2017 Film Re-View: Avatar (2009)

Directed by: James Cameron
Written by: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver
IMDb Link

This year I decided to review every single movie I see at the cinema. Thanks to a special screening, I was able to re-watch Avatar in the cinema, so even though it's not a new movie, I have to review it. This time I wrote my review in a before-and-after format, gathering my thoughts about the film before seeing it again in the cinema for the first time in almost eight years, and then relaying my new experience after.

Before

Avatar was actually the first movie I ever wrote a review for. Back in 2009, when I was just fifteen years old, I witnessed what was (at the time) one of the greatest cinematic experiences of my life, and for the first time, I actually wanted to try to  articulate that feeling. It was truly amazing to me at the time, and the film stand as one of the reasons that I love film as much as I do. People have complained over the years about Avatar's derivative plot and characters, and some have written or spoken about a lack of 'cultural impact', but the night I saw the film, the very night it premiered in Australia, I didn't care about any of that. I love James Cameron's movies, and I had read up on Avatar constantly leading up to the film, learning bits and pieces about the technology that they invented for the movie and the process that went in to making the CGI as realistic as possible. I recall Sam Worthington saying in an interview something along the lines of "Avatar is a f*cking beast and it is going to blow you all away". Such a truly blunt and Australian way of putting it; needless to say I was pumped for it. I remember going to see it in IMAX 3D on opening night as a present to my best friend, whose birthday was the day before. Sitting down in that theatre, with three of my best friends, I was prepared for something awesome, but I had no way to account for what I was about to see.

The film didn't just tell me a story; it immersed me in another world. In my first experience, I was positively enthralled, my attention captured by the film completely. I hadn't seen Pocahontas or Fern Gully in years, and didn't even know what Dances With Wolves was at the time, so all the plot comparisons people drew were totally lost on me. I was familiar with the type of story being told, but I wasn't concerned with how the story beats were the same as or similar to others, the dialogue worked on me no matter how cliche, because I was absolutely in to the movie from start to finish.

Every audiovisual detail of the film just added to what the movie was capable of making me feel, and it made each moment compelling to me, even those that others would roll their eyes at. The sheer amount of effort that went in to making the look of this film detailed enough to feel real is staggering, and the way that the world is built is what made it work so perfectly for me. We're told bits and pieces of culture to try and get us invested in the story and the people of Pandora, but it's what we're shown that keeps me attention. This was a fully realiised world, teeming with life and just begging to be explored, and for the duration of the movie, that was the only place I wanted to be. When the story beats came, I wasn't disappointed that they were re-treads, because we were treading new ground every second of the film that was spent on the planet. I felt my emotions rise and fall with each step taken, not concerned that I knew that they were coming, because I was being given an experience in film like no other, something that took years of dedication to make that well and truly dwarfed any story that this film could've told. I loved how much the soundtrack added to the film as well, my heart swelled and pumped with the music because it was moving as the world did, and it was just one more factor that aided in encapsulating me in the moment. Each moment is played completely straight, never questioning the potential silliness of anything it did, letting the plausibility of the world speak for itself, which, once again, worked on me without a second thought. I appreciate that I got to watch this film for the first time in the perfect environment for it , and through a much less experienced lens. I've watched the film a few times since, but the time spent watching it on the small screen at home is wasted by comparison. I recognise what people point out as the film's flaws now, and while they don't diminish the memory of my experience, I know that had I seen this film under different circumstances I wouldn't have had such a glowing opinion of it as I do. That said, before I go to re-experience the film one more time in the vein of how I did the first time, I can recall the exact words that I spoke as the credits rolled for the first time: "BEST. MOVIE. EVER." Not my most eloquent reflection, but one that expressed exactly how I felt about the film at the time.

After

This was good to see again. It wasn't 3D, it wasn't even IMAX, but to sit in the theatre with some of my best friends and watch again, a movie that has had significant impact on my love of film, was a more than worthwhile afternoon.

Without the full advantage of IMAX 3D, the world was not nearly as immersive, so the  core experience was still there, but I could see the cracks and frays around the edges that reminded me why people don't consider this film perfect. The dialogue really is poor at points, exposition sometimes plainly shoved in your face just to get on with putting you in the world. "Unobtanium" is a screenwriting term for something that's extremely rare and hard to obtain. It's generally used as a placeholder name So much effort was put in to creating Pandora, but the script seems almost like a first draft, and while that doesn't defeat what the film is trying to do, it does become more difficult to swallow on repeat viewings, as the scenes inside facilities that are mostly dialogue-oriented become boring and hackneyed, filled with exposition with a slight military edge that clearly didn't have as much effort put in to it as the world itself. It's like James Cameron had a brilliant idea for a world, spent all his time developing the technology that would let him see this world brought to life, and then realised after all he had worked on that he needed a reason for people to want to go there, so he took a general, well-known story framework and rushed the script.

Like I said, though, the core experience is still there. A little muted and less mesmerising than what I first knew, it's still amazing to just sit and watch Pandora unfold before you, and a little amazing when you consider that it's all CGI. The Na'Vi people still look amazing in their design to this day, but what's really incredible is the fact that everything around them is designed and animated too. They really did build the world first and figure out the story later.

All that was true for my first experience with the film remains relatively true with this one. While the effect was a dulled by a combination of a weaker viewing format and the fact that this is actually my fifth time watching the movie overall, the memories of the emotions the film stirred in me echoed in the moments that they did the first time. Even as the weaknesses in the film became more apparent to me, they're still nothing compared to the world, and the clear sincerity and passion and skill with which it was designed. The cliche story and dialogue are the way that they are because what matters to this film is getting you in to the world as soon as possible, using film as the medium with which to show Pandora. Form is function here.   

Rating: This is a difficult movie to rate, and that's because the way you watch it entirely defines your experience with it. While seeing in IMAX 3D, with no other opinions prefixing your judgement and little to no exposure to the film's advertising is easily a 10/10, I also have to acknowledge that there is a lot that is lost by using another format. While the film also absolutely achieves the core idea of what it wants to achieve, by leaving story and dialogue consideration to the wayside so blatantly it becomes hard to ignore them as flaws entirely. My personal bias can't let the rating drop much, but if I step outside my perfect original experience of Avatar and look at the cracks, I feel ok giving it 8.5/10.

Published June 18th, 2017