James Cameron isn't just one of the driving forces of pop culture, he obviously is a big fan of what others put out there beside himself (as the reference to Unobtanium made blindingly obvious).
Not only is the plot his take on the 'Mighty Whitey' trope(the only hope of the Noble Savages is one of the hostile heavily armed aliens is one of those very aliens though this time from across the ocean of stars rather than the waves of the Atlantic)but the Na'vi are unmistakably the Ronso tribe from Final Fantasy X though more evolved from Lemur-like prosimians rather than lions (and no unicorn horns), the mechs look as if they come straight out of Mech Warrior or Starship Troopers and the mounts look like the dragons from Panzer Dragoon.
Like anything else created in such a way, the sum is greater than its parts. God of War and the entire filmography of Quentin Tarantino don't have an original idea between them but they make up for it in style.
Greater writers than James Cameron realized the futility of trying to be completely original, especially if what they want to accomplish doesn't require a whole new kind of narrative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations
The plot is as similar to Dances with Wolves or Last of the Mohicans or The Last Samurai as Full Metal Alchemist is to Suikoden 3 (with True Runes swapped out for Philosopher's Stones and Yuber for Homonculi). His greatest success to date was a trite love story shoehorned into historical fiction, so it isn't as if unoriginality is going to hurt him. He already paid his dues with The Terminator, anyway.
Maybe he really wanted to get people to consider the environmental message, I don't know. He definitely seemed to want to get people to leave their comfort zones a little including what they allow themselves to find attractive. It was no accident that Jake's Avatar was a hybrid between man and Na'vi (bridging the gap before seeing the real thing...so to speak)and that he had himself a nice long run wearing nothing but a hospital gown. It was even less accident that even their ancestor species resembles lemurs, one of our species evolutionary cousins. He didn't challenge expectations too much on what kind of plot you can have in such a movie, but one thing at a time.
Really, I suspect that he mostly just wanted to entertain us with the dazzling visuals (made possible by the latest IMAX cameras and multi-million dollar silicon workstations. No trees were harmed in the filming of the movie!)and the novel ideas added to the well worn tale. The Home Tree was nifty even if just a sci-fi version of a sacred tree. So was the whole 'Hair is a literal antenna to God/dess' idea.
Of course, that aside, Cameron's a big enough wheel to have gotten characterization in Hollywood movies turning in a new direction but he chose the safe path.
I, too, have had enough with seeing aliens behaving so much like humans, convergent evolution or no. At least he could have made up a new culture to go along with to differences in anatomy and atmosphere for the humans to clash with...or explain it away as the influence of imported human land revering cultures, maybe even by way of some Native American character. The primary conflicts could have been more internal, between the teachings of different groups of missionaries. If the Na'vi had been less human in behavior, the last scene would have made a more powerful statement. I doubt that it would have been on par with the last scene of The Island of Doctor Moreau but it would have been up there.
Wait, wasn't there an Escapist article about this anthropocentrism in sci-fi? Oh, here it is.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_140/3009-Mass-Effect-Saves-Humanity-for-What
To its credit, the movie stayed away from the tired Humans as underdog garbage that hamstrings most man vs. aliens movies. Our species hasn't been underdogs since we discovered metal working if not earlier when we discovered fire.
Comparing it to another movie of the same type that came out this year: the Na'vi were infinitely less annoying than those blasted Prawn,Jake was far more endearing than Wikus,the mech scenes were about dead even (one featuring one mech making a stand against dozens of attackers while the other had a knife fight between faux-Ronso and Mech that ends with a guy getting skewered on gigantic arrows. That was practically worth the price of admission right there!) and setting it on a distant planet made its analogue to real world events less painful to endure, giving it a bit of an edge over District 9. (The fact that it didn't have Nigerian crime lords with pet hyenas and a craving for humanoid flesh might also have tipped it further towards favorable for me!)
Watch it in IMAX, preferably with non-sci-fi geeks, and you'll enjoy yourself. There's nothing quite like getting someone from a housing project to watch and thoroughly enjoy a movie that doesn't 'keep it real'! Cameron most certainly did something right if Avatar could manage that.
Not only is the plot his take on the 'Mighty Whitey' trope(the only hope of the Noble Savages is one of the hostile heavily armed aliens is one of those very aliens though this time from across the ocean of stars rather than the waves of the Atlantic)but the Na'vi are unmistakably the Ronso tribe from Final Fantasy X though more evolved from Lemur-like prosimians rather than lions (and no unicorn horns), the mechs look as if they come straight out of Mech Warrior or Starship Troopers and the mounts look like the dragons from Panzer Dragoon.
Like anything else created in such a way, the sum is greater than its parts. God of War and the entire filmography of Quentin Tarantino don't have an original idea between them but they make up for it in style.
Greater writers than James Cameron realized the futility of trying to be completely original, especially if what they want to accomplish doesn't require a whole new kind of narrative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations
The plot is as similar to Dances with Wolves or Last of the Mohicans or The Last Samurai as Full Metal Alchemist is to Suikoden 3 (with True Runes swapped out for Philosopher's Stones and Yuber for Homonculi). His greatest success to date was a trite love story shoehorned into historical fiction, so it isn't as if unoriginality is going to hurt him. He already paid his dues with The Terminator, anyway.
Maybe he really wanted to get people to consider the environmental message, I don't know. He definitely seemed to want to get people to leave their comfort zones a little including what they allow themselves to find attractive. It was no accident that Jake's Avatar was a hybrid between man and Na'vi (bridging the gap before seeing the real thing...so to speak)and that he had himself a nice long run wearing nothing but a hospital gown. It was even less accident that even their ancestor species resembles lemurs, one of our species evolutionary cousins. He didn't challenge expectations too much on what kind of plot you can have in such a movie, but one thing at a time.
Really, I suspect that he mostly just wanted to entertain us with the dazzling visuals (made possible by the latest IMAX cameras and multi-million dollar silicon workstations. No trees were harmed in the filming of the movie!)and the novel ideas added to the well worn tale. The Home Tree was nifty even if just a sci-fi version of a sacred tree. So was the whole 'Hair is a literal antenna to God/dess' idea.
Of course, that aside, Cameron's a big enough wheel to have gotten characterization in Hollywood movies turning in a new direction but he chose the safe path.
I, too, have had enough with seeing aliens behaving so much like humans, convergent evolution or no. At least he could have made up a new culture to go along with to differences in anatomy and atmosphere for the humans to clash with...or explain it away as the influence of imported human land revering cultures, maybe even by way of some Native American character. The primary conflicts could have been more internal, between the teachings of different groups of missionaries. If the Na'vi had been less human in behavior, the last scene would have made a more powerful statement. I doubt that it would have been on par with the last scene of The Island of Doctor Moreau but it would have been up there.
Wait, wasn't there an Escapist article about this anthropocentrism in sci-fi? Oh, here it is.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_140/3009-Mass-Effect-Saves-Humanity-for-What
To its credit, the movie stayed away from the tired Humans as underdog garbage that hamstrings most man vs. aliens movies. Our species hasn't been underdogs since we discovered metal working if not earlier when we discovered fire.
Comparing it to another movie of the same type that came out this year: the Na'vi were infinitely less annoying than those blasted Prawn,Jake was far more endearing than Wikus,the mech scenes were about dead even (one featuring one mech making a stand against dozens of attackers while the other had a knife fight between faux-Ronso and Mech that ends with a guy getting skewered on gigantic arrows. That was practically worth the price of admission right there!) and setting it on a distant planet made its analogue to real world events less painful to endure, giving it a bit of an edge over District 9. (The fact that it didn't have Nigerian crime lords with pet hyenas and a craving for humanoid flesh might also have tipped it further towards favorable for me!)
Watch it in IMAX, preferably with non-sci-fi geeks, and you'll enjoy yourself. There's nothing quite like getting someone from a housing project to watch and thoroughly enjoy a movie that doesn't 'keep it real'! Cameron most certainly did something right if Avatar could manage that.
