Re: [scifinoir2] TV Watchtower: 'Avatar' vs. 'District 9'

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:57:58 -0800

I agree, I've heard the same from Africans I know. Still, I rankle at treatments of any group where only the negatives are shown. I get it, but it's the same dangerous precedent for American movies where Blacks and Latinoes have been portrayed as always poor, gangbangers, or thieves.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracey de Morsella" <tdli...@multiculturaladvantage.com>
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:09:10 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: [scifinoir2] TV Watchtower: 'Avatar' vs. 'District 9'

 

I’ve met some people from South Africa who tell me that when Apartheid ended, Nigerian mob types moved in to exploit the situation and now basically rule the underworld there and in other places in Africa.  I have seen them portray in a similar way in other South African films. There were also portray as having superstitions in those other movies.  You might note, that they portrayed Black South Africans similar to the way they portrayed White South Africans.  The Black South Africans I have met seem to resent them.  I would imagine that many White South Africans do to.  Since was originally filmed for the South African Market, it seems to me that it is not odd that most South Africans would assume that the Nigerian mob in South Africa would exploit the alien situation.  So why I do not think I would be pleased if I were in charge of the Nigerian Tourism Bureau, I do not see this as racism per se, but maybe a common stereotype about a group, Similar to how Italians were portrayed here in the twentieth century.

 

 

From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:scifino...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Keith Johnson
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 8:37 AM
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] TV Watchtower: 'Avatar' vs. 'District 9'

 

Good points he makes. I haven't seen "Avatar" yet, but loved "District 9", with the one notable exception of how the Nigerians were portrayed.
I just wish the article hadn't started with the relative costs and profits of each film.  The point that more money doesn't a better film make is certainly true. Indeed, crap like Transformers prove that. But I wouldn't use just costs or profit margins to rate a film's worthiness for an award.
What do you think Tracey, having seen both films? Which is a better film in terms of overall quality?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracey de Morsella" <tdli...@multiculturaladvantage.com>
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com, "glenn" <ggs...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 3:37:01 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [scifinoir2] TV Watchtower: 'Avatar' vs. 'District 9'

 

TV Watchtower: 'Avatar' vs. 'District 9'

In a deeply divisive race, an argument as to why Neill Blomkamp deserves the Oscar for Best Picture more than James Cameron (part 1)

http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/7054

Posing this very controversial argument, I want to share why “District 9http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif” is more Oscar-worthy than the mega-hit “Avatar.” Surely, the virtually unknown sci-fi filmhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif that was one of the few films to cross over the $200 million mark this past summer deserves a little attention – and as the Producers Guild’s nomination for Best Picture has proven, it is a worthy contender to watch out for during this award season.

Cost v. Profits

Looking first at the numbers, money talks. “District 9” cost only $30 million to make and then went on to make more than $204 million in the worldwide box office ($115 domestically). That is a return of six times what it cost to make.

Any way you look at it that is a phenomenal return on a mere $30 million investment; and with a prestigious PGA nomination and further DVD sales racking up, this profit margin will only continue to rise.

As for “Avatar,” it cost $237 million to make, plus another $150 million for marketing, and has grossed more than $1.6 billion world-wide to date. That is not a bad return either. But it is only a profit margin of four times its cost. However, given that “Avatar’s” resulting profit margin is more than $1 billion, it is not a number to discount. I cannot imagine that the investors for “Avatar” are displeased with such a modest return.

So in the money game, both films are providing huge monetary profits for their investors, with “Avatar” edging out “District 9” due to its boffo box office sales. But it can never be said that “District 9” did not do well, as it is one of a handful of films to ever cross the $200 million mark.

Realism v. Fantasy

Looking next at which film was more realistic, “District 9” is hands-down the winner in that category. Taking a page right out of last year’s Oscar winner’s playbook, “District 9” was filmed in the actual slums of Chiawelo, Soweto in South Africa. Not only did they film amongst the filth and degradation of the slums, it was filmed simultaneous to the attempted forced-relocation of the Abahlali baseMjondolo in District 6 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Thus, in an effort to make the film as realistic as possible, Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jacksonhttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/2_bing.gif literally filmed what was really occurring in Chiawelo and made a sci-fi film out of it. They just used CGI aliens in the place of real people who were being relocated. Thus, the story was a mirrored-reflection of the actual apartheid atrocities and discrimination that had been practiced in South Africa for more than 45 years.

Another element of realism that worked in “District 9’s” favor was its portrayal of the aliens, aka prawns. The prawns looked like giant bugs walking on two legs. They did not speak English or any other human language, so there was a distinct language barrier. They were also gritty, repulsive and overall disgusting.

These were not the humanoid creatures used to depict aliens in classic and modern sci-fi films. The prawns looked alien. It was like having a colony of giant insects living amongst us. No one wanted to be around them and it felt more natural to have them kept separate and secluded from the rest of the human race.

It was just unfortunate that their spaceship died while hovering right over Johannesburg and they had nowhere else to go. Literally no one on Earth wanted them here.

As for “Avatar,” it went the route of traditional sci-fi and opted to create a brand new world where everything was magnificent and glorious to behold. Welcome to Pandora where there are mountains that float in the sky, trees grow as tall as skyscrapers, plants glow rainbow colors in the dark, dragons fly through the vast blue skies, and the humanoid inhabitants are a brilliant turquoise blue that stand nearly 10 feet tall.

Everything about this exotic paradise was meant to seduce us into their world and make us fall in love with it. But it is simply too pretty. Too good to be true. It was a fictional world created purely out of CGI in order to fool the audience into thinking that there may just be such a fairy tale place that exists out in the universe.

But as any viewer perfectly knew watching the film, it was clearly not real. You could simply not believe it. The Na’vi were too tall, too blue and too pretty.

In contrast, the slum-ridden background of “District 9” felt all too real. We have seen just such places on Earth and know that they exist and avoid them at all costs. This made it harder to distinguish that the prawns were not real, for they look exactly like a larger version of the cockroach you might find crawling out from a crack in your kitchen.

Micro-Story v. Epic Adventure

There was also the scope of the stories explored in “Avatar” and “District 9” that sets them apart.

In “District 9,” the story was microscopically-focused on just a few characters: Wikus (the hapless government relocation agent), Christopher Johnson (the prawn that saved him), Wikus’ wife and Wikus’ father-in-law. It was a tale of how the average man got swept up in events beyond his control and how he inadvertently saved an alien race.

He had no plan to do so, nor even a desire to do so. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and in order to survive, he was forced to help Christopher Johnson save his race. It was a very narrowly focused story on one man and one alien’s need to rely on each other to survive.

In “Avatar,” there was a larger cast, which comprised of Jake Sully (the marine grunt), Dr. Grace Augustine (the botanist), Trudy (the pilot), Norm (the anthropologist), Col. Quaritch (the over-zealous Marine bully), Neytiri (the Na’vi princess) and a whole host of other Na’vi. Like in “District 9,” in “Avatar,” our hero was recruited to aid with the relocation of a foreign species in order to placate our own desires.

From the very first moment we saw Jake, we understood that he was in this for himself as he had been promised to have his legs fixed in exchange for taking his dead brother’s place in the avatar program to infiltrate the Na’vi. In “District 9,” Wikus was simply doing his job and, it was only after becoming exposed to a DNA-altering substance, that he became a man out for himself. In “Avatar,” that is all Jake ever was: out for himself. Jake wanted a new life and he used everyone around him to achieve it.

In “District 9,” the last thing Wikus wanted was a new life. He was perfectly content with his life and with being a part of the human race. Whereas Jake seemed to resent being human and, in the end, traded in his frail, puny-human body for the super-sized, Amazonian body of his avatar.

In “District 9,” it was about pure survival: Wikus wanted to be human again, and Christopher Johnson wanted to survive to take his son home. In “Avatar,” Jake just wanted to preserve the avatar body and world he had come to love.

In scope, “Avatar” was more ambitious. It had more characters, more lush beauty, more weaponry, more explosions, more big theoretical and political ideas to throw about. It was a kitchen-sink film, it had a lot of everything. But in “District 9,” they made do with what they had and kept it simple. It was a story about two men (well, one was a prawn) trying to survive and needing each other to do so. Wikus did not want to save anyone but himself and get back to his wife. Jake ended up striving to save an entire planet from foreign dominion and fighting back at corporate greed.

Try to sum up each film into one sentence and see what you come up with. I will bet that when you do this, you will see how much bigger in scope “Avatar” is than “District 9.” For, in “District 9,” a man was infected with a DNA-altering substance and he worked with an alien to find a cure, which may in turn provided a way for the aliens to return home.

In “Avatar,” a man infiltrated an alien world in order to achieve a forced relocation and then became enamored with that life and turned on his human employers. But, in the end, it is simple: Wikus embraced the human race and Jake rejected the human-race. Wikus wanted to just go home. Jake wanted to build a whole new home. In scope, “Avatar” took on a bigger story and overwhelmed us with its audacity. Whereas, “District 9” kept its story simple and sweet.

(To be continued ... Please note that part 2 of this article will appear in the next TV Watchtower column scheduled to run Jan. 27)

http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/7054

 

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