Why Avatar Will Win The Oscar but Shouldn’t.

I’ve been wanting to express my opinions on Avatar since it came out but just couldn’t find the right moment for it until the night of the Golden Globes where the movie won Best Motion Picture - Drama.

Let’s get the record straight: Avatar was fine if not mundane. Sure it’s visuals are stunning and the film made technical breakthroughs in movie-making history but beyond the overrated hype, Avatar was missing what truly matters in a good film: a great story. Avatar’s plot is one of those you know you’ve heard of. It was predictable and by all means anything but compelling. Character development was also lacking and the dialogues were tiring and cliché.

What Cameron did was recycle elements from Titanic – e.g. a love story in a middle of a devastating tragedy and an unreasonably evil villain. Oh yeah, hot stars as well or in this case, hot aliens!

Personally, I’m rooting for The Hurt Locker because it was a great film. Not only was it the best Iraq War movie I have ever seen, it communicated so much more – men and their fears, psychological effects of war, and self-sacrifice. It was full of pure realism.

But Avatar will still win Best Picture on Oscar night and here’s why:

You see, Avatar has a powerful influence over the mainstream audience who mostly have never seen films that weren’t popcorn flicks. If the Academy gave the award to another film, audiences are going to be so pissed, they won’t tune in to next year’s Oscars. Ratings will go down, commercial slots gets cheaper, yada yada yada, Oscar night will be a little less relevant. Worst comes to worst, those who are possessed by the ‘Avatar Fever’ would do something stupid like commit suicide or start a riot! It’s just a film for goodness sake!

Sure, you might say the Academy and it’s members are professional in making their decision but I think we’ve known that to be more than what it truly is. Just look at 2005 where Crash won the Best Picture honour instead of the highly acclaimed Brokeback Mountain or 1994’s Forest Gump winning against The Shawshank Redemption, one of the best films of all time.

Still, I do believe the Academy will continue to award quality in filmmaking but only if the box office echoes a signal. Highly grossed movies have what it takes to lobby a great deal of influence to its path. It is show business after all.