Friday, March 19, 2010

Suck it, James Cameron

See, there's this movie. A quite popular movie, actually. You might even say that a lot of people went ape-shit over it. And years from now, historians and Wikipedia-surfers alike will wonder what the hell was going on when the 2009 Golden Globe for Best Picture was awarded to this film. I think it's safe to say that none of these future wonderers will, although they should, turn to their companion(s) and say: "But why, companion(s), was Avatar showered in so much praise, when 1963-4 Doctor Who serial The Daleks (1.2) was clearly so much better?"

Yes, lots of things are better than Avatar - brushing one's teeth, Attack of the Cybermen (22.1), this - but the reason I compare it to The Daleks is that, in a way, they're similar. (And I just watched The Daleks.) Our protagonist(s) travel to a distant planet, where concerns over resources are forcing the encounter between somewhat peaceful, scantily clad people who live in a jungle teeming with dangerous alien life, and xenophobic, militaristic technocrats who hide in their city. There are other things too. The protagonist(s) meeting the city people first, and being told that the jungle people are terrifying and horrible, and finding them instead to be sexy. The baddies' need to destroy lots of things in order to get what they need. And, of course, a big battle between sticks on one side and "travel machines" on the other.

Narratively, here's why The Daleks is better. As should be obvious, The Daleks is about nuclear war, and (this may come as a shock to you, but)
Avatar is about colonialism. But a planet that was destroyed by nuclear war is just the starting point for the former story. The first episode, "The Dead Planet," is about the dead planet, but by the second episode, "The Survivors," we've moved on to, well, the survivors, who are much more interesting than "Nuclear war is bad, kids." Doctor Who, after all, was created with an effort to be educational but not preachy. On the other hand, Avatar carries on with its "message" for the entire film as if it seriously believes "colonialism was wrong" to be an original concept. There is no moral ambiguity to Jake Sully's betrayal of his race; since it is simply the expression of white guilt, it is obvious from the beginning that he will do this. Also obvious? That he was going to win over all the Na'vi on the entire planet in just a scene and a montage by riding that big red monster. Contrast that with the spine-tingling end to Episode 4 of The Daleks, in which our protagonists, having barely escaped from the Dalek city with their lives, prepare to leave Skaro (remember that at the time viewers didn't know how episodes would be in each serial, so at the end of the fourth episode, most people would reasonably assume that it was the end of the story. "You won't fight the Daleks? Oh well, not our problem. Let's go"), only to discover that the Daleks took the vital piece of the TARDIS that started the whole adventure off in the first place. Before reading on, watch this five-minute scene, starting at 2:08. Yes, the end of it is stupidly directed, but the idea is there. It's the most important scene in the serial, and one of the most morally ambiguous scenes in Doctor Who. What if the humans were at present posing no actual threat to the Na'vi, who were pacifists, but Jake had to convince the Na'vi to make a preemptive attack for more self-serving reasons? With James Cameron's CGI boffins to carry the acting load, even Sam Worthington could perform that much more interesting and complicated role. My point with all this is not (just) to disparage Avatar; it's to point out that Avatar could have actually been good if it had just tried, whereas The Daleks was dashed off in a few days by Terry Nation before he went on a cruise with Eric Sykes. (According to Wood and Miles, this and later efforts suggest that Nation's "instincts were usually sharper than his imagination.")

Get ready, because I'm going to drop some knowledge: thinking about your concept tends to help. Sometimes, for instance, monsters just need one little idea to make them all the more disturbing. Like the revelation in "The Age of Steel" (N2.6) that Cybermen don't have emotions because if they did they'd never stop screaming. Similarly, the idea that the Dalek creatures, trapped for centuries in travel machines in their bunker-like city, have gone insane with claustrophobia and become both physically and psychologically dependent on their confinement, is absolutely terrifying to think about. The movie's called Avatar, for Christ's sake! I expected the concept to be more than just a narrative convenience. What does it mean to put your consciousness in another body, especially when it is to blend in with the natives? Who and where is the real Jake Sully, and is it really up to him to decide? Exploring these questions could have made the colonial angle and Jake's betrayal/conversion(s) much less stupid and obvious.

And finally, effects. Yes yes yes yes blah blah CGI blah. But look at The Daleks. Some trick photography and a "negative" effect, a rubber claw, some studio sets, and stagehands to whack Susan with branches, and an icon is born. Aspiring filmmakers, always ask yourselves this simple question: in the future, when your special effects look old, what will your movie be? A classic or an embarrassment? In twenty years' time, people will still be watching The Daleks (and The Hurt Locker), but when it comes to Avatar, they'll wonder what all the fuss was about. But then their companion(s) will reply, "Do not trouble yourself/ves. You forget: Avatar won at the Golden Globes, but at the Oscars, The Hurt Locker won all the awards Avatar thought it deserved." And then, as will be traditional in the future, they will together cry:

"Suck it, James Cameron!"

1 comment:

  1. The naming of the substance "unobtainium," while being just one of many indications that they weren't even trying to write a good screenplay, is, however, no better than many of Terry Nation's (writer of The Daleks) later efforts: such as Dalekanium (the material Dalek casings are made out of), Aridius (a desert planet), and Marinus (a water planet).

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