Doing the Research the ‘L.A. Times’ Won’t: James Cameron’s Own ‘Avatar’ Script Contradicts His Latest Spin

by John Nolte

James Cameron kids about his blockbuster “Avatar” being “Death Wish for environmentalists” (kind of). But in one of those unique L.A. Times’ interviews only leftists enjoy — the kind where they can spout all the craziness they want without fear of being challenged — Cameron touches on a number of controversies surrounding his Best Picture nominee, including the charge that his anti-military film is anti-military.

avatar-empire-james-cameron-directing-image
“Remember, you are bad security types. Very, very bad.”

This interview was done over dinner at a Hollywood Cafe. And it shows. [emphasis is mine throughout]

“I think there’s something amazingly satisfying when the hammerheads come out of the forest and start mowing down all the bad security enforcers,” Cameron says, referring to the movie’s climactic creatures-versus-humans battle sequence. “Nature gets to fight back. It’s ‘Death Wish’ for environmentalists. When did nature ever get to fight back in a movie?“

Notice how Cameron’s now using the term “bad security enforcers.” Next we’ll hear about how they’re on a “overseas contingency operation” to create “man-made disasters.” This new language is baffling. Just a few weeks ago Cameron told Jay Leno that “Avatar” was meant to ”honor” the Marines. What is he doing now? Honoring “bad security enforcers?” 

A little off-track here, but the last part of Cameron’s statement is too bizarre to ignore:

 ”When did nature ever get to fight back in a movie?”

While I admire anyone who was able to avoid “The Happening,” did Cameron not see his own “Piranha 2?” How about “The Birds,” “The Swarm,” “Jurassic Park,” and these other 29 found with a trope-avoiding gizmo called Google?

“Avatar’s” 9/11 imagery:

One of the movie’s key images — the violent destruction of the towering Hometree, the center of the Na’vi world — directly evokes the collapse of the World Trade Center. Cameron says the connection wasn’t purely intentional. He was just looking to deliver an emotional gut-punch and make an explicit link to the damage he believes humans are inflicting on Earth, a planet that has become a “dying world” in “Avatar’s” not-so-distant future.

“Wasn’t purely intentional”? Give me a break. Either own it or don’t, but to say that something in a low-budget indie film ”wasn’t purely intentional” is absurd all on its own. For a perfectionist director who spent years and a quarter-billion dollars bringing his vision to life to say the same… Well, I’ll say it again: Either own it or don’t.

Avatar_Tree_of_Life
Kinda, maybe, sorta the World Trade Center.

Of course the terrorist attack on Hometree is meant to evoke 9/11. And Cameron’s first choice is to have American Marines (note to leftist hair-splitters: “former” Marines) commit this atrocity. And Cameron’s second choice is to have American Marines doing so on behalf of a genocide-happy commander (a “bad security enforcer” referred to as “Colonel”) who evokes an American President and American foreign policy with the following phrases: “daisy cutter,” “shock and awe” and “pre-emptive war.”

Cameron regrets “shock and awe”:

“I probably shouldn’t have put in the direct references to the language used with the Iraq war, the ’shock and awe’ line, because it takes you too much there,” Cameron reflects. “But what I really was saying was, ‘Listen to what your leaders are saying. Open your eyes. And understand what the run-up to war is like, so the next time it happens, you can question it.’”

You’ll see later that Cameron complains about his critics being too literal. After all, in a million years who would’ve ever guessed that using key phrases from the Iraq War might make people think the storyteller was referring to the Iraq War?

Cameron respects the Marines:

And now to the part of the interview that should’ve been set to music:

[D]uring dinner, [Cameron] circles back several times to the idea that he’s somehow anti-military because of the way he depicts the corporate military contractors — “Blackwater types,” he calls them — in “Avatar.” The director repeatedly expresses his support for the armed forces, noting his Marine brother’s service in Kuwait and professing deep respect for the sense of teamwork, duty and service that he believes form the heart of the Marine Corps.

Cameron’s dancing as fast as he can and already we’ve fox-trotted from ”bad security enforcers” to “Blackwater types.” Naturally, our gallant reporter doesn’t challenge any of this. After all, what matters is what Cameron says over dinner at a Hollywood Cafe, not what the actual movie says.

cafe_dinner
A cozy Cafe.

So let’s leave this cozy little Cafe and do the work the reporter wouldn’t and look at — oh, I don’t know — the script? According to the “Avatar” screenplay posted on the 20th Century-Fox website, the word “Marine” is used in the  film’s dialogue a total of seven times. There are four “Marine” references in the all-important first act where you do the critical work of setting up what your story is about and who your characters are. For instance, on page 27:

JAKE
Just Marines comparin’ tattoos.

GRACE
Yeah. Well, listen to me, Marine–

The lead insane Blackwater-type, Quaritch, is referred to as “Colonel” a total of five times and “sir” thrice.

And here’s something even more interesting. Cameron not only named one of his characters “Trooper” (and Trooper is not one of those cuddly Na’Vi), but to describe his own “bad security enforcers,” Cameron uses the word “troops,” or some variance of it, over 50 times in his scene descriptions.

There’s also a Colonel Lyle Wainfleet, a Private Fike and a General Dynamics (last one’s a joke).

And let’s not forget that all those “bad security enforcers” sound American, are dressed in military uniform, observe military protocols, and use military-style equipment to commit their evils. 

I also did a search to see if any of the characters referred to each other as “contractors” — nothing found. Same with “enforcers,” “mercenary,” “mercenaries,” or “security personnel.” Maybe my mistake was not searching for the phrase ”Blackwater types.” Buried in all this is a single reference to a private security force, but not a spoken one!

Check the script out for yourself. It’s not hard to do. Unless of course you’re a writer for the L.A. Times too busy trying on different outfits in front of a mirror before jaunting off to an interview. 

landfill2 
Do as I say, not as I do.

What Cameron wants is to convince us that what he says in some cafe means more than what’s in the actual movie. After all…

People are too literal:

Cameron has no patience for anyone attempting to make direct parallels between “Avatar” and Iraq, like the German journalist who told Cameron during a recent media conference that the film seemed like the story of the Taliban told from the movement’s point of view. He finds that kind of literalism “egregious” and “willfully ignorant of the power of allegorical storytelling.”

Translation:

9/11 imagery? I was as surpised as you were.

American Military? So they look, act, and talk like the American military. That doesn’t mean that’s some kind of allegory, Mr. Willfully Ignorant.

“Shock and awe” and ”pre-emptive war” equals Iraq? Next you’re going to tell me ”Remember the Alamo” is some kind of  Alamo reference.

The bottom line, Academy voters: Don’t listen to those right-wingers. “Avatar” is only about its oh-so important environmental message.

Americans must live with less:

“And it will be a dying world if we don’t make some fundamental changes about how we view ourselves and how we view wealth,” Cameron says. “I consider the wealth of this nation its natural resources, not the things that we’re brought up to think of as wealth. We’re going to have to live with less.”

The second bottom line is that it’s okay for the uber-wealthy Cameron to be astonishly hypocritical about this. Why? Because he confesses to his hypocrisy (who knew it worked that way?):

“And I know people will look at me and say, ‘Oh, he’s a rich guy. What does he know about living with less?’ I admit it’s difficult once you’ve reached a certain level in your life. But I think there’s a way to live and raise your kids with a set of values that teaches them the importance of hard work, the importance of respecting other people and the importance of respecting nature. And that it’s not this consumer society where you buy something and then throw it away when you get the next new thing, filling up huge landfills with plastic and electronics.”

I’m sure he means, other than the electronics created to handle all the technology he’s advancing, and other than the ”plastic” cases holding all those “Avatar” DVDs.  

Reader poll: Which is least surprising?

1. The guy who made the merchandise-crazy “Avatar” wagging his finger at the rest of us for consuming?

2. That the L.A. Times reporter doesn’t challenge him on this?

3. That the sun came up this morning?

The answer is all three. Rich, hypocritical leftist filmmakers telling the less fortunate to live with less and the water-carrying entertainment journalists who let them get away with it are as predicatable as the sunrise.

Money quote:

Cameron takes no small delight in the way conservative commentators have attacked the movie. ”Let me put it this way,” Cameron says during a recent dinner conversation at a Hollywood cafe. “I’m happy to piss those guys off. I don’t agree with their world view.”

A real reporter would’ve asked him how much delight he takes in this. And this. And this.

Unfortunately, you could flood the L.A. Times and not get a real reporter damp.


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Posted Feb 11th 2010 at 1:42 pm in Featured Story, Film, Military, Politics | 132 Comments