Perils of Pandora, Part III: Can Avatar be 'fixed?'

Following on my earlier analyses of James Cameron's Avatar, please let me reiterate that I actually quite like the film!  What's not to like about such a feast for the eye that's also packed with terrific action, and that tries so hard for goodness?  Well, as I have shown, it is that last part where Mr. Cameron inadvertently fails, delivering instead a blow to our confidence that we can become better people. That we can make a better civilization,

And here we ponder... 

== Is there a way out? ==

In fact, I believe Avatar's moral flaws could be fixed with only minimal alterations! Maybe five minutes worth of footage, added to a "director's cut," might alleviate many of the problems outlined in my earlier postings Part I: Why Avatar (Tragically) Fails to Make us Better and Part II: How James Cameron can set things right. 

Just five minutes.

Shall I give it a try?

            

Picture the beginning, as a crippled Jake Sully arrives at the human mining colony exploiting riches from Pandora -- riches that Earth desperately needs, in order to restore its former health. But there are tradeoffs, including an unscrupulous company and a suspicious-dangerous native population.

Only now, let's suppose that Earth civilization is not run by imbeciles who are ignoring history. Instead, our descendants run a generally moral society that established rules for decent treatment of the natives, to be enforced by an honorable governor and her staff.

Have I wrecked Avatar? Not really. Bear with me!

            

Let's posit that the Company chafes under the governor's restrictions, constantly conniving and conspiring to get around them. To provoke the Na'vi into a war they cannot win, exactly what happened repeatedly, in the American West.

           

Imagine in the film's first ten minutes, while Jake is literally getting his legs, we see hopeful signs. A meeting is underway, on one of the floating islands, where the good colonial governor is about to sign a treaty with moderates among the Na'vi...

            

Um, now there's a twist. Moderates among the Na’vi?

            

Why, I am talking about those among the natives who are guardedly curious, cautiously friendly, determined to preserve their world(!) but also willing to compromise and let Earthlings have resources they need to save their own distant planet. More like the Cherokee and Iroquois, these are the tribesmen who support Sigourney Weaver's school, though they demand Earth send children to Pandora who might be young and flexible enough to absorb Na'vi lessons, too.

            "No, you may not go anywhere near our trees!" they explain.

            "Give us drones and such to help us enforce this!

            “On the other hand, we sure find your spaceships fascinating.

            "And can we try to see if this avatar machine of yours works both ways? So we can feel what it's like to be human?"

            

All of this could be telescoped into just three minutes of screen time! Things look hopeful... too hopeful! And so the audience knows what to expect.

            

The conference island blows up!

            

The governor and her aides -- except Sigourney -- are dead. So are the Na'vi moderates.

            

The Company guy rubs his hands. Earth won't investigate too hard if he has a mountain-high stack of unobtanium waiting, when the next ship arrives.

            

At which point... the whole rest of the film can ensue almost exactly as-is!

            

Obstinate-immature company stooges versus obstinate-immature remnant Na'vi. And we root for the Na'vi, of course!  Because if we must choose between two packs of obstinate-immature jerks, let’s side with the underdogs who are defending their homes.

            

Only, while the rest of the movie proceeds, it is with this idea planted in the viewers' minds:

            It's a tragedy. We should have taken more precautions, sending more of our best and fewer of our worst. But at least there were real efforts to avoid this, by future humans who might do better next time, learning from this mistake.

            Now let's root for Jake and Neytiri and the obstinate wing of the Na'vi. Because obstinacy is called for now!

            

And none of this says that all of our descendants will be evil, all of the time.

            

Only slightly altering its lessons on tolerance and diversity and ecological responsibility, this would dramatically adjust the guilt trip so that it offers a patina of hopefulness, rather than utter despair for despicable humanity.

            

The moral would be keep trying instead of give up.

  
== A side note on scale ==

One of the most amazingly silly things about most sci fi is the assumption that a planet, is about the same size as -- say -- Cuba.

That's about the range that one might expect a Na'vi riding a dragon might tell the tale about how his tribe beat the snot out of alien invaders.  Heck, let it be Texas! No matter. 

The point is that all the company really has to do is relocate to another part of Pandora, beyond the range of even dragon-riding news-bearers.  That's an inconvenience that could instead be an asset to good storytellers.  But we have to learn to think scale.
         

== A Futile Hope ==

Okay... back to my idea about those three-minutes at the beginning, to make Avatar a realistic and effective lesson, and not a berating ruiner-of-confidence.  So. Do I expect James Cameron to make this tweak?  

Of course not. All I can do is carp from the sidelines that "this coulda made it better"...

            

…and shrug as others attribute it all to jealousy.  Ah well.

            

Is that proposal the only alternative occurring to me, when I ponder this immensely entertaining and thought-provoking film? Of course not. There are scads of ideas, including a post-singularity riff that could explain so much of why Planet Pandora is the way it is, offering several double-twist, ironic surprises about humanity's interaction with the Na'vi.

            

Perhaps -- purely for entertainment -- I'll muse on these for you, another time.

            

None of which matters except for this key point...

            

... which is to plead with you. Look around yourself at the current flood of film dystopias and novels that wallow in apocalypse.

            

Hey, I enjoy a good fall-of-civilization tale and I have written some, myself.  But the current obsession-craze is just tedious. Heck, Avatar positively fizzes with subtlety and optimism, by comparison!  

           

Which makes our conclusion all the more painful. For James Cameron’s grand sci-fi epic could have spread confident determination to seek self-improvement – as individuals and as a civilization -- while delivering entertainment and mind-blowing vision to billions.  It tried hard to do that and came so-close!

            

Alas, instead, Avatar wound up undermining our confidence in humanity's ability to do that very thing. It did not have to turn out this way.

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What follows in Part IV: A Speculative Addendum is not a formal part of my article, but just a writer having fun, playing in another fellow's sand box...

or return to Part I: Perils of Pandora: Why Avatar (tragically) fails to make us better