Analysis of the Plot of Avatar, Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves

Storytelling and the Importance of Plot

Storytelling has been in the world for a very long time. However, the plot structure in a huge number of movies rarely changes despite the different genres. Ideally, a plot can be defined as what goes on or happens in the narrative of the movies. All stories, from plays, books, newspaper articles, television programs, and films are all based on the plot. Without a plot in the films, the characters will have basically nothing to do in the narrative. A plot is also important since it engages the spectators and the audience and keeps them interested. It should be noted that a plot is not just a series of random events that have been put together, mainly what makes a good lot in a movie or narrative is how the events casually unfold in the movie or the narrative. Plots will usually have a start, a middle, and an ending, the type of plot also changes depending on the type of movie or the type of audience.

The Protagonist in the Plot

Ideally, the plot will contain a protagonist or a main character who is mostly seen as the movie starts. The protagonist also meets some sort of disequilibrium and somehow tries to solve or deal with it. The following paper will try to compare the plots of the three movies. The three movies focused on are Avatar, Dances with Wolves and Pocahontas. The common factor shared by these three movies is that they all have a common or similar type of plot. The basic concept in the plot is that a man decides to join up with natives in a certain location, the person exploits this new culture and tries to learn about it. While visiting the location, the person falls in love with one of their women and their ways of life. The effect of this is that a person leads the natives to victory over the individuals trying to take advantage of the resources available to the natives.

The Plot of Avatar

In Avatar, the movie is set in the year 2154, and a human colony has been created to go and explore a distant planet called Pandora. In this expedition, the humans have gone to seek a mineral that would be helpful in solving the ecological crisis that planet earth was facing at that time. However, in their expedition, the plans of the human are frustrated by an indigenous species called the Na’vi whose villages are found on the top in the same location where they are expected to mine the mineral. To deal with the problem at hand ex-Marine Jake Sulley is sent by Col. Quaritch into the wild, he uses an Avatar which is a remote-controlled alien body to allow him to breathe the in Pandora. Jake is expected to gain the trust of the natives and ask them to relocate. While trying to make discoveries in the new location, Jake meets a beautiful Na’vi women called Neytiri. Neytiri teaches Jake the values of her community and how they relate. As Jake takes a look into this new world, he sees how much this new location that they were planning to mine is important to the Na’vi people. In return, this makes Jake fight side by side with the Na’vi to protect the race and resources on the planet.

The Plot of Dances with Wolves

Dancing with the wolves on the other hand also shares a similar plot to that of Avatar, however, in this movies, the natives are on Earth and not a faraway land. In the movie, the main character is a civil war soldier who has created a close relationship with a group of the Lakota Indians. Lieutenant John Dunbar, the major protagonist in the movie, is fascinated and traced by the simplistic and easy lifestyle led by the Indians. After the encounter John decides to abandon the life he was living formally and join the small community. After looking at him closely, the tribe names him Dancing with Wolves. Soon enough John joins the community and is welcomed as a member of the tribe. While in the community john meets and falls in love with a white woman who had been raised by the community since she was a girl. Tragedy comes in when a group of Union soldiers attempting to take and design the land. John is inclined to fight hand in hand with the tribe despite being a former soldier since he had grown to identify himself as a member of the community.

The Plot of Pocahontas

Pocahontas is a Disney animated Romaic movie. The main characters in the movie are Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, a young American Indian woman. The two met after the captain had traveled into the new world as settlers to start new lives. Pocahontas’ father is a powerful chief in the Indian community and does not approve of the relationship between John and Pocahontas and instead wants the daughter to marry a warrior in the community. On the other hand, John’s friends want to steal gold from the community. The relationship creates a whole process that tries to stop the two from getting together leading to a combination of events that leads to the shooting of John. Avatar, Dances with Wolves, and Pocahontas all have a similar plot and all share very similar factors across the movies. The plot of an outsider identifying as part of the community he is trying to conquer as a result of love and mutual respect of the community values and later joining the community against the oppressors is present in all three movies.

Works Cited

Collins, Jim, Ava Preacher Collins, and Hilary Radner. Film theory goes to the movies: Cultural analysis of contemporary film. Routledge, 2012.

Vaux, Sara Anson. Finding meaning at the movies. Abingdon Press, 1999.