The Importance of Collaboration in Our Lives: the Last Theme from Avatar - Essay Example

Avatar and Titanic were both directed by James Cameron and were a great success for his career as a film producer. These two movies talk about different issues that affect us as human beings and how we should tackle difficult situations. Titanic was released in 1997 and was a fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Cameron wanted to convey the emotional message of the tragedy and he succeeded in it as Titanic was a very big success. One of the major themes addressed in the film is the theme of The Intimate and the Ultimate; Cameron did a terrific job in bringing this theme out by juxtaposing all its elements. Bodine furnishes the old Rose with all the fine details on how the ship sank; his recitals are accompanied by animated reconstruction that is based on the recent scientific findings about the wreckage. At this point the movie is still centered on a methodical treasure hunt full of fancy equipment and pursuit of material things. The romance of deep sea technology is alive all over as she stares at one monitor and then goes to the other. This is a scientific expedition as sounds of the past ring in her head softly that it can hardly be heard. The most inspiring moments of this dichotomy occurs when Jack and Fabrizo go to the ship’s bow in order to experience its great height above water and the thrill of wind’s speed on their faces. This is the point that Jack shouts, “I’m king of the world!” When the camera is pulled back, it reveals the size of the Titanic and its glory with Jack and the rest appearing as ants. The same goes for the ship because it appears very tiny before the ocean when the cameras are tilted and taken from a different angle. In so doing, James Cameron manages to unveil the intensity and verve of our personal experiences and then goes on to illustrate to us how such experiences are at times outdone by larger events. The theme of The Irrational, Naiveté, and the Absurd is well covered by James Cameron. People at the beginning of the century were naive in their belief and held the notion that the world was only going to get better without any failures. The Titanic is used as a symbol of such optimism; it’s a massive unsinkable object created by man. Cal represents the above argument when he says that God alone cannot sink the Titanic and goes on to smoke congratulating each other claiming to be the masters of the universe. They had all the reasons to believe so since history had not proven otherwise and science was only getting better and better. However this was very short lived as things went totally different following the misfortunes that befell them (Keegan 45). The characters were naive and acted absurdly without logical reasoning due to the fallible nature of human beings. The theme of Death and Dreaming is also well covered in the play as illustrated by the Titanic, “The ship of Dreams”. This ship turned out to be the ship of death for most of its passengers, something that nobody thought could happen at any one time. It lies at the bottom of the ocean cloaked in cold darkness with no life at all. It is transformed in morph shots into a brightly living work of man representing his glorious past. The fabric of human experience as illustrated by Cameron is woven by reality & dreams and light & dark. Human beings therefore have to experience both sides of life because of the uncertain nature of the world we live in. The avatar on the other hand has its own themes well covered by James Cameron. The theme of militarism runs through the film as Cameron stated that the Avatar is a political film. He went on to assert that this epic depicts that we are actually living through war. The stronger western nations are using their military prowess to invade the lesser developed nations for their own personal gains. They terrorise their people and explore their natural resources extracting anything that is valuable to them. The effect is that these less developed nations will never realise their full potential when strong developed nations are exploiting their natural resources at their expense. This is the bad side of military imperialism as all kinds of excuses are always put in place for such invasions to try and justify the injustices. Gaia and the interconnectedness of nature are well illustrated by Cameron through the characters. This interconnectedness brings us together as human beings making us emotional beings. All living things are connected in a manner that science still hasn’t been able to explain as through some unidentified means all living things are able to communicate. Plants for instance communicate to each other through their roots and other sensory systems. They are very intelligent and often inform each other on what’s going on in their immediate environment (Keegan 67). The concept of Gaia is present when Jack prays to Gaia to save them. The healing nature of Mother Nature illustrates how connected living things are and how an action by one often affects all the others. The last theme from Avatar is that the importance of collaboration in our lives. The unified Na’vi people accomplished a lot of things that they couldn’t imagine was within their ability. The message here is that our planetary problems can be solved through joining hands and working together for a common course. This is how they managed to override their enemy that was taking over their home destroying nature and the things that they valued most. The solutions to our environmental problems as argued by James Cameron is in our hands; all we need as human beings is to get committed to a common course and make the world a better place through minimising pollution and taking care of our planet. Work cited Keegan, Rebecca. The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2010. Print Read More