Lessons in Writing from Avatar

Blue Cat People, Not Blue Arrow

The Avatar movies get a lot of hate, though the reasons given, assuming someone can articulate a reason other than just bandwagon popularity, tend to be very shallow in nature. Now, maybe it’s just not everyone’s cup of tea, and I can understand that, though the massive hatred seems to be quite disproportionate. Personally, I happen to enjoy them, but that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize that there are flaws (some of them very, very big).

And, although it is a movie, there are some takeaways that regular writers can utilize to enhance their own work.

1. The World Is Too Small and Empty

When Avatar 1 came out, back in 2009, no one knew that it was supposed to be the first in a series, and the movie itself reflects this. It is a perfectly self-contained story. Now, this makes sense on the part of James Cameron who had no idea how this movie would do. It took a lot of time and effort and cost screw-you dollars to make. If he didn’t get the return he was looking for, he would never get a sequel. Therefore, it made sense to keep it small. When it exploded into popularity, that’s when it came out that there would be more movies. He had a blindingly green light to go forth and make more money movies.

Unfortunately, future movies, especially A3, undermined a lot about the first movie. The first movie was not only self-contained in its plot, but also in its world. The Omatikaya, and maybe every Na’vi clan as a whole, were treated as an isolated people. The other clans are given only three seconds of screen time and an honorary mention, used entirely as filler that does not matter. A2 introduced us to the Metkayina, the water people. All right, great, another isolated people in another basically self-contained environment.

A3 blows this isolation concept out of the water (pun only partially-unintended) in two ways. First, the Tlalim clan, the Wind Traders, the equivalent of nomadic merchants along the Silk Road. Second, the Mangkwan, the fire people who are pirates or raiders. Suddenly, the world of Avatar comes alive with all these people who interact and trade and explore and raid and are, interestingly enough, actually aware of other people and the existence of others. There is depth to this world now. It just took six hours (and fifteen years) to get there.

When starting out on a new writing project, you don’t know everything about your world. This is true whether it is fantasy or real-world setting. For the purpose of this Ted Talk, we’re going to stick with fantasy or sci-fi settings. You don’t know everything about your world, and that’s okay. There is also valid criticism of getting stuck in the world-building loop, where you want to know everything before ever putting pen to paper and so never actually get around to writing.

Again, even real-world settings require research. In my own latest series, The Akari-Bearer, I had to do a lot of research on Poland and Germany and World War II. This is my own planet and I don’t know a lot about it. Not knowing everything going into a project is okay.

However, there is a significant shift in the quality of prose from Time to Kill (The Chivalrous Welshman #1), my very first book I ever wrote for The Timekeeper Chronicles. I made a lot of mistakes early on in the Chronicles because I made the world too small or, perhaps more accurately, too empty. I did not have my sci-fan “world” fleshed out enough to do anything meaningful with it, and there are places where it shows. Some of my off-the-cuff decisions really came back to bite me later. I didn’t have all, or even a majority, of the Time and Akari abilities locked in when I introduced the concepts way back when. Now it’s almost ten years and several million words later, I’m in Akari-Bearer, and I’m coming up with a ridiculous number of abilities and uses for them, but had I done that earlier, TKC (which takes place in the “modern” day) would have gone much differently. Chronologically speaking, what happened to some of these abilities? Why didn’t characters do this or that? The only answer is that I was stupid and started out with a world too small and too empty.

To be fair to myself, I didn’t expect the series to go the way it did from a plot or logistics standpoint. Some major changes have been made, like going from a 16-book single series (with a few singles) to a multi-series behemoth. Sometimes, even I just had to roll with it.

Consider Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Martin’s Seven Kingdoms. When the reader enters the story, wherever that may be, we’re dropped into the middle of a conversation rather than walking up and waiting for one to happen. There is history, there are names, houses, battles, mythology and legends that the people already know and interact with, that are part of them. The world is not buffering while the characters approach the boundary between one place and the next; the whole universe is already built.

Imagine if the Tlalim had been introduced in the first movie. What kind of dynamic would have happened? Would the Tlalim have known where unobtanium could be found elsewhere, somewhere that maybe wouldn’t intrude on the clans? What if unobtanium could have been found in Mangkwan territory? It’s land that is good for absolutely nothing, and the humans might have even gotten local help in defeating Varang a la the Spanish and the Aztecs. The first movie could have gone much differently if the world were just a little bigger, a little more fleshed out.

2. The Characters Are Too Dull

I was going to make this entry about the plot, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it, not in this slot. There are a finite number of plots, when you boil it down. Some people have come up with five, others nine, maybe ten, but the point is, boiled-down, every plot is recycled. What makes the difference is the characters. Star Wars and Harry Potter share a very similar plot, yet both are beloved because the worlds are alive and the characters are real.

I do not care about Jake. I really don’t. Sam Worthington is a horrible actor and Jake is just as bland of a character. I like Neytiri as a character, but I’m not a fan of Zoe Saldana. I don’t like her as Neytiri, I don’t really like her as Gamorah in Guardians of the Galaxy, or as Uhura in NuTrek. The relationship and the chemistry between Jake and Neytiri is purely scripted, “because plot.” There is one shining moment at the very beginning of A3, where his grief style is described as “say nothing and stay busy.” And his mission to salvage the guns from the sunken ship, along with his interactions with his son on that mission, are perfectly reflective of this. Something in that moment feels real. Even if that reality is the “say nothing and keep busy,” it is still more real than any of the forced interactions with Neytiri before or after.

Contrast this with Quaritch and Varang. Their relationship, their chemistry, is absolutely sexy. Evil, but sexy. They are the Avatar power couple that brings murderous life to the screen. They have emotion, conviction, ambition, passion. And they’re only “together” for half the movie. They do more in one hour than Jake and Neytiri do in nine.

This disparity is, I believe, because Jake was written to be too Everyman. He is supposed to be everything. Marine, scientist, explorer, hippie, lover, husband, father. He was supposed to appeal to some aspect of everyone so he really fails to appeal to anyone. He has no consistent character; he is whatever the plot needs him to be at the time, which is usually a hostage or a failure or both.

In some fairness, he is initially depicted as kind of a loser. He is literally only on Pandora because his twin died. In deleted scenes, he’s shown out drinking and partying and being a loser. Then, by the end, he’s Toruk Makto. Great, right? Except he never helps himself. Going after Toruk might be the only point in all three movies where he gets himself out of his own mess; every other time, it is always by coincidence. Someone, family notwithstanding, thinks of him just highly enough that they decide he needs to be rescued. He is a loser, but with god-tier plot armor.

Again, contrast this with Quaritch. He is a mission-minded Marine. Whether or not you agree with his motivations, at least you know what they are. When confronted by one situation or another, you have an idea of how he is going to react, what his motivations are, what his endgame is. This is what makes his relationship to Varang so exciting. He is, as he puts it, “an equal.” We know how he might normally act, we know he would have no qualms about killing Varang and her people, but the fact that he brings her in as this sort of mistress of evil beside him is incredibly significant. It shows an actual shift in his character. Similarly, because he’s the bad guy, he is at a disadvantage, plot-wise. He doesn’t get plot armor. His return as an Avatar clone is actually pretty cool, born of invention and ingenuity on the part of the humans, not because plot.

Neytiri is a bit of a stock character, but that’s forgivable. I think—my opinion only—it could have been played better. Again, not a huge fan of Zoe Saldana. But she still has understandable motivations, reactions, history, and prejudices. Watching the fights between her and Varang—whose own motivations and ambitions are simple but very clearly defined—was amazing. The viewer doesn’t even know who Varang is during the first raid, but there is a clear brutality about her that, when pitted against Neytiri, says, “Aw yeah, this is gonna be good.”

I could go on about each of the main characters, but it really comes back to understanding who they are. Give them motivations, give them ambitions, give them something to fight for. But also give them boundaries. Tell us where they end. When a situation comes up, a reader should have an idea of what a character is likely to do. This makes changes all the more significant.

In The Chivalrous Welshman, Tommen also starts out as kind of a loser. He sees himself one way, but he acts another way. He’s easily provoked, but he does have seeds of goodness in him, the remnants of his pa’s teaching and the old way of life. Over the course of the series, he is challenged to be a better person. Does he fight or does he not? Why? What do his professed values really mean to him? Where does he stop?

Something that is wholly glossed over in the entire Avatar franchise is human psychology. A little exploration of this concept could have gone a long way in making the humans a little more sympathetic. Supposedly, Earth is dying. However it is, whatever the reason, something something Earth is dying. Yet they still have very glitzy, glamorous cities (A1 deleted scene). Eat, drink, and be merry, I suppose. Indulge the self because there may not be a tomorrow. And all the people sent to Pandora are there to save the Earth, whether that’s by sending resources back home or relocating humans to a new colony. It takes years to get people out to Pandora. They have to be in cryo for much of the time. Quaritch says that survivors ought to go to Hell for some R&R afterwards.

Not once does any character express any amount of homesickness. Not once does a character lament who or what they’ve left behind. Not once do we see evidence of a character longing for a family member. Not once does someone look at unobtanium or magic whale brains and think, “My family is going to survive because I got this.” Everyone is basically a cardboard cutout of whatever stereotype they’re intended to represent. Soldiers might hold out longer when it comes to such things, but the scientists? The businessmen? Nothing.

That’s also what makes Spider such an annoying character. I fully believe that there were children born on Pandora. 100%. I might even believe that Quaritch got some a time or two. But the actual implied relationship that he talks about in A3 I can only think must be a lie.

3. The Plot Doesn’t Hold Up To Its Details

I don’t consider Avatar hard sci-fi. Soft sci-fi, marginally speculative sci-fi, sci-fan, but not hard sci-fi. So I’m not even going to worry about something-something different gravity and its effects on the body. Again, world-building details that were mentioned then never followed through, but don’t really matter in the face of the big picture.

But one thing that really confused me about A2 was the sulkun and magic whale brains, this anti-aging potion.

Now, unobtanium, I could see. I can easily picture the humans scanning the area, sending out little droid scouts, whatever, and locating a particular molecular or geological composition that indicates the thing they are looking for. This, to me, echoes of Star Trek scanning the surface and determining the makeup of a new planet that the Enterprise is currently orbiting. Whatever.

But how did the humans know about magic whale brains? And we’re going to back this up to the first movie, to understand this thought process.

Humans discover Pandora. Discover magic mcguffin rock they need for some reason. Try diplomacy first. Bring in scientists, anthropologists, diplomats, yadda yadda. Cool, great, we see how that went. The only thing ever mentioned is unobtanium. Unobtanium and the Omatikaya. Again, very closed world. Humans get their asses kicked, sent back home.

Humans return to Pandora, decide screw you people, we’re going to build and colonize and so on and so forth. So why do they bring along more scientists, anthropologists, etc., knowing that they’re just there to conquer and kill? Why do they care about studying anything? How did they discover magic whale brains? Was this just an off-screen thing, maybe such a thing was discovered back in the first movie? But then, what is the actual geography of all of these locations? What is the travel time? If the humans’ ships (air or water) don’t travel very fast, why wouldn’t humans have multiple bases in multiple locations to provide shelter for their people in a hostile environment? If they are very fast, why do they regularly fall to basic attacks? And again, why don’t the different clans—who may be far apart or they may not—interact? Why is the world so empty and isolated in the first two movies?

Also, how fast do ayikran fly? In A1, they have plenty of time to gather up all the clans. In A3, they have twenty-four hours or less. And Jake wants to call in those same dozen or so clans. Now, yes, flying is an objectively more efficient way to travel, and more ground can be covered, but the question remains. How fast do they fly? What is the geography like? How big are the territories of each of these clans, and why don’t they interact? Why did it take Quaritch so long to find Jake in A2?

Plot isn’t just about what’s happening now, whatever it is the characters are doing, it’s also about how they even got there. Again, step into Middle Earth or the Seven Kingdoms, and the world is already turning. The territories and house rules already exist, and they are that way for a reason. When stuff happens, it’s because something happened because something happened because something happened, sometimes hundreds of years ago.

In TCW, Tommen starts where he does because he went and explored a cave. He explored a cave because his pa and ma settled in the area of the cave. His pa and ma settled there because it was a Welsh community. There’s a Welsh community there because… Walter starts where he does because he’s a single father trying to raise his nephew. He’s a single father trying to raise his nephew because he offered to look for his nephew. He offered to look for his nephew because his brother had given up hope and decided to focus on his wife and remaining children. His brother had given up because… Rifun starts where he does because… Cassius starts where he does because… Micah and Micaiah start where they do because…

And again, it ended up being that I did not go far enough back in some of this historical world-building. I dropped little bread crumbs here and there, things to give characters “interest” but without the flesh needed to make the bones recognizable as that character. And I paid for it in subsequent books. Details were not thought through. Because of that, I had to get very creative at times. Am I proud of it? A little, that I could. Not so much, because I had to do it at all.

So Why the Hell Do I Like the Avatar Movies?

Because screw you, that’s why. It’s a few hours of entertainment that I happen to enjoy.

(But muh poliitks / something-something-species-traitor)

I think too many people focus too much on 1825 that they don’t see 2025.

“Why don’t you want AI/smart gadgets? Why don’t you want the slop? Don’t you know they’re modern and cutting edge and the next generation? Are you not entertained? Why do you want to do things by hand? What do you think is out there for you?”

“Why don’t you want to live in an apartment in the city? It’s so convenient! Why do you need your own home? Why do you need acreage and space?”

“Why don’t you want to eat lab-grown food? Why do you want to hunt and fish and grow your own vegetables? Don’t you know this is scalable and eco-friendly and way healthier?”

“Why do you still follow that old-fashioned religion? Don’t you know we’ve learned so much and we can do so much more without being hindered by some old deity?”

“Why don’t you want to live like I do? Although, quite frankly, even if you did, my gutter opinion of you still wouldn’t change because you are still not me.”

The aliens in Avatar are the bad guys.

The aliens in Independence Day are the bad guys.

The humans are, somehow, always the good guys, despite playing both roles.

We could debate “muh nooans” about history and culture and world politics, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The Avatar movies are far from perfect. Personally, I rate them, overall, as about a 6.5/10. There are lessons to be learned from their missteps and blunders, as well as mine.