THE ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT IN THE MOVIE SCRIPT AVATAR BY: JAMES CAMERON
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THE ANALYSIS OF CONFLICT IN THE MOVIE SCRIPT
AVATAR BY: JAMES CAMERON
BY
IDA BAGUS GEDE AGUNG ANTARA
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, FACULTY OF LETTERS
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
2013
Abstrak
Jurnal ini berjudul “The Analysis of Conflict in Movie Script Avatar by: James Cameron”. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengidentifikasi kategori dari konflik dan bagaimanacara mengatasi konflik tersebut, aspek psikologi dari karakter yang terlibat serta pengaruh konflik terhadap proses pengembangan plot di dalam film fiksi karya James Cameron.Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teori Reaske (1966) dalam mengidentififkasi jenis konflik yang terjadi dan teori Thomas dan Killman (1970) untuk mencari solusi yang digunakan untuk mengatasi konflik yang terjadi. Untuk mengklasifikasi jenis plot, penelitian ini menggunakan teori dari Freytag (1895) dan teori dari Bernhardt (1953) untuk mengidentifikasi aspek psikologi karakter di dalam film Avatar.
Kata kunci: konflik, psikologi, plot.
Literature is a good tool to express the feeling or ideas of people about something. We could express our mind about life that we have never seen or imagined before with literary work. Literature can be divided into two kinds, fiction and nonfiction. There are some kinds of fiction such as novel and movie. A good movie is produced by how well an author or a director can
combine the intrinsic and extrinsic element of the movie. The intrinsic elements consist of theme, character, setting, plot, point of view, etc (Kenney, 1966) and the extrinsic elements are the background of work.
There are some reasons why the topic was chosen to be analyzed. First, the plot development of the story is the main element to decide a good movie. Plot is a logical series of events having a beginning, middle, and end making the story more interesting and easier to comprehended. As plot, characters also have their important functions during the development of plots and as the subject who experience the problems and the conflicts which have roles in developing the plot of the story. The conflicts can be divided into three kinds such as: internal conflict, relational conflict and external conflict (Reaske, 1966)
There are two problems discussed in this study:
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a) What kinds of conflicts are faced by the characters in Avatar fiction movie?
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b) How do the characters solve their conflicts?
Related to the previous problems, the aims of this study are to analyze the kinds of conflict faced by the character based on the movie script and to analyze how the characters solve their problems during the plot development process in Avatar movie.
There are three points in research method such as data source, method and technique of collecting data and method and technique of analyzing the data.
The main data of this study were taken from the movie script of the fiction movie entitled Avatar written and directed by James Cameron (2010). The data were focused on the main characters in this movie who experienced the conflicts. There were 11 characters found in this movie and analyzed as the main data in this study. The main data were the conversations experienced by the characters in the movie script of Avatar. The supporting data source was the Avatar movie video.
The method used in collecting data was the documentation method. Documentation method is the way to take data by watching or reading the source and making the list of collected data.
In analyzing the data, the qualitative method was used. Firstly, watching the movie Avatar and reading the movie script at the same time to make the conversations compatible to each other. Secondly, classifying every conflict experienced by the main characters in the movie using the theory of conflicts by Reaske (1966). Thirdly, listing sequence of plots using the theory from Freytag (1816-1895) and matching every single conflict in the plot to make the plot develop. Finally, analyzing the conflict solved in the end of the story using the theory from Thomas and Kilmann (1970)
Jake Sully
Jake Sully is the main character in Avatar movie as the protagonist. He has two roles in the story, as human being and the Omaticayan people with his avatar mode. Jake is a brave soldier with paralyzed legs and he is in Pandora because his twin brother has a role as a scientist in human project at Pandora. He comes to substitute his brother’s role as the Omaticayan people with his brother’s avatar.
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- Attitude
Neytiri -- looking away. Finally, reluctantly, her eyes MEET HIS for the first time -- a riveting gaze with those big gold orbs.
NEYTIRI: “Why save you?”
JAKE: “Yes, why save me?”
NEYTIRI: “You have a strong heart. No fear.”
She leans closer --
NEYTIRI: “But stupid! Ignorant like a child!”
She turns away, stalking off, but Jake goes after her.
From those conversations found in movie script, Jake was absolutely brave and also has a strong heart.
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- Internal Conflict
Jake vs himself (01:18:18)
Jake Sully said to his video report “It’s hard to believe it’s been three years. I almost forgot about my real life”
By that statement, Jake Sully was in complicated situation about his goals to be an Omaticayan because he started to love to be an Omaticayan but he couldn’t betray his order from the Colonel.
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- Relational Conflict
Jake Sully vs Grace Augustine (00:11:25)
Grace has a conversation with Norm with Omaticayan language and dr. Max Patel introduce Jake Sully to Grace in their conversations.
MAX PATEL: “Grace, this is Jake Sully.”
GRACE: “Yeah, yeah, I know who you are and I don't need you. I need your brother. You know, the PhD who trained for 3 years for this mission.”
JAKE: “He's dead. I know it's a big inconvenience for everyone.”
GRACE: “How much lab training have you had?“
JAKE: “I dissected a frog once.”
GRACE: “Ya see, ya see? They're just pissing on us without even giving us the courtesy of calling it rain. I'm going to Selfridge.”
MAX PATEL: “Grace. No, I don't think...”
GRACE: “No, man, this is such bullshit! Gonna kick his corporate butt. He has no business sticking his nose in my department.”
By the statement from Grace, she was not satisfied with the decisions to get Jake Sully to come into her project. She actually needed Jake’s brother and thought that Jake was not compatible with her project. Jake was not happy with the “welcoming words”
from Grace and he just replied her question with little jokes making Grace angry.
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- External Conflict
Neytiri vs Colonel Quaritch (02:30:00).
THWAP! AN ARROW APPEARS in Quaritch’s chest. He looks up.
NEYTIRI STANDS -- a FURY released. A classic archer figure, she NOCKS another arrow. Then draws and releases smoothly.
TH-WHAP! The machine TOPPLES off Jake and lies still. QUARITCH STARES at the two arrows in his chest. He touches the feathers of the ancient weapon, then -- with an ironic laugh -- he dies. (Cameron, 2007:148)
Quaritch who got stabbed by Neytiri’s arrows finally died and Jake was saved by Neytiri. The fight was over for the glory of Pandora.
In the exposition stage, the objection of Avatar project was revealed that every project must have the objection in its process. Avatar project also has its own objection to be reached. This is the quotes that described an objection of Avatar project.
On Selfridge’s desk is a magnetic base, and hovering in midair, in the invisible field, is a lump of METALLIC ROCK. Pure UNOBTANIUM. He grabs it and holds it up between thumb and forefinger, in front of Grace’s eyes.
PARKER: “This is why we’re here. Unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo. No other reason. This is what pays for the
party. And it’s what pays for your science. Comprendo?
He places it back in the magnetic field.
PARKER: “Those savages are threatening our whole operation. We’re on the brink of war and you’re supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution. So use what you’ve got and get me some results”. (Cameron, 2007:16)
This part is to show the viewers about the objection of avatar project. Parker Selfridge as the administrator of Avatar project explained Grace about their objection to get precious mineral in Pandora.
From the analysis and the findings, there were some conclusions that can be drawn from this movie.
First, Avatar movie had so many conflicts in the story. The psychological aspect of the character and their background seriously influenced the act that they did. The protagonist had the different background or vision from the antagonist making the conflicts unavoidable. Jake Sully as the main character and protagonist in Avatar movie was a human being but he didn’t have same visions or objection as the human in Pandora. He chose to be Omaticayan because of his termination to protect the nature of Pandora. Quaritch as the antagonist was the soldier who liked to destroy everything that obeyed his rules.
Secondly, Jake Sully as the main character in Avatar movie more often practiced internal, relational and external conflict (Reaske,1966). The conflicts practiced by Jake Sully were influenced the plot development in the
story. Jake Sully mostly practiced the relational and external conflicts so he could face the other character in the movie. If the conflicts which occurred in the story couldn’t be resolved, the plot wouldn’t be developed. Jake Sully and the other character resolved their problem by plot management styles such as competitive, collaborative, compromising, accommodating and avoiding (Thomas and Kilmann,1970). In this movie, the characters resolved their problem using competitive, compromising and avoiding.
Finally, the plot in Avatar was successfully developed from the exposition to denouement. The process was very complicated and influenced by the conflict practiced by the character. The plot stages were exposition, complication, climax, conclusion and denouement (Freytag,1895). The development process from exposition to complication was influenced by the internal conflict from Jake Sully that fell in love with Neytiri (exposition) and external conflict between human forces in their first invasion versus Jake Sully who disagreed with that invasion (complication). While the death of Grace (complication) developed the plot to the climax stage when Jake chose to fight as the Omaticayan against human force as the external conflict (climax). The climax was over when Quaritch died in the battle against Jake Sully and Neytiri and developed it to conclusion stage when human forces were retreated from Pandora (conclusion). In the final stage (denouement) Jake chose to be Omaticayan permanently.
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