James Cameron's Avatar is about Transhumanism

I'm not going to put pretty pictures of Avatar in this review. If you want a solid review of Avatar based on the significance of the artwork, check out this article at Gizmodo. Writer Mark Wilson gets it right on when he likens Avatar to Jurassic Park; it's that kind of landmark in movie-making. I remember before Jurassic Park, there was computer graphics, and after Jurassic Park, there were dinosaurs in the same scene as humans. Avatar is much the same way.

Let me put it this way: James Cameron's 3-D technology was so impressive, so real, such an enjoyable part of the movie's experience, that I do not want to see this movie on DVD or even Blu-Ray on a big TV. I want to wait until 3-D comes to the living room before seeing this at home. It's that good. And you really, really need to see it in 3-D.

This is a review about the plot, but not the plot that most people saw. Most people will go see Avatar and say, "Well, it's a straightforward knock-off of Dances With Wolves in space, a parable about our imperialist leanings and the struggle between science and militarism in America." And, I guess it is, on the surface. But just as this movie is not meant to be seen in 2 dimensions, this movie's plot is far more substantial.

The Real Plot is Transhumanism

Let me let you in on a secret: Avatar is a movie about transhumanism. Start to finish, this movie was chock full of hints both subtle and obvious that Cameron's true interest in the movie is transcendence of humanity of the human body. The storyline was about humanity's future evolution, the themes were transhumanist, there were very specific items that referred to transhumanist belief, and even the medium which the movie was delivered was transhumanist.

What is transhumanism? In short, enhancing human bodies to the point where we become more than human. It includes ideas about:
- memory and physical enhancements
- completely modifying one's body (water-breathing, fire-resistance, etc)
- uploading memories and consciousness into a computer to live as a digital life form,
- connecting into a neural network and living in connection with other individuals
And each and every one of these ideas were represented in Avatar.

James Cameron made a movie where 100% of the characters are enhancing their bodies with external and secondary means. The scientists plugged into remote links to Na'vi (blue alien) human hybrid bodies. Space marines used exoskeleton suits. The Na'vi were able to biologically interact with animals and their surroundings. Even the lesser characters were constantly using 3-D, immersive displays for nearly everything they do.

A Choice Between Cybernetics and Augmentation

There are two primary forces in the movie poised to move against each other. They represent two differing options of the future of mankind in the context of transhumanism. James Cameron sets up a metaphysical debate here - should the human race head toward cybernetics or physical augmentation?

One force is the soldiers, representing cybernetics. In the movie, they are shown as an unquestioning group of killers with little conscience and a robotic way of not thinking for themselves. Jake Scully (Sam Worthington), the lead character, jokes early on that his brain is an empty vessel, as the scientists lament at how uneducated and unthinking he is. Cybernetics has the potential to make the human race more machine than man - lazy and reliant on technology. Brain implants for memory can challenge a person's ability to recall and think on their own. Robotic suits strip away our outward humanity. We humans are are the real terminators - as we're poised in the next few decades to modify ourselves with machines past a point of recognizability.

The opposing force is the scientists and Na'vi. These people believe in obtaining knowledge for one's own wisdom. They believe in feeling and engaging the world directly, rather than through computer interface. Even through the human-avatar program, they directly experience and feel what the avatar is feeling. Their technology is designed to enhance a person's humanity - rather than have their humanity done for them by machines. (I'll explain more below in the SPOILERS section.)

Where is the Artificial Intelligence?

Another piece of evidence that this movie is really about transhumanism is the apparent lack of artificial intelligence in computing. The movie takes place 150 years or so in the future. Where is the AI? Considering James Cameron did a whole movie around the topic of how humanity would deal with AI (Terminator 2), I assert that this absence from the movie Avatar was intentional.

When you look at the movie as a metaphor of how humanity can evolve, it's clear that AI has not been overlooked. It exists on the side of cybernetics. Humans are merely components of the war machines, rather than the machines augmenting the humans. I had this terrifying lump watching the movie that the soldiers were a hair's breath from being made useless and the machines operating by themselves.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

Cameron is playing a joke on his audience, as well. Why was this movie so critical to be in 3-D? Why not choose another action/adventure plot for this stunning new movie technology? Simple, because the plot of the movie mirrors the experience of watching the movie in 3-D. When I watched Avatar, I really felt like I was in some of the scenes - at least, a lot more than normal movies. With visuals and sound immersing my brain, it was easy to suspend disbelief, especially in scenes shot from human perspectives. (Perhaps less so with panoramas, etc.)

Simply, the audience bonds with the hero in a rudimentary way - they get to experience a little bit of what it is like to be transported into another body. Now that's clever.


SPOILERS BELOW

Please, don't read past this point if you have not seen the movie. It's full of spoilers. I unfortunately need to mention some of them to state my case about transhumanism in the movie.

Here are some specific examples illustrating why this movie was about transhumanism:

1. The most obvious is the Na'Vi ability to plug in their fiber optic pony tails with animals, plants, and their mother tree. I wonder what version of USB that is?

2. Then there's the Na'Vi uploading their memories to a giant planet-wide supercomputing plant system when they die. Dr. Augustine - the chief scientist (Sigourney Weaver) specifically calls it a neural network. Living Na'Vi can connect directly with the memories of their ancestors, in a sort of Communion of Saints (thanks to my mom for that analogy). Transhumanists are all about brain-uploading, and Cameron's vision of what this could be like is the most poignant, beautiful one I've encountered so far.

3. Catch that Earth is referred to more than once as a "dying world"? Cameron frames Pandora - and the Na'Vi, as a survival hope for mankind. Evolve as transhumans or face extinction, essentially.

4. The concept of the planet Pandora is that of Paradise and of survival in harmony with nature. Human beings cannot survive there, because of the atmosphere and because everything on Pandora seemed to have evolved BIG. Simply stated, humans in their current bodies are not suited for the next phase of life. If humans want to live a rich life with technology, they will have to evolve their own bodies to be better suited.

5. Jake Scully's initial primary motivation? Regaining his legs. The backstory is given how modern medicine has become too expensive for the common person, even on veteran's benefits. Cameron is setting up a reality where medicine and medical technology is insufficient to meet the needs of our society to keep up with our health. Something more fundamental needs to be done. In contrast, the Na'Vi are described as having resilient bodies and bone structures. They die, but they can do incredible feats of strength and perserverience.

6. A select bunch of humans is allowed to stay on planet Pandora at the end. These are the enlightened humans who have come to share the values of transhumanism.

7. Consciousness and Distinguishing Reality from Dreaming were common themes. The protagonist, Jake Scully, finds himself unable to distiguish between waking and dreaming (in his avatar body) realities. The "is-this-really-reality?" theme is rife in modern science fiction. We find it in The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Existenz, Lawnmower Man, Total Recall, The Waking Life, The 13th Floor, Dark City, and many others. Like the other examples, it is used to validate human experience as the consciousness rather than the body itself.

8. The military acts as a computer. The only people who seem to make conscious decisions are the scientists and Na'Vi. The military is a goal-set machine with little regard for deviating from any set plan. It's a computer. The people in it are parts with assigned tasks. Only the marines exposed to the real world - out in the wilds of Pandora - are the ones who seem to understand and have any sort of free-thinking sentience of their own. Cameron implores us to have us use our technology to modify ourselves, rather than allow us to be modified and integrated into the technology. (Similar themes are, of course, in The Matrix and borg episodes of Star Trek.)

9. Really, look how human-like the Na'Vi are. They form families and clans, they express the same emotions, they kiss, and so on. It's a common sci-fi trope for the alien race who is very much like us, instead of having a different evolutionary path with radically different customs (such as with alien races in the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card). However, it actually makes sense in the context of the overall metaphor.


END SPOILERS SECTION


The Dialog

The biggest criticism I've heard of Avatar was the simple dialog. What did people expect? Cameron brought us Terminator 2 and Titanic. Dialog is just not his strong suit. Cameron set out to make movies with mass appeal. You can't spend $300 million on a movie and make it too intellectual, and expect to earn a big return on investment. I love great dialog in movies, but I also can be a film snob sometimes. Perhaps Cameron intentionally kept the dialog straightforward to ensure that his audience kept with him. To be fair to Cameron, there wasn't a lot of talking in general. The story is told with the visuals, and Cameron is undoubtedly a master of that.

On the other hand, I believe the characters' dialog is geared appropriately to each character. Scientists constantly are talking about the technology and science, and can't seem to get their points across to the military types. The marines, well, they talk like we imagine marines talk. The pencil-pusher facility administrator (Giovanni Ribisi) is nervous, his dialog is spin doctored. Naturally any dialog between our leads is going to be somewhat simplified due to the species language barrier.

In the beginning of the movie, when you land with the marines on planet Pandora, and there are a few minutes of sweeping landscape shots and beautiful vistas, does the supervising leatherneck really need to say, "You're not in Kansas anymore?" to let the audience know we're in a weird place? Of course not. It's more of a punchline of a joke, but then again, I'm certain the incoming soldiers didn't need to hear that either. Could things like this be more elegant? Sure. But the whole human operation on planet Pandora is an inelegant venture.

Could the hard-ass soldier Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) been a little more Robert Duvall from Apocolypse Now and a little less Michael Ironside from Starship Troopers? Sure. Should the characters have all been poetic? It would have been like Serenity, which I adore, but didn't find mass audience. Cameron has two agendas, the first being advancing the technology of movie-going, and the second being transhumanist philosophy. The latter is still a brand-new concept to the overwhelming majority of people. He made a choice to reach a wider audience. I hate to sound like an elitist, but most people aren't very well read, and most people don't read good sci-fi, and I think an out-and-out film about transhumanism would go over their heads. Spooning them new philosophy isn't something one can do overtly and have them enjoy it. (I suppose that's a whole different debate.)

Does that mean he misses the Oscar for screenplay for his goals? Yeah. Does that make it the wrong choice? I don't believe so.