I, along with a large percentage of the movie-going public, saw Avatar over the weekend. In short, it is a flawed, problematic movie, and James Cameron has been understandably defensive about those flaws. Nevertheless, go see it. See it on a big screen, so you don’t miss any details. In many ways, it’s an astounding movie.

THE FLAWS
Sadly, white filmmakers with “message” films about Native Americans — and make no mistake, the aliens in this film are intended to be stand-ins for Native Americans — usually render them as noble savages. The Hollywood version of Native Americans is an idealized “enlightened” people. They live simply, in generic harmony with generic nature. They are caricatures in feathered headdresses who teach the heroic white man in their midst wise pablum, so that the white man can then save them. Perhaps this is an improvement over their earlier incarnations as generic villains in early Westerns, but that’s not saying much.

In Avatar, the Na’vi are also wise, enlightened and in perfect harmony with nature in ways that instantly and uncomfortably bring to mind that Hollywood caricature. They even wear feathers in their hair, despite the complete lack of feathered birds in the movie.

This not only deprives the Na’vi of individuality, it disrespects the real histories and cultures of Native Americans. When we idealize them, we ignore the fact that they were and are real, honest-to-goodness people, with all the good and bad that implies. There has never been a race of people on Earth free of petty tyrants, liars, bad religious and political leaders, and flawed, complicated people. Take away their flaws and complications, and what you have left isn’t an accurate portrayal of a people.

Rating:

Staring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña

Written and Directed by: James Cameron

To add insult to injury, Cameron depicts the Na’vi as utterly ineffectual at dealing with the “sky people” (humans) without a white man’s help. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a marine who connects himself to an avatar — a vat-grown Na’vi body he can mentally take control of — in order to interact with them. In a ridiculously short three-month span, Jake goes from being a barely tolerated outsider — who hasn’t previously learned a thing about them — to a trusted leader who can speak their language and eventually saves them from the other humans.

We’ve seen this plot before, most recently in The Last Samurai. (Tom Cruise as a great Japanese hero? Really?) A white male oppressor earns begrudging acceptance among a close-knit, oppressed minority, and eventually leads them against his former compatriots. Why must Hollywood movies that purport to honor and respect other cultures always make white men their greatest heroes?

That’s not to say it’s impossible to tell a good story at the juncture between cultures in conflict. Little Big Man — with Dustin Hoffman as a white youth who grows up among the Cheyenne — is one example. He’s even the only white man to survive the Battle of Little Big Horn — mostly because he’s on the winning side. But he’s not depicted as the savior or greatest hero of the Cheyenne.

There were other problems with Avatar, but this was the one that really got under my skin.

GO SEE IT ANYWAY
Now, why should you see it anyway? For what they got right. First of all, while the Na’vi are definitely Hollywood Native Americans with blue skin, there are other details about them — both biologically and culturally — that helped negate some of the above problems.

Biologically, the Na’vi are fascinating. They’re humanoid, but about twice the height of human beings because of their world’s slightly lower gravity. They are capable of bonding physically with fierce and dangerous creatures that look nothing like them, yet share a strange proboscis with the Na’vi that allow them to telepathically link. Humans are, of course, linked to our ecosystems in a variety of ways, such as the food chain, but the Na’vi and their environment are essentially part of the same vast organism.

There were glimmerings of a more rich and varied cultural tapestry than what took up the majority of screen time, with lots of little touches of alien-ness that I really enjoyed. Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri does a good job with what should have been the most offensive character: the stereotypical love interest who falls for Jake because of his “brave heart.” She was simultaneously appealing and strange in her mannerisms, such as the heartbreakingly understandable yet completely alien-sounding cry she makes when a loved one dies.

Finally, the story itself, despite problems, is a good one. Right from the beginning, Cameron sets up Jake with some built-in problems that make his story arc — and eventually his life-changing decisions — make sense. The reason humans have come to Pandora in the first place — essentially, to strip-mine it — is sadly very believable. It’s not a unique story, but perhaps these themes are so often repeated because they are compelling ones.

A word on the special effects: The bar has officially been raised. Once every few years a movie makes a leap in what’s possible that practically demands future science fiction and fantasy films follow suit. In 1993, Jurassic Park made me forget that the dinosaurs on screen were digital tricks. In 1999, The Matrix introduced “bullet time” to the masses, and gave movie makers the technology to digitally recreate and move around in any scene they wanted to. And now, Avatar has done something I didn’t think possible: It has overcome the uncanny valley, the visceral response we have to that which looks and moves almost, but not quite, like a living thing. Forget the previews and trailers, they don’t do it justice. When you watch this movie, you forget — despite its beauty, despite its strangeness — that you are watching a movie in which every single scene is digitally rotoscoped. The humans look absolutely real, and so do the aliens. I realized, afterward, that it seemed like the human actors had simply turned themselves into giant blue people for the roles. In other words, it didn’t look like special effects at all.

There is a wonderful scene in which Jake, inhabiting his avatar body for the first time, runs through the woods and stops to feel the dirt under his feet. Look at his feet carefully and watch how his toes wriggle in the alien soil. You’ll be able to imagine the tendons moving under his skin, the muscles flexing. It looks absolutely real, and it’s such a minor, quick scene, it’ll be easy to forget you’re witnessing something that would have been impossible even five years ago.

There’s a lot to be offended by in this movie, if for no other reason than that Cameron’s obviously heartfelt environmentalism was utterly mistranslated. But there’s also a lot to love, and this is the kind of movie that should be seen on the big screen, flaws and all. Go see it.