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So I've been thinking about Avatar and some of the criticism of the film as being just another typical lone-hero-saves-the-day story. While it's easy to go down that road, it seems the film complicates the idea of the lone gunslinger/soldier who overcomes all odd to save the day.
The first problem with that reading of the film is that Jake does not, in fact, save the day. Yes, he plays a key role in the final battle, stopping the supply ship from getting to the Tree of Souls, but his forces are getting their asses handed to them until Eywa intervenes and coaxes the wildlife of Pandora to rise up against the Skypeople.
Even earlier in the film, when Jake gets separated from his party on his first mission off-base in his avatar body, he is surrounded by a pack of carnivores. He faces off against the with typical male bravado, but they overwhelm him. It isn't until Neytiri intervenes that he is saved. She saves him again at the end of the film in the battle with Colonel Quaritch. The battle starts out with the two soldiers squaring off, but unlike the classic tale where they battle to the death and the good guy wins, Jake loses the fight, and it is Neytiri who kills the Colonel and saves Jake from death.
In each case, it is the intervention of a woman who saves Jake, not his wits or physical prowess. It's also worth mentioning that the women who save him each have a very different view of the necessity of battle and the cycle of life and death than he himself does, a view he himself comes to embrace over the course of the film. In fact, one could make the case that Avatar is more a film about the power and wisdom of women and mothers: Eywa, Moat, Neytiri (who calls Jake a baby and is charged with being his mother/teacher), and Grace (who becomes Jake's surrogate mother) than a traditional gunslinger film.
There are also key points in the story, where Jake has to let go of the solitary, stoic hero and ask for help, and it is only when he does this that the story and his character move forward. The first is after Neytiri saves him. They argue, and it isn't until he asks for her help that she stops to listen (and the tree spirits alight on him) to show Ewya's favor. The second is just before the final battle when Jake plugs into Ewya at the Tree of Souls and asks for her aid in the upcoming battle.
No final concluding point. Just a random observation as I watch the Red Carpet before the Oscars.
The first problem with that reading of the film is that Jake does not, in fact, save the day. Yes, he plays a key role in the final battle, stopping the supply ship from getting to the Tree of Souls, but his forces are getting their asses handed to them until Eywa intervenes and coaxes the wildlife of Pandora to rise up against the Skypeople.
Even earlier in the film, when Jake gets separated from his party on his first mission off-base in his avatar body, he is surrounded by a pack of carnivores. He faces off against the with typical male bravado, but they overwhelm him. It isn't until Neytiri intervenes that he is saved. She saves him again at the end of the film in the battle with Colonel Quaritch. The battle starts out with the two soldiers squaring off, but unlike the classic tale where they battle to the death and the good guy wins, Jake loses the fight, and it is Neytiri who kills the Colonel and saves Jake from death.
In each case, it is the intervention of a woman who saves Jake, not his wits or physical prowess. It's also worth mentioning that the women who save him each have a very different view of the necessity of battle and the cycle of life and death than he himself does, a view he himself comes to embrace over the course of the film. In fact, one could make the case that Avatar is more a film about the power and wisdom of women and mothers: Eywa, Moat, Neytiri (who calls Jake a baby and is charged with being his mother/teacher), and Grace (who becomes Jake's surrogate mother) than a traditional gunslinger film.
There are also key points in the story, where Jake has to let go of the solitary, stoic hero and ask for help, and it is only when he does this that the story and his character move forward. The first is after Neytiri saves him. They argue, and it isn't until he asks for her help that she stops to listen (and the tree spirits alight on him) to show Ewya's favor. The second is just before the final battle when Jake plugs into Ewya at the Tree of Souls and asks for her aid in the upcoming battle.
No final concluding point. Just a random observation as I watch the Red Carpet before the Oscars.