annathepiper | Entries tagged with avatar

It occurs to me upon reflection that I had better also address the fact that even if I didn’t care about them as a viewer while I was watching the movie, with my writer hat on, I do need to care about the various tropes that the movie deals with, and why it really would have been better if they hadn’t been there. I’m breaking this out into its own post since it covers the not-squeeful, more thoughtful reaction I have to the film.

The biggest one being, of course, what james_nicoll called the What These People Need is a Honky plotline. ‘Cause yeah, this time around the savages are blue aliens, but they’re still savages, and we’re still dealing with a plotline of White Guy Comes In, Gets It On With the Chief’s Daughter, and Becomes the Big Respected Warrior. Um, yeah. Seen that. And it would be unjust of me as a writer if I didn’t point at that and go “okay, that? That’s something we ought to know better than to use as a plot device at this point.”