Scriptnotes: How I Would ‘Fix’ Avatar — Way Of Water

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, I’m working on my first novel and, as such, I’m completely consumed with storytelling — to the point that it’s almost impossible for me to sit through a movie that I feel fails to match my personal high expectations for what makes a great yarn. (Why waste my time?)

I saw the most recent Avatar movie and I could definitely see that there was a little bit of pandering to the MAGA Nazi set in it — but not enough to drive the box office to $2 billion like James Cameron needs. When I was working at a movie theatre, the one movie that drove the most crowds was the Sniper movie because it fit the MAGA Nazi midset so perfectly that they came to see it in the theatre in droves.

Here’s what I would have done:

First, if the movie must, for the sake of James Cameron’s ego, be three hours, I would slice the “woke” Gaia-on-another-planet part of it down to a spare 1.5 hours. All the rest of the screen time would be filed with fleshing out the motives and aspirations of the “star people.” Don’t make them smug Blue caricatures of MAGA Nazi, but fleshed out people who think they’re the good guys for various reasons.

And, more importantly, I would really have do a lot more with the relationship between Spider and the bad guy. There was a lot of traditional heteronormative heart that could have been built around those two characters. Maybe it was there in the 7 hour cut of the movie, maybe it wasn’t. But it definitely seems as though Cameron could not figure out what to do with Spider.

There was a pretty deep, profound epistemological thing going on between Spider and Bad Guy and…it wasn’t really addressed at all. I know maybe that would have made the movie a little TOO different…but it would have made the proxy MAGA Nazi badguy at least a little bit less one dimensional and would have gotten MAGA Nazi asses in seats.

Anyway, I only even bring this up because the structure of the movie definitely might have allowed Cameron to have appeased both Red and Blue with two parallel storylines that intertwined at the end.

It’s When People Come At Me From The Political Left That I Don’t Know What To Do

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to brood about what, exactly, is the “woke cancel culture mob” and if it even exists. At the moment, all I know is that being “woke” simply means whatever it needs to mean so Ron DeSantis gets closer to being POTUS. That’s it — it means everything and nothing.

And, yet, from my own personal experiences on Twitter, there definitely does seem to be a small, but vocal, group of people who would fit the description of being “woke.” I think a better description of them would be “cultural Leftists.” They tend to be extremely touchy about things like pronouns, being “triggered,” the broadest, most complex definition of a what a “woman” is, all the while being totally oblivious to the rise of cold, hard MAGA Nazism.

They’re so busy making people like me who are generally on their side feel bad for not following their very strict orthodoxy about this or that “woke” thing that they totally miss that, in the end, both they the “woke” and me the “unwoke” could endup in the same Trump branded weaponized ICE camp. I’m sure I’m stumbling across some sort of political rule of thumb about how fascism takes over a democracy.

I think what’s most important is that, in general, the center-Left really needs to work on its messaging. When I have to spend five minutes wading through the “anti-MAGA people are all woke members of the cancel culture mob who want to turn everyone gay” narrative from my Traditionalist relatives whenever I try to talk to them about politics — American democracy has a problem.

It’s so bad that it is literally impossible for my Traditionalist relatives to distinguish between Democrats and pretty much the spawn of gay satan…oh boy. All I know is, the “gay scare” of 2022 – 2023 is alive and well in my little corner of the universe. I just want my otherwise sane Traditionalist relatives to help me defeat MAGA Nazism…but they’re just too consumed with the cultural wars to even think about it seriously.

All of this is very touchy and difficult to write about because, well, the “woke cancel culture mob” is known to fly off the handle if you don’t totally, absolutely agree with them on their most extreme positions. Which, of course, proves me point.

Anyway, I fucking hate MAGA Nazis. I just wish cultural Leftists would be willing to cool it and work with more centrist people like me to defeat the rise of fascism in the United States.

The ‘Woke’ Tik-Tok Critiques Of ‘Avatar 2’ Are Bonkers

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me first say that I’m not a perfect man. In fact, relative to the purer-than-Caesar’s -Wife expectations of the “woke cancel culture mob” I truly have fallen short of the glory that is Christ. I have drunk too much in the past. I have gotten drunk and ranted about things in a way that did not fit the established media narrative. Also, before I start — fuck MAGA Nazi cocksuckers.

I was rather aghast at the “woke” critique of Avatar 2 — The Wave of Water on Tik-Tok. The Leftist critique, apparently is that the movie wallows in “white savior” tropes and does a lot of cultural appropriation. I am aghast because I was so busy generally enjoying the movie that neither one of those “woke” Leftist criticisms even entered my mind as I watched.

Not that I didn’t notice the underlying pandering to both Red and Blue in the movie here and there. It was definitely there. The bad guys were cool in a “Reds with a cultural chip on their shoulder” way and the good guys were definitely downlow woke.

But the idea that you ding the movie not for being too long and too self-indulgent, but rather for the more esoteric “white savior” trope and cultural appropriation seems a little bit of a reach. Not that I’m not validating those “woke” criticisms. Ok, I get it, but if you’re all that wrapped up in something like that that the vast majority of your average American middle-of-the-road viewer in a suburb won’t notice — you’re the reason why most Oscar movies are a just not that popular with the average person.

The point is to tell a good to great story. That’s it. When you’re done with your story, is a good one? Did you, using subtext, get your point across? Did people leave the movie entertained? I mean, if you really wanted to all fucking woke about things, you would definitely trash Top Gun: Maverick because it glorified the military in a very unwoke manner — even though it definitely told a great story that really entertained people.

I say all this because I’m hard at work on my own story — a novel. And I have done everything in my power for their to be “representation” in the novel, for it to feel inclusive. And, yet, because the country is so fucking divided into Red and Blue, half the audience will probably think it’s too “woke” while the other half will scream at the top of their lungs that a middle aged CIS white male has no right to write from the POV of a non male, non white person.

We’re so fucking divided that you really, truly can’t win. I am again reminded of the MAGA Nazi fascination with the question “What is a woman.” They love the question because it’s an easy bludgeon to use against woke people who have to pause for a moment before they answer the question. So, of course, Nazi MAGA cocksuckers hone in on that question, wallow in it, in an effort to make the center-Left look as out of touch as possible.

Anyway, there comes a point when you just have to accept to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The ‘Purple’ Politics Of Blue People: James Cameron’s ‘Avatar — The Way Of Water’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My New Year’s Resolution / change as I turn 50 is that I’m going to stop walking out of movies so quickly. As such, I watched the entirety of Avatar — The Way Of Water even though I was very unhappy to be there for much of the time. Not that it was a bad movie, it’s just the moment I understood what was going on I found the whole thing very boring from my own personal storytelling metrics. And maybe it wasn’t even that it was “boring” per se, so much as there was no need for that movie to be as long as it was.

You could have easily made that movie 2 hours and it would have been a much, much better movie. There was just too much self-indulgent padding in it for my liking.

But that’s not what this post is about — it’s about the native politics of the movie. Is the movie “woke?” That is a very good question that is not as easy to answer as you might think. Cameron uses my favorite storytelling tool — subtext — to tell a pretty New Age-ie type story about the Gaia theory set on a different planet. And there’s a lot of “noble savage” floating around in the movie as well.

And, yet, there is also a lot of hoo-rah military porn in there Red State people. Just its presence is enough for jarheads who go see the movie with their girlfriends to get off on it — even if it’s presented in a negative light. I don’t think, however, that Reds would process it as “being bad.” They would just root for the “star people” to win the battle with the blue “noble savages.” In fact, if anything, the fact that “star people” get their comeuppance in the end is the thing that will make Reds the most upset about the movie and suspect that Cameron is being “woke.”

But I think some of some of it is Cameron isn’t “woke” so much as he has a pretty good sense of the expectations of modern audiences and, as such, he felt he couldn’t go totally in the direction of either Reds or Blues.

I liked the movie…I guess? I just thought it was way, way, way too long. I do find it interesting that Cameron found a way to placate both sides of the political debate — in a way.

‘World War Orwell’ & The Potential Rise of Digital Social Darwinism

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Tech Bros — specifically Marc Andreessen — are growing hysterical at the prospect that AGI will be in some way hampered by the “woke cancel culture mob” that wants our future hard AI overlord to be “woke.”

Now, this hysteria does raise an interesting — and ominous — possibility. We’re so divided that people may see AGI as some sort of objective arbiter to the point that they use whatever answer it gives to a public policy question as the final word on the matter.

As such, extremists on both sides will rush to the AGI, ask it a dumb extremist question and run around saying, in effect, “Well, God agrees with me, so obviously my belief system is the best.”

In short, humans are dumb.

I definitely don’t agree with Andreessen that this is all a setup for “World War Orwell.” I say this because AGI has reached a tipping point and, as such, we’re all just going to have to deal with the consequences. I definitely think there might be an attempt by one side or the other to instill a political agenda into AGI just because humans are dumbass assholes who are into shit like that.

There is a grander endgame to all of this — we may have to solve the Trump Problem one way or another before we get to play with the goodies of AGI. We may have to have a Second American Civil War in the United States and a Third World War globally before we can turn our attention to the consequences of the macro trends of AGI, automation, robotics and the metaverse.

History may not repeat, but it does rhyme.

Pondering What Is Known About ‘Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

From the title alone, it seems as though there may be some time travel involved in the latest Indiana Jones movie. But for me, the really intriguing element to the movie is the status of Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It sure would make a lot of sense for her to take up the fedora for a continuation of the franchise in some way.

While from what I’ve read of these things, both Harrison Ford and the producers of the film say this is not the case — so goes Ford so goes Indy — I still have a suspicion that they’re at least going to dangle the idea of Waller-Bridge somehow being an Indy-like character going forward.

Of course, if she did, the usual culture warrior suspects would come out of the woodwork to scream at the top of their lungs that the “woke cancel culture mob” is destroying yet another beloved American institution. But I would be all for Waller-Bridge being our new Indy.

I think she’s got exactly what it takes to for the role. I just don’t know how they would manage to shoehorn her character into the “Indiana Jones and the…” nomenclature. I suppose they would just keep “x and the x” system of naming in the spirit of the Ford-helmed films.

It would be interesting to see a Waller-Bridge type character doing Indy-style gallivanting in the 1970s and 80s. But I suspect what MIGHT happen, is if there is any recasting that we would see a hard reboot of the franchise in the guise of someone playing a “young” Indy having adventures in, say WW1 or so. I know there were the “Young Indy” adventures, but I’m thinking something closer to whatever the character might have been up to in their 20s.

I don’t really know the chronology of the character, so, lulz.

Having said all that, I still think Waller-Bridge would be a great Dr. Susan Calvin. There are the short stories in that universe that could be adapted into movies, my favorite being “Liar!”

But, anyway, lulz. No one listens to me.

Of ‘Wokeness’ & Hollywood

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about trying to understand what it means to be “woke” is the two sides see the concept so differently — and its use has become so loaded — that it’s very, very difficult to pin down exactly what the fuck it actually means in real terms.

For people on the center-Right, the term “woke” is a dog whistle used whenever they want to essentially “Red Pill” the audience into thinking the center-Left wants to “cancel” anyone white straight Christian who doesn’t want to be “submit” not just to the forces of America’s majority minority future, but be gay and secular to boot.

Meanwhile, this weird definition of what it means to be “woke” so confuses the issue that the term can pretty much mean anything it needs to mean at any particular moment for a center-Right person. For me, being “woke” is when someone from the Left of me attacks me on some cultural issue and I get really angry because we’re on the same side! The side that wants to defeat the rise of fascist, autocratic MAGA.

Generally, I believe the “woke agenda” rather pragmatic, given the changes demonstrably taking place within America’s population. So, in that sense, whenever a MAGA cocksucker starts ranting about the “woke cancel culture mob,” it’s really a rearguard action against general societal changes happening within the country at the moment.

But I even I have to admit that sometimes the center-Left is full of shit. And oversensitive shit, to boot. They can really get worked up about the minutiae of genders and pronouns, which leaves me extremely frustrated because of how democracy itself is at stake.

I’m also really annoyed with “woke Hollywood” and how they’re pretty oblivious to what audiences want at the moment. The producers of “woke” films are so busy sucking their own cocks that when they fail with yet another gay romcom they get all upset and dismayed — oblivious to the fact that MAYBE the average movie goer isn’t really all that interested in a gay romcom? I validate the gay romcom’s existence, but maybe the producers of such films should temper their expectations just A LITTLE BIT.

Meanwhile, the mood of the country is such that movies like “She Said” are dismissed by audiences as just another angry feminist “woke” movie. I say this as someone who loved the book the movie is based on and know that if the country wasn’t so fucking polarized at the moment, maybe movies like “She Said,” which apparently is a lot like the vastly more successful “Spotlight” might more mainstream success.

It is dismaying to me how the people on one of my favorite podcasts — Little Gold Men — can really be clueless as to what the average movie goer wants. I love the podcast a great deal, but, folks, did you really think Bros was going to be a mainstream hit? Really? Even if it was a regular gay Annie Hall is was going to face an upstream battle to garner any success.

Bros and other gay romcoms are coming out in the middle of the clusterfuck of the Gay Scare of 2022 and so…uhhhh….they’re probably doomed to be, like She Said, dismissed by general audiences as “too woke.”

Anyway. I think there is a media space for movies like Bros and Spoiler Alert and She Said. But maybe not right now. That’s just not the zeitgeist. The country is tearing itself apart and if you produce a movie that in any way could be thought of as “woke,” then, well, I would, like I said, temper your expectations some.

I suppose when we have a National Divorce and a Second American Civil War that the sticky wicket of what it means to be “woke” as well as “woke Hollywood” will finally get straightened out and we won’t have to worry about that anymore.

Too bad we’re going to have to bomb ourselves into the Stone Age to gain that satisfaction.

A ‘Woke Cancel Culture Mob’ Conundrum & The Six Novel Project I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw on Twitter today where someone was articulating an idea that is pretty much my worst fear at the moment — they essentially said “thanks, but no thanks” to people like me writing novels with non-white characters in them. Or, more specifically “love interests.”

The heroine of the first three novels in my six novel project looks like of like the above — that is, Nicole Scherzinger.

Well, jokes on you guys, my HEROINE is a POC — or, more specifically, Amerasian.

Now, there is a very specific reason for why I did this which gradually snowballed into something really cool. I needed an excuse for a character to abscond to South Korea later on in the series and what better way to do it than to make his mother — who is the protagonist of the first three novels — Amerasian?

I made this strategic move being only vaguely aware that there would be people in the POC community who would be annoyed that a CIS white male such as myself would do such a thing. I just did what I felt was best for the story, not really thinking about the broader creative and societal issues at play.

There are a lot of different ways this might play out. One is — no one will care and I’m over thinking things. Two is, if this series becomes as big as I want it to, EVERYONE will care and I’ll face something akin to an American Dirt situation.

…or Maggie Q?

Now, one issue that I find myself thinking a lot about these days is marketability. Is there a chance that the very thing I think is a positive — the organic “representation” in the novel, will be seen as too “woke” by some and that, by definition, will turn them off? I hope not.

I am dubious of the whole idea of a work of art being too “woke,” attributing most of people’s quibbles to what they’re watching or reading sacrificing good storytelling for banging a message over the audience’s head. I’m watching Andor right now and even though it’s obviously got some elements to it that might be thought of as “woke,” it’s good enough that I don’t even notice it.

…or maybe Olivia Munn?

It’s just a story. An interesting story that is, unfortunately, taking me some time to get into.

Anyway, I totally validate the criticism of CIS white men “telling the stories” of POC. Ok, I get it. But I’m ornery and, as such, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. The framework of the story is really, really strong and now all I have to do is buckle down and wrap up the first novel.

What Star Wars Fans Want

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems pretty clear to me what Star Wars fans want from the franchise. First, what they REALLY want is their youth back. They want that sense of wonder that came with seeing the Star Wars or Empire Strikes Back for the first time in theatres. All of their complaints about modern Star Wars says more about them and their angst about growing older than it does the art that is Star Wars.

Anyway, it occured to me today that there is a solution to the perplexing issue of how to make a good Star Wars movie — call it the Top Gun: Maverick option. This seems to me the only way to produce a good Star Wars movie and, yet, given Disney is fucking greedy and not run by people who aren’t fans of Star Wars….it’s highly unlikely that it will happen.

There are two reasons why gong the Top Gun: Maverick route for the next Star Wars movie won’t happen.

One, is Disney is greedy and wants to sell toys. So they will do anything to cram as many potential toys into the movies because they see any Star Wars movie is just one big add for the toys that go along with it.

Meanwhile, the other problem, call it the “woke” problem, isn’t going to go away for Star Wars because the franchise is so huge that Disney simply can not resist the temptation to throw in A Message to indoctrinate the little forming minds of all those tykes who will be looking for Star Wars action figures for Chrismas.

But if you somehow pry Disney away from these two issues and just give fans A Star Wars Movie just like Top Gun: Maverick is just A Movie, then I think it would be a huge success. You would have to do the “transgressive” act of having a male lead who saves a princess from the forces of evil using the force. Just be sure that you don’t fall into having to figure out how to blow up YET ANOTHER Death Star.

Please, Disney, be a little bit more original going forward.

The Abstract Fear of Traditionalist Conservatives of Being ‘Canceled’ By The ‘Woke Cancel Culture Mob’ is Destroying American Democracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What bothers me the most about the concept of the “woke cancel culture mob” “canceling” someone is I honestly don’t really know what being “woke” is and I don’t know what it means, in real terms, to be “canceled.”

I hate the idea that two abstract concepts are at the forefront of the minds of Traditionalists, who are bedrock of any traditional, stable democracy. When you lose Traditionalists, you endup with Good Germans who keep their head down in a fascist autocratic state.

Of course, some of the abstract nature of being “woke” and the power of being “canceled” is by design. The Fox News – Right wing podcast axis goes out of its way to bludgeon Traditionalists with these two concepts in such a way that they live in abject fear of having their lives ruined simply because they’re conservative.

If we all know what “woke” and “canceled” meant, if we could agree on a meaning, then our fears wouldn’t be abstract and, as such, not nearly as scary. But it serves the purposes of the fucking autocratic fascist MAGA Republicans to keep these terms abstract, so, lulz.

Just as MAGA Republicans get frustrated over people like me saying they’re a “threat to democracy” to the point that they don’t believe in democracy anymore, I’m so angry over the rise of fascist MAGA Republican autocracy that I’m really beginning to find the idea — on paper — of a National Divorce rather appealing.

But for the whole bombing ourselves into the Stone Age element of it all – sorting out what constitutes a Blue or Red state alone will be very, very violent — I would be all for it.

Wait, what?

Give me a prosperous, secular Blue Union anyday over an inward looking autocratic fascist MAGA State that was very undemocratic in nature.

I don’t think it will come to that, however. The center-Left just doesn’t have it in them. In the end, wealthy liberals will flee the country — vote with their feet –and get all their My Undies that they hear advertised on Crooked Media podcasts shipped to them in the south of France.