Ten Plot Twists Looking for a Movie.

It appears that I'm not the only person who has found the plot line and character development of Avatar to be lacking - innumerable critics have praised the movie for its visual brilliance while decrying its elementary plotline and character development, and many have commented on the resemblance of its storyline to that of Dances With Wolves.

Personally, I have always felt that non-participant criticism is inappropriate, so I decided that it was unfair to take cheap shots at Avatar's shortcomings in the areas of plot and character without at least offering a few ideas of my own. So, in the great tradition of science-fiction in Hollywood, I present the following sequel to my original posting:

10 Things That James Cameron Could Have Done in Avatar.

1. "The thing about aliens is, they're alien."

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if in some way (any way!) the Na’vi are not as closely based on Terran tribal cultures – or possibly based on less mainstream cultural concepts?   Let’s see...what if they eat each other? Cannibalism is certainly a known factor in a variety of tribal cultures here, why not there? This was one of the key elements in Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, the idea of a human adopted by aliens (Martians in this case) and ending up with a completely different set of morals and beliefs, including a full acceptance of the idea of eating the dead as a form of reverence.

For that matter, what if they eat humans? After all, at that point it’s not cannibalism, although I’m not sure what it would be called - so far we haven’t had to define a term that dealt with eating aliens – but it would have that “gain-the-manna-of-your-enemy-by-eating-them” flavour*.

Perhaps they practise ritualized incest? Or ritualized sex with their horses? What if eating fresh dragon guano was part of their digestive cycle?  Suppose they’d demanded that Sully chop off his extra fingers to match their cultural norm?  Would it be as tempting for him if the Na'vi reproductive process involved him fertilizing the eggs that Neytiri left in the mating pond two days previously?

The idea that I’m chasing with all of these examples is something that would distance the Na’vi from humanity. As it is, other than some gung-ho graduation ceremonies involving dragon wrestling, and things like getting down from two hundred foot tall trees by jumping off the nearest branch and bouncing off leaves on the way down, there’s nothing in the Na’vi cultural matrix that comes across as unappealing. I would have been more impressed if Sully had been forced to overcome any kind of personal taboo - if there had been anything, well, alien about the aliens.


2. Rule 34, anyone? 
"I thought Jim did a really good job of putting Neytiri together. I thanked him for making her look hot. I mean, Neytiri is very sexy and lean with a really cute bod. I'm in pretty good shape, but I don't look that buff."

- Zoe Saldana

And while we're at it, let's make them a lot less physically attractive, shall we?  No one ever questions Sully's desire to join the Na'vi, and based on the quote from Ms. Saldana, why would they?  But what if the Na'vi look like toads, or praying mantises, or the spawn of Great C'thulhu?  The scene where Sully and his alien love actually meet in person and prove that their love transcends their physical bodies would have been far more impressive if Neytiri looked like a cross between road kill and a lobster.


3. Sully is a junky - discuss.
If you had a friend or co-worker who stopped shaving, bathing and eating regular meals, you'd wonder about his urine test results. In this case, Sully is an avatar addict - and what do his fellow humans do?  Urge him on in the interests of science!  What if they'd pulled the plug instead, on the basis that Sully is slowly killing himself by spending all of his time hooked up to his blue alter ego?

4. Avatars:  twelve for ten cents, or a dime a dozen.
After Colonel Quaritch's comment about the Na'vi being hard to kill, it's sort of surprising that they are so willing to adopt Sully, isn't it?  But if avatars were cheap and easy to produce, Sully could have had his throat slit a few times (with accompanying trauma) before managing to figure out a way to make an impression on the natives.  Think of it as a sort of weird homage to Groundhog Day.


5. Zombies are very popular these days.
Or, let's not have the avatars be clones at all.  Let's just say that's what they are, for PR purposes.  But instead, heck, why not just grab a few natives, dig out their brains, and put in an interface system?  That would have to be cheaper than building the goddamn things from scratch, wouldn't it?  But imagine the horror at finding out that small pink aliens have taken over the body of your brother, or your sister, or your friend, or your lover...

No, wait, that's already been done for Invasion of the Body Snatchers, never mind.  Except this time, we'd be the hideous body snatching invaders.


6. "Nobody goes home." **
For that matter, why put in an interface system?  If we can posit a technology that allows for a one-to-one experiential and sensory interface with another brain, why not just pull the human brains and drop them into the Na'vi?  Make all the controllers crippled volunteers like Sully, who are willing to give up their humanity for a chance to dig their toes in the dirt.

Or maybe don't tell the controllers that it's a one way trip...after all, the corporation running things is apparently unconcerned by issues of ethics.


7. The Ghost in the Machine.
What if Sully's avatar starts acting on its own? The avatars appear to be comatose when not linked to the human operator, but what if Sully logs in to find that he's already running down a jungle trail? What if his repeated addict-level usage creates a ghost mind in the avatar? This way Sully ends up on both sides, and the final mano-a-mano battle can be between Sully the committed gung ho marine with his new legs, and Sully the newest member of the Omaticaya tribe. 


8. Picture if you will...
Okay, I'm sorry, this is really a Twilight Zone plot, but what if one of the Na'vi is actually an avatar being controlled by ANOTHER alien species?  Or what if one of the humans is an avatar controlled by aliens studying us?
 

9. "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."
There's a very brief scene in the movie that shows Parker Selfridge, the base administrator, as played with scenery-chewing gusto by Giovanni Ribisi, sitting in his office staring at a piece of the ore that's responsible for everything.  Behind him, there on the shelf, is a model of the lunar lander, and there's a Na'vi bow hanging over his head and hunting spears in the case behind him.

Selfridge is portrayed as a complete corporate profit whore, without concern for the ecology or the people of Pandora.  But is this the office of such a man?  This could be the office of a man who has idealized the concept of space exploration for his entire life, who sees himself following in the footsteps of pioneers like Armstrong, a man who is fascinated by the idea of an alien race and an alien planet - but who is also forced to brutalize that race and that planet with strip mining, bulldozers, and explosives.  Wouldn't it have been interesting to find out that he hates everything that he's been forced to do in the name of Earth? 


10. "I wish I knew how to quit you."
Finally, let's break completely with tradition.  Let's have Neytiri the love interest get killed saving Sully, and let's have Sully seek physical comfort from her original fiance, Tsu'tey the warrior. Or perhaps not - after all, if people don't like the resemblance that Avatar has to Dances With Wolves, they're probably not interested in borrowing from Brokeback Mountain, either.

- Sid

* Sorry, "flavour" may be in bad taste here. In fact, "bad taste" may be in bad taste here.

** The astute fan will recognize this line from another James Cameron movie - there's a lot more of that sort of reference in these postings than most of you realize.