There is little left for the premiere of ‘Avatar: the sense of water’, the sequel to James Cameron’s milestone of 2009 that was the biggest box office success in history, although time is not treating it as well as its maker might have calculated . A first part that was not only not very originalbut rather boasted a telematic script and taken to the lowest common denominator to function as a template for its technical advances and visual achievements.
However, when it comes to facing the sequel, there is not only a challenge when it comes to improving the script and the characters; After the first critical applause, there is no doubt that the sequel will be great entertainment, but where it has the opportunity to elevate its importance is in its news role in an age of egregious climate change denialismorchestrated by business lobbies and the extreme right that seeks to implant doubt in the face of scientific studies.
In fact, if something can be rescued from the first ‘Avatar’ it is their concern for the sustainability of the planet and the degradation of ecosystems, which is now directed towards the importance of the seas and conservation. 2009 may be one of the critical moments in the presence of the climate crisis in the media, thanks to former Vice President Al Gore and his documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ (2006), whose speech continued to permeate the following years, until we have begun to see the real effects burning our butts.
The need for a message against the climate crisis
The good intentions of James Cameron and his story of indigenous resistance to environmental destruction are more relevant and significant today, appearing more credible that the Earth moves to distant planets to satisfy its hunger for resources. That’s why Pandora, a biologically rich planet with a diverse and complex ecosystemToday, it is like a true promised land that resists the easy comparison with the Amazon that the hackneyed plot of deforestation suggested.
However, today the struggle of the indigenous people of Pandora (the Na’vi) facing the earthlings enhances the importance of the film’s simple message, the lives of those above depend on the resources below. A more present polarization in our day to day after the crisis that would take place precisely in 2009 and its consequences, as well as a pandemic that showed the class privileges of the bourgeoisie to a much more connected society. But beyond the message, there is an implicit fascination for a biologist or environmentalist in what Cameron proposes.
‘Avatar’ is not so much a science fiction and action movie to use as the fantasy of a man who has dedicated his life to research and has spent the last few years exploring the bottom of the sea. In fact, Cameron is responsible for the development of the Deepsea Challenger (DCV 1), a deep-immersion submersible designed to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest known point on earth. On March 26, 2012, the director piloted the submarine himself, thus becoming the first human being to reach the abyss in a vehicle manned by a single person, receiving the 2013 Nierenberg Award for it.
His work hand in hand with National Geographic fades with his role as a filmmaker and there is a fantasy documentary point in her ‘Avatar’ that relates her to those experiences in Imax and 3D in the special projection rooms of zoos that take advantage of technology to offer a deeper approach to nature. Seen in this way, ‘Avatar’ becomes more of an experience of visiting a center dedicated to the study, a very different approach, for example, to the fantasy of ‘King Kong’ (2005) by Peter Jackson, which also had something from “fantasy safari”.
Extraterrestrial fauna and flora
Here Cameron plunges us into the fictional Pandora, one of the moons of a gas giant with a society dependent on Earth’s resources, the Na’vi were depicted as a stereotypical indigenous population, but he played on the imagination of their blue skin and queues for masking remarkably human evolutionswith four limbs, nostrils on its face, and an upright posture that might not be suitable for a life spent mostly in trees.
They have breasts, although Cameron admits that they are not placental mammals, and have a level of intelligence comparable to ours, despite looking like cats and having the ability to connect with other living beings, curiously creating bonds with gigantic flying dragon-like creatures, in the style of of the Targaryens ‘The house of the dragon’, which can be analyzed as dinosaurs with skins similar to jungle amphibians. In each presentation of an animal, it seems that there has been a hybridization between very distant species.
There are general biological details of interest, such as the possibility that gravity on Pandora is less than on Earth, which helps explain why everything is so big there, the idea that Much of the animal life on Pandora consists of six limbs, necessary for a better grip on less magnetic force.three pairs of arms, legs or wings, which on Earth we attribute only to insects and here are translated to panthers and vermin, although banshees or ikran have four wings as limbs.
A must for curious naturalists
You can see the desire that Cameron had to introduce oceanic elements in the design of those rhinos with hammerhead sharks, or the bioluminescent characteristic of living organisms from Pandora, even with dandelions that look like jellyfish. Here he uses and extends the light production of fireflies, deep-sea fish or seaweed, to all sorts of beings, which also have bizarre but biologically thought-sensible anatomical details, such as pairs of eyes and nostrils located on their bodies. instead of on their faces, like the spiracles of insects, in a bomb of evolutionary convergences.
The flora is also particularly fascinating, with retractable flowers, sticky leaves, ivy, ferns, giant carnivorous plants and trunks of trees bigger than skyscrapers. Exploring ‘Avatar’ from a biologist’s perspective is a fascinating ride, as if Darwin arrived in the Galapagos for the first time, Hawaii, Madagascar or New Zealand. ‘Avatar’ opens new limits thanks to technology and imagination, almost in the style of the ‘Prehistoric Planet’ series, a kind of 2 documentary about dinosaurs.
We don’t expect ‘Avatar 2’ to be narrated by David Attenborough like the one on Apple+, but we can be sure that with Cameron’s favorite subject being the sea, —let’s remember ‘Abyss’ and even how the narration of ‘Titanic’ begins— the result may be better or worse, than the interest in the investigation and The immersion inside the extraterrestrial fauna and flora will be as fascinating an experience as going to the oceanographic museumbecause each animal and algae that appears surely has some scientific explanation, at least, matured by someone who is interested.