I See You

Alright, here’s a disclaimer: I’m a sucker for those happy endings with the resolution that unites the love interests in a movie. So obviously, Avatar is right up my alley. This kind of ending in a movie satisfies my expectations of how a movie in this genre should operate. People love movies that end the way they want. There is a “right” way to end a movie, I would argue. If this movie ended with the “sky people” ending the Omatacaya people, leaving Neytiri and Jake separate, I doubt this movie would have received such positive attention. We find comfort in the notion that things will end up well for the people that we’ve spent the entirety of the movie getting to know. The structure of feeling allows us to feel certain ways when the violins swell and we see the lovers reunite.

The scene that I chose is near the end of the movie, when the commander shouts, “you think you’re one of them! It’s time for you to wake up!” and breaks the door off of his, for lack of a better word, pod (where his human body is). The human form of Jake cannot breathe the air on this planet, and he starts shaking and gasping. Neytiri swoops in and takes care of the commander, then realizes that Jake’s in serious trouble. She jumps into the base and finds Jake’s human body laying on the ground and the mask lying next to him. She screams, “Jake!” and sobs with his human body cradled in her arms. She grabs the mask and puts it over his face. Jake comes back to life. Neytiri and human Jake look at each other the same as they had when they were both in avatar form. Then Jake says, “I see you.” Neytiri returns the sentiment, “I see you.” They hold each other and gaze into each other’s eyes.

I found this touching because it affirms the notion that if you love someone, you will love them in whatever form they come. Even though Jake was in his human, paralyzed form, Neytiri still saw the same Jake that overcame Toruk Naktu. Even though Neytiri is a big giant blue version of human, Jake still saw her as the beautiful native that he fell in love with on his mission. The picture of these two gazing into each other’s eyes is almost comical if you don’t have the context of the rest of the movie, but within the context, I think it’s a beautiful culmination of their love story. A love that knows no bounds. Love is blind, but they still see each other. They see into each other’s souls. I think that’s a really beautiful sentiment.

So, I’m well aware that everything that I mentioned here is the definition of cliché. The love story thing is sooooo done, and Avatar is nothing original. I get that. And here’s the thing, it IS sooooo done, and it really is nothing original. It is borrowed from a hundred million different places. One could make an argument that the entire movie is unoriginal. I would contest that this is actually a fair argument. I would argue that, in actuality, most movies are severely unoriginal. Movies contain borrowed bits that were copied from movie styles and conventions from years, even decades ago. Those movie conventions were borrowed from the narrative style of the novel, and borrowed many of the novel’s storylines. Those novels borrowed story lines from oral tradition, and many of them borrowed from the bible. I’m starting to think that nothing is really original anymore, so the argument that Avatar is just a rip off of Pocahontas doesn’t really satisfy me. I think that this issue deserves a more in depth look at conventions and “copying” and transformations. The intertextuality of the entire movie industry is something that needs to be examined. Everything is a reference, everything is a remix. For some great insight on this, watch "Everything is a Remix Part 2" which really breaks down the way the movie industry works regarding so-called “originality.” If you’re curious, move on to Part 3, where they explain why copying is necessary in order to be creative because copying is how humans learn.