[RE]View: Avatar (2009)

Photo property of 20th Century Fox

I first saw Avatar when it came out in theaters in 2009. I was fourteen years old and at the age where going to the movies was a social affair. It didn’t matter what movie it was; it was about getting away from your parents and hanging out with your friends.

I remember being thoroughly unimpressed. At this point, I hadn’t yet learned the nuances of film, and I wasn’t dissecting movies based on their scripts or the director or director of photography’s capabilities. “It’s just Pocahontas but in space with blue people!” I exclaimed (if anything, it’s more like Ferngully, but that’s neither here nor there). Summing up Avatar with “It’s Pocahontas” is reductive; it’s a much more nuanced take on this story than the films that predate it.

But thirteen years after the release of the first Avatar, Cameron is finally returning to his passion project with Avatar: The Way of Water. If there’s one thing Cameron loves more than filmmaking, it’s underwater exploration. The Way of Water is sure to be a film with even more care and attention than the first Avatar film, which has grossed 2.8 BILLION dollars worldwide since its re-release and has reclaimed its position as the top-grossing film of all time. If it will be a box office smash like the first installment, given the current climate of theaters, remains to be seen.

But I’m not writing to speculate about The Way of Water. I’m here to preach the good word of James Cameron and convince you that, Avatar is good, actually.

If you were somehow living under a rock in 2009 or haven’t seen Avatar since its original release, it’s about a paraplegic marine named Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington with highly effective “Everymanness”), who gets roped into a trip to the planet Pandora to participate in the Avatar program when his identical twin brother is killed and is unable to fulfill his contract. But the leaders of the various factions of the project all have their own ambitions. Senior scientist Grace (played dryly by Sigourney Weaver) wants to learn as much as she can about the Na’vi people, the alien race inhabiting Pandora, while Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), a wealthy businessman, wants to mine a rare element called “unobtainium,” and will stop at nothing to claim it. When Jake forms a special bond with the Na’vi people and with the clan leader’s daughter Neytiri, he’s torn between helping Selfridge and Colonel Quaritch (a despicable Stephen Lang) and standing with the Omaticaya People he has come to love and respect.

Avatar is a Sanskrit word that literally means “descent,” although its broader definition is “the incarnation of a deity to counteract evil in the world.” Although the film has some “white savior” undertones, it’s so pure of heart that it treads very carefully. The Na’vi people are subject to all sorts of hateful, racist rhetoric (Quaritch and Selfridge frequently refer to them as “savages” and “aboriginals”). The film has some very blatant Iraq War undertones, with Quaritch at one point saying, “we will fight terror with terror” and Sully commenting that “when people are sittin’ on shit that you want, you make ‘em your enemy. Then you’re justified in taking it”. The demonizing of the military and corporate complexes in the film should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen any Cameron movies; he has always been decidedly anti-corporation, going back as far as Terminator.

But the most significant selling point of the movie is its world-building and just how damn good it looks thirteen years later. The CGI has aged better than most Marvel movies made in the past decade. And surprisingly, the 3D aspect of the film doesn’t hinder it. It’s clear that every shot has an intention behind it, and it isn’t disorienting or gimmicky. From the over-the-top sequences of the flights on the ikran to the rituals performed by the Na’vi people, it’s all a visual feast. With the addition of James Horner’s score, it’s easy to get swept up in the spectacle. Like Sully, as the film continues, you dread returning to the “real” world, with its dour, cold corporate environment. In a world of short attention spans, Avatar is captivating, and I never once checked my phone for the time or wished the movie would end in its whopping 2-hour and 43-minute runtime. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I teared up several times throughout.

Our main Na’vi characters are far more three-dimensional than any of our humans, and their beliefs and culture are equally fleshed out. They express their love and respect for each other by saying, “I See You”, which more deeply means, “I see INTO you, I acknowledge who you are, and I love all parts of you.” Their core belief is that Eywa, a powerful mother, connects all living beings and guides and protects them. She is the spiritual compass of the Na’vi and the protector of the balance of life. As Sully spends more time with the Na’vi and Neytiri, he learns the beauty and power of their ecosystem and Eywa. Neytiri teaches him that “all energy is only borrowed. And one day you have to give it back”. The energy of every being is recycled and reborn into another living thing. It’s so easy to begin to believe what they believe and to be inspired by their way of thinking. The character and world-building are so strong that you genuinely feel emotional when the humans destroy Hometree and begin to wreak havoc on Pandora. 

Although Avatar won’t translate as well on your television at home as it would in a movie theater, if you’re curious about how its aged or if you never got around to watching it back in 2009, I would highly recommend revisiting it. You may be surprised by what moves you.