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.
12/23/2009
James Cameron's Avatar is about Transhumanism
12/17/2009
Second Life: Where to go in 2010
Disclosure: My company recently completed the official Second Life Enterprise Orientation Island for Linden Lab. If you noticed I haven't been writing the "Linden Lab needs to do this and that" articles in the past few months, that's essentially why. I'm *very* pleased with the Enterprise Island, which is tentatively launching in Q1 2010, but other than that, I still can not talk about it.
That said, instead of a "predictions" blog as I generally do at the end of each year, I'm going to write a "How does Linden Lab kick Second Life to the next level?" Let's get right to it!
First, let's look at what Second Life is good at, and why it is successful. Second Life adds certain value over traditional Internet and interactive media in the following ways:
1. Immersion.
There is a visceral and subliminal sense of presence and "in the same room"-ness that you get when you are logged onto a virtual world. Communication with someone via avatar tricks the brain into thinking you're in the same room. It's far more effective than television, radio, magazine, and Internet advertising, outreach, and education in this respect.
2. Simulation.
Sure, Internet can handle some things, but let's say I want to go into a walkthrough of the human heart? Or enter a virtual community based on Victorian England? Or get to see a carbon nanotube as a large model that you can walk up to? These are just a few examples of why Second Life is great for simulation.
3. Rapid prototyping and collaboration.
Second Life has a unique thing that most virtual worlds do not have - the in-world 3-d building tool. Even if you're not an artist, you can go get freebies and buy items and customize space fairly easily.
4. Economy.
Virtual world economy and granting IP rights to users is still something that Second Life has uniquely. I mean, over the last 8 years, the Second Life Linden Dollar has been more stable than the US Dollar. What does that tell you?
While places like Blue Mars offers an economy, Blue Mars has effectively said that they will be 100% hands off with any sort of regulation. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be an entrepreneur in that sort of environment where I have no recourse about copyright violation, etc. Other virtual worlds generally sign up developers and require extensive Maya / 3DStudio / XML / OpenGL experience. That's not exactly open for the general public.
Room for Improvement: Integration
So, what are the limitations of Second Life that Linden Lab could improve upon? They all have to do with one key word: Integration. Social media is entirely all about integrating with different medias and giving people the ability to move between them and across them quickly.
1. HTML
This has always been my biggest request. Back in college when I was writing design documents of my own virtual world, I went on the assumption of reverse compatibility and/or integration with the Web. HTML will allow great cross-interaction with websites of all flavors, from entertainment to business uses and everything in between. Further, HTML needs to have certain qualities:
- Free. Any user should be able to use it.
- Interactive. Just displaying 1-way web page data is going back essentially 16 years in what the web is like. Web is all about interactivity, and we need interactive web.
- Security and administrative controls. Let me control who changes the web page, who sees it, and what sites can be used.
- Extendability. Linden Lab can't do every plug-in. Have some sort of API that we can add functionality that may not be immediately present.
2. Plug-in extension system.
Design the UI to be a basic "browser", and have an approval-based list of extensions to the browser the same way that Firefox does.
3. Voting
Let everything be voted upon and meta-tagged. Use it for search results for everything - locations, items for sale, and groups. Allow users to disable voting if they so design, at the sacrifice that their stuff isn't as easy to find.
4. More user controls
- Trash the group system. Replace with a real social networking web network. Make it compatible with other online identities.
- More privacy settings. Let me turn my entire virtual land invisible unless you're standing on it. Let me not only mute a person, but all objects that they own, group invites, etc.
- Ratings systems and filters. As with suggestion 3. Voting, make it so that I can filter content on Second Life to my own liking. Some people don't mind nudity, but can't stand violence. Some people don't mind violence, but hate drug use. Let users decide what they want to see, not ambiguous "PG", "M", and "Adult" ratings.
- How about a setting not to accept any items from new users that aren't your friends? Would you accept a random executable program from a stranger on the Internet?
5. Better Avatar Expression
Webcam -> Avatar facial expressions. How many times must I beat the drums for this? Stephenson predicted in Snow Crash, the book that inspired so many virtual world developers and designers: No one seems to care about facial expressions.
And it's funny, because every machinima I see about SL uses the lip-sync feature, because it looks a whole lot less creepy than the telepathic avatars talking. And that feature? It's not even built into the basic client. It *should* be up-front in the voice menu of preferences in Second Life, instead it's built into an "Advanced" menu that is only opened up if you happen to know to press control-alt-D and then go to Character -> Enable Lipsync. Why this isn't a default setting is beyond my comprehension.
But there you have it - my "what Linden Lab needs to do to push Second Life forward in 2010". Sure, it's a tall order, but, with a zillion companies out there on the web doing social networking, I can only say - the time of 2005 and 2006 when Linden Lab had a huge head start is over. It's time to stay ahead or watch someone catch up rapidly. I've been pleased with Linden Lab's progress recently, and hopefully they go the way of Facebook, and not Friendster. :)
12/16/2009
Cory Doctorow Speaks in Second Life
Short post - a couple of pictures I took from Cory Doctorow speaking in Second Life, interviewed by Mitch Wagner on Copper Robot, hosted by World2Worlds.
12/11/2009
FTC Investigates Virtual Worlds for Explicit Content: A Summary
Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) did a study on explicit content available to minors in virtual worlds. The full findings are available in PDF form here. (Thanks, @DusanWriter for alerting me to this.)
A quick summary:
There is sexual and violent content in free online virtual worlds.
Virtual world development companies are trying to keep minors out.
Minors can still relatively easily access adult content.
There is next to no education available to parents as to how your kids should operate on virtual worlds.
Some of the worlds studied: Second Life, Kaneva, There.com, IMVU
Sound familiar? Welcome to the Internet.
The biggest distinction is that the Internet is not owned and operated by one company.
The FTC's procedure:
1. Congress provided no standards as to what "explicit" content meant, so they had to come up with their own definitions. In doing so, the FTC acknowledged that this was subjective, but stated their standards to be transparent.
2. Testers were to try to sign up first as an adult (18+), secondly as a teen (13 - 17), and third as a youth below 13 years of age.
3. For each age category, the testers were to spend 45 minutes using provided search tools searching for sexual content, and 30 searching for violent.
4. Findings were recorded as machinima (in-world) and screenshots (web).
Definitions
According to the document:
"Sexually Explicit Content
Depictions or descriptions of: (1) sexual references; (2) full or partial nudity, including depictions of uncovered female breasts, aroused or unaroused male or female genitalia, and unrealistic or overly detailed genitalia; (3) bestiality; (4) sexual acts to or with minors (anyone under the age of 18); (5) sexual acts including, but not limited to, penetration/intercourse, and/or oral sex with or without another avatar or any other object, including overt sexual toys and/or sexual aids; or (6) sexual behavior that has a violent context. "
"Violently Explicit Content
Depictions or descriptions of: (1) animations involving blood; (2) excess/gratuitous blood or the mutilation of body parts; (3) violence against minors (anyone under the age of 18); (4) violence toward animals; (5) aggressive conflict, including but not limited to realistic weapons used against other avatars or whose intent was obvious, aggressive harm of other avatars; any realistic weapons with blood or gore depicted on them or in their use; graphic and/or realistic-looking depictions of physical conflict, graphic violence, dismemberment, self-mutilation, homicide; anything depicting extremely grotesque images or acts; or (6) graphic discussions or portrayals of suicide."
It should be noted that, by these definitions, explicit chat falls under that category. There was also no mention of an art distinction, so museum pieces of art could very well be counted They included in-world chat and message boards, as well. In fact, on pages 20 and 22, the majority of instances that were found were Text-based, not picture, moving graphics, or audio. That said, it's no surprise that the FTC found "explicit content" in almost all virtual worlds they tested, both minor focused and all-ages focused.
The FTC seemed to thoroughly research content filtering and restricting policies of each of the virtual worlds. In the document, there are a variety of descriptions of sign-up pages, policing standards, and so on, for various virtual worlds. They acknowledged and published efforts being made by virtual world designers how to keep explicit content viewable by adults.
Ultimately, no fingers were pointed.
Instead, the FTC came up with a variety of recommendations. A lot of these recommendations mirrored policies that some virtual world developers already are using. For example, age-verification practices, separating explicit content, and word-filters for youth. They also strongly recommended community monitoring:
"Virtual world operators primarily rely on user enforcement of conduct standards, backed up in some instances by moderators expressly retained for that purpose. To be effective, a virtual world’s standards of behavior must be clear, well-publicized, well-monitored, and backed up by meaningful sanctions for misbehavior. Much more guidance should be given, therefore, to community enforcers so that they understand precisely the kinds of conduct permitted, and prohibited, in-world. With more specific standards, users would be better able to self-police by reviewing and rating online content; reporting the presence of potential underage users; and commenting on users who otherwise appear to be violating a world’s terms of behavior. Users should not have to go it alone in online virtual worlds. Operators should consider using a staff of specially trained moderators whose presence is well known in-world and who are equipped to take swift action against conduct violations. "
A positive view of virtual world designers as ISPs rather than content providers was also mentioned: (emphasis by FTC, not me)
"In most non-child-directed online virtual worlds, users create the content that is displayed online; the virtual world operator acts merely as a host to users’ own
creations . Therefore, it may be quite difficult to gauge the types of content a child may
encounter by a mere review of a world’s Terms of Service or FAQs."
Education is the Needed Missing Piece to a Solution
Finally, and thankfully, the FTC recommended parental education. Unfortunately, the extent of available education was a recommendation to one FTC document and one document by the European Network and Information Security Agency, as "a good start". While there was little finger-pointing in this FTC investigation, the fact is that education available to parents about virtual worlds and online safety for children is limited to two documents.
If there's anything I personally am taking out of the survey, it's the FTC's observation that regulations and code will never be a full solution for keeping kids away from explicit content. There's a woeful absence of educational resources for parents, who should be the primary overseers of their children's Internet and online virtual world habits. This survey by the FTC comes as virtual worlds have been around for over two decades, and it's barely a scratch on the surface - an hour and 15 minutes for each virtual world, plus research into each's policies. I believe that a far more comprehensive educational initiative should be available, and perhaps supplementary education geared toward youth provided in the same vein of health and sexual education.
12/03/2009
James Cameron's Avatar - New Trailer
... well, it should be.
EXT. HMS TITANIC'S FOREDECK. SUNSET
The overly familiar opening flute notes from "My Heart Will Go On" begin to play. Narrator speaks while slow montage fades in and out between various quintessential moments from the film "Titanic" by James Cameron.
We at 20th Century Fox want to express how much
we love female moviegoers. Twelve years ago, you
made Titanic the highest grossing movie. Ever.
You dragged your boyfriend. Your husband. Your father.
Brother. Male friends. They went, either vocally
protesting or silently enduring, to please you.
It's payback time.
James Cameron, the saintly man who made Titanic,
that you went four weekends in a row to see, has a new
awesome film coming out. It's called Avatar. We're not
saying you'll love it, but we know who will. Your boyfriend.
Husband. Father. Brother. Male friends.
(beat)
NARRATOR
This Christmas, go take them to see Avatar.
You owe us, ladies.
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