In a society where major forms of entertainment are lodged in cinema and theater, it’s easy to come across a few films or movies that have very similar concepts to the point of practically being the same. When there are well over a thousand movies in just the United States alone, it’s easy to comprehend why originality may be a challenge. There are three movies in particular that hold true to this statement and they are Pocahontas, James Cameron’s Avatar, and The Lion King. These movies hold very similar ideologies in regards to nature and greed.
However, they tend to differ in their cinematographic approaches in revealing the underlying and, or, obvious, ideologies. To begin with, all three movies have a constantly repeating theme, and that theme is the respect for nature. In Avatar, there is a very intimate respect for Mother Nature on Pandora. The native people see that every living and non-living existence has a purpose. There is no such thing as waste of resources in Pandora. For example, every time an animal is hunted for food, there is a long “prayer”, so to speak, held to thank the animal for the sustenance that it provides to the world around it.
Neytiri, the leading female character in the movie, displays this symbol of respect when she hunts a nearby animal for herself and Jake Sully, the leading male character, to eat, but before she prepares the meal she thanks the animal and prays for the animal to be with Eywa, the natives’ deity. Similarly, in The Lion King, there are symbols of respect of nature throughout the movie. For instance, Mufasa, the leader of Pride Rock and Simba’s father, explains to Simba the duties as leader, he tells Simba of “the circle of life. Basically, the “circle of life” means, quite literally, the circle of life; herbivores feed on the resources around them, such as grass, then the carnivores feed on the herbivores, then the remains of the herbivores serve as fertilizer to produce more resources, like grass, and life proceeds in a circular nature. In terms of Lion king, Mufasa explains to Simba that the grass grows in the nearing areas of Pride Rock, then the prey eats the grass and other means of food, then the lions of Pride Rock hunt said prey, and then they leave some remains for the Earth so that grass can continue to grow and can thus continue the cycle of life.
Pocahontas also plays into this them of respect for nature. The tribe of Native Americans in Pocahontas always grew their own food such as the corn fields that are displayed in the beginning of the movie, and they use their resources wisely. For instance, whenever they need homes or means of traveling across bodies of water, they destroy as little as possible by using as much as they can out of one tree. So, the wood of the tree makes use for a canoe, and the twigs and leaves can be used for a variety of things, like campfires to cook food on.
Also, very similar to Avatar, Pocahontas explains that every creature around them “has a life, has a spirit, has a name. ” This suggests that Pocahontas and her tribe see nature to be just as important as the people of the tribe. After all, the tribe would not exist if it weren’t for the nearby water, the fertile soil to grow crops, and the local wildlife to provide sustenance that the crops can’t. Overall, all three movies carry over similar aspects of intense respect for the nature around them. Another similarity amongst all three movies would be Spirituality.
In all of these movies, the characters within the movies always resort to some all-knowing deity or leader to guide them. In Avatar, there is the Tree of Souls. The Tree of Souls is where the native people of Pandora can uplink there memories, download memories, and pray to their deity. This powerful tree also enables the natives to connect to their deity, Eywa, when in need, like in cases of desperation or emergencies. In example of this would be when Neytiri goes to Eywa and pleads for help when it seemed like the non-natives, or rather the westernized humans, were going o take over what was left of Pandora. Neytiri went to the allknowing deity in search of help when she had nowhere else to go. The belief of power of the deity saved Pandora as Eywa communicated with the wildlife and instructed them to fight back. Because the wildlife fought back, the natives were able to win back Pandora and continue on in their peaceful existence after they removed all malicious humans from the planet. Similarly, in the movie Pocahontas, there are rampant signs of symbolism by means of Grandmother Willow.
Grandmother willow is Pocahnotas’ all-knowing deity, whom, ironically, also happens to be a tree. Grandmother willow is very similar to Eywa not only in that they are both trees, but by providing Pocahontas with the same lifesaving advice and help that Eywa provided Neytiri. For instance, when the white men started to venture into the lands of the natives, the first reaction of the natives was to attack the men. However, Pocahontas sought advice from Grandmother Willow who instructed her to not attack but learn about the men first.
This advice helped to save not only the white men but Pocahontas as well, though there was much fighting before the peace. The Lion King also has a presence of an all-knowing deity/ leader. Initially, Mufasa is seen as the all-knowing leader who brings pride Rock to such great heights and who always has the answers to all the problems in Pride Rock. However, after Mufasa passes away due to the malicious nature of his brother, Scar, the role of an all-knowing deity switches over to Rafiki, a baboon who befriends Simba.
When Simba runs away from Pride Rock, he spends many years blaming himself for the death of his father and thus staying away from Pride Rock. However, Rafiki uses his spirituality to show Simba who Mufasa is in the world around him and how he must return to Pride Rock to save his family and friends from Scar’s horrible reign. Overall, all of these three movies show that the presence of spirituality provides for the solutions to problems or advice for problems evident in the movies. Furthermore, there is a shared them f the cliche good versus evil. In these movies, there is some form of evil trying to immerse itself and invade into the lives of the characters. In avatar, the greedy westernized men and women represent the evil while the non-aggressive men and women, as well as, the natives of Pandora represent the good. The westernized men and women represent the bad because not only do they plant themselves onto a planet without the consent of the natives, but they reap the planet of its resources that it generously provides to the natives.
An example of this greedy nature is evident when the leader of the company that invades Pandora chooses to forcefully “evict” the natives from their Home Tree by gassing them out and then bombing the tree. Why the act of violence? The company is trying to ge unobtainium that is located underneath the Home Tree. Why is this resource so desired by the humans? Well, unfortunately these irrational humans are driven by a powerful motivating force known as greed. The unobtainium is worth large sums of money so the plan is to get as much of the resource as possible for maximum profit.
These selfish humans not only planted themselves on a planet where they weren’t welcome, but successfully destroyed the once peaceful nature of the natives by wreaking havoc on their homeland and by threatening to remove all ties to Eywa through the destruction of the Home Tree. The good, as represented by the non-greedy humans and the natives of the land, seek to rid the planet of the destructive beings by fighting back alongside the wildlife of Pandora. All native people and animals of Pandora unite to offer retaliation to the greedy. Also, in Pocahontas there is a similar theme of good versus evil.
The evil is represented by the invasive white settlers and the good is represented by the natives of the land. The white settlers in Pocahontas intend to take the land from the Natives and claim it as their own without any regards to those who were there before them. The Natives represent the good because they only act in violence when their lives and the well-being of their world are being threatened. The Natives only resort to violence as a means to an end, after several failed attempts of peace. This concept is practically the same as Avatar.
For instance, both movies show native people being invaded by greedy humans who seek to unrightfully take what is not theirs, leaving the native peoples to resort to violence in retaliation to the cruel men and women. The Lion King also displays the good versus evil theme similar to that of Avatar and Pocahontas. The evil within Lion King is represented by the brother of Mufasa, Scar, and his trusty group of hyenas, whereas, the good is represented by the followers of Mufasa. Mufasa’s followers include Simba, Nala, Simba’s mother, Rafiki, and many others.
Scar and his cackling hyenas represent the evil because not only does he kill his own brother, Mufasa, but he also convinces his nephew, Simba, to run as far away from Pride Rock as possible thus convincing Simba that he was to blame for his father’s death. Scar convinces Simba to run away so that he can reign over Pride Rock in Simba’s absence, seeing that Simba was heir to the throne. Further down the line, Scar’s greed overcomes him in his reign over Pride Rock and his followers and everyone else in Pride Rock begin to starve due to lack of food and resources.
Scar intends to carry on a reign of misery because misery sure does love company. The good is represented by Simba and Mufasa’s other followers because they are the only force who seeks to fight against Scar and his terrible ruling ethics. Though it isn’t entirely as similar to Pocahontas and Avatar, all movies seek to exploit the greedy nature of those who want what they can’t have. Overall, these movies do in fact carry over the ideals of good versus evil, though The Lion King’s version may be slightly different than Avatar and Pocahontas.
Though all of these movies carry similar ideals, they differ in their approach to display said ideals. The depictions of war within all movies are portrayed from vastly different perspectives. In The Lion King, all depictions are portrayed to appeal to an audience of children. When there is fighting going on there are no gory, blood filled scenes so that children aren’t frightened away. However, it still carries many life lessons such as things aren’t always as they seem as evident by Simba being convinced that he was Mufasa’s killer when in fact Scar was Mufasa’s killer.
