gazmatazz

Avatar the new Star Wars? Leave it to the kids to decide

So, Avatar has defied some people’s expectations and turned out to be pretty damn good. Even the usually blockbuster averse UK film critic Mark Kermode has conceded that he quite liked it (even if he thinks that 3D is unnecessary). Avatar’s been praised for it’s technologically perfect CGI and has impressed with it’s ‘as good as it gets’ 3D. The blue cat-monkey people (or Na’vi as they’re more commonly known) were so life-like that I just accepted that they were real within 5 minutes of them being in my stereoscopic vision. Needless to say it’s already one of the highest grossing films of all time and the award season is now gearing up to send so many gongs for Cameron et al.’s that they could use them to sink an unsinkable ship. The film has already won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama… apparently) and, no doubt, more will be due to follow from BAFTA and the academy. I’d be surprised if Avatar gets any more of the big ones (i.e. Best Picture, Best Director) but it’s sure to clear-up in the technical categories.

And now the inevitable. Director James Cameron has hinted at sequels (quelle surprise). In an interview in Entertainment Weekly, Cameron confessed that he already had a story arc planned out for a trilogy of films on Pandora, and to be fair, a trilogy would probably be welcomed by all (not least by the accountants at 20th Century Fox). In the interview he said:

“I’ve had a storyline in mind from the start — there are even scenes in Avatar that I kept in because they lead to the sequel. It just makes sense to think of it as a two or three film arc, in terms of the business plan. The CG plants and trees and creatures and the musculo-skeletal rigging of the main characters — that all takes an enormous amount of time to create. It’d be a waste not to use it again.”

Along with the inevitability of a trilogy being announced come the (also inevitable) comparisons to Star Wars. Star Wars remains the biggest sci-fi franchise out there despite George Lucas best efforts to try and kill the franchise with those unwelcome prequels.

So can Avatar achieve this high accolade? Is it the Star Wars of the 2010s? For a start there are lots of similarities. It has game-changing technology behind-the-scenes, it has a classic tale of good (the na’vi / the rebels) versus evil (humans / the empire), it has an unlikely hero (guy in a wheelchair / lowly farm-boy) and lots of cod philosophy about an all encompassing energy. It also has the ever topical message about the under-dog overcoming adversity to de-rail the seemingly unstoppable might of imperialism - a ‘subtext’ so blatant that it is merely just ‘text’.

The film has already infiltrated the cinema zeitgeist with it’s rampage of technological and financial success (which, some have argued, are at odds with the film’s compassionate eco-message) and is way on the way to scoring a jubilant own-goal by sinking Cameron’s Titanic as the highest grossing film of all time. There are many sci-fi films that are better such as The Matrix, Blade Runner, Terminator (another Cameron juggernaut), Alien and Star Wars (of course) to name just a handful. Hell, it probably wasn’t even the best sci-fi of 2009 (District 9 anyone?). Take away the amazing 3D and photo-perfect visuals and you have ropey dialogue and a hackneyed story line.

However, it is not up to us adults whether Cameron’s giant blue smurfs can achieve this. Star Wars is most precious to those who grew up with it. Those of us who, as a kid in the 80s, over-flowed with excitement at the prospect of the Star Wars movies being on at christmas. That minority of people who grew up in the 80s and never got around to watching Star Wars (e.g. my girlfriend) don’t really understand what the fuss is about. Similarly, those people who actually took their kids to see Star Wars the first time round probably had similar criticisms for Star Wars to those who are now criticising Avatar. But I think, just like Star Wars, the only people who can decide the long-term appeal of Avatar are the children who will grow up with it. Only they can decide whether Avatar is any good and the rest of us can just shut up. In fact, I’d stick my neck out and say … maybe we were all a little too old to judge the Star Wars prequels aswell? I have a feeling that a lot of kids probably loved the Phantom Menace. They may have even loved Jar Jar Binks in the same way that I loved the Ewoks when I was 7 years old. I even used to enjoy the Ewoks movies (what was wrong with me??).

I, for one, am already looking forward to the prospect of returning to Pandora and soaking up those intricate details but, in my humble opinion, it is up to the kids to decide the long-term endurance of Avatar.