Comment on Avatar (the one with the blue aliens) is such a weird franchise
Dasus@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoYeah I saw Pocahontas in theaters as well. Loved it. Dad took me. Thanks for unlocking some memories of my late pops. Thanks, for real.
Prolly primed me to like Avatar tbh, or just liked it for the same reasons.
Yes, the similarities are remarkable, but it’s not literally the same story, just mostly similar beats.
But I needn’t remind you that a majority of all stories are more or less the monomyth aka the hero’s journey:
In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero’s quest or hero’s journey, also known as the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.
Very much applies to Jakesully in this Avatar as well. Ofc there’s much more that matches up with Pocahontas, I’m just pointing out that “true originality” doesn’t exist, we seem to enjoy more or less similar stories/story structures, and the thing people loved in Avatar was the millions they spend imagining a rather complete world with a tad more complexity than Disney’s -95 animated Pocahontas had. Although it waa beautiful as well. But the world building and animation used doesn’t really compare, does it?
I wonder why people don’t make the same argument for sports players. "It’s just [previous champion] who looks different. Yeah it’s totally different but like… is it totally different? Yes, it is, one is subjective one is objective. This comparison blows.
Food? We invented putting things on bread and have been doing variations of it since. All pretty similar, but also, a million different types. Bread and some filling / topping.
Anyway yeah the first movie is more or less Pocahontas. But like. I don’t see how that matters. It does explain why the second sucked in comparison though. Doing something that has been already established to work but improving on it is the thing.
I only hope they go back from Jakesully family man to at least some semblance of heroes journey in the third. Maybe it’ll be one of his kids idk.
Anyway No spoilers for 3 guys I’m not watching the trailer or reading anything
lime@feddit.nu 3 weeks ago
surely you must see how nonsense this sentence is.
people make to same argument for other creative arts all the time. books, music, painting. programming, even.
Dasus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh, “creative arts”? Like… subjective things? Unlike sports, in which there’s usually an objective scoring system. Wish I had thought about that.
Oh wait I did yes.
In modern books? Probably not.
But in general? Yah, it is.
lime@feddit.nu 3 weeks ago
we both know that’s not what i was referring to. i’m talking things like intellectual properly rights. also, there are plenty of subjectively judged sports.
one major criticism of the monomyth theory is that it relies, perhaps subconsciously, on confirmation bias. many classic works that have been called monomyth-conforming only fit that mold when you ignore stuff that doesn’t fit, stuff that in some cases completely change the context of the other beats.
folklorist Barre Toelken, in an essay from 1996, wrote
Dasus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Now it’s just semantics about how much story structure we have.
I’m not saying it’s the “hero’s journey” every time, but if you for instance look at Dan Harmon’s story circle — which is very much based on the monomyth — you’ll see how those apply to pretty much all narrative stories. Not all, but most.
It’s just the form we seem to like or which at least works well enough.
Also saying “we both know that…” online is a bit naive.