Prawn!
The Oscar nominations were announced today and somehow or other District 9 is among the Best Picture nominees. Now I enjoyed the movie but let me go out on a limb and predict that it will not win the Best Picture Oscar. You might say, well, this is the first years of the expanded 10-nominee, watered- down category…but wait. It’s one of two science fiction flicks in the running. So, pro-rating back to the smaller list and, well…Avatar would still be there.
So. No big deal, you say…but wait. This is the first time any sci-fi movie has been a Best Picture nominee since E.T. in 1983.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I liked the flawed District 9, and at least something half-way interesting sci-fi-wise will get some recognition, in addition to the billion-dollar lecture blue is beautiful guilt-fest.
One consolation is that District 9 got a screenplay nomination and Avatar did not. Thatit does have a chance at winning, prawn. Except for the 45-minute BlackHawk Down shakey camera action manic episode, the story of impoverished alienated aliens did managed to plant an emotional hook.
Oh and that’s right it is one of two nominated movies set in South Africa. So that may explain it. The other is Invictus, a rugby movie with the best actor-nominated Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. Could it be that District 9 was caught in a double Avatar-Invitus updraft to Best Picture level? The Academy member nominators may have confused it with a movie about aliens that featured Nelson Mandela. They can be easily confused. After all, Chicago, a movie in which Richard Gere signs, also won a best picture Oscar.
So Let’s handicap the category. What are the intagibles? The last time a sci-fi movie was nominated, E.T. took the statue home. Avatar is king of the box office world, as was the Cameron’s previous over-produced blockbisuster, Titanic, also a Best Picture winner…
Best Picture Prediction: Invictus
Dune vs. Avatar. Friend made an Avatar comparison I hadn’t heard, adding yet another facet to its derivation. (I haven’t seen it yet. I may wait for the DVD. I get vertigo from video games. This one may knock me out cold. But there’s plenty of information about it out there.) I’ve heard it’s similar to a few others (Pocohantas, Dances with Wolves, Fern Gully.)
But what about Dune? Does the Earthling guy become a messiah type? A god? Or just a leader of the opposition. If a god then was there a legend that an avatar would come and save the Na’avi? Dune splices that with Dune’s Bene Gesserit millenia-in-the-making genetic manipulation plans. A bit more meat there.
It may bear some similarities to the Dune movie and the miniseries, in that they were fairly simplied tick-tock interpretations, but those books were probably not destined to be good movies. I had excessively high, it turns out, hopes for the David Lynch attempt but was deeply disappointed. Besides phoning it in, with a production scale far beyond his ken, Lynch was lashed to a couple-three fatal casting choices: his own (Kyle McLachan?!) and the studio’s (Sting!?)
Scarce resource? Spice vs….whatever it is the evil humans want in Avatar? Yes, but House Atreides was given Dune to manage the spice in a diplomatic deal that turned out to be a trap. The Fremen indigenes may not have been happy about it but armed resistance didn’t start until the Harkonnens took over. So right there you have a more sophisticated set-up than just evil Americans swooping in to grab Na’avi land.
Also, from what I’ve heard, Cameron’s planet is elaborately imagined but maybe a bit OVERimagined. Whereas the environment of Dune was simpler and more integrated with the characters and the political motivations of the story. Why were the worms feared, yet worshiped? I’m sure you’re aware of the actual source of the spice. There again, a point probably intentionally not clearly laid out in the books, untouched in the movies, and pretty much out of Avatar’s league.
And oh yes, another point in common: Na’avi skin, blue. The Fremen whites-of-their-eyes? Blue.
Hadn’t thought of that Dune comparison though. Interesting, and worth considering.
Avatar is as predictable as it is political, according to John Nolte’s review at Big Hollywood.
Too bad. To think he could have made Kite instead. It would have certainly cost a lot less. Kitestarted out as a screenplay with a different title. My crack representation at the time got it a read at LightStorm, Cameron’s company. The feedback that repguy fedback to me was, verbatim: “Jim likes his sci-fi straight up, no chaser.” Yuh. I took that to mean he’d be put off by the humor, that the reader knew it and that everyone in the place knew it.
My crack representation left the business soon after that to go into real estate, the first of a total of three reps that hung it up after taking me on. It must be discouraging to see such great work get passed over. 
That’s how I spin it in any case.
Avatar will get a miss, though not for personal reasons, mind you, of course, or even political ones. But I’d heard the film’s 3D visuals can cause vertigo and nausea. We are prone to this ever since trying to play Star Wars Episode I Racer (pod races) on the GameCube. (In fact we’re getting dizzy just thinking about it.) After a couple laps around the track I had to go lay down for a while with our eyes closed.
They might not go for that at the multiplex.
Avatar, District 9, Oscars, movies | bshears February 2, 2010 | 
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