OTC50 #125

CAMERON CREATES AESTHETIC WORLD WITH DIGITAL SCIENCE

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

James Cameron follows a franchise formula by using the environment, human relationships and colonialism as core issues in the second sequel about the inevitable outcomes engineered by competing human interests.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) costars Sam Worthington and Zoe Zaldana, transformed with motion capture into Jake and Neytiri, with an ensemble cast of character actors, many of whom are in recuring roles, such as Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Champion.

The backstory to the continuous main narrative is that Earth has undergone an ecological collapse by the year 2151. And that familiar formula of state military support behind corporate investment, used on Earth to colonize the New World, is reimagined as the Resource Development Administration (RDA) intent on securing the rare resource, unobtanium.

Avatar (2009) busted up the block with the motion capture characters wending through the lush jungle of Pandora, a distant moon of a gas giant in a far off galaxy.

Jack Sully was initially a paraplegic marine who volunteers to be inserted in the moon’s indigenous population as an avatar.

Cameron uses a layered aesthetic in creating a character within a character, otherwise known as an avatar, with earthlings having developed computer technology that enables them to insert themselves into genetically engineered indigenous-like avatars.

In this way, the filmmaker comments about digital creations on screen as much as the treatment of indigenous groups and populations of origin who are thrown into conflict with a more technologically advanced aggressor.

Sully’s avatar is inserted into the population as part of an exploratory mission, but when he is disconnected from the insertion team, he meets Neytiri, an indigenous female. Sully uses Neytiri to carry-on the mission, and he is subsequently introduced to Neytiri’s tribe and extended family.

Cameron uses the classic love story of Romeo and Juliete as an outline to develop the love interest and compel the narrative forward.

Once Sully is smitten, his loyalty to the original mission begins to erode the more his connection with the indigenous community develops, particularly when he begins to understand the interdependence of the humanoids with the wildlife and the jungle fauna.

As attempts to colonialize Pandora intensify, Sully works with the indigenous population to defend against tactics familiar to contemporary Earth, such as the ruthless destruction of habitat and the senseless use of violence to disenfranchise and marginalize inhabitants.

Sully becomes hunted as a traitor, and this narrative operates parallel to the main narrative of colonization, while the camera also follows the development of a new family and how that community is continually threatened by the increasing presence of humans and their machines.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) is a follow up with the families fleeing the jungle to find shelter with an oceanic civilization when the RDA returns to the moon to finish what they had started.

Cameron introduces an underwater ecosystem including giant agile ocean creatures that join the guerilla rebellion against the colonization. The occupying forces are more aggressive, but the indigenous populations are better organized and more determined to maintain independence.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), involves the new community having been formed along the eastern seaboard inevitably coming into conflict with a more predatory indigenous population that empowers itself with the use of fire.

The narrative follows the continuous story of colonization by the hybrid insertion team from Earth. The human endeavour has now evolved, as such exploration often does, to the construction of the first city on the moon.

Cameron shows how societies form in love for each other, and also form in reaction to more violent forces as the leadership rallies the community in an effort to survive.

Having established a connection with the characters on screen, the filmmaker creates constant tension by showing how a cycle of violence can jeopardize the bond created by love and family, and thereby may potentially rip apart the natural connection between characters.

An added dynamic is that these fire people build an alliance with the human avatars inserted into the environment.

Cameron shows how the introduction of machines and weapons to the indigenous people changes the careful balance that nature had established on Pandora. Machines are not indestructible, though, and the indigenous population begins to fight back by joining forces with the living and breathing environment.

The sentient processes of the wildlife and fauna are more clearly illustrated as their continued existence becomes threatened.

The Avatar franchise is a historical turning point for cinema maximizing the digital technology while still using actors to tell the story with sweeping grandeur.

Cameron consistently creates in epic proportions similar to that found in the wild wilderness. The sound of the story is as impressive as the roar of the water that can be heard underneath a giant waterfall. And the director finds something incorruptible about the natural balance that can be found there.

This beautiful world rife with adventure is not infallible, though. The human presence often causes a limitless universe to become limited.