plants. movies.

Seriously big tree fern fiddleheads in Avatar.

Over the weekend, we went to see Avatar. I had been resisting seeing the movie, since it seemed to be another overblown animation/sci-fi movie, with Sigourney Weaver, no less. A friend of mine raved about the movie, and Sam Worthington is eye candy, so why not. We went to see it.

Yes, it is a visual feast. And yes, it was the typical Hollywood script I had feared for the most part. It has recycled elements from a number of movies including Star Wars, The Matrix, Aliens, Solaris, Pathfinder, Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Minority Report and a number of others that you’ll think of as you watch the movie. But it did do a nice job with the standard script. And it did send chills up the back of my neck at some points, with that sense of knowing that I was in for a very cool experience. And it was a very cool experience. One of the best aspects was that exotic plant forms played a significant role in creating this world. It did give me the sense of being in another world.

Well, almost.

The premise of the visuals is that the life forms of this world are exaggerated forms of the life forms on Earth. I would think, however, that if this planet were light years away from Earth, that the life forms would be totally different, or at least some life forms would be totally different. All the animal life seemed to be designed as familiar animals (existing or historic such as seen in the fossil record) with extra body parts: extra legs, extra eyes, extra wings. Basic Earth animal forms with extra decoration. The native “intelligent” life, the Navi, were humanoid, even if they were 10 feet tall, blue and with tiger stripes. They also had bodies that we would consider stereotype model ideals. Not that I’m complaining too much, but the men were very slim of hip, very broad of shoulder, beautifully muscled in the way that gymnasts are muscled, and nearly naked but for a loincloth (they even have issues regarding covering that particular part of the body, that we have here on Earth!). The women were shapely in the way that fashion models are shapely, but in an athletic way, and also scantily clothed - this is a tropical climate after all, and funny but the native people dress just like the image of stereotypical peoples endemic to the tropics here on Earth. The Navi look like idealized humans (wouldn’t you love to be Navi?) and achieve physical feats in their daily lives that are idealized human. There are no fat or old Nabi, but perhaps this is because of their dangerous world, where they are all eaten by the vicious beasts before they can get old, or are too busy running to get fat.

Seriously big banyan tree.

I was totally excited to see plant life play such a significant role in the movie. Just as the Nabi are idealized and exaggerated human forms, so is the plant life. There are enormous versions of familiar tropical plants, as well as more colorful versions. I was naming plants when watching: musa, strelitzia, cycas, philodendron, bromeliads, ficus (banyan), soleirolia, selaginella (except some of the movie versions glow when touched or stepped upon). There are also sea creatures appropriated as land plants/creatures, although in amazingly huge sizes. I was thrilled to see amazing detail of the animation that went into these plants. But I was also disappointed that the creators did not diverge more from the plant life that we know here on earth. I was hoping for a re-imagining of plant life as it evolved on a different world, a world with different evolutionary experiences and climates. I was hoping for a more thorough blurring of the boundary between flora and fauna. But no.

There may have been a number of reasons that this was done. This is a STORY after all, and why not? The obvious argument for keeping the world similar to our own, is that in this way, we the audience can feel more of a connection to this created world called Pandora. If Pandora was too far from what we experience, we may not emotionally connect. The apparent perfection of the Nabi is a representation of the perfection that we wish to achieve, and the humans that arrive to destroy the Nabi world are also representations of ourselves. But this doesn’t explain why the plant life was simply taken from the tropical plant life that exists here on Earth. It seems to be simply because the plants were not felt to be significant enough to spend the time and creative effort upon (but they do play a significant role!).

There is a book that I read as a teenager, where the native people, named the Sylvan, are able to control and animate plant life. The plants take an active role in the battles, leaf, root, twig and fruit. Mostly, the trees pulled men off their horses, and dismembered them (YES!). Unfortunately I don’t have the book anymore, and don’t remember the name. I was hoping that something similar would occur in Avatar, so perhaps this is the source of my disappointment. The least they could have done was to lob sticky fruit onto the enemies flight vehicles windows, blinding them since their electronic sensors were already nonfunctional. Or perhaps there could have been toxic fruit or plant parts. If we are using modified things from Earth, why not toxic spores? Or seeds or spores that would get dumped on the warcraft, and grow roots or other plant parts so rapidly that it tears apart the vehicle? Banyan trees whose roots grow into the vehicles and tether or otherwise immobilize them? How about enormous leaves that wrap around men and suffocate them like a butterwort or other carnivorous plants?

Sigh. Will plants always go unappreciated? Speaking of plants in movies, I did love the plants in Minority Report. Now that was done right. This is not to slight to achievements of Avatar. In fact, I may just have to go see it again. This time in 3-D.

By the way, The International Carnivorous Plant Society has a listing of carnivorous plants in movies.