I am currently in my third year of Univeristy studying film. I have chosen to write my final essay on: ‘Becoming Authentic: The Hero’s Journey in Avatar’ – A question I had created.

Your work proves it applies to the Hero’s Journey, it would be good to quote you within my essay. Is there anything you can add in general to Avatar fitting to the Hero’s Journey?

Thank you

DAISY

I wonder, when they talked about Jake’s marine background, rather than building empathy between him and the colonel they could have shown Jake’s inescapable marine conditioning. This may have made Jake’s obedience more believable, and OUR entry into the story could have a sense of escaping corporate anti-environmental conditioning. Of course the classic nemesis model requires them to bond at some stage, I guess.

I kinda wished he’d stopped when the tree fell though.. I’m not sure we deserve to be let off the hook like that.

The stills are from IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/mediaindex?page=3
I’m afraid I got carried away slightly in terms of what is reasonable under Fair Use, so I’ve just deleted a few of those images again.

You’re right about the catharsis I think. Personally I am not a fan of the story of “300″.

No doubt the game will sequel and prequel the saga!

thanks for all your hard work. I especially liked the production stills you used to illustrate the story (where did you get them?).

I was interested to see you didn’t mention catharsis on your exposé. I think that the basic cathetic exchange in the film is this: The audience feels good about the (extremely brilliant and virtuoso) gun-porn if they can feel righteous about saving the planet/tree-people.

In this it does a better job than, say, Zack Snyder’s 300, where the killing is merely historically justified by the subsequent (unseen) victory of Athens over the Persian barbarians. Here we get the Real McCoy of Victory pure, and even the Rebirth (and Marriage? and Coronation?) ceremony at the end reminds one of the Dionesian Cult Ceremonies. The cathectic cycle is complete.

Brilliantly made heroic epos, with great gun porn thrown in to boot.

Best Regards,

Simon Sieverts
PS I wonder if the video game will continue the saga?

It’s a relatively short – and bland – Mid Sequence in which the worlds swap. Bland, because the only real tension exists in the scene with the Colonel, when Jake is reminded of his task and we know he’s no longer on the Colonel’s side.

The fact that something DOES change for Jake in that Mid Sequence is immediately confirmed at the very beginning of Act IIb.