forces our eyes to converge without accommodating. (In fact, our eye movements seem to oscillate between their natural inclination and the artificial state demanded by the film.) This inevitable decoupling, spread over 90 minutes in the theater, may well be the cause of 3-D eyestrain. 

I also believe that the higher cost of films today are going to be detrimental in the future of marketing 3D. Currently, the consumer of 3D movies is charged a "3D tax" of between $3-$4. Once the newness of the 3D blockbuster phenomena wears off, will people still be willing to spend that extra money? What about taking the entire family and buying popcorn and drinks, which are also quickly inflating in price? The rising cost of a night out may make people think a little differently about their movie choices when the difference in cost between a 3D and 2D blockbuster is almost $20 in 3D tax alone.

In television the difference in cost between 3D and 2D will be a major block to 3D. The public has only now begun to think flat screen, high def televisions are within acceptable prices for the masses. What will they think when buying a TV that is even higher in price? And how much will 3D channels cost through the local cable company as well?

And we haven't even begun to discuss how dorky we all look in those uncomfortable glasses. I really believe that 3D may take off when we aren't subjected to the punishment of wearing cheap pieces of plastic that hurt the sides of our head for 2 hours. Can you imagine doing this at home for 4 hours of TV and movie watching?

No one can truly predict the future of this kind of technology and its impact on the industry. Obviously people are not completely adverse to 3D or else they wouldn't spend the money to see movies like Avatar. But it also raises the question on whether that particular film may have been better if there was a little less focus by the filmmaker on the visuals and 3D and a little more on the script.

James Cameron's "Avatar"

I wasn't going to start out with a look at "Avatar", but it is quickly becoming one of the biggest money makers ever and thus will have a direct impact on our culture. I didn't take any notes, but as many reviews state, the story isn't all that difficult to digest, and the movie wears its heart on its sleeve.

I was fascinated by the racial undertones of the film, but the website io9 has already done pretty good job with its popular article entitled When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar? It is about "Avatar" being a racial fantasy of a white man becoming a better native than the natives.

If you don't know the story by now, let me do a quick summation. In the future, humans have run out of resources on Earth and are now searching for an extremely rare mineral with the unfortunate name of "unobtanium". This mineral is abundant on the alien moon Pandora, an world teaming with exotic life, including the Native American-like Na'vi. The Na'vi are 10 foot tall blue cat-like humanoids who commune harmoniously with the flora and fauna of their planet. They even have the ability to "plug-in" to the world and commune with other life forms like they belong to a living computer network.


In the midst of this world is the humans who want to raze the Na'vi village for the large deposit of unobtanium under the Na'vi's ancient sacred tree and village. They have created Na'vi bodies called "Avatars" and humans can place their consciousness into them and become a Na'vi themselves for short periods of time.

Enter Jake Sulley, a soldier confined to a wheel chair who takes over for his deceased brother in the Avatar program. He finds himself being terrificly suited for being a Na'vi avatar, and is reluctantly accepted into the Na'vi village. Of course, this causes problems with the private military commander, Colonel Quartich. He wants to run the Na'vi out of Dodge and take the mineral by force, and he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process.

In some ways, the colonel is one of the more interesting characters in the film. The interest is not in his complexity, but his utter lack of complexity. He is a stereotype, and a bit offensive at that. You would think that in 2009 and the days after the economic collapse, the "company man" would be the bad guy. While the company man isn't a good guy, he shows a little hesitation in wiping out the Na'vi village. The colonel, on the other hand, has no qualms about wiping out the Na'vi as fast and efficient as possible, with no concern for the life of his savages.

It's an interesting choice, and is one that, I suspect, plays very well oversees. The colonel is definitely American, and even southern. Why make him southern? Probably because the cliche is that all southerners are racist, so it's easier to buy a gruff talking southerner as the violent military commander. Once again, interesting because this movie makes a big deal about understanding other cultures, yet has no problem with upholding this one old stereotype.

As I mentioned before, I find it interesting to make the military guy the bad guy. In the United States today, our military is still fighting 2 wars and supporting our troops has been a sticking point in the national conversation. Why make the military guy the bad guy? It seems to me that it would have been more relevant to place the company man in the position of uncaring baddie and make the solider more sympathetic.

The movie tends to play like a video game, with the hero Jake Sully having to complete a series of levels before being accepted by the Na'vi and participating in the final battle. Jumping from limb to limb, taming and riding exotic creatures, and understanding the ways of Pandora all smack of video game storytelling, which is becoming more and more of a trend in Hollywood. Once he completes one task, he can move on the next, progressively more difficult task. By the end, he masters the skills of being a Na'vi, and is rewarded for his ability to adapt. Roll credits.

There is no denying that the movie is stunning visually, and that the point of the movie to be an amusement ride. The shallow story has obviously not stopped people from marveling at the amazing computer generated imagery of the film. For some Americans, though, I could imagine that the movie may be a little uncomfortable due to the negative stereotypes that we have tried so hard to get past throughout our history. Overseas, however, may not understand the depth of these stereotypes, especially since (I'm obviously making a big assumption here) they may see the colonel as more representative of the U.S. in recent times.

While stereotypes and cliches aren't always a bad thing and can help to establish a character quickly, filmmakers may want to be aware of portraying someone in an offensive way. It's not even purely about being offended, but it can take the viewer out of the story and make them dwell on the negativity.