Film Review #4: Avatar (2009)

Rarely do films captivate people as the new film Avatar by director James Cameron does. With an overwhelming positive response to the film, it may become one that will be looked upon as one of the most revolutionary and transformative movies created. There are several reasons for the success of Avatar, one of them being the spectacular new version of 3D, called Real 3D, that was used to create a very unique and amazing viewing experience. However, technological eye-candy aside, the film’s underlying themes revolving around human environmental degradation, the dark side of capitalism, and the military-industrial complex all add to the composition of a film that has a deeper message for humanity, in perhaps the hope that once realized and actualized upon, we will finally transcend the egoistic tendencies that befall us within lower levels of consciousness and realize our place within the world, the universe and Reality itself.

The story takes place in the year 2154 CE and involves a mission by the US military and contractors to a moon of the planet Polyphemus called Pandora that is approximately 4.3 light years from Earth and about the same size. This planet turns out to be a rich source of an element called Unobtanium that Earth, which is now essentially devoid of anything green, desperately needs for it to solve its energy crisis. There is no security threat by Pandora or its inhabitants. However, ex-military mercenaries are sent to the moon in order to make sure the shareholders of the corporations which are mining the precious ore see substantial increases in their financial positions as soon as possible. The tactics of attacking, and conquering are used at will. The moon itself is largely comprised of lush forests and within it, live all sorts of prehistoric-looking flora and fauna, as well as the humanoid race known as the Na’vi. This is a race of peaceful blue-skinned and golden-eyed humanoids that are approximately twice the size of humans. The moon’s atmosphere is not breathable by humans and so they have to use specially-designed oxygen masks. However, this is not ideal for their purposes, so avatars are created. An avatar in this film is an organically-grown Na’vi that is controlled by a human remotely while lying in a pod on one of the human ships. All sensory experiences that would be felt by a Na’vi, such as taste, sight, and touch, are experienced as if the human was experiencing them first-hand. The Na’vi race survives and thrives on Pandora by understanding it and living in harmony with nature and all the life contained within it.

There are many deeper aspects of the film, some of which will be explored here. These aspects not only define the tone throughout the film, but they add to the complexity of the film (such as the invention of a new language for this movie). The first aspect that will be looked at is the ability for the Na’vi to receive transmissions of information from other elements within the environment. For instance, when the main character in the film named Jake is exposed to a Na’vi tribe for the first time, the king of this tribe named Eytukan tastes Jake’s blood from a wound on his forehead and decrees it is the will of Eywa for him to live with the Omaticayan tribe. A key to understanding how this is possible is to note that moments prior to this, an entire fleet of dandelion seed/jellyfish-looking floaters gravitate towards Jake’s avatar and cover his entire upper body. These seeds are later to be understood as being “very pure spirits” that come directly from Eywa, which is a planetary consciousness field akin to Gaia. What this example insinuates, is that the Na’vi are able to sense through the blood (the life-force of a being) of another a simple form of a transmission that they revere as a deity; this deity has encoded this information within the person’s consciousness. The blood served as a medium by which the sensing of the transmission by the Gaia-like entity was possible.

Another key aspect of the film are the ideas of interconnectedness and oneness. The Na’vi feel very in tune, connected, and one with nature and all that it encompasses. They experience this not only in a spiritual way, but in a very literal one as well. As the end of the ponytails that they have, there is a neural queue with bioluminescent strands that have the ability to connect to other neural queues, such as those of animals, as demonstrated when Jake’s avatar bonds with his Direhorse. Another demonstration of this interconnectedness is when Neytiri teaches Jack about the Na’vi-forest connection. She explains to him that all energy is borrowed and one day we have to give it back. This ties into the fact that matter (which is ultimately energy) can not be created or destroyed, only transferred from one existential manifestation to another. We are truly stardust. It is also disclosed within the film that all the trees on Pandora connect to each other through a certain type of bioneural network. The trees on Pandora are part of a neural network that is composed of more connections then the human brain. This seems to draw a parallel with the reality of plant consciousness here on earth, where scientific discoveries in the past few decades have found that there is a process of biocommunication in plant cells, which has come to mean that plants are sentient life forms that feel, know, and are conscious. The scientific field of neurobiology has been more and more effective in demonstrating this plant consciousness.

There is much in the film about Eywa, which has previously been called a similar concept to Gaia here on earth. At first, the scientists from earth do not believe the stories of the Na’vi about how Eywa is an actual sentient being within nature, but rather they believe, from their empirical experiments, that what the Na’vi call Eywa, is just an organic form of a data processor that can be uploaded into and downloaded from. However, towards the end of the film, the main scientist experiences the reality of Eywa being an actual form of collective group consciousness, with which the scientist becomes one with as her physical body dies. The mechanistic and reductionist views of the scientists had only shown one side of the reality. All the inhabitants are connected to the Eywa consciousness (human, animal, plant) and even the inorganic material on the planet as well. This is the fundamental aspect of a unified consciousness of all that exists. Everything is connected, from the tiniest particles to the largest galaxies. All is one.

There is also something to be said of how the Na’vi live and exist. Although the Na’vi are not as technologically advanced species as humans are, they are a more consciousness-evolved species that realizes in every waking moment of their lives that All is One and nature is not something to be seen as an enemy, but rather something that is a part of themselves just as much as they are a part of it. The spiritually-minded Na’vi feel the interconnectedness between each other and with nature to the point that (perhaps through an evolutionary response to a shifted collective consciousness) they are able to literally connect with aspects of their environment, such as horses, flying creatures, and each other,  and become one with them and become in tune to each others’ localized energy fields of consciousness. What they lack in technology as we know it, they gain in consciousness evolution and increased spirituality.

Avatar is a brilliant film that touches upon many issues and aspects of reality that humanity is in the process of experiencing and living through. There is much to be taken away from this film, and it would be quite difficult to leave this film without going over in one’s mind some very philosophical thought-forms. There is much that can be said about what sort of messages the film is trying to project into humanity’s consciousness, but the primary message seems to be that humans still have much room for growth and improvement. The ego, and all that comes with it, such as desire for material aspects of reality, is something that is seen as having the need to be transcended. Nature is viewed as something that is as much a part of us as we are a part of it. When humanity shifts its consciousness to a higher level, where behavior by humans as seen in Avatar is far removed from the collective transpersonal consciousness, they we will be able to experience a transcended and self-actualized existence.  If one wishes to read an astrophysics professor’s analysis of Avatar, particularly its scientific aspects, check out this article. If you have not seen Avatar yet, it is a great film that is much more than bedazzling animations and graphics. It will no doubt stand the test of time as a revolutionary and inspiring movie.