World-building in Avatar: Bad
Readers and viewers of fantasy aim to be awed by the stories that are being told. Fantasy stories, in particular, have worlds filled with creatures and events that are otherworldly. In addition, there are many factors that create these themes in fantasy, but a highly debated and discussed topic is world-building. Moreover, it seems that these days writers want to make complex worlds that are encapsulated within the stories that shape them. In their eyes the worlds created also need to enthrall the imagination of the readers or viewers. This is true for one of 2009’s box office hits, Avatar, produced and directed by James Cameron. Avatar’s world, like others in the fantasy genre, offers a whimsical take on an alternate universe set in the future that audiences could only dream of. Due to this fact, many people repeatedly viewed the film over and over again just because of how impactful the visuals and plot lines were to them.
Although this may be the case, Avatar is weird in the sense that the public has forgot about it. Now, this is strange because a film that was the biggest movie in the world in 2009 hasn’t held much cultural relevance since 2010. Why is this the case? This world created by the mind of James Cameron created fandoms that could, at the time, only be matched by the biggest names in fantasy such as, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Nowadays, it seems like the world of Pandora is nothing special. With even more supposed sequels coming it seems that the world will be more fleshed out, but will it actually? Most people would probably say no. Not because of any vendetta against the film itself, but due to the fact that there isn’t much to add to the world as a whole.
Were the world-building techniques used actually effective? Did the controversially lackluster story bring it there? Whatever the case may be, James Cameron’s Avatar is an interesting case in film history. It enthralled the end of a decade, but a reflection on the film nowadays can explain why Avatar seems to house a lackluster half-built world that sequels may not be able to fix.
Firstly, is the world of Pandora really that bad? The short answer is no, it definitely isn’t. Then, why would someone make a claim that harsh against a world that at first sight, has nothing wrong with it? In order to answer this, one has to look inside the mind of the creator himself. The world of Pandora was made by writer and director, James Cameron. In addition, the world he started to make was all due to his whimsical view of science. In fact, in 2013 he even stated this in an affidavit when he was being accused of a false crime involving the Avatar film. The Hollywood Reporter obtained this exclusive story in 2012 where they posted the document on their website. In this public affidavit Cameron stated
“Since childhood, I have been extremely fascinated about the natural world. I dreamed of being a scientist…My intense curiosity about the natural world formed a positive feedback loop with my love of science fiction… I did a pen drawing entitled “Spring on Planet Flora”…This drawing depicts an oversized jungle environment of an alien world [named Flora] that I conceived” (Gardner).
With his fascination for the natural world, Cameron, created this amazing planet that would one day turn into Pandora. This is definitely why science is a motif and central concept throughout the film. In addition, science is what actually drives the story. The wonder of the new world that a group of scientists study act as the foil to the evil army and businessmen, who just want to mine the land for the unobtainium deposits (Avatar).
With a group of Humanoids called the Na’vi and many other flora and fauna that live on the planet, the world of Pandora, seems at first glance to be a fleshed out science fiction story. Now, with this being said, in order for the film and the rest of the series to be a success, Cameron needed to have a good grasp on world-building.
To be frank, world-building allows for the creation of a magical land which Avatar has delivered in. Now, the extent of the film’s world-building can be highlighted by writer Mia Botha’s article on the subject. The article contains a list of what is needed to make a compelling world in fantasy. Moreover, there are seventeen particular points that Botha makes that are all in the movie in some form. These points can definitely be broken down into even more categories.
The first category is day to day life, the second is history and advancements, the third is Customs, and the last one is location. Each one has easy to understand sets of guidelines. For example, Day to day life houses genealogy, clothing, food, work life, rituals and holidays, and hygiene. Then History houses history, as well as, technology, religion, language, and gender roles. The third category is customs like family life, procreation, politics, and education. The fourth and final category is location, which houses geography and water or resources (Botha). All of theses things are very important to make a world feel like it is actually living and breathing. Avatar’s world definitely has each of these points.
They have an easy to understand day to day life with RDA, the humans, combatting the Na’vi and their tribe just hunting, while worshipping E’wa, their Goddess. Secondly, History may be very vague, but there is some there. Earth’s resources are said to be diminished by the main character and the history of the Na’vi starts with E’wa. Now, the last few are easy to attribute with their customs being their tribe dynamic and strict use of resources as necessities. If all of these essentials to world-building align to what this world encapsulates then why did the world-building leave a forgettable and insignificant impact.
Undoubtedly, the answer to this question is definitely not so simple. The main idea though is the contents of the story. Moreover, world-building is not just the more things a world has the better it is. It is complicated because the world being built has to be able to work along with the story in an almost never ending sequence. In fact, the story that creates this world has a problem of telling rather than showing. This may not be a problem in certain stories, but for large scale worlds, like Pandora, it could be detrimental. For example, the beginning has a narrator named Sully explaining this world to us. He explains why he is going, how Avatars are made and just really everything about Pandora before the viewer even sees the world.
Now, in stark contrast stories like Game of Thrones and Star Wars are really good at using actions to build their world rather than dialogue. In fact, the latter is known for being the so called “king” of it. There is an article about Star Wars written by Josh Hammond that explores why the world-building of the movies, particularly the first trilogy, is so good. Hammond believes this is because Star Wars and George Lucas have a way of not explicitly stating the backstory of the rebels and the evil empire (Hammond). Sure, the overview at the beginning of the films with the yellow rolling texts may say the story, but to first time watchers the lingo of the introductions does not explain the complete buildup to the current actions being portrayed in the film. With that being said the rest of the film does not have any sort of explanation except that Leia is a captured and Luke needs to save her in order to get information on a weapon that can destroy planets. Through the actions of the characters the viewer sees a world that is vast in history yet controlled in its story. Moreover, Hammond states, “Star Wars captures the sprawl of its universe narratively, not in minutes of screen time or pounds of film… but it’s now possible to make decent but imperfect films based on a single sentence of exposition in the original” (Hammond). This is a feat that Avatar did not come close to. It definitely did not need the long drawn out narrative of Sully to shape the world, but it definitely did need character development, which the story is also lacking
Now, characters are definitely a huge part of world-building. They allow for the viewer or reader not only to understand the world as a whole and how the customs work, but it allows them to relate to the work as a whole. This is where creations like Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings flourish. In fact, each character in Game of Thrones has an arc and is never filler. Moreover, the characters are important to the identity of the work itself. The same cannot really be said for the world of Pandora. The planet can and will exist in the realm of fiction without characters like Sully and Neytiri.
In addition, Jenny Nicholson, a You-tuber, has a video where she talked about her experience in Walt Disney’s, “World of Pandora”. In the video she describes how the world is actually barren without many characters from the story. This is weird because in a place that prides itself in guests meeting their characters none from the film can be found (Nicholson). This is definitely problematic because it shows that the basic story that was portrayed in Avatar could happen anywhere and did not need a separate world like Pandora. Moreover, the characters also did not need to be a part of the story for the world to feel meaningful. In fact, early on in the video Nicholson likened the story to Dances with Wolves or even Pocahontas (Nicholson). Sure she may not be an expert on the topic, but one cannot look away from the similarities between these works.
Sure, Cameron may not be the first to reuse tropes, but in a world that is supposed to be different and more exotic, it still seems like it has a very similar issue of native people being forcibly removed from their homes.The characters definitely don’t work with this because they are almost a reused copy of their counterparts in the other films. This definitely exemplifies what seems to be not only a lackluster story, but an even worse uninspired cast of characters.
In addition, the characters might not be the only problem the story holds. In fact, the perception of the public plays a huge role in why the films world-building has suffered. The fact that there is no speculation about the future of the series is the main reason why. A writer by the name of Ben Child has an article that explains why he believes that Avatar has barely any cult following. One example he used states, “There are entire YouTube channels and blogs devoted to speculating on what might happen in the first 10 minutes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, even though far fewer people worldwide saw JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens than caught Avatar in the cinema” (Child). Some may argue that this is because the huge franchise like Star Wars cannot compare to a young series like Avatar, but this is not the case. With a wide range of viewers, due to the film being the highest grossing movie of all time only being surpassed by Avengers: Endgame recently, many would think that said audience would continue to speculate over the many sequels that are going to be released, but that is not true.
Sure, There are definitely some people still out there speculating over the future of Pandora, but it is a small few compared to the possibly thousands doing the same for films like Star Wars and television shows like Game of Thrones. Moreover, it can be inferred that the characters in the two works are very relatable and have drives that seem undeterminable, which is why speculation is necessary. This is not the case for a work like Avatar. In the same article Child states, “Avatar ended rather satisfyingly with most of the major threats eliminated” (Childs). With an ending where everything is now okay and there is no consequence it would not make sense to speculate and continue to build the world because not much else can be said. Now, of course that isn’t stopping Cameron from making these supposed sequels.
Lastly, with the a creator so devoted to this project why would it take so long for a work like this to get a sequel. Money and time is definitely a roadblock, but it does not explain the whole story. Cameron’s world was definitely not created as he wrote the story. There would be too many barricades. With that being said it can be seen that Cameron is an architect when it comes to his creations. In an article on approaches to world-building in different stories, Andrew Blair talks about different writers by encapsulating a quote from George R. R. Martin. He explains how there are two types of writers. Ones that build the world as they go called gardeners and ones that build their worlds rather methodically called architects.
Blair then goes on to say that J.K Rowling is one of them who methodically planned everything out before even writing the books themselves. This is why there is so much hinted at in the early books that gets explained in later books (Blair). Now, with this information Cameron can be seen as an architect, who utilized way less story in order to grow his world like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Moreover, Cameron created this story from a young age and put everything he had created into the film. This was a detriment to Pandora because in a sense there is nowhere for the world to grow and flourish in the sequels. When putting all the ideas into one movie it would make sense why so much delays have arose for their sequels. Although, this could be just speculation it is interesting to think about. Besides, the worst thing that could have happened to Pandora may have been the creation of the world itself.
James Cameron’s Avatar may not have scratched the surface on what a fantasy world could have achieved, but it does continue questioning the storytelling method of world-building. Now, there is so much work that goes into creating a world so that it can be loved by many. Even though James Cameron spent so much time and energy on the world, it ended up being for a loss. With speculations small on the next films, it almost seems like Pandora, in a sense, is a dead world that most people do not really need to look back on. Even if this may be the case, the beautiful film that came out in 2009 still blows viewers away to this day with its amazing cinematography and technological feats. Of course the visuals do not make up for an uninspired story, unrealized characters, and a rather wordy exposition. Pandora could well be at an end in the eyes of the public. With the sequels said to come out in the early 2020’s, only time can tell what the future holds for the series. Oh, and James Cameron, of course!
Bibliography
Avatar. Directed By James Cameron and Jon Landau, performances by Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, Twentieth Century Fox, 2009
Blair, Andrew. “Approaches to Worldbuilding in Fantasy.” Den of Geek, 27 Nov. 2018, www.denofgeek.com/us/books/277851/approaches-to-worldbuilding-in-fantasy.
Botha, Mia. “World-Building For Every Genre: The Ultimate Setting Checklist.” Writers Write, 16 Dec. 2018, writerswrite.co.za/world-building-for-every-genre-the-ultimate-setting-list/
Child, Ben. “Avatar: Why No One Cares about a Sequel to the World’s Most Successful Movie.”The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 June 2017, www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/jun/06/avatar-why-no-one-cares-about-a-sequel-to-the-worlds-most-successful-movie.
Gardner, Eriq. “Read James Cameron’s Sworn Declaration on How He Created‘Avatar’ (Exclusive).” The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Apr. 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/read-james-camerons-sworn-declaration-avatar-399979
Hammond, Josh. “Why Star Wars Is so Effective at World Building.” Monday Morning MovieQuarterback, 18 Jan. 2018, mondaymorningmoviequarterback.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/why-star-wars-so-effectivep-world-building/.
Nicholson, Jenny “An Excruciatingly Deep Dive into the Avatar Theme Park.” YouTube, 10December 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrIxGWterYA&t=1713s