Avatar- From a Writer’s Point of View

Last weekend my family and I went to experience James Cameron’s latest big-budget adventure Avatar. It was everything that critics and movie-goers talked about. A fairly decent movie with bold, never before been seen flashy effects, and an incredibly predictable storyline.

If you haven’t already heard about the plot, Avatar follows the story of Jake Sully, a paraplegic marine who inherits a job on the planet of Pandora from his recently deceased twin brother. Pandora is rich with a mineral that will solve the Earth’s energy crisis. Jake’s job is to pilot an avatar, a biological robot made from a combination of DNA from the driver and the native people, the Na’vi. The avatar allows the humans to spend extended periods of time in the planet’s toxic environment. With his military background Jake’s scientific mission is quickly changed to a recognizance one, where he is to bring back information on the Na’vi that the humans can use to force them to move from their home, where the richest mineral deposits lie. After Jake is separated from his team, he spends the night defending himself against the dangers of the jungle and is found by Neytiri, the Na’vi princess and she…well, I don’t have to tell you the rest. You already know. Seriously, take ten seconds, relax and you will figure out exactly how the story is played out. I could even hand you a list of characters and you could check off who lives and who dies.

After all of the buzz, it becomes readily obvious that one goes to see Avatar for the bagillion dollar special effects, not the story. My sister was actually grateful for the simple story because she became distracted by the visuals and wasn’t concerned about missing any of the plot. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. For me to make an informed decision, I saw the film in both standard and 3-D formats. It wasn’t a hardship. I truly enjoyed the movie, and in my honest opinion it’s just as epic-y in 2-D as in 3-D. The only thing you miss out on is floating embers (which were pretty cool) and in-depth chase scenes that made me a little motion sick. If you want to shell out the extra few dollars, then by all means, definitely see it in 3-D.

So after seeing the movie, my brother, father and I started to brainstorm on ways the story could be elevated from the predictable to a bit more interesting. Here’s what we came up with.

First off, there is no reason, what-so-ever, for Jake to be in a wheelchair. None. Most of the time he is in a fancy MRI machine (a link) and his leaping, jumping, fighting avatar is on the screen. Even when he is in his own body, nothing was occurring that made his inability to walk a disability. But wait, you say, his incentive to spy on the Na’vi was that in exchange, he would receive the surgery that would return the use of his legs. So what? He wasn’t in the avatar because he couldn’t walk, it was because he can’t breathe in the air. If he was able bodied, he could have been offered something else. The bottom line is, with the way this story was told, it was not necessary. 

If you go to the trouble of having him be in a wheelchair, than we say use the wheelchair. What if all of the links were destroyed and Jake could not connect with his avatar body? Then he would be forced to lead the fight from his chair. Would the Na’vi, a race that places value on the warrior ability and spirit, accept him in his imperfect human form? Would Neytiri, the woman he loves, still want him? How would he cope in not being able to jump from tree to tree and connecting with his dragon-like flying counterpart? What if? What if? WHAT IF?

This is just one change, one, that would have taken the conflict from beyond natives versus big business, to a multi-layered story. When faced with Jake’s much smaller, wheelchair bound, oxygen mask wearing body, the Na’vi would have really had to think hard about following him into battle. You could still keep the same, good prevails over all, ending. Even down to the last frame. But the road there would have been a little more adventurous.

And do you know how long it took us to come up with that little tid-bit? All of two minutes. Two! Would it have made for a better story? Who really knows. But maybe if Cameron’s team took a few minutes away from the flying jelly fish and spent that on the script, they could have taken Avatar from being an okay story with spectacular effects, to a truly extraordinary piece of storytelling.

Supposedly there are two sequels that are being considered. Perhaps they’ll make the effort then, because after all, there are only so many versions of plated armor, multi-rows of sharp teeth, snarling, slobbering jungle beasts that you can watch before you go, “meh- seen that already. What else have you got?”