On its surface, James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster Avatar seems to have a blindingly obvious message. A hymn of praise to the wonder and beauty of nature as well as the virtue of earthy, indigenous cultures while at the same time a scathing condemnation of corporate greed, colonialism, environmental destruction, military aggression, etc. Many have read deeper to see the film as a racist tale of a “magical white person” a la Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, The Help, etc., where a single, or at most, embattled few white people are necessary to rescue poor, underdog, people of color to lead them to victory against a force of hostile invaders/oppressors who are white or co-opted by white people.
Regardless of whether the film portrayed its indigenous Na’vi as wise, earthy natives or people of color in distress, there has been little debate that the cold and calculating, high-tech, unobtanium-seeking humans were the villains and the empathic (in the case of Neytiri, the protagonist’s love interest, at least), pre-industrial, tree-dwelling Na’Vi were the good guys.
A key point that distinguishes Avatar from other stories of a “magical white person” who “goes native” is its protagonist, Jake Sully’s, reliance on extremely advanced technology to explore the setting, interact with the good guys and save the day. Sully is a veteran of war on Earth and as a result of an injury sustained in combat is paraplegic, bound to a wheelchair. In addition, the atmosphere of Pandora, the planetoid where the story is set is unbreathable to humans, who need oxygen masks whenever they venture outside vehicles and structures. By inhabiting his AVATAR body via some kind of super-advanced cybernetic technology, Sully isn’t only able to walk but also breathe Pandora’s air.
Sully’s conscious awareness fully inhabits his Na’vi AVATAR body and he is able to do all the things that the Na’vi do. Meanwhile, Sully’s human body (in a sort of deep sleep state) only ever occupies the grey, grim Research Development Administration (RDA) station and later RDA trailer (stolen from the station and hidden in the flying mountains) that houses the AVATAR control unit. Underneath Avatar’s pro-environmentalism message is the idea that saving the day in a virtual world (what is the world Sully experiences through his AVATAR but a dream while his body sleeps?) equates to saving the real world. In this respect, Avatar is a kind of inversion of another science fiction blockbuster The Matrix.
The Wachowski’s 1999 film The Matrix posited a world where the normal reality of the late 20th century is all an illusion maintained by all-powerful artificial intelligence, referred to as “the machines” in order to use humanity, the vast majority of whom are unconscious and imprisoned in the artificial reality of the titular “matrix,” as an energy source. Just as in Avatar, the conscious awareness of a given human fully inhabits one world (in this case an artificial reality within a computer program, in Avatar, the body of a Na’vi) while the body is inert, asleep and dreaming in a radically different world. Humans who are able to see through the illusion of the matrix are able to “wake up” and inhabit a barren, bleak real world they have never known before and the other “awakened” humans in their war against the machines.
The relationships of the protagonists to the real world and the “plugged in” world in the two different films are inversions of one another. In Avatar, the human-inhabited world of Sully’s paraplegic body and advanced technology is but a means to an end. Sully quickly comes to love experiencing life in his AVATAR body because it allows him to walk, experience the jungle, and bond with Neytiri. He reflects that life in his real body seems like a dream and the time spent in his AVATAR seems more real. After the aggressive, strip-mining humans are defeated, the film ends with said humans being exiled from Pandora (a few Na’vi-friendly humans are allowed to stay) and Sully ostensibly finding a way to inhabit his AVATAR body permanently so as to leave his human body behind for good.
Contrast this with The Matrix where once “unplugged” the humans are able to enter and leave the matrix at will but only do so for the purpose of finding new humans to unplug as well as combating the machines that control the matrix. As in Avatar, the plugged-in world of The Matrix is more pleasant than the “real” one but it is perceived as inferior by the protagonist because it is a nefarious illusion. Where Avatar ends with Sully permanently leaving behind his human body for his AVATAR Na’vi body, The Matrix Trilogy ends with the whole of humanity unplugging and leaving the illusion of the matrix behind for good.
The plugged-in world for the good guys of The Matrix is a means to an end, something from which people need to be rescued, something that needs to be destroyed. The plugged-in world of Avatar is a paradise, the end goal, and the “real” (human and human-made) world with Sully’s human body, the ruined Earth, and corrupt humanity, the thing to be discarded and left behind.
There’s a strong case that The Matrix is anti-technology. Granted, it’s a case of technology being mastered by the good guys to fight technologically superior bad guys. The bad guys are the machines, artificial intelligence, advanced technology run amok as with The Terminator franchise and countless other science fiction stories going all the way back to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. The trilogy ends with humanity making peace with the machines, being freed from the matrix, and presumably rebuilding civilization on a ruined Earth. Humanity will probably be using technology but its use will be limited relative to before, and they will probably not dabble in artificial intelligence again.
There’s also a case that Avatar is anti-technology, except for how does Sully find his new home on Pandora, as a member of a tribe of Na’vi, but via a means of very advanced technology? It’s also relevant here to mention that the visual aspects of the Na’vi characters of Avatar were made possible by cutting-edge motion-capture technology that was James Cameron’s pet project. This makes for an interesting parallel, Sully could only inhabit his Na’vi AVATAR via the latest in the technology of its fictional world and the Na’vi characters of the film itself were made possible by the latest in technology in our world, the world where the film was made.
Another inversion between Avatar and The Matrix is what each respective film’s plugged-in world is in terms of filming. Pandora isn’t just a lush jungle, it’s more colorful than any jungle or almost any other ecosystem on Earth. It has super-tall waterfalls and mountains that float in the air and is overflowing with megaflora and megafauna, many species of which are bioluminescent. The world of Pandora was made possible by special effects, especially Computer Generated Graphics (CGI.) Not only is it dazzling, but in his AVATAR, Sully can do things that even strongest and fastest humans would be incapable of in terms of running and climbing. He can also ride horses, dragons, and be a member of a tribe.
The plugged-in world of The Matrix is the normal reality of the world when the film was made (1999-2003), as of yet, it isn’t terribly dated, the world within the matrix could theoretically encompass all of civilization but the only places shown are within an ambiguous American city. In the plugged-in world, the bad guys and the good guys have superhuman powers (non-“awakened” humans are totally mundane), but there’s nothing fantastic about the setting itself. The vast majority of the sets for the plugged in/”fake reality” scenes of the films were in Sydney, Australia, Oakland, California, and Chicago, Illinois as well as sound stages made to look like an ordinary city and indoor scenes. Contrast this with blue screen sets and motion capture suits needed to create the jungles of Pandora as well as place the character within it.
Stories of a world of illusion and the struggle to see through it and get others to “see the light” of the truth are as old as Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The Matrix (and many other science fiction stories that came before it) adds the element of technology being essential to the creation of this world of illusion. This coincides with contemporary anti-technology sentiments that too many people are too involved in the artificial worlds of video games, social media, etc. and would greatly benefit themselves as well as society as a whole by direct interaction with the natural world, other people in real life, etc. The fantasy worlds of social media and video games may be more stimulating but are ultimately false, perverse, insidious, and inferior to the reality of direct interaction with other human beings, the natural world, etc. however dull, boring or disappointing those things might seem to be in contrast.
Avatar’s message, based on the arc of the protagonist, is the opposite. By immersing himself in advanced technology he is able to inhabit a new, different world (not even his species’ home planet) in a way that would be impossible with his original, “real” human body. Using technology, he trades a broken body and unhappy life on Earth and among humans for a paradise of psychedelic jungles, adventure, love, connection, and belonging. Ultimately, Sully is even able to rescue this paradise from ruin at the hands of forces from the bad real world where his body is broken and he is not a leader of a tribe but just a poor veteran.
The Matrix and critics of contemporary immersion in the virtual world of video games and social media say that the illusion, no matter how sweet, is ultimately toxic and that “reality” no matter how unpleasant, should be the focus of one’s life. The challenge of choosing an unpleasant reality over a pleasant illusion is illustrated in the first of The Matrix films. In it, Cypher, one of the good guys, betrays the humans to the machines, his reasoning is that life outside the matrix in the real world is insufferably miserable. In exchange for betraying the awakened human good guys, he hopes to be put back into the matrix, have his memory of the real world erased and live a life of wealth and luxury inside the illusory, artificial reality of the matrix.
In contrast to The Matrix, Avatar seems to say that dull, oppressive reality should be left behind. The Earth whence humans came is ruined by overpopulation, environmental destruction, and war. As Sully tells the Na’vi “There’s no green left!” The forces of evil, the humans who want to strip mine the jungles of Pandora cannot be negotiated with, but must suffer a massive military defeat and be sent home. The real world where Sully came from, the world of Earth, humanity, and technology, cannot be improved and should, therefore, be abandoned. For Sully, the wonderful, paradisiacal fantasy world is “real” and legitimate even if he can’t experience it “naturally” with his human body. Sully is more immersed in the plugged-in world than any other human in the story and comes to value it more than any of them. He is immersed in it; therefore it matters. In Avatar, the sweetest fantasy is real if you believe in it enough.
