The Avatar Oscar Paradox: A Breakthrough, But Not Worthy of the Trophy

I’ve been thinking about writing this note for a long time now. For more than a month, actually. Ever since I wrote up our Freeze Frame feature, about the deep, intoxicating horizons of Avatar.

Back in early February, in response to my commentary about the film’s 3D achievements, commenter grape_crush posted the following: “What’s interesting to me is that – outside of the establishment of 3D as a serious tool in the filmmaker’s toolbox – the world of Pandora is more interesting than the Avatar storyline. The plot is more meta-MacGuffin, necessary to drive the exploration of this fictional world Cameron created….”

I have been thinking about that comment a lot, ever since. The next day, the Oscar nominations came out, and I found myself writing about both Avatar and District 9 in the best picture category, and grape_crush’s sentiments came floating back, to the top of my mind. Was Avatar truly better than District 9?

Now I have written extensively about how I firmly believe – and hope – that Avatar is the future of cinema. Imagine a world of movies that strive to be more immersive experiences, drawing us in to look at universes we’ve never seen before, to connect with characters in ways that we’ve never connected before, and to walk away more fulfilled and fascinated than after watching something like, oh, Transformers 2. (Check out Techland’s complete Avatar coverage)

I know there’s been some backlash against Avatar, and in no way do I fall into that camp. I’ve seen it three times, and been utterly entranced all three times. The cargo bay of the spaceship. The nighttime sprint through Pandora’s jungles. The floating mountains. The hard-ass Colonel. That final shot, where the line between avatar and human – between real actor and CG character – is blurred beyond recognition. This is great stuff.

That said, I did notice on the third run around the bend some of the more obvious seams in the story. And it was enough, during that last viewing, to diminish some of the visual splendors. I thought again about grape_crush: Was this virtual world – as groundbreaking as it is – better than the story that inhabits it?

As much as I hate to consider such a prospect, isn’t the answer yes? Take away the 3D, and is Avatar still the same experience? Not really. (More at Techland: Percy Jackson and the all-time greatest sci-fi child heroes)

This spectacle is one of the most impressive ever imagined, attempted or completed. But the story doesn’t quite rise to the challenge. Almost all of my accolades have been about the look and texture of the thing, but I haven’t said too much about the emotional core.

And I think this is why, when the nominations were announced, something deep inside my heart cheered for Avatar, but there was a part of my sci-fi-loving mind that cheered even louder for District 9. Yes, Avatar deserves to win just about every technical award under the sun. We’ll see plenty of trophies going to the team that James Cameron assembled. But best picture? The best overall picture of 2009? Story and acting and effects? I’m not totally sure that Avatar could lay claim to that title. .

Are there not others out there who share my state of confusion? I firmly believe that Avatar will go down as one of the most important and influential motion pictures ever made. Yet I don’t believe it deserves to win best picture. This is the paradox I hope I am able to come to terms with as I watch the Oscars play out Sunday.

How about you?

More at Techland: Read our review of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland

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gminnj

Thanks for this. Totally agree with the Oscar arguments, although I personally hope 3-D is not the future of cinema.
doubleang

D9′s plot and storyline was definitely superior to Avatars. While it got a bit hokey and action oriented towards the end, D9 did an excellent job of painting believable and sympathetic characters.
Avatar on the other hand… I dunno. Where you saw a “Hard ass Colonel”, I saw an over the top cheesy, walking, talking, movie stereotype. Even during that fist viewing, I was struggling to understand why the company had to have that one specific deposit of unobtanium and was willing to throw away their awesome Avatar-science and an entire culture/species.
Anyway, I agree with you, while I think Avatar was probably a game changer (for better or worse, we have yet to see), it is not deserving of overall best picture (I mean comeon, besides having the rest of the movie “Pocahontas” elements, it even had “Mother Willow”).

As an aside, I totally see Cameron’s concern from earlier this week that Hollywood doesn’t “get it” and is screwing 3D up. My other concern with 3D and wholly immersive environments feeling, is that movies will all focus on that. You refer to “Transformers 2″, but all I see the 3D revolution doing is giving us a 3D Transformers. I am scared that all of Hollywood’s energys are going to feed into visceral eye-popping special effects, and leave good plots and storylines behind.
gum0nshoe

I’ve seen Avatar twice in 3d now. It’s hard to break past the setting, but once you do it has all the plot holes that every movie like it before has had.

I’d have been more interested if a movie like Pirate Radio (the boat that rocked) had made it into the running. I have not seen D9 yet because most of the people who I trust about movies said it wasn’t very good, that it started out great but then fell short of all of the potential that had been there.
clutchman83

I agree that Avatar probably doesn’t deserve best picture but I don’t think that District 9 should have even been nominated. I found D9 like others the guy above me has spoken to, started out really interesting but then turns into a Transformers-ish smash-and-run at the end. I mean, did they really need to have a big gun battle with robots to finish up what was a very interesting social parable up to that point? While Avatar ends in a similar fashion it felt like it made more sense. They were fighting for a reason and for something the viewer understood. The story may be simplistic or already-done but I get the feeling Cameron had a three movie arc layed out in his head before this and this was how he believed it had to start. Think Star Wars trilogy I guess. So yeah, Avatar, probably not best picture but I’d watch out when #2 and #3 come out.

Also, I found it a little amusing when you mentioned the Spaceships cargo bay. At first I thought you were talking about the shuttles bay which is a non fabricated, real life, bolt for bolt C-17 Globemaster III cargo compartment. But now I get you probably meant the one Jake Sully goes floating out into at the beginning. That scene + 3D = Extremely cool.
dougmor

There isn’t any confusion in my mind. Avatar does deserve the Best Picture win, because it creates a vast, rich and deep emotional experience for the viewer (more so than any of the other movies nominated). I don’t believe movies are intellectual exercises that should be (or need to be) analyzed in detail after the fact, but need to be judged by the visceral reaction of the audience. The whole “art” vs. “commercial” aspect of movie making is too complicated to get into here, but I lean toward “grand adventure of a hero” storylines, as opposed to the “gritty and depressing life of the poor and marginalized.”

And I think it’s too early to decide if the Avatar story line is simply “good enough” or really great. Because A1 is the first of a trilogy, it has to set up the subsequent storyline. Therefore, it will have a number of story elements unresolved (or seemingly irrelevant or worse), but which are critical for the next installment. For instance, it seems obvious that the na’vi are genetically engineered from human and Pandoran DNA. But who did the engineering? Why? Are they still around, and if so, what are they up to? If this element of the story is ignored in subsequent sequels, then the story is marginal, and I agree it doe not deserve to be thought of as a great movie. If it is used as a springboard for a deeper and richer story, then the story is deserving of all the praise it gets.

And besides, I prefer “Hard Ass” villains to insipid ones any day of the week.
kinggidorah

Yes, Avatar was a breakthrough in special effects, and it should get an Oscar…for Visual Effects and possibly Cinematography, but Best Picture? You have to be joking. It is a good action movie that creates an amazing world, but the writing was standard Cameron fare. Was Avatar even in the same league as Inglourious Basterds, The Hurt Locker, and Up? (many apologies to the other nominees, but I haven’t seen them and can’t comment on their quality)I would say not.
tereglith

I’ve only seen two of the nominees for Best Picture (Avatar and UP, the blockbusters), and even out of those two, I think that UP would deserve the win. Yes, Pandora was beautiful, 3D, and had interesting creatures. Paradise Falls was also beautiful, 3D, and had interesting creatures. The difference is that UP has tons of original characters, while Avatar has an everyman protag, the villian from Disney’s Atlantis, and a blue Pocahontas family. UP has deep symbolism all throughout it (circles and squares, emptying the house, etc.) while Avatar really just is what it is on the surface. And I’m certain that at least half of the other nominees have the features that make them a MOVIE, and not just a technical showcase, as well. If it wins, I’ll be very sad. A triumph of style over substance.
nedlum

While I really did enjoy Avatar for all it’s faults, I think it’ll be looked at as The Jazz Singer: it showed what could be done. Does that mean it’s a *better* film than Up? Don’t know.
doog535

I thought the effects were amazing, but I didn’t think the 3-D was necessary. I spoke with several people who found (as I did) that the glasses were uncomfortable and distracting. I never really felt like my eyes relaxed. I thought there was plenty going on visually with the amazing colors and sweeping animation. The 3-D was overkill.

As for the rest? Well, there was no character development. The roles were flat and stereotypical … the soldiers wanted to destroy … the businessman would do anything to make money … the scientists were the only humans with hearts.

The Na’vi were entirely victimized. These were creatures that looked, sounded and acted like American Indians. They even called themselves “The People”. Can you say Na’vijo?

All in all, I thought it was an entertaining movie, but far from what I would even consider as the best movie of the year.
captainzeno

We have a majority of people who liked The Hurt Locker but a smarter percentage of people who understood war is not in their future therefore Oscar results are predictable to the wiser, and not surprising.
mrtanaka

It wasn’t that great of a movie, and the CGI wasn’t nearly as impressive as hyped. The grittier look of district 9 quite frankly was alot more realistic and impressive. This was just one non stop final fantasy intro with those hideous pastel blues n pinks everyfreakinwhere, designed to cry about how terrible america is in a veiled manner. It didn’t suck, but it shouldn’t shock anything that it didn’t win anything important. Lopan from Big Trouble in Little China is much more entertaining than avatar.