The Red Circle

By Ryan Brlecic

Earth, 14 years later…

What do Roger Dean, Steve Perry (not that Steve Perry), Tom Yeates, Anne Mcaffrey, Robert A. Heinlen, Roger Zelany (Euclid, OH represent), Ed Zwick, Ronny James Dio (yes that DIO) and Poul Anderson have in common? James Cameron owes them all money. Poul Anderson especially, just ask Harlan Ellison. Ed Zwick comes in a close second, as Cameron just mined the last 14 years of that auteur’s career of documenting white guilt. Major Tom, Get me Ed Zwick on the phone. I want to let him know that James Cameron just made the most expensive and expansive Zwickian film ever. This could be likened to Marc Forster’s turn last year in which he made the best damn Roger Moore Bond film ever.

Few will point out that the biggest lifting Cameron did was from his own portfolio. Avatar in more ways then one is the culmination of his entire career. The uptown girl love story of Titanic, the power loader of Aliens, the save her from her destiny shtick, breather masks straight out of The Abyss, Skynet even updated the Hunter Killers as Samson Choppers and get your grunt to work a secret mission a la Kyle Reese. Most importantly, do not forget scientists are always altruistic and benevolent versus the corporate profit-minded pursuits of the military industrial complex.

Everyone copies…er homages just ask Quentin Tarantino. However, like QT, some do it in style and make it their own. It is true Virginia, it has all been done before; and lately remade for posterity sake. Existence is just our reality of trying to find new menial ways of retelling everything Plato, Shakespeare, Wilde, and porn movies have already shown us.

Which brings me back to Avatar, a truly beautiful to behold amusement park labeled a film. The story however is one of the most pathetically executed in recent film history. Said that, moving the fuck on. But what did I say?

Before considering this another trite lambasting of James Cameron’s brilliant eco-friendly social conscious masterpiece (said with dripping sarcasm), wait. TRC has skewered the film’s concept pre-release with Cory Maidens. Masterfully reviewed the film in a piece by Tom Nix this past Saturday. Now I am here to analyze just what Cameron has done with the last 14 years and what it means for the rest of us.

Being a pupil of visual communication I will get a glaring nit pick of my own out of the way. Who spends a decade plus on a film only to garnish it’s title treatment with a Microsoft standard font, which is then fucking stretched for effect? (your welcome Jes!) The use and application of the Papyrus typeface screamed vocational school graphic design graduate.

Q: What does 14 years of R/D (and Micosoft standard fonts) at a supposed rate of
$500 million dollars buy you ?

A: McDonald’s Happy Meal toy

Like Marlow’s Congolese adventure to retrieve Kurtz, we follow Cameron to Pandora. A planet populated by a race of thundercats that can interface with just about any living organism in a totally non-homo erotic fashion. There immersed in the lush abundant green which we all forsake for progress and the pursuit of imperialism back on earth, we find the true god of the Na’vi. James Cameron’s biggest achievement with Avatar is a literal creation of an entire planet via obsessive compulsive detail. This milestone however works against him, because in the end Pandora felt like a hollow earth.

Technical achievement aside the film itself lacks any depth or soul. As Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, “The lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here, uh… staggers me.” I fear that I am remiss in my rush to tie Cameron’s Avatar experiment to Kurtz’s horror; his heart of darkness. His achievement bares more resemblance to Shelley’s Doctor Frankenstein. He was so driven to create something never seen he never asked himself why. It leaves Pandora feeling as fake as a back lot main street.

It is well documented that Cameron is driven by advancements and pushing the limits. He is a bastard child of the silver age of Sci-Fi novels and film. He comes from an age where they once informed you to duck under your desk to avoid nuclear devastation. Refers to Organized religion as mere tribal chants. He was born wanting more. He only did Aliens because he called an agent’s bluff. He was stabbed in the face after LSD laced Chowder incident on the set of Titanic and survived drowning on The Abyss. There is no question this man is the real deal.

…And when Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold took off on a tour of DC monuments, leaving the set, they returned to find Cameron standing in the middle of the road, arms crossed, like a Terminator ready to total their vehicle. Cameron lunged in the passenger door and got in Arnie’s face, shouting “Do you want Paul Verhoeven to direct the rest of this  fucking shit? You do that shit again and that’s what’s gonna happen.”

There is huge divide between technical book smarts and gut level instincts in bringing characters to life on screen. His film career is filled with beautiful surface level epics. He is what Roland Emmerich wishes he could grow up to be. Cameron excels in his niche, machining the unreal into technical existence. The buck however stops there. Cameron lacks the ability to add depth to his creations like that of his peers Ridley Scott (director of the only Alien film) and Guillermo Del Torro. Both of which still give you visual punch, thought out down to the last molecule, but also the feel of depth that gives their creations reality.

His visual constructs be it ships, mech suits and tree houses are beautifully realized shells, but lack a feel that anything is going on inside. Did this movie improve visual effects? Absolutely. Admittedly I found myself remembering if this was how I felt during the T-Rex chase in Jurassic Park? However unlike Jurassic Park there seemed to be no connection past the visual. This was due partially to lack of character. Yes even creatures of Pandorian forests can and should posses some form of character traits. The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park had individualistic character traits that made them more fully realized. This is why you’re so drawn to Zoe Saldana’s portrayal (and only her portrayal) of her character as she gave her shell a soul. Her performance truly defined the concept of acting out through an avatar.

This all just serves to work against the film that gestated for so long. Cameron should have had more then enough time, considering that he is an extremely disciplined and focus creator to finish the cup. It is nigh inexcusable that he seemingly abandoned the pursuit of an actual story to wrap his pixel mesh of technical wizardy over. Peter Jackson learned this with his similar laze fair wielding of the visuals in King Kong. Just because you have the know how doesn’t mean you know how. Spielberg in turn could easily have had raptors mindlessly burst into a kitchen and end the scene.  Instead he choose to have them pause and act through their eyes conveying that they were thinking all the while making you forget they didn’t really exist. I never forgot that Pandora or it’s inhabitants did not really exist, just that they looked pretty.

Another reason for the departure in believability was due to the simple fact that it is harder to play God then we think; even with WETA archangels. Even the pitiful story aside and the fact that I am almost completely ambivalent to anything James Cameron does. His development of a new way to film in 3D utilized as a tool and not just a gimmick; undeniably useful in the right hands. This however is not the harbinger of a new age in cinema. I may be alone in this observation, but I never once bought the Na’vi as an fully realized race of people.

It almost fell to the “Incredible Hulk Conundrum”. How do you make the audience believe in a eight foot green man? We strangely feel it easier to believe something totally devoid of humanoid characteristics. This is the downfall of the Na’vi  – the least believable thing in the film. They are essentially blue people with cat features. At quick glimpses they seem as nothing but disfigured or distorted humans. Not having more visual comparison of human physiology to Na’vi causes you to not appreciate their advantages. An example of this handled well is District 9, released earlier this year (Sharlto for the Oscar). The director had initially intended on the aliens being more humanoid in outward appearance. Neill Blomkamp’s decision to change to what amounts to large talking prawns eliminated that hurdle of familiarity. It forced his film’s viewers to realize the individual characters his “prawns” portrayed.

Cameron seemingly stereotyped right out of National Geographic, enlarged by five feet, and painted on a blue a mash-up of tribal cultures. Past surface level info about their culture and ways the Na’vi people felt as generic as Giovanni Ribisi’s acting. If you are going to create your own world and work on it for a decade, one would think that you would spend more time ironing out the details of your main inhabitants. Thus reducing his personal Herculean attempt to fully transport you. He however failed far less then Peter Jackson’s display of self-indulgent style over substance.

A man who views himself as his own god, failed in his attempt to fully create life. This has always been the unfortunate truth of Cameron’s career. His films look great, but he is just an above average director. Like De Palma, Craven, Friedkin and Howard the list goes on. We too often raise men like James Cameron up on a pedestal for doing something merely above average because we are to afraid or unwillingly in our examination of it past the surface. After fourteen years in the jungle, Cameron should have brought us more. Instead we are delivered a package without a gift on the inside, just in time for Christmas.

What this means for the rest of us is being written as I type. Watching the news feeds for the Monday recap I saw the spin doctors at work. Avatar received a paltry $73 million stateside. Making one wonder if this was all for naught? This movie is rumored to have cost $500 million dollars to produce. If it barely ekes out that in return, there is the very real possibility that Cameron’s achievements with Avatar on the technical side will collect dust. Studios can make their money back for far less and with far less. In this case Prometheus failed in bringing them fire. Unfortunately for us if Avatar proves a success expect more of the same (it was planned as a trilogy after all).

Ultimately Avatar lived up to being a shell for one to inhabit. However the bond never connected with its intended host, the audience. In the off chance that it did the affair was brief, no longer then two and a half hours. It was a site to behold and an amusement park on screen, but the one thing it was not was a film.

Editor’s Note: James Cameron proved that Thundercats can be live action!

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