Some storyboards from 2007’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters drawn by Bob Pettitt. It’s from the scene in which frylock explains the true origins of the titular duo
Having both pirated it and snuck into the theater, avatar 2 is simply a bad movie. For all of the technical reasons (the script was hilariously bad, they reused the same score from the first movie, most of the plot points were borrowed from the first movies as well, subjectively its like a bad fn net fic written by a twelve year old), but mostly because literally it made me sick to my stomach as an indigenous person.
There were multiple points where both times viewing I nearly left the room. On four (4) separate occasions in this movie, indigenous coded women are made to scream-sob in front of the camera. In Canada, indigenous women experience disproportionate rates of physical and sexual violence. This is mirrored in the US and in Aotearoa. James Cameron took the real life violence and grief our communities experience, and exploited it on screen for profit. The whole franchise is obviously exploitative of indigenous spiritualities, aesthetics, and experiences under colonialism, and it only got more obvious in this installment. Any anticolonial message is surface level at best, and don’t start typing out that stupid “well watching how awful this fictional colonization is made people feel bad for real indigenous people” argument. Because 1) I’ve never met a single goddamn person online or offline that that was true for and 2) James Cameron isn’t an ally for making exploitive appropriative trauma porn.
I had been considering writing a full review of this movie, which is why I snuck in for an actual viewing. Thinking about this film, and the reactions to it online from settlers, makes me so upset that I don’t think I will. I’m sure there’s more in-depth writing out there on just how horribly racist this film is. So. Just. Please don’t give James Cameron money for this shit. Read and watch shit actually made by indigenous people. Thanks.
Pencil test of a scene from the real origin of the Aqua Teens that never made it into the Final Cut. From 2007’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
Animated by C. Martin Croker’s company, Big Deal Cartoons, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia
From the internet archive. I do not own this! Copyrights all go to adult swim, Williams street, and first look pictures. Link is here below: https://archive.org/details/athfextras/Featurettes/The+Movie/Art+and+Music+Gallery.mkv