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[This is posted on the Marine Corps Birthday 2010.]
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I was starting to wonder: what is it with James Cameron and his ongoing respect for the US Marine Corps? He is native Canadian with no military experience, but he has written rather good portrayals of Marines in at least two of his great films. Then I find out that Cameron’s younger brother, David, was in the Corps, and James has the highest respect for Leathernecks (aka, Gyrenes, Jarheads).
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Cameron was screenwriter/director for Aliens (1986), the second and perhaps best film in that series, and which had Colonial Marines of the future. Al Matthews, the actor that played the Colonial Marine sergeant in this film, was actually a Marine Vietnam War vet. So his dialogue to his Marines after they all come out of cryo-sleep came naturally, namely when he said:
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“All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? … Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm! Every meal’s a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps!”
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Maybe it is Cameron’s temperament that also makes him feel akin to the Marines – Cameron is an infamous hard-ass on set who demands that things are done with complete perfection. I was particularly impressed with his treatment of Marines in the science fiction film Avatar (2009) in which he was the writer/director.
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The protagonist of Avatar, Jake Sully, is a disabled veteran Recon Marine whose combat injuries confine him permanently to a wheelchair. He has a chance to join the Avatar Program on the planet Pandora only because an avatar driver’s body (a hybrid of a human mind inside a Pandoran-native humanoid Na’vi body) had been prepared from the DNA of his twin brother. His twin was a Program scientist who just died, and his avatar body had been prepared at great cost, so Jake’s genetic identity with his brother makes him uniquely able to use it. And in an avatar body Jake will be able to walk again. So he is a misplaced warrior thrown into a science program, and yet the wild and dangerous world of Pandora might demand such a warrior spirit.
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When in his human body in the wheelchair, Jake always wears a T-shirt with the USMC’s Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem. He’s proud. In an early voice-over narrative monologue that defines who he is, he says: “There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine; you may be out, but you never lose the attitude.” Ooh rah!
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When Jake, in his avatar Na’vi body, is brought before the Na’vi tribal leaders, they ask him what he was before as a human, if he was not a scientist. He replies with pride, “I was a Marine,” and then, to further explain this concept to them, he continues, “a … uh … a warrior … of the Jarhead clan.” That was the moment I became a really big fan of James Cameron’s writing.
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The villain, Col. Quaritch, is Security Director of the Pandora mining operation, heading what is really a mercenary force of tough guys. He is also a veteran Recon Marine, and he is tougher than nails. His dialogue and delivery are priceless. (He is played perfectly by Stephen Lang, who played Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals, I thought Lang should have gotten an award for movie “villain of the year” for his performance in Avatar.)
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Here in the real world of movie critics there has been some misplaced controversy about Cameron’s treatment of the USMC in Avatar, with many people thinking that he is making the Corps look bad through the former-Marine villains such as Col. Quaritch and many of his mercenary thugs. This argument goes thus: the actual USMC strategic doctrine for over a century has been to win over the “hearts and minds” of the indigenous people. To truly win them over. This strategic vision came from the Marine experience of always being a small force landed in hostile places a long way from home, and it evolved into the Small Wars Manual, the bible of counter-insurgency operations. (The Small Wars Manual has consistently been ignored by the Pentagon until it is too late.)
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Critics of Cameron say that the official policy of villain Col. Quaritch – which is a hostile contempt for the indigenous Na’vi of Pandora – disrespects this USMC vision. But the critics completely miss the point. Hero Jake Sully fully redeems the story in two ways: First, he serves the just cause within this story’s context. Second, he actually is devoted to a Marine-like vision of understanding and working with the indigenous Na’vi. And as a Marine, Jake is solidly brave, wonderfully true, and always faithful.
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Semper Fi. Enough said right there.
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-Zenwind.
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