I'm not optimistic about Avatar: The Way of Water

The most disappointing aspect of Avatar: The Way of Water is not the shabby story, but the shallower depth of thought.

1. Why is Avatar so successful?

The most moving thing about Avatar of 13 years ago is that it has built a sense of civilized identity. It makes every earthling truly agrees with the Na'vi civilization that they are willing to point the gun at their arrogant compatriots to defend it. It is extremely difficult on a psychological level, but Avatar did it.

Specifically, it has two aspects.

The first aspect is the establishment of personal feelings, the love between the earthlings and the Na'vi.

The biggest problem of this love is not how to achieve it in the script, but how to establish it visually. In other words, what James Cameron wants to do is not to let the man fall in love with the woman, but to let every audience fall in love with the Na'vi. He needs the assistance of technology to achieve emotional resonance based on visual differences.

The most successful part of Avatar is it enables cross-species love by creating a kind of beauty that is different from human beings but can still be perceived and appreciated through motion capture and 3D rendering. Technology is not to show off, but to let the audience feel the emotional changes in the film.

It is impossible to exaggerate the technology of Avatar at this point.

Avatar

The second aspect is its loving emotion, the presentation of the Na'vi civilization. It not only presents the wonders of Pandora but also shapes a different cultural environment.

Different from the earth civilization, Na'vi civilization is a decentralized symbiotic civilization. The whole Pandora is like an independent life; all things are equal cells. Therefore, there is a different outlook on life and death and inclusiveness beyond species.

From this point of view, Avatar tells the story of strange species.

Jake was a disabled soldier, marginalized, and very unhappy on Earth. When he came to Pandora, he became an avatar. It was not only like putting on a prosthetic limb and completing his life again, but being fully accepted by the Na'vi people. He became one of them, even a leader. So from Jake's point of view, Avatar tells a story about how he found his place on this planet. And being tolerant of such an alien is exactly the characteristic of the Na'vi civilization.

It is also intriguing to take a closer look at the assimilation process. You will find that it is not the Na’vi who finally accepted Jake, but Pandora. In other words, there is no one master like a human who can be in charge of everything. On the contrary, to blend in with Pandora, one must learn to coexist with everything here.

So on Pandora, it was not people that first accept Jake, but things. In the days to come, Jake learned how to connect everything with his antennae, establish a bond with the beasts and dragons, break through time and listen to the distant echo of the ancestors.

And, in the final war, we saw that it was not the Na'vi who finally defended Pandora, but the beasts in the jungle and dragons among pumice that rushed out, just like the immune system of this planet, to launch a general attack on human viruses.

The most moving part of Avatar is showing us another possibility of civilization. How do the Na'vi eat, sleep or make love? How do they swing their bodies by the incantations? How do they lift with the will of all people? This animistic sense of community frees people from fear and loneliness and makes them feel the meaning of being at all times.

As a result, Avatar supported a dream with technology. It made every viewer become a rebel of the Earth and a Na'vi for three hours; It also made all people a sense of dignity to share the same civilization, and that feeling is so strong.

Avatar

2. Where is the difference in Avatar: The Way of Water?

However, in Avatar: The Way of Water, this wonderful experience has disappeared, and become an overly simple escape story.

The escape action is not so much a need for the plot as a reason to let the protagonists leave the jungle to go to the sea tribe. It is only to expand the map.

The film shows marine ecology too superficially. It only describes the external differences - the differences in environment, color, and biology form - but it fails to present the differences from the level of civilization, as the first film does.

As for the key of the whole story, it is also very old-fashioned. The film falls on "family". I think the biggest villain is not Miles, but Jake, the arbitrary father. He unconsciously decided the fate of the small family and even the large ethnic group. He looked strong, but cowardly inside, which brought disaster to his family and people.

Maybe the more logical way of continuing the story is to portray Jake as a villain. To some extent, the residual human patriarchal psychology in him makes him go his own way and finally leads to the tragic death of his eldest son and even the disaster of the Na'vi.

His second son is a second-generation immigrant from Pandora. He integrated into Na'vi civilization, so he stood up against his father's heroism, united his family, people, and everything, and finally defeated human beings with the community logic of Na'vi civilization. In this way, the narrative not only covers the family theme, and the contradiction between two generations, but also contains the internal conflict of civilization.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar: The Way of Water chooses an extremely conservative way. It tells a conventional story about the confrontation between the authoritarian father and the rebellious child. The most tangled part of this story is that it turns the perpetrator (the father) into the rescuer and then ends with "family" to erase all crimes. Such stories have become more and more difficult to accept, resulting in narrow emotions.

In Avatar: The Way of Water, we lost another possibility of civilization. We are witnessing the Na'vi people becoming more familiar and more earthling-like. As a result, the overall upgrading of technology will no longer bring a sense of coolness and wellness but only make people feel empty and tired.

So far, a civilized feast has become a cheap masquerade party. That is the most precious thing lost in Avatar: The Way of Water.

After all, technology is only a measure; people and emotions are the purposes. Technology can make the impossible possible, thus expanding the depth of human emotion.

For example, using the sinking of an epic ship to cheer up the birth of a great love. And repeated time travel is to prove that human beings are still worthy of being saved. Or to make up a seemingly primitive but noble civilization to contrast human arrogance and meanness. These are the places where we use technology.

Unfortunately, Cameron couldn't make it as he did last time.

Avatar: The Way of Water