Avatar :: Zalyina

Scott and I recently went to go see the James Cameron movie, Avatar, in IMAX-3D. If you haven't seen the movie yet, you may want to curb reading until you see a series of ***'s or else I'll spoil some parts for you. Scroll down now if you'd rather skip it.

Visually speaking alone, the movie is striking and one of the more originally imaginative ones that I've seen in a long time. The plants, creatures, and the Navi themselves are simply stunning and a tremendous amount of detail was worked into everything. The fact that the Avatar Navi and the Navi are distinguished is one thing that really grabbed me. The Avatars are basically a splicing of some human DNA and a whole lot of Navi DNA -- and they have five fingers. The Navi, on the other hand, only have four fingers. Certain concepts are pretty original - at least, so far as I know: the way the Navi control their mounts (ground or in the air) by a braid-like connector? Genius. Just the concept of the Avatars themselves is fairly original -- at the very least, the use of an organic Avatar (as opposed to a robot or a mech and the like.)

Now, the actual storyline itself is not all that original. It's an easy storyline, and I don't fully blame Cameron for doing that -- afterall, most of the money was probably poured into the visual effects. That's why it doesn't look totally out of place when the live-action meets the digital action and the character/creature designs totally rock my socks off. But, I digress. The storyline is like several sci-fi movies: Earth for whatever reason is jacked up, so we're looking to other planets for either resources or a home (that's simplifying it). There are people out there that will take this movie and say Cameron is making a political statement about global warming and colonization -- but, the thing of it is, the trashing of our planet isn't a political issue. It doesn't need to be, just as much as abortion and other hot-button topics don't need to be political issues. The humans don't have any more resources, so some of them (the more military and money driven ones) are out to get resources from Pandora. The 'natives' are stubborn and in the way, so they need to be erradicated if they can't be negotiated with.... sounds like the colonization of the Americas right? But I don't know if Cameron was out to make a critique about that completely... even though the erradication of the Native Americans (both North and South america) is a pretty awful blemish in our history. As I take it, it's more of a critique about HUMANS. All of humanity, no matter where we come from, takes from God's good creation and its creatures without giving much back. I think the attitude is what makes a difference: that of "this is or will be mine so I can use it however I want" and that of "this is a gift, and I need to be thankful for it."

Unfortunately, a lot of Western thought floats around the former. We take advantage of a lot without so much a thought to it being a gift and it being grace that we have anything at all -- particularly if it's of the natural world.

Pandora is a utopian world in which the Navi, the animals, and the plants are all connected... not just in a spiritual way but in a biochemical, biological, bio-electrical sort of way. The Navi are almost quite literally one with the natural world around them. This of course sounds familiar to a lot of native people's way of interacting with the natural world. But again, humanity has its faults. The Navi don't have the appearance of the many faults found in Western lifestyles throughout the centuries. Then again we also don't know how different Navi clans interact with other Navi clans -- it's just suggested that they are not otherwise united.


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But, on to a different point of thought. The very title and nature of the movie is very interesting to me... Avatars.

Avatar. n. 1. an embodiment or personification, as of a principle, attitude, or view of life. 2. Computers. a graphical image that represents a person, as on the Internet. (i.e. An image representing a user in a multi-user virtual reality space.)

Early on in the movie you learn that the main character, Jake Sully, is going into the Avatar program in place of his twin brother. You also quickly learn (even just from the previews) is that Jake is in a wheelchair and cannot use his legs. There's a medical procedure through this future military's benefits that would make it possible for him to get his legs back -- but costs way more than what Jake can afford. So to be able to connect to and to use an Avatar that can walk, run, and leap through the forests of Pandora? Beyond Jake's wildest dreams I'm sure! Pandora itself is probably more than anyone could dream and would love for it to exist. Even walking out from the movie and into a dreary gray parkinglot after the movie made me wish Pandora actually existed.

Isn't this something a lot of us desire? A world in which everything is hormonized -- the people, the plants, the animals -- and is beautiful beyond our wildest dreams? Or, if nothing else, don't we desire a world that is better? And bodies that aren't ailing and the evils of humanity aren't destroying everything that is good?

Hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of people escape the world via avatars on the internet. Creating personas that are everything we want to be, and putting aside everything we are not. I can be male, female, or both or neither on the internet. I can look however I want to look, and be whatever I want to be. Or. .. I can be who I think I am on the inside online that I can't be in the real world or I'm just not in the real world.

I'm all too familiar with these desires, and all too familiar with being someone/something online that I can't be in the real world.

Throughout high school (about 10 years ago), I was not Yvonne on the internet. No, the name I wanted to be called was Zalyina. Zalyina was my avatar -- everything I wanted to be and wasn't in the real world. Zalyina was a dragon - from a world untarnished by the faults of humanity, and where living things harmonized with each other and with nature. Humans as a whole were a blemish, and only a few really had any connection to the natural world around them. Now, you might laugh or quirk your eyebrow and think I'm crazy. But I actually believed that, on the inside and in a past life (or two past lives as was the case) I was a dragon. It was a curse to be human because humans never treated each other "humanely" -- as ironic as that sounds.

I'm also a person that has suffered much in the hands or words of others when I was a child. Humanity as I knew it wasn't safe. Who could I trust in a world where people always hurt each other? Was I the only one that saw that the way things were, weren't the way things were supposed to be? The internet was my solace and my avatar my escape. I had been friends with other people (or rather, their own avatars) online, and they weren't just friends but I'd considered many family. It was my safe place to go when things simply didn't make sense. These people didn't want to hurt me -- for, as far as I know, they all suffered much in the hands of others as well. This digital world and their avatars were (and for some, still is) their safe place, where they can be who they think they are and escape the realities of a war-torn world. Hundreds of people find their solace in an avatar that is anything but human, prefering creatures that are otherwise much more in tune with nature -- dragons, foxes, wolves, rabbits, gryphons, hybrid creatures, felines, birds, predatory birds, and so on. Creatures seem to only kill out of necessity, so they appear to be our betters.

Things are not the way they were meant to be. I don't mean that as a religious platitude but as a truth. Do you not feel it in the marrow of your bones? Children are starving and dying, while others are living in luxurious mansions with lavish food every meal of the day. Corporate business people turn deaf ears to homeless and poor. Drugs and alcohol are used to dull pain and suffering, turning into addictions that one cannot live without. Some people can't see past the pigment of another person's skin, and calls them devils. War rages. If it all were some evolutionary process of a world gone to hell, why would anyone care? Things are not the way it was meant to be.

If God created the world according to Judeo-Christian belief, it was a world without death and sorrow. Humanity was to be harmonized. These terrible things didn't even get introduced into the picture until God's enemy - the devil - took the embodiment of a serpent and the humans listened to him rather than their Creator. It wasn't supposed to be this way - but, then free will got in the way and here we are today. We take advantage of each other and we take advantage of the creation. But one day, when God's son makes everything whole again, death will be no more and tears will not be shed. Till then, I'll do what I can to be thankful for everything around me... and pray others find their solace and safety in God.