One of the more welcome recent developments in the entertainment industry, in my opinion, is that video games have largely become more like movies. That’s due in part to improved console technology, which has allowed for more expansive and detailed world creation, but also in part to gamers maturing and developing appetites for more intricate narratives and characters. I’m no gamer myself, but the rise of cinematically influenced franchises like Fallout and Mass Effect seems like a good thing, a burgeoning venue for authentic artists to work relatively free from big dollar pressure.
What has been perhaps less expected is that at about the same time, some movies have endeavored to become more like video games—a trend that came to full fruition with the 2009 release of James Cameron’s Avatar. It’s maybe the most overpraised movie of the century thus far. (Slumdog Millionaire (2008) at least had the good sense to fall out favor eventually.)
Notice that I said overpraised, not overrated. That’s because critics and fans alike have been sober from the beginning about Avatar’s more obvious weaknesses, and because of those weaknesses, no one claims it as high art. Specifically, it’s agreed that film’s storytelling leaves much to be desired. It recycles an “invaders versus natives” plot line that’s been more interestingly fleshed out in, among others, Dances with Wolves (1990), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), and even Pocahontas (1996).
For what it’s worth, my favorite of that bunch is FernGully, which has surprising candidness in celebrating the virtues of pacifism and environmental stewardship while also acknowledging their inevitable vulnerabilities in the face of hostile actors. By contrast, Avatar wants to have its cake and eat it too: the nature-spiritual religion of the Na’vi somehow turns out to be…scientifically correct? There’s a literal synaptic connection between the trees and the… Actually, let’s not get into it.
The point is that Avatar’s story sucks, and everyone knows it. I’d be remiss not to also mention the facepalm-worthy writing that pervades even non-story elements of the script. The humans, for example, seek to obtain…“unobtainium.” (Spoiler alert, they don’t.) The natives are called the “Na’vi,” in the same way that Dwight Schrute’s dentist’s name is Crentist. Why these lazy bits were allowed to stand throughout the production process is beyond me.
But as previously mentioned, failures like these were generally recognized by both critics and casual viewers and therefore need no expanded treatment here. The subject of my essay, instead, will be the effusive praise of the film as a monument of stunning visuals, praise that continues to this day.
Roger Ebert called Avatar a “technical breakthrough,” and David Denby of The New Yorker praised it as “the most beautiful film I’ve seen in years.” Pretty much anyone who has seen the film—and pretty much everyone has—will tell you that, although, sure, the plot is lame, the visuals of the movie’s invented world, Pandora, are unquestionably amazing.
But let’s examine closer.
If we’re going to talk about visuals, we need visual evidence. So take a look at some spoiler-free scenes from classics that, in my opinion, deserve their reputations as visual masterpieces. We’ll start with the desert trek from Lawrence of Arabia (1962):
Notice the perfect framing of the faraway shots, as well as the wonder captured in the shots nearer to the characters’ viewpoints. The camera always lingers a while, underlining the protagonist’s amazement with the surroundings, as well as giving us the opportunity to survey and absorb the vast beauty of this exotic, otherworldly location, which is totally real—no CGI.
Next, here’s the famous space ballet from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968):
Similarities abound between this sequence and the one from Lawrence. Both linger with their shots, confident in the beauty of what’s being presented. Both exemplify meticulous framing, leading to a succession of aesthetically balanced, painting-like images. They emphasize vast, empty space. They feature musical scores grand enough to suit their visuals. And while 2001, unlike Lawrence, is effects-driven, its effects are understated, deployed unobtrusively. This allows viewers to appreciate the aforementioned scale and framing in a similar manner to Lawrence.
Now, here’s a visually oriented scene from Avatar:
The first noticeable difference is that the camera is moving a lot more in this sequence than in those of the first two films. There isn’t a single shot where the camera isn’t twirling around or even shaking as though it’s being held by hand. In addition, the camera cuts far more quickly, lasting only a few seconds per shot. These differences create a more frenetic, disorienting experience: there’s limited chance to take in any rich visual detail compared with the first two films.
But if the surroundings are so historically brilliant, as the film’s proponents claim, why not allow the viewers to survey them at leisure? Because—and here I finally state my thesis—they’re not that brilliant.
It’s impressive that these visuals were created, yes. They surely required a lot of work from many talented people. But because they consist solely of CGI imagery—which necessarily falls short of the detail offered by reality, even in its best attempts to simulate it—they can’t stand up to the scrutiny of truly great cinematic visuals.
I think the first tip that there’s something lame about the world of Avatar is that real people aren’t used in any of the supposedly gorgeous shots. Instead, humanoid, uh, creatures, have replaced the actors, so that no one will notice any discrepancy between the appearance of real life and the appearance of Pandora. It’s difficult to say, exactly, how real the surroundings look when there’s no human being around to compare them to.
Thus, a simple mental exercise of imagining the human characters actually walking around Pandora can illuminate just how insufficient the CGI of Pandora is as a believably realistic world. Such a scene would be a visual mess, a clash between reality and kind of reality, with Pandora surely looking awkward and tacky next to real people with skin blemishes and full sets of facial muscles.
Cameron can only allow his CGI jungle to be invaded, late in the movie, by some outfitted troops. Their humanness is safely hidden from view by gear and weaponry. When Colonel Quaritch lands in Pandora, the only non-anonymous person to do so, he remains inside a machine in a strangely large clearing. This is by necessity: people and Pandora are oil and water. The Na’vi, with their smooth, plasticky blue skin (no wrinkles in sight), set a low bar for detail that Pandora can meet. Humans, not so much.
Perceived in this way, the film’s title is perhaps more appropriate than it might initially seem. I know that after my own first viewing back in 2009, I wondered why the film was named after the not quite narratively central device of having the characters exist in substitute bodies. (Especially when this title would certainly cause confusion with the popular television series of the same name.) But now I realize that the concept of the Avatar was likely the film’s first idea. It’s certainly its most important one: it’s the curtain behind which the wizard, Cameron, operates his magic show.
You might think it unfair of me, though, to compare Avatar, a summer blockbuster, with two titans of classic film, regularly ranked among the greatest of all time. I’d argue that the degree of praise heaped on Avatar’s visuals warranted that, but fine. Let’s compare Avatar instead to Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), an equivalently popular blockbuster. Watch:
For my money, these three minutes are more visually enjoyable than every scene in Avatar combined.
Awesome special effects are crucial to this sequence, but, as with 2001, they’re understated and draw as little attention as possible. The shot of Dr. Grant and Dr. Sadler looking up the neck of the dinosaur creates the feeling of enormous scale that Avatar, for all its precision, neglects to establish. The dinosaur’s one act—rising to its hind legs and crashing back down—is mild but breathtaking, and Spielberg has the patience to watch it play out, allowing his gentle monster to be a purely visual wonder.
This dinosaur’s purpose—beauty—is served in this one scene. Cameron, the weaker filmmaker, by contrast needs his beasts to be narratively consequential: they all return in the finale to kick some human butt, placing any potential visual grandeur in the backseat.
But the primary value of this Jurassic Park scene in the context of this essay is that it demonstrates the wonder that can be achieved in cinema by placing the impossible within the realistic. The sight of the herd at the pond (the end of the clip) is visually powerful because impossible creatures have been made to look believable, and have been placed in an actual, real landscape. They are a ridiculous creation, but because they appear on an actual grassy plain and are observed by actual men and women, we’re nevertheless forced to accept them as legitimate for two hours. That’s the power of special effects in film.
By contrast, on Avatar’s Pandora nothing is real—all is CGI. If Jurassic Park places the impossible within the realistic, Avatar places the impossible within the impossible. The juxtaposition of fiction and reality that makes the Jurassic Park sequence so goosebump-inducingly memorable is lost; there’s no compelled legitimacy for what we’re seeing. It’s Pixar on steroids. And just like a Pixar film, Avatar‘s visual pleasures are only the manufactured kind: technologically impressive, yes, and fun at times, but lacking the power to create authentic awe.
Now, it’s not Cameron’s fault that total CGI can’t compete with reality, but we need to be clear: it can’t. The floating mountains of Pandora, suspended with keyboard clicks and computer code, are nothing next to the majestic desert of Lawrence of Arabia or the picturesque outer space of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also pale in comparison to the visuals of superior blockbusters like Jurassic Park.
Just watch the characters’ reactions. While Drs. Grant and Sadler are struck dumb with shock upon seeing the dinosaur, Jake Sully’s avatar bounces around Pandora like a kid on the monkey bars. This is merely cool for him. It’s merely cool for us, too.
There is a realm, though, more appropriate to Avatar’s accomplishments. A realm where placing the impossible within the impossible is indeed praiseworthy, where absurd worlds are computer-built (by necessity), and absurd characters are accordingly developed to populate them. I refer to the realm of gaming.
I’ve read online commenters remark that Avatar would make a great video game. But such a game would be redundant, because the movie, for all intents and purposes, is already a video game. It’s a journey through a scenic CGI landscape complete with passing, forgettable allies; surreal creatures; fierce, colorful battles; and an angry, generic final boss. But it’s less fun than other video games, because we don’t have any say in what’s going on. That leaves us with an entertainment of questionable value.
James Cameron has made some great movies. The Terminator (1984) has stood the test of time, and I’d call Aliens (1986) one of the best sequels ever made. Even Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Titanic (1997), although they demonstrate Cameron’s increasing emphasis on special effects at the expense of narrative authenticity, have some great moments. It’s a shame that he forgot, or never realized, that those moments were predicated on the raw things that truly impact moviegoers: relatable human stories, complicated human emotions, and, most basically of all, the humans themselves—without which any CGI achievements exist only for their own sake, and are therefore in danger of becoming groundless, farcical, and weak.
–By Jim Andersen
For more analyses, see my commentary on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.