Review of Avatar:

I just got back from Cameron's Avatar. The special effects were absolutely amazing. They set a new standard for CG. That's for sure. The world he created is amazing and inspiring. The plot of the movie is pretty straightforward. Humanity has come to Pandora to find a material unobtainium. It's a fiction material that does something, you're never really told in the movie. However, it sells for $20,000,000 a kilo. And, as you can guess, Pandora is rich in the stuff. There is a problem though, the Natives. Oh yeah, the air is kinda poisonous.

The Avatar project is created so that the anthropologists / biology people can study the natives and the surrounding environment. The main character, Jake, falls in love with one of the natives and ends up mating with her (for life).

As I mentioned earlier, the special effects are amazing and well worth the price of admission. The acting is also good, but a bit two dimensional and that's a problem. Within those two dimensions though the characters are good.


For me the major problem in the movie came from its two major themes. Aboriginal v Outsider, and Nature v Industry. The Humans are strip mining the planet for this material, and the native inhabitants are opposed to this (extreme nature worship).

The natives are drawn along standard middle-African style of culture. They are very nature oriented and pretty much easily identifiable as 'black.' Everyone in the 'other' camp, that is the humans, are white. The native groups have the ability to interface directly with plants and animals, in one scene the main scientist described the entire planet as one inter-connected brain with more synapse-like connections than the human brain, just within a kilometre. The people of this planet have a collective unconciousness, and information transfer along the lines that we've never seen.

In another scene of the movie it is said that humanity has destroyed “all that is green on [their] homeworld.” This strikes me as a little two dimensional. We'd destroy our entire environment and not learn anything from it? You'd think that the potential technology developed from studying this amazing connection that the native people have would far outweigh any concentration of this crazy material.

Also, shit floats in that world. Somehow naturally counteracts gravity to some degree. Surely that's worth studying 'cause after all, we're still using VTOL aircaft.

The commentary on the relative culture differences strikes me as a contradiction. “We should respect other cultures, because they are superior to ours, or at least could be.” If that is a true statement then shouldn't we respect our own culture's desire to be imperialist? The very notion that you should even respect other cultures (or not destroy them on sight) is a moral judgement made by our culture (that we are enforcing on others).

In the final scene of the movie, the main character, Jake, interfaces with the “soul” of the planet through the main tree (called the tree of song). The entire native population rises up and attacks the invaders. If it wasn't for grenades then the invaders would have won (sounds like a scooby doo thing “If it wasn't for those pesky kids...”)

What's to stop humanity from simply returning and laying waste the entire place via orbital bombardment? The movie ends off with “And they sky people (Humans) left and never returned.” I left the theatre going "What the fuck? It was like 500 v 15000. And we were winning. Why don't we just ship a couple of thousand soldiers, burn the place from orbit then mop up? that makes much more sense than this bullshit."

To close off, I guess I just couldn't suspend my disbelief.

 

The resource is called unobtainium. Give me a break.

I also thought that this review called When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar? captured most of the issues I had with the movie.

 

Dancing with the smurfs? I preferred District 9 though, seemed less hackey.

 

Because then it wouldnt make any sense and the ending would no longer be "AND EVERYONE LIVES HAPPILY EVER AFTER. EXCEPT FOR THE HUMAN RACE BECAUSE THEY NO LONGER HAVE ANYTHING TO FUEL THEIR HORRIBLE HORRIBLE SOCIETY AND NOTHING OF VALUE WAS LOST."

Sorry about the caps.

Take over the rest of the moon, surround the native home, artillery.

problem solved methinks.

 

Even aside from that, just gas the place then. Kill every living thing and hen move from there.

 

Yeah, despite the hype, Avatar comes off as a little... straightforward and not-so riveting in the storytelling department. And since I don't care for visuals raping my eyeballs... There's nothing really left.

 

I didn't walk into Avatar expecting an awe inspiring plot, and I think if you did then you were perhaps setting yourself up for not liking the movie. The whole basis of the movie was to push the very limits of movie making in a way that provided stunning visual effects and created a highly detailed fantasy world. That is what I wanted, and that is what was delivered. So, I'd give the movie a solid 5/5.

 

I think I'd prefer a good story to cool CGI stuff, so I doubt I'll be paying money to watch this.

 

Avatar struck me as a movie geared toward furries...

/true story

 

That's a very simplistic view of the conflict. Three of the four main human protagonists are white and on the side of the natives. Not to mention that one of the main human scientists is ethnically Indian. It's much more a conflict between science and trying to understand the unknown versus rampant exploitation. Race had very little to do with it.

We're already screwing the planet and haven't really changed our ways that much. The desperation probably isn't totally there for the mineral, since they went to fairly great lengths to work out a peaceful solution rather than carpet bomb Hometree. Oh, and nobody had any proof that the connection between the trees and the natives meant anything. Outsiders weren't exactly allowed to access that stuff.

Selfridge explicitly states his disbelief that the connection between trees means anything at all. And even if he did believe it, what technology could be developed using that? They already have something of a handle on the concept of connectedness between bodies through avatar technology.

Except that they already know about it. That's what they're doing there in the first place. Selfridge has a chunk of it in his office floating in the air for expository purposes.

That's a sociopathic take on things. I would wager the lesson should be that we should treat others with respect, and not just bomb them and steal their shit. Imperialist behavior, even in one's one culture, is usually frowned upon when it comes to pillaging others.

I don't think you could actually put it down to one specific act. It wasn't the grenades Jake had alone that won the day.

Nothing would stop them at all. And I imagine that they didn't do in the first place because not all humans think that it's okay to simply kill off indigenous populations because they happen to be living on land we want. They actually mention this in the movie because as a corporation, they actually can't behave in ways that are morally reprehensible. It's bad PR.

Still, to put it another way, do you think that that is how corporations should behave?

As was mentioned, it's a rather straightforward plot. Earth is not in such dire straits as to make this one last push for the survival of the species; it's doubtful that the need for the mineral is so great as to make mass murder palatable to the general public since they spent quite a lot of effort on peaceful solutions.

---------- Post automerged at 01:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 AM ----------

Heh. I like how it conveniently avoids mention of Trudy.

 

Kinda my point. The White guys 'cross sides' and ally with the misunderstood savages. Nevermind that the main characters on the native side are short-sighted warmongers who resort to violence and need the guidance of the 'enlightened white man.'

Oh wait, I'm wrong. Hold off guys. There is an Indian scientist present. I guess it doesn't make it about White people at all. We have an Indian.

The entire scientific staff had proof that the connection between the trees and the people meant something. Or did you miss that part of the movie? As for us 'screwing our planet.' We're a long way away from total environmental collapse and 'no green things.'

More to reinforce my point. Some corporate white guy doesn't believe in the clearly presented science. After all, they're 'just trees' it's not like they're alien or anything. Oh wait. And we don't have a handle on the technology. We're just taking baby steps.

It's not the material that is floating, it's the device under it that is making it float.

I'm sorry, it's sociopathy to understand how International Politics works and then apply that to inter-steller politics. I have studied colonialism. Did you miss America's founding genocide? Just wondering.

And they very statement you made about "Imperialism being frowned upon" is a moral judgement from a very particular culture. Thanks for imposing your beliefs on me.

Sure I can, after all, the animals couldn't hurt the vehicles any other way. So, it had to be the grenades.

You're banking on 'bad PR' to stop them? How did that work out for the native groups in North America during the foundation of the United States?

Is/Ought problem. What I think is entirely irrelevant. How corporations ought to behave is entirely different than how they do behave. I am merely observing the character of the corporation, and the attitudes of the people, and logically extrapolating it.

 

It's a movie, I know, but traveling through the universe and having energy problems at the same time is a contradiction.

It's also an extremely romanticized version of a native population. Where are the superstition, sexism, savage practices and the condemnation of everything deviating from the norm, that you'd normally find in a society stuck in the hunter/gatherer stage?

Of course you can create an alien species that works this way, but it seems a bit contrived. It's like the perfect vampire without any weaknesses again.


But still - it looks great, I'd just really like more blockbuster movies that avoid these grating clichés. (The speech... oh god.)

 

Though the species was made to be romantic... the fact that they can all link together with each other through big freaky trees would probably make them less inclined to savage practices against their own kind and a few other things (not superstition though as it is clear that thez have religion of sorts).

Thats the only thing that let me suspend my disbelief over the natives' nature loving stuff - and that was enough for me.

 

The problem is when people try to dress up as furries, this happens...

 

James Cameron is a hack. All of his movies are very pretty big budget spectacles with stupid plots. Why would you expect "Pocahontas in Space" to be different?

 

Because it cost 500 million dollars that's why. I figured that no one would give him the money unless he had a kickass story.

 

$300 million dollars, and he has never made a movie with a kick ass story to it so I don't know why you would expect that from this movie. He rehashes old plots. Also, I hate the it's racist/the white man save the day shit. You see that perhaps because white men did the same thing to Africans and Native Americans, but in the end, I think the idea behind the story is technology vs nature.

The 'advanced' humans want to destroy the natural beauty of the planet in order to make money. Whereas the 'dumb' natives want to preserve their planet the way it is. If anything, I would read it as a commentary on big business vs global warming e.g. oil in Alaska, coal in WV, or you could perhaps even view it as a commentary on what is done in African countries to obtain diamonds and other such precious stones. I find the automatic jump to racist issues to be idiotic in the nth degree especially considering the way I look at it might just be much more relevant in what is going on in the world today.

I left it alone the first time I posted in this thread because I don't think Cameron movies are really all that concerned with plots and themes. I find him to be a man who likes to show the world in his movies in stunning detail and push what can be done in films in order to create a better viewing experience for all rather than to get all preachy and up his own ass about shit.

 

While this might normally be a decent point, he's actually proven himself as someone capable of taking a ton of money and making a worthless film out of it.

 

Who subsequently leads them to war. Jake actually agrees with the natives that they should stand and fight.

Yes, because obviously every movie with white people has to be about Whitey feeling bad. No white person could ever do anything because it's the right thing to do and can only do it because of some nebulous feeling of guilt over something that their ancestors may or may not have done hundreds of years ago.

And if Jake had been played by Will Smith would race play into it as well?

The human divide in the conflict is not based on the race of the humans, and to assume that is ludicrous. The movie hardly has a complex plot to begin with.

What's that thing? And what's the technology that would be developed that you yourself said was important? Even Grace didn't have the exact context. There are fungi that cover miles that are connected, but nobody saying that that connection means anything important. What's so important about this connection?

And if the civilzation was at stake, why is it not actually brought up? All Selfridge talks about is the bottom line. There's a fairly small military presence, and they give Jake months to work out a peaceful solution. They could have just bombed the site from the very beginning if they were that desperate.

Fungus can cover miles with biological connectedness. What's the technology that can be derived from that that solves the problem that led them to that place in the first place?

You're trying to have it both ways. They're there to find the mineral and are desperate for it or they have the time to spend on studying a biological phenemona with unknown and probably unrelated applications. Which is it?

Yes, the artifical Flux Vortex which is what made the mountains float. It's unobtanium. The principle is clearly understood.

We obviously took different lessons since I think that we shouldn't go around just killing people for their stuff.

Ah yes, moral relativism. I suppose you're okay with sati also, since not being okay with it would be imposing beliefs onto other cultures. Screw the people that are forcibly burned to death. Right?

And he had enough grenades to take down every aircraft? The other flying animals helped to take down the other vehicles, and it's an outright lie to claim that the animals couldn't hurt the vehicles. Was only Luke important in taking down the Death Star because he fired the kill shot, never mind that Han Solo helped to cover him?

Yes, I am. Because it did. It is specifically mentioned in the movie why they didn't just use violence to begin with. Did you even listen to Selfridge's lines?

That could change in the future, but the state of the RDA in the movie is that they can't do that.

Yes, the RDA which was concerned about PR as their representative actually said. If it was so easy for them to do so and if they didn't care about it, then why did Selfridge mention it?

 

I enjoyed it with the missus. I think it will do well with children; I heard quite a few younger people going "ooo" and "that's cool" when the weird-ass animal lapped up that nectar from one of the flowers.

Visually, I really didn't care; I guess it's quite an achievement. It's much better than what George Lucas pulled off (Count Dooku jumping/flipping through the air over a rail onto the floor below anyone?). I'm mostly concerned with storyline. I guess it's to be expected with the director of Titanic and Terminator. I know a lot of people (females and males, respectively) lapped that up. This one seems to be a blend of both and an attempt to appease both. There's a lot of fighting and a lot of mechanized action that catches the eye and there's a love-story that will get the chicas moist.

Overall, the Pocahontas story has never sat well with me. I'm ashamed of what we've done as a nation in our history and I thought the 'Shock and Awe' hitter was a nice touch concerning our present inhumanities. But I think WALL-E addressed it much better. What's shameful about technology, the sciences that made Sully's experience possible or the plethora of inventions we have advanced to create? The Germans have shown we can be conservationists and pioneers of great technology; many nations and many groups have.

This movie seems to go to the extremes - it will appease the masses as such stories often do. Why have an antagonist with a family or emotions or depth when you can have a hard-ass war veteran who shoots first and asks questions later? Or the typical CEO.

Meh. It's worth watching. But I can think of several storylines I'd rather see made into movies. Probably four of them with the budget this movie had alone.