Mind Your Own God Damn Business

My Dad’s birthday was a few weeks ago, and we went to see Avatar.

You want my take? Here’s my take:

James Cameron is a fucking pro at making movies that trick people into thinking they’re awesome just long enough to get a gigantic pile of money and an Oscar. You remember Titanic? It made historically high amounts of money and got something like 30 Oscars, including best picture. Does anyone still believe that this is one of the best movies ever, or even the best one released in 1997?

Now Avatar is starting to be discussed as a possibility for a picture of the year nomination.

Before we go any further, let’s play a little game. I’m going to explain the premise of the movie, and you’re going to try and figure out what happens. Ready? Go.

- There’s this planet inhabited by aliens called “Na’vi” that has a rich supply of this mineral that’s called “unobtainium”.

I’ll just give you a second to let that sink in.

- Humans want this mineral very badly, and there’s a very rich vein of unobtainium on this planet that happens to be underneath a Na’vi settlement. The humans want to get to it, but they can’t because the Na’vi, who they consider savages, refuse to leave their settlement.

- The marines and businessmen on the planet want to get the aliens out of their settlement by any means necessary, but there’s also a group of scientists stationed there that are trying to befriend the aliens, understand their culture and then convince them to leave their settlement peacefully, so the humans can get all of the sweet, sweet … unobtainium that they want.

- The scientists are planning to get along with the aliens by using these devices that allow them to control biologically engineered Na’vi. Basically, you lie down in this thing that looks like a futuristic iron maiden, and then you can control one of the lab-grown Na’vi  assigned to you.

- No, really. It’s called “unobtainium”.

- A strong willed, unpolished rookie manages to get into the tribe, who reluctantly agree to allow him to stay and learn their peaceful, nature-loving ways. He will be taught by the tribe leader’s daughter.

Okay, I’m going to give you 30 seconds to try to guess what happens for the remaining two hours of the movie, even though you probably only need 15.

Ready?

If you guessed “The headstrong rookie learns to love the kind, peaceful ways of the Na’vi, learns that once he gets to know them, they turn out to be more like him than he originally though, everybody learns from each other, and after a flashy standoff with a lot of explosions, the evil military and capitalists are sent packing”, you’re not only correct, you know how to identify a predictable storyline.

You know what this reminds me of? District 9, which everyone also loved.

In District 9, a bunch of aliens show up on earth in a giant flying saucer with a bunch of super-powerful guns that only they can operate. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to be smart enough to find a way to use their vastly superior technology or weapons to do any better for themselves on earth than a beat-to-shit shanty town in South Africa. A guy that’s originally sent to evict them to an even shittier shanty town accidentally inhales some of their fuel, which naturally starts turning him into an alien. He’s forced to run from the evil human capitalists and military men and befriend an alien. He learns the ways of the aliens, realized that they’re not that different from him, and develops compassion for them. After a flashy standoff with a lot of explosions, the evil military and capitalists are foiled.

Are you starting t0 notice a pattern here? Boy, I am.

First, you make a flashy action movie with a lot of crazy special effects and explosions. Then, you put in a group of aliens extremely similar to an oppressed group of real life people. The humans in the story are all fucking with the aliens because of a greedy profit motive of some kind, except for one small group of people who come to understand and accept the aliens and realize that we’re all not so different. Then, you give it a strange, cryptic title and brace for the gigantic flood of money and praise that’s headed your way.

Well, fuck these guys. I want my piece of the pie too, so I’m working on a script of my own that’s going to get me a share of this action. I’m not going to say too much about it, because I don’t anyone stealing my million dollar idea, but I will tell you the title:

“Space Pocahontas”.

It’s gonna be huge. I don’t want to spoil it, but the humans show up to this other planet and want some land that’s already owned by an alien race with inferior technology. The humans in the movie have this really crazy intergalactic philosophy I came up with that they call “Space manifest destiny” and I’m already working on the in’s and outs of rendering some really amazing looking alien revenue centers that I’ve named  ”Space Casinos”. I’ve showed some rough drafts of the script to a few people I know, and they all get really misty eyed during the “Space Trail of Tears” scene.

But I’ve said too much.

It’s not that I’m opposed to stuff like this; Avatar was really, really pretty and only kind of too long, and District 9 – actually, I didn’t really like District 9. What I’m saying is that both movies looked really cool and had at least semi-coherent plots (I mean, who HASN’T fed gasoline to a dog and turned it into a human?). There’s nothing wrong with movies like that, I just don’t understand why people are SO fired up about the artistic merit of them.

Oh well. I guess I can bitch about it, or I can cash in.

SPACE POCAHONTAS – COMING JANUARY 2012!!!

EDIT: Well, fuck. A quick google for “Space Pocahontas” reveals that I’ve been beaten to the punch.

DAMN YOU, CAMERON!!!