An exercise in gross profligacy

Rating: 5/10 (6 December 2010)

James Cameron's 'Avatar' has beaten his earlier 'Titanic' to be crowned the most expensive and highest-grossing film ever made. But was this merely an exercise in gross profligacy (between $237m and $500m, depending on whose gossip you prefer)? And is this re-release, featuring an additional (unidentifiable) eight minutes of footage, anything but a cynical scheme to add to the already ludicrous box-office takings (over $2.5bn and counting)?
Americans go to Pandora, a moon of an unmentioned planet, to mine for an element unobtainable on Earth called – wait for it – Unobtainium. The only problem is that the indigenous Na'vi – these sylph-like, 12-feet-tall giants – have a penchant for shooting deadly arrows at intruders, and just happen to be housed above the densest source of the precious element. Diplomacy with the locals is exhausted far too prematurely and all-out war is declared.
The plagiarism is too manifold to mention. But did Cameron think that by colouring characters blue he would hide the fact that the central plot – an interracial love story – is a facsimile of the ones seen in such films as 'Dances With Wolves' and 'The Last Samurai'? A thought occurred to me: Why are Americans, who invest millions to get a thing like 'Avatar' onto the screen, so keen to reinforce their own stereotype as part of the story?
We were promised so much: That we wouldn't notice what was computer-generated and what wasn't, that we would empathise with the cartoon creations as we would do with humans, that we would feel as if we were actually on Pandora. None of these things are true. Such hyperbole is insulting to films more deserving of these effects, films much older than 'Avatar' and therefore more technically restricted, such as 'Jurassic Park' and the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.
Industry experts are telling us that film in three dimensions is the way forward. What they cunningly omit to say is that 3-D visuals are bad for your eyes, and result in everything else being two-dimensional! Cameron predicts that, in a decade or so, all films, irrespective of their genre, will be in 3-D. For the sake of all those who care about cinema, I hope he is wrong.
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