Rewriting the Avatar script, George Bush-style

When I came out of the movies having seen the new blockbuster Avatar by Titanic director James Cameron, the last thing on my mind was politics. Apparently not so for many more who saw the heavily handled themes of nature vs money and power as a liberal lecture. There has been a negative review from the Vatican, from the Christian community, from feminists and in particular from American conservatives who have absolutely slammed the film as being amongst other things "Death Wish 5 for leftists", "the most expensive piece of anti-American propaganda ever made", and "a multi-million dollar ad for global warming." Even our own Miranda Devine has had a shot. This criticism goes much beyond the much repeated "this is just Dances With Wolves with blue people" line and into a world where a planet of blue aliens protecting themselves from Americans is malicious lefty propoganda from Hollywood.

It would be easy to dismiss this as feather fluffing from a political side clawing at anything on its way down and let that be the end of it. But what about taking the brazen over analysis on board? What if we said "yes, this is lefty rubbish" and start again from scratch? We could grab hold of Mr Cameron, all those fancy cameras, another half a billion dollars and spend another 15 years making it again. But this time, in the spirit of political equality in cinema, let's create the critics' version. The George Bush remake of Avatar.

No doubt, we would have to significantly alter the original where a mining company, protected by US marines, gobble up the alien planet Pandora's obviously named resource Unobtanium at the expense of the local Na'vi population. And where one of the marines, Jake Sully (Australia's own Sam Worthington) occupying an artificial Na'vi body, is asked to infiltrate the natives. The earlier line where he learns from them, falls in love with one of them and eventually fights for them is too hippy.

To start we'll need to change some of the main characters. Forget making the US general a slack-jawed cigar smoking Texan who is impatient and quick to invade the alien world of Pandora. Let's make the US presence on this alien planet a hearts and minds mission to help the local Na'vi people. Build some schools, some roads, some hospitals, maybe bring some Western governance? And the rest of the rank and file US marines? Well, they're a bunch of good ol' boys just doing their jobs in the face of ever present danger the best they know how.

What about the much criticised Iraq and Afghan war lingo from the film? No more "shock and awe" and "pre-emptive attacks" yelled out by the brutish General in the original. These would be replaced by words like "freedom", "duty" and "mission accomplished."

But it still just doesn't smell conservative enough. These blue people, the native Na'vi, they need some tweaking don't they? How about instead of them being in tune with nature, intelligent warriors, let's give them a bit of an edge. A bit darker maybe? Let's never let them speak English fluently, only stammering recognisable words between the snarls. A bit cruder. More alien, less human. Vicious and backward with no regard for human life or otherwise and pious to a primitive religion. Blindly territorial and unreasonable. I mean all the Americans want to do is to some minor scale precision mining to help the folks back home drive their cars, what's all the fuss about? There's no dealing with the savage natives in this version.

We also need to change the portrayal of the Na'vi's animist Godess based religion. A christian movie site reviewer was particularly disquieted by the Na'vi's worshiping of a "false goddess". He said "the humans in Avatar are all presented as unbelievers. It’s as if humans have no God while every Na’vi worships Eywa the goddess. The reality of life on earth is that there are millions of Christians who worship a loving and compassionate God." So clearly all this Pagan worship won't do. Maybe when Jake Sully cavorts with the Na'vi, he could spread a little God around? After all a little proselytising never hurt anyone.
We've got the critics' film all wrapped up. Its on the reel. The pop corn is popping, the cinema is empty and waiting. The question is would anybody come to see it?

In the end with a film about nature vs money and power, it would be hard to make the latter look good.