Perils of Pandora, Part II: how James Cameron might still set things right

Last time, I went on a bit, describing some logical faults in a motion picture that -- in fact -- I deeply admire. After all, criticism can be well-intended. And clearly, James Cameron intended his epic film -- Avatar -- to be much more than just an orgy of visual delights. He meant both to provoke discussion and to teach some valuable lessons about our modern, self-critical, technological and grudgingly-progressive society. His intentions were good...

...and (I am forced to assert, alas) the lessons were utterly blown.

But we'll get back to Avatar in a moment.  First, let's step back and study the trap that snared this brilliant director. And clearly, it's not his fault. Because this snare catches almost everyone.

== Civilization (automatically) has to suck! ==

Let's make this even more general. Most Hollywood films (and nearly all dramatic novels) share one central tenet: society doesn't work.

It seems an almost-biblical injunction.

“Thou shalt never show democratic-western civilization functioning well. Especially, its institutions must never be of any help solving the protagonist’s problems.”

In The Idiot Plot: Why Film and Fiction Routinely Depict Society and its Citizens as Fools, I describe a core reason for this relentlessly consistent rule. But here's the short of it: Your job as a storyteller, above all, is to get the audience rooting for your heroes by keeping them in pulse-pounding jeopardy for 90 minutes of film -- or 500 pages of a novel -- and that central chore is easiest to achieve if you make sure they never get any useful help from boring professionals.

Suppose our movie's protagonist, the poor schlemiel who stumbles upon a terrible danger-scenario in scene one, were to dial 9-1-1 for help... and help came! Skilled pros rushing in, taking charge, doing their jobs well and honestly, saying "we'll take it from here, sir."

It's the very thing we'd want in real life.

But in an action flick? What a buzz kill! Hence the iron rule for storytellers: you must separate your protagonist from meaningful help!

Think about that. A functioning, decent, competent civilization is a drama killer -- because violent drama is the very last thing that taxpaying citizens want in real life!  So we spend heaps of money hiring savvy pros who use diplomacy to avoid war. We pay taxes to create skilled armed forces whose main job is to deter and thus not to fight. We deploy highly trained police who swiftly answer 9-1-1 calls and chase bad guys. Then we hire attorneys to watch the police, and regulators to watch the attorneys, and activists to watch regulators. (And I have a book about this process, called The Transparent Society.)  

Every hour of every day, emergency professionals stand ready to leap into action because we want most of the danger removed from daily life...

 ... but we don't want it sucked out of our movies and novels! People yearn to have it both ways. They demand that all the cogs and gears of responsible civilization keep turning... but we also want to fantasize that none of it works!

There is, in fact, a sliding scale of how competent our civil servants are allowed to be, in proportion to the power of the villains in a film.

At one extreme -- say, Independence Day -- the heavies are so bad-ass that even the U.S. government and military are allowed to be both good and competent! So they can act as spear-carrier backups to the one or two main heroes.  (When else do you see that happening?)

The Idiot Plot syndrome extends to anyone who might have prevented the problem. They must be either stupid, incompetent or in cahoots with the villains.

Take every Michael Crichton book or film, revolving around some horrible misuse of science. In each case, the calamitous new technology was developed in secret. Why? Because the normal give and take of open scientific transparency would swiftly eliminate nearly all of the dopey failure modes that drive every Crichtonian plot.

("Hey, Jurassic Park dudes. Try this. Only make HERBIVORES first! A billion people will pay to come. And you’ll only have to pay for the lofty-elegiacal half of the John Williams musical score. Not the scary half.") 

You can see why common sense is avoided, at all cost, in Hollywood films.

But does it have to be avoided so completely?

== Our neighbors all go ba-a-a-a! ==

Oh, and this extends beyond public institutions. We also love to fantasize that our neighbors are all fools. How many westerns portrayed the town-full-of-cowards – when in fact nearly every frontier village was packed with Civil War veterans? Why do no brave bystanders rush to tackle the Joker’s henchmen, despite the fact that almost every mass shooter in real life has been brought down that way? (And such heroes thwarted the hijackers of flight UA93, the only action that worked on that awful day - 9/11.) 

Again, this rule has one core purpose, to keep the protagonist in peril by denying her or him storykilling help -- but it also appeals to the viewer's own vanity! Don't we all love picturing ourselves as the savvy ones, surrounded by a myriad neighbors who are clueless as sheep?

There are many help-suppression tricks, and not all of them are cheats! In fact, you must do it, to some extent - as a director or action writer - in order to keep your heroes in jeopardy**. But is it too much to ask you directors out there to do this imaginatively, without preaching that “society and its institutions and citizens are all automatically stupid?”  It has happened, now and then! Films like Ransom, The Fugitive, Sleeping with the Enemy, and so on come up with clever reasons why the heroine cannot call for skilled help from society or neighbors.

A good storyteller will come up with clever, non-cliché ways to keep the hero in jeopardy despite being a member of a pretty decent civilization.  One that's trying to get better all the time. (Or as I depict in The Smartest Mob.) 

The way that citizen James Cameron would personally count on a decent civilization to come rushing to his aid, should he ever need help. Even though he went to great pains, portraying that civilization as vile, in Avatar.

== Avatar did more harm than good ==

Bearing all of that in mind, let's return to my list of ways that this wonderful epic and visual feast - alas - missed its intended goal... coaxing us to be better people.

7) The dramatic situation conveyed by Avatar is both lazy and poisonous… making it typical.

Yes the "dances with others" plot-line works. It takes some of the best aspects of Joseph Campbell’s classic hero's journey, weaves in a love story, hammers the brave-underdogs theme and then does the neo-western thing -- fascination with the alien, the different and foreign. All very well and good. But we’ve seen that when fascination-with-other becomes hatred-of-us, we tread dangerous ground.

Especially when you recall point #2. The major difference between Avatar's scenario and other dances-with tales -- its setting in the future. Our future. The corrupt westerners committing these crimes aren't our benighted ancestors, who -- barely out of the caves -- had a lot to learn. Now it's our descendants doing all the awful, deliberate crimes. Obstinately refusing to see parallels in their own history or to learn from past tragedies.

And heckfire -- it could happen! 

In the world of Avatar, it seems our best efforts did not bring forth new generations raised in good intentions and avoiding mistakes of the past. The human improvability that James Cameron himself represents – a civilization that listened to Ghandi and Martin Luther King and that tries every day to overcome our Cro Magnon flaws -- went no further in the next two centuries.

Doesn't that mean that Avatar itself – and guilt-tripping movies like it -- failed to make those centuries any better? Bummer.

Again, I say all this in all friendship. We must speed up the pace by which we humans improve our ethics, compassion and commitment to responsible care... especially of this magnificent planet! So why does Avatar fail?

Because those who would be persuaded by simple guilt trips already have been converted by past guilt trips... from Soylent Green and Silent Running to Fern Gully and the works of Ursula K. LeGuin.  Guilt flagellations and "we're-all-so-awful" lamentations will not sway the remainder who wallow in blithe shortsightedness. They recognize a finger-wagging lecture and - smirking - turn it off.

Meanwhile, alas, Avatar proclaims, that our children will not learn, despite all we say and do. Our vileness is rooted in inherent human nature.  The best thing is for humanity fail.  And heroic humans ought to help ensure that happens.

Is there a way out?   Next we'll explore some ways that Mr. Cameron might redeem all this, and actually deliver on his good intentions.

==

** Do movies ever evade the "idiot plot" and show the hero's neighbors NOT as sheep?  But as  brave and decent citizens?  I can think of one worthy and consistent exception. All five of the Spiderman movies kept faith with a delightfully unique tradition. For most of each two-hour film, Spiderman saves New Yorkers. But there is always a thrilling moment when New Yorkers return the favor. When they stand up and save Spidey. Delightful.

Continue to Part III: Can Avatar be 'fixed'?

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

David Brin's Favorite Science Fiction Films

Science Fiction is multi-dimensional and no one criterion can be used to determine a best-of list. Hence, I must divide my favorites into categories. And yes, each choice would be worth many paragraphs of explanation, including the runners-up and tragic misfires. I'll be more concise.

1. Movies for grownups: I wish there were a lot more of these -- films in which the director and writer actually cared about the deep implications of their visual thought experiment -- their deliberate departure from reality. Works in which the creators paid close heed to logical what-if and (while delivering tasty action, plus biting social commentary) eschewed the lazy, "idiot plot"* assumption that civilization is automatically and entirely worthless. Some institutions actually function! Adversaries have plausible motives and no red, glowing eyes! Protagonists aren't chosen-ones but merely above-average people with difficult challenges to overcome, in part by using their heads.

 Inception (2010) works harder than any film I ever saw. It can be overbearing, especially with the aggressive musical score cranked up! But I have never seen a director strive to juggle as many edgy intricacies as Nolan does in this mostly-successful tour-de-force.

Gattaca (1997) and Primer (2004) are much simpler films that nevertheless aim to tease your mind into real thinking. Gattaca isn't as dystopian as some lazily take it to be and the protagonist is actually a self-centered jerk… but a true hero nonetheless, whose triumph is largely one of character and mind. Primer is a delight of logic and an example of what can be done when very smart people have a filming budget of about eighty-five cents.

James Cameron gets a couple of mentions here. But the one that was for grownups is The Abyss (1989). Yeah, sure, the ending was… well, I don't care.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was epochal in its time -- it helped make me who I am, and remains a mind stretcher -- though it suffers a bit under close examination. So don't.

And Kubrick's other wonder…arguably the best motion picture ever made, though only marginally science fiction…Doctor Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Honorable mentions in this category would include the recent films Limitless (2011) and Moon (2009). The grownup in me says thank you.

2. Joyful slumming: At the opposite end are films that I could only watch by tuning my "dials" before entering the theater. Cranking IQ and science and even logic down to"popcorn" levels, without sacrificing my standards when it came to deeper values, beauty, esthetics, ethics. Admit it, some of your brains must be left outside the theater, in order to enjoy most flicks, and that's fine. In other words, appreciating as-if-stoned a movie-movie that is simply way-successful at delivering fun.

Noteworthy: all the fantasies are here. Show me one fantasy for grownups.

Conan the Barbarian (the original 1982) is simply the most successful film ever at delivering what it promised, while never promising what it couldn't deliver. Every scene is filled with visual and musical beauty amid a tale that hearkens to the deeply non-western, non-modern and joyfully brainless part of you and me, going back to the Iliad and Gilgamesh and the caves.

 The Fifth Element (1997) is the single most joyful work of art I ever saw. Luc Besson's sheer pleasure leaps onto your lap like a great big, floppy-dumb retriever and licks your face for ninety minutes. I adore it. And it adores us.

Avatar (2009)… well, James Cameron would demand that we put Avatar in category number one or even number 3. Sorry. Nice try. It is beyond-brilliant in the popcorn category, but keep those neuron dials turned way down. And then murmur… "wow!"

In contrast, the Back to the Future (1985) trilogy comes that close to vaulting into category three. It's fantastic fun. bighearted, unabashedly logical and darn near perfect.

Honorable Mention in this category:

Lord of the Rings (2001)… all right, Peter Jackson delivered a superb work of art and it was definitely not "just popcorn." I have great respect for Tolkien's complex world building craft and Jackson's fealty to the original material. Still, neither the books nor the flicks bear adult scrutiny. So turn down the "adult" dials. Be a kid and enjoy. I know I did!

3. The whole package: Rarest of all -- films that take us beyond our familiar horizons on adventures that satisfy every age you contain within yourself, from awestruck kid to sober grownup to mystic dreamer.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) delivers from beginning to end. Not only a terrific motion picture but a love ode to the brash, Faustian, unbridled adolescent hopefulness that only Star Trek ever gave us, amid today's grotesque tsunami of grouchy-cliched dystopias.

Bladerunner (1982). Of course. Nothing need be said.

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BEYOND THE TOP TEN … WE ALSO HAVE…

Runners-up: There are so many films that came close, or just missed. Dozens that were enjoyable and I'd have been proud to be associated with. Only nit-picking kept them off the top tier.

 Contact (1997) was well worthwhile and inspiring, if a bit preachy in spots.

Gravity (2013). I expect this one may challenge its way into the Top Ten, with time. Exquisitely done, even if Cuaron depicts Earthy Orbit as roughly the size of L.A. County.

Things to Come (1936). My kids were bored. I was moved almost to tears by its paean to the civilization we might (with difficulty) make, if we overcome the worse sides of human nature. Maybe its a generation thing.

James Cameron's Aliens (1986) is the best film about motherhood ever created. And Terminator II (1991) was even better than the first one.

(Note: All through the 80s and 90s there was a "third movie curse" in which the third flick in a franchise betrayed everything good about the wondrous second film. It happened to Star Trek, Star Wars, Terminator and especially the Aliens series. But not Back to the Future, somehow.)

I'm not done! And so let me roll off some of my favorites that fall just outside the top ten, each one funky and unique and different in its own way:

 Forbidden Planet (1956), Rollerball (1975), Soylent Green (1973), Men in Black (1997), Galaxy Quest (1999), Logan's Run (1976), Source Code (2011), The Truman Show (1998), The Time Machine (1960), District 9 (2009), Alien Nation (1988), Charly (1968), Serenity (2005)... plus weirdnesses like Brazil (1985), SteamBoy (2004) and Solaris (1972)… illustrating the fantastic range and breadth and wondrous opportunities for creativity that science fiction offers to those who think bold.

Special Category: Faustian SF. I especially like films that buck a cliche. And the worst cliche of all is hopeless gloom. A few… a bold few… express confidence in us, in our ability and righteous right to go beyond what we were, and in our children to be better than us… call these the anti-Crichton movies that declare the opposite of Michael's endless chiding: "don't touch that!"

Examples mentioned already are The Wrath of Khan and Inception.

Also expressing this rebel sense of belief-in-us: Ghostbusters (1984), Brainstorm (1983), Altered States (1980), Dark City (1998), Quatermass and the Pit (1958), and eXistentZ (1999). And may I be honest? Kevin Costner's The Postman (1997) was harmed by a nonsensical last 20 minutes - and was uneven throughout - and it might have benefited from even 5 minutes of talking to the original author. Still, large swathes of it were terrific. It features some of the most gorgeous cinematography in the history of film. Also, its heart was pure and brave and it belongs in this category. Still. Compare to the book.

Special Mention: Surprisingly, no single Steven Spielberg film made my top ten sci fi films. But almost all Spielberg films would make it into my top fifty, while Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and War of the Worlds (2005) and Minority Report (2002) skate much closer. Spielberg and Zemeckis are the most consistent and skilled story tellers of our age. Nolan and Cameron, while much more uneven and less disciplined, did make it onto the list.  Vive les differences.

And finally….

Tragic misses: What might have been... if only…

 The Empire Strikes Back is a fine film in its own right, and it shows what a wonderful epic we might have had, if George Lucas had stuck to his strength, as one of the greatest of all visionary Hollywood producers, and simply hired great writers and directors for his films, the way he did in Empire… and the way he hired terrific artists for all the other Star Wars flicks. (Their one strong suit was then endlessly voluptuous visuals.) Alas, his choices became our tragedy.

The Day the Earth Stood Still… could have explored the immorality of the other side. It's smarmy and unhelpful preachiness prevented adding another layer of potentially really interesting counter-preachiness. How tasty if one human had stepped up and said: "I know, I know we are all that… but what are you?"

Total Recall… you're kidding me, right? You can be this creative -- in BOTH versions (1990 and 2012) -- yet still timidly shy away from getting all Philip K. Dick on us and persuading us to actually fret that it might all actually an actual bummer recall-trip? You couldn't do that? Why? I mean, why not? It would have been so easy and so cool.  Dang.

 Dune (1984)… actually, I have no major complaints. It's a pretty good movie and deLaurentis was utterly faithful to Herbert, accurately conveying the complex world and characters. Alas, lo and behold, the silver screen made clear what most readers of the novel - captivated and immersed - failed to notice. That every single character in the story is loathsome and ought to die. Yes, the "good" guys, too. Please. As quickly as possible.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Fun and all that. But. Um. And the real villain is…………?

And so it goes.  Let's all hope that there will be great new films in the next decade the outshine all of the above!

Hey, here's a pitch: "dolphins… in space!"

Eh? Who could possibly beat that?

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* Followup links:

The "Idiot Plot Cliche" that civilization must always be portrayed as worthless.

Other science fiction riffs by David Brin:

Speculations on Science Fiction: collected articles.

Exploring Pop Culture: Star Wars to Tolkien: collected articles

A video rant: Name the Villain...

Why all the Zombies Means You'd Better Vote!

Howdy Halloween... and how about the symbolism as the dead seem ready to rise up, in the coming election?

And yes, I connect the two events, especially with one network pushing a zombie movie at us, just before we vote, in a blatant political ploy!

Seriously, zombies are political?

Well. Apparently -- zombie flicks flourish when Republicans are gaining ascendency. After all, such works works depict a garish, simplistic exaggeration of what they dread most -- an unruly uprising of the filthy, ignorant masses.

Vampire films, in contrast, represent fear of a predatious-controlling aristocracy and so, this genre surges in perfect tempo with times when democrats rise in influence.

S'truth! Moreover, given the sudden greenlighting of ever-more remakes of remakes of remakes of the same dull zombie scenario... the same cliches, over and over again... it looks like we may be in for a very long period of aristocratic rule.  Perhaps like the 4,000 year feudal reign that only ended with the American Revolution, and that may resume at any time.

io9 charts a spike in zombie movies coming out close to historical events involving war or social upheaval -- the Vietnam War, the Global recession, the Iraq War...

In fact though... what I've perceived goes deeper! It appears that there is a whole monster CLASS SYSTEM. 

"These gore-flecked flicks are really competing parables about class warfare," writes Peter Rowe in With Obama comes the return of the vampire, in the SanDiego Union Tribune.

After all, if vampires are old-style aristocrats (and by-the-way, those who wallow in vampire idolatry truly are bona fide traitors to our modern Enlightenment), and if zombies are the proletariat...

...then which monsters represent the MIDDLE CLASS?

Well, it used to be lycanthropes, of course. Werewolves. Poor schlumps in the suburbs who got bitten and who must now wrestle with the temptations of raw, animal power. The only movie monsters who were portrayed with families, mortgages to pay and lawns that need mowing. Their affliction used to be depicted with sympathy and angst and made for interesting stories! Their new powers and temptations, conflicting with bourgeois values, led to compelling and very sympathetic tragedy...

...except in the wonderfully up-beat and American Teen Wolf.

Alas, then, for the recent, utter betrayal of the whole idea behind wolfmen, in those awful new series we've seen lately -- you know, the ones that portray "lycans" as just another kind of arrogant asshole monster race preying on normal people, completely missing the point of what they are about!

Wanna see my own, highly original (and hilarious!) riffs on classic monsters? Portrayed in a raucous sci fi action comedy?  See my new serial "The Ancient Ones" in Baen's Universe. (Late note: This magazine is, unfortunately, now defunct.)

You'll fall off your chair! ;-)

For a more philosophical and academic look at this pop culture phenomenon, take a look at the collected essays in Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy: New Life for the Undead, edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad.


=== But Just a Little Politics Now, Please ===

There are so many lies.  So many tricks being used to sucker millions of Americans into voting for their own worst enemies, the venial thieves who have robbed us and brought America low.  At this late moment, it's hard to summarize even a few points, but I must try.

Ask these questions of your Fox-watching neighbor:

1) I have put out this challenge for years and no one on the right ever dares to respond! In all of human history, which enemy of freedom crushed and destroyed more markets or competition or opportunity or liberty?  Socialists or oligarchs?  In 99% of human decades, it was the latter. 

So why are you letting a propaganda machine that is financed by a bunch of secretive billionaires and middle-eastern oil princes feed you all your political ideas and stoke up your passionate hatred against your neighbors?

2) If the Bushites over-spent more freely than Obama, and lost more jobs by far, and if "ObamaCare" is actually based upon the Republicans' own 1995 health plan... exactly why are you so eager to put the GOP back  in charge?

3)  Do you actually...? 

Oh, but it is time to stop.  I have tried for 10 years to come up with silver bullets that might wake up decent conservatives from their fevered delusion -- that their movement has not been hijacked by monsters.  It seems hopeless.  They will not hear the sound of Barry Goldwater, spinning in his grave.

So let me put it this way. It is up to moderates... moderate and pragmatic, dedicated to a calm America, where negotiation is still possible... to make a difference in this election.

For you all to realize that it is time to be militantly moderate!  And, this decade (maybe not the next one!) that means punishing the party that is inarguably insane.  The delirious ones on the right.

Enough talking.  Find a tight race near you and tomorrow go down to the HQ of that race and volunteer to help get out the vote.

Fight both the zombies and the vampires.  Fight for us mere, middle class werewolves!

Fight for the republic.