Why People Hate Avatar: A Lesson In Lazy Commentary

Avatar has a hidden flaw that's VERY hard to notice. In this video essay, I break down Avatar's worst point of failure (IMO) and suggest how it could have been fixed.

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0:00 - Why People Hate Avatar
3:00 - Avatar’s Hidden Message
8:19 - Cameron Overly Romanticises The Past
12:24 - How To Fail At Messaging
15:12 - An Example Of Bad Messaging
20:29 - An Awful Exploration Of Consumerism
27:57 - Avatar Is Literally Propaganda
30:04 - The Lessons Avatar Can Teach Us

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A massive thank you to my $10 + patrons:
Daniel Urbina
Matthew McGinnis
Oriada
Kyong Kim
Cameron Benson
Frank D. Lemke
Maria Peiris
Mike Schmidt
[OG]
Chefda
NStarks
Thomas Feuer
Everet

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Written, recorded, & produced by Henry Boseley

Edited by Brandon Reardin

Stock footage provided by Getty

[TheCloserLook]

I break down a lot of examples from Avatar, to Revenge of the Sith, and if you like my normal content, you'll definitely enjoy this one!

Have a great day,
- Henry

[trickytrilobite]

“Art gets the audience to think; propaganda does the thinking for them” that’s the most succinct and accurate distinction I’ve ever heard

[HeavyMettaloid]

"Great writers have the ability to romanticize the things they hate as well as demonize the things they love." I love this line.

[ignitusz]

Despite not hating the films, something that has always bothered me about the ending to the first film is how Jake just totally separates himself from humanity all together to live with the Na’vi, and the films never really touch on how he could possibly help the billions of people suffering on his dying home planet, most of which probably aren’t bad people, and some of which probably have to do these things just to survive. Like, I’m sure many of the soldiers would be against what the humans are doing to the Na’vi, but can’t just totally defect as they have families back home they need to support that are also suffering and struggling to live.

[OchreFrame]

I'm also mad that Cameron hired an ethnomusicologist to help write music for the Na'vi that sounded truly alien, creating an entire musical culture for the fictional people, only for Cameron to musically whitewash his own fictional culture but putting in a musical score that sounds like what Westerners THINK non-Western music sounds like. The actual Na'vi music that was written for this two-and-a-half hour movie showed up like only TWICE. I believe it was the YouTube channel Sideways that put out an excellent breakdown of what happened.

[angelacruz]

This is why, in my opinion, Princess Mononoke is the epitome of an 'environmental film.' It masterfully avoids painting humans or nature as outright villains, recognizing that the issue at hand is incredibly complex.

Throughout the movie, we witness a portrayal of both sides that highlights their strengths and flaws without passing judgment. In the opening scenes, nature is depicted through the terrifying demon boar that infects Ashitaka, and also embodied in San, a human who has grown to despise her own kind due to her adoption by spirits. San can be seen as the Jake Sully of this story, renouncing humanity because of its perceived 'evil.'

On the other side, we have Lady Eboshi and Irontown, initially portrayed as the antagonists responsible for destroying the natural resources in the area. However, as Ashitaka explores the town, we come to understand that their actions are driven by a desperate need for survival.

Ultimately, the film's message revolves around the importance of finding a balance and moderation in consumption. It advocates for embracing technological advancements while simultaneously respecting and preserving nature. Princess Mononoke encourages us to acknowledge the complexity of the environmental issue rather than resorting to simplistic narratives of good versus evil.

[necromancer]

I think touching on Jake’s disability in the beginning of the film more would’ve been a great way to bring a more realistic view to the Na’vi society— we know disabled people were taken care of since the prehistoric age, but it would’ve objectively been a lot harder for someone like Jake to survive without a wheelchair in the beginning of the film, something the Na’vi don’t have. The seizure was such a missed opportunity to potentially touch on disability and medical issues too

[DoubleADwarf]

I actually had a perfectly good answer for why I didn't like Avatar:

Because Jake Sully never had a real conflict.

Pete Docter said it really well in an interview about the climax of UP - "if the choice is too easy, _then it isn't a choice."_

And the choice presented to Jake, _was too easy._ There was literally nothing tying him to Earth at all. There was no real emotional conflict for him at any point.Think about it. The events of the story seriously ask him:

Would he rather protect the interests of a soulless megacorp and its psychotic paramilitary force who don't see him as anything but a tool to help them get to stripmining Pandora as fast as possible, and then go home to an Earth where his entire family is dead, he lives in an apartment the size of a closet, pollution is rampant to the point where the oceans are poisoned and all the animal species are dead and food is grown on algae farms, and the rest of the planet is reduced to overcrowded, grey hyper-urban squalor where poverty, loneliness and general misery are just facts of life, and also he's crippled/paraplegic?

would he rather live on an untouched paradise-planet as part of a tribe of peaceful, perfect, all-knowing, literally flawless people with a literal connection to the planet itself where he wouldn't ever want for anything and also in a healthy body which ALSO happens to let him have sex with the hot blue cat girl who is now in love with him?

Why _wouldn't_ he take the latter choice?

Some of us could explain why we disliked Avatar _just fine, _ thank you very much.

[-opresiet-]

For the Kiri sickness part. Also, don't forget that the humans literally made human-navi avatars. Which means that they understand navi biology on a level that no navi at their current "technological level" will ever be able.

[cheezemonkeyeater]

"The Na'vi were living in peaceful harmony with nature!"
If you want an example of how you do the colonial invader plot right, I heartily recommend Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Because that's a story by an African writer about how the colonizers were able to take over Africa. One of the many points before it ever came to conquest by force was that the colonizers came in and found the cracks in the native society. They found the conflicts, the little failures that brought suffering to people who were easily overlooked, and so on, and then befriended them and turned them against their native culture. One of the things his book basically lays out is that the biggest allies of your enemies can be the people you disrespect while you yourself are in power.
There's a lot more going on in the novel than just that, but I thought that aspect was particularly relevant here, because "peaceful natives living in harmony with nature" is one of the most insultingly infantilizing cliches in storytelling.

[famousaustrianpainter]

Something that stuck out to me in the way of water was how humans in it were killed with no remorse, like if I remember correctly there was a scene where one of those subs were damaged so the humans got out and tried to escape but were purposely tangled up by some plants to have them drown.

[Rainy_Flakes_]

Princess Mononoke is everything Avatar wishes it could be

[metalsonic]

Oddly enough, Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal approach the issue of energy and razing a planet/civilization for energy much better. The Argent is a miracle substance, "A solution to a problem the world had no answer for" and even the Khan Maykr says "I feel for the humans, I do, but I also have a people to save" illustrating that both Maykrs and Humans are fighting an existential fight.

[brendenl]

It’s just a whole movie filled with “noble savages”. To strip an indigenous culture of the unsavoury things they do (as all cultures do) is to strip them of all nuance, depth, and humanity. You shouldn’t need to paint an indigenous culture as morally perfect in order to decide that murdering them en-masse for special rocks is bad.

[Theprofessorator]

So let me get this straight, the humans made anatomically correct "Avatars" of the Na'vi that can reproduce and psychically communicate with the other animals, but somehow at the same time don't know enough about their anatomy to diagnose the cause of a seizure. 🤣

[phantauss]

I think one of the best takes I ever found on "politics" in stories was from a video I watched a while ago. It was that politics in a story are the surface-level aspect to discussions of human nature, because every political system humanity has ever created is at its core a set of rules and prescriptions trying to come to terms with the human condition. A well done political story that delves into the themes of its politics peels away its layers and tackles the core conflict of human nature that the politics aim to address and makes its critique at that deeper level. While poorly done politics simply take a side. Thus creating propaganda.

Thus the phrase "keep politics out of entertainment, " is a layman's phrasing of the statement, "keep propaganda out of entertainment, " that comes about because the people who are put off by it aren't sure exactly what is so off-putting and thus point to the most readily obvious thing which made them uncomfortable, which was the political message. It is in-a-sense, confusing the thing itself with its method of implementation.

[LeRossSawin-Porter-tthr]

If the Na'vi were truly a peacable people, in total harmony with nature, then the concept of warfare would be utterly alien to them and there would be no need for any warriors. They wouldve been curmbstomped even harder.

[samuelpetrovic]

Man, that simple change of making the humans plunder Pandora out of necessity instead out of greed would make the Avatar such a good piece of sci-fi.

[eschw]

The dumbest thing about the Kiri seizure thing is that when she discusses hearing the voice of Eywa the science dude who has been living on Pandora for like 15 YEARS and studying for like ANOTHER 10 before that who KNOWS about the Eywa trees and that his boss got downloaded into Eywa and knows that Eywa took Jake and put his consciousness permanently into his avatar turned into a total strawman atheist in this scene. "Oh it can't be Eywa doing anything, it must be Kiri is hallucinating!" Cameron wanted to have a MODERN MEDICINE BAD, TRIBAL MEDICINE GOOD thing but he botched it because it doesn't fit for this character to say ANY of that.

[silverdragon]

20:29 the hilarious thing about the what if you do in this part, is that *is* the story. Cameron has explained in other media that Earth actually is dying, due to over population, and that Unobtanium is necessary for sustainable intersteller travel. I.e. Earth is so f'ed up, the largest ekspedition since ever is being funded to facilitate an evacuation of Earth.

Now, of course, this is other media, and therefore can be completely disregarded as not a part of the movie. But I just found it funny when you went over that what if scenario.