Just when I thought I couldn't hate society more...

[Elok]

That's just the thing, they didn't nuke the damned site from orbit, even though they were directed by the guy who coined the phrase and had the chick who uttered it among the cast! They didn't think of high-altitude bombers, cruise missiles, not even diversionary attacks. Instead this moron army wages war in the most idiotic fashion possible, and THEY PUSH THE DAMNED BOMB OUT THE BAY DOOR MANUALLY, because there is simply no other way the primitives could stand a chance of winning, angry-mother-earth hippie bull**** or not. And narrative necessity compels the primitives to win, because the military-industrial complex is bad, mmmkay, and we should all form loving Sharing Circles to transfer into giant smurf bodies. That ending was a gigantic half-hour long middle finger to the audience. Well **** you too, Cameron, your movie was retarded and I laughed all the way through it. "Hmm, hero's about to kack it, must be about time for another deus ex...and there it is, hooray!"

And what is "unobtainium" used for? What about this "dying world" humanity has to go back to? Irrelevant, eh? Make that two **** yous for Mr. Cameron. I'm sure I can think of more...

[Elok]

Natural selection probably hasen't taken plance on that planet since Eywa gained sentience. Its basically ripped apart any preexisting ecology and replaced it with an artifical one that is completley under its control. I don't see how she is better than humanity.


Its pretty clear tha Eywa is the equivalent of a malevolent God, not flinching at killing millions to preserve its precious "blance". I mean seriusly does anyone wonder why the blue kittens aren't advancing technologically all love and obey Eywa without question? Its pretty clear the Navi or whatever they are called are engineered for slavery and used as nothing more than white cells or glorified mind worms for Planet I mean Eywa.

The only thing that's pretty clear to me is that they didn't put that much thought into it. The world was invented by a committee of Hollywood froot loops who wanted a strong "green," anti-war, anti-corporate message, end of story. You can see the roots of the obsession back in the first two "Alien" flicks, but he had it under control back then. The Company, Weyland-Yutani, was consistently rotten, but the people working for it were largely decent everyday people with personalities.

[GePap]

The op. on the planet is being done privately - why would the corporation have access to high altitude bombers? Or nukes? I think the movie does a good job of explaning why the jerry-rigged bomb would have to be pushed out the back of a craft that was not designed for any sort of drop operations.

While I found the story pedestrian, I don't think it was as bad as some people claim. For one, I think they do manke a good point about the need for P.R. - after all, if we were to find some primative sentient species on some planet we coveted, I do think there would be significant public pressure not to just blast away the natives, which is what contrains the Corp.

That said, if the material is as sought after as the movie implies, the corp. would simply come back, this time backed by the military, and impose peace on the annoying natives - unless it could find that exploiting the neural network would lead to even greater rewards.

[Elok]

Yes, they have robotic war machines with multi-rocket launchers, whole fleets of turbofan gunships, thousands of troops with automatic weapons, genetically engineered spies, massive flying craft with multiple gun turrets, but no ability to drop bombs with electronic triggers or means of long-ranged assault, because they're a private operation. And no, they don't have any high-altitude craft on a planet full of extremely large, hostile flying creatures. They only have attack ships just small enough to be tossed around by said flying creatures. That makes perfect sense.

What kind of idiot operation is this?

[Bosh]

What kind of idiot operation is this?

Well if you look at how Blackwater operates in the real world...

As far as the lack of high altitude stuff that can be explained by the low gravity of the world. After a certain point the atmosphere thins out enough that aircraft become problematic. Bombing the site from orbit becomes a good solution for humanity's next move but for the specific op they were on they wanted more accuracy than you can get from orbital bombing.

The Company, Weyland-Yutani, was consistently rotten, but the people working for it were largely decent everyday people with personalities.

Now this is where the movie really let me down. Every single non-defecting human is basically either an ******* or is completely faceless. They should have had some sympathetic people among the human side in the fighting, it would have made the anti-war message a lot stronger.

"Hmm, hero's about to kack it, must be about time for another deus ex...and there it is, hooray!"

Doesn't count as a deus ex machina is the deus is so heavily foreshadowed. Its not coincidence, its the hivemind.

And what is "unobtainium" used for?

You found this to be a stumbling point? Bwa? A mineral that light would have a gazillion uses.

What about this "dying world" humanity has to go back to?

Huh? Its obviously Earth.

Its not a great movie by any means, but I'd give it a solid B+. Not a lot of creativity but decent enough craftsmanship.

[Drake Tungsten]

Well if you look at how Blackwater operates in the real world...

I thought the problem with Blackwater is that they're too good at killing the natives?

[Bosh]

Well if you look at how Blackwater operates in the real world...

I thought the problem with Blackwater is that they're too good at killing the natives?

There's also been plenty of clownshoes stories about their activities...

[Elok]

Well if you look at how Blackwater operates in the real world...

That might explain incompetence in operating the stuff (although that was some incredibly severe incompetence, charging a prepared enemy en masse in an area where you know you'll be at a disadvantage), but nobody's going to sign up to push around the darkies without adequate equipment to ensure that the darkies can't push back meaningfully. They had an enormous private army, but with the exception of the automatic weaponry everything in it was easily countered by the natives: no artillery or cruise missiles, no bombers, no FAST aircraft...

I mean, this is what, the twenty-third century or so? They could have dug up two-hundred-year-old antique equipment that performed better than theirs did. Even with the magic flux field that conveniently knocks out electronic navigation aids, a single F-22 would butcher the smurfs. They can afford interstellar spacecraft, they can blow tons of cash on genetically engineered zombie-bodies for anthropology, but they can't use any of their cash to buy useful weaponry. Bizarre.

As far as the lack of high altitude stuff that can be explained by the low gravity of the world. After a certain point the atmosphere thins out enough that aircraft become problematic. Bombing the site from orbit becomes a good solution for humanity's next move but for the specific op they were on they wanted more accuracy than you can get from orbital bombing.

But the gravity ain't that low. All the humans walk around normally. AFAICT it's just low enough to cause gradual loss of physical fitness for people who don't do extra exercise or something. You don't need barely suborbital here, you just need high enough that the aggressive flying lizards can't reach you. I can't fathom how they're supposed to even operate on that planet without such craft. It'd be like riding around on horseback through Tsavo, you'd be losing people left and right.

Now this is where the movie really let me down. Every single non-defecting human is basically either an ******* or is completely faceless. They should have had some sympathetic people among the human side in the fighting, it would have made the anti-war message a lot stronger.

You found this to be a stumbling point? Bwa? A mineral that light would have a gazillion uses.

Huh? Its obviously Earth.

These three points go together. Assuming "unobtainium" isn't fashionably useless like gold, it's not just a money source, it's important (I thought the floating bit was an effect of the black thing underneath it, but maybe you're right). Explaining why it's important should be a priority; in the meantime, I'll just assume it could be used to create better spacecraft, in which case screw the smurfs, they can move. Or we could just arrange to dig slantwise somehow, which nobody seems to have thought of. I wasn't curious about what the dying planet was (yes, it's Earth), but the fact we're expected not to care about our own species facing an existential threat is staggering to me.

Doesn't count as a deus ex machina is the deus is so heavily foreshadowed. Its not coincidence, its the hivemind.

I didn't mean just the deus. I predicted every single time a third party came along to save Jake's bacon, almost to the split-second. It was that predictable.

Its not a great movie by any means, but I'd give it a solid B+. Not a lot of creativity but decent enough craftsmanship.

Bleh. C. Amusing, but for all the wrong reasons. At least it was pretty.

[Asher]

Elok, I honestly have no idea what your problem is. The obsession about explaining why unobtainium is valuable is a great example. It's not central to the plot of the movie, all we need to know is that it's valuable. If it makes you feel better, pretend that unobtainium is like silicon. If our supplies run low on that, we'll be in trouble (and certainly companies like Intel would be desperate to find new sources...)

The movie was already kind of long, you seem to have wanted a 15 hour film that explains every facet of an alien planet and ecosystem. Most people just want an entertaining movie. Some sci-fi movies get bogged down trying to explain everything to the point that they lose focus on the story.

Also, tip for the future: if you want to see a wholly unpredictable movie, then don't see summer blockbusters aimed at the mainstream. Jesus christ, talk about predictable.

[Asher]

The only thing that's pretty clear to me is that they didn't put that much thought into it. The world was invented by a committee of Hollywood froot loops who wanted a strong "green," anti-war, anti-corporate message, end of story. You can see the roots of the obsession back in the first two "Alien" flicks, but he had it under control back then.

I'm starting to get annoyed by your posts on this topic, even though I didn't think Avatar was that great. It's almost like the movie offended you for some reason so you seem to fixate on the most bizarre "stumbling points" of the movie and now you're talking about how it was invented by a committee?

Cameron wrote the story himself after Titanic. The manuscripts are available online. They're very much similar (and identical in broad strokes) to what the movie turned out to be. Cameron obviously does have beliefs that tend to be green, anti-war, anti-corporate, etc which DOES manifest in his movies. That's what good artists DO. They create works that they believe in.

If being anti-war offends you, then you may as well not see any hollywood movies.

[DirtyMartini]

[quote] blah, blah, blah[ /quote]

Yeah! it's like in Snow White when that apple makes her fall asleep and only a kiss from the prince can wake her up. Toooooootally unrealistic.

It's a fairy tale. There's a reason they called the stuff "unobtainium". It's not because they couldn't find a random name generator.

[Boris Godunov]

I saw it on IMAX this weekend. Say what you will, the visuals are pretty damned amazing.

Yes, the plot is pedestrian bordering on banal, the logic at times horrendous and the dialog risible. It was a bit disconcerting to see some fairly good actors (esp. Ribisi) looking so stilted delivering the drek that Cameron writes.

But it was certainly entertaining when it needed to be and worth seeing it once in the theater. I don't see a reason to get offended over it...

[Elok]

I expected somewhat better of the guy who made Aliens and Terminator. Even though I'd heard the plot was stupid, there are limits. That turgid piece of **** could have been excreted from the colon of any idiot first time filmmaker's imagination, only most directors won't try to cram simplistic hippie ideology down the audience's throat during an action movie. I suppose that's what "offended" me--if someone's going to preach at me, they can at least preach something intelligent and coherent. If they can't do that, they can STFU and make a fun movie without the whiny distractions.

Its sole redeeming feature was pretty CGI; the plot was bad, the characters were bad, the much-touted world design was uninspired. And honestly, it wasn't even that pretty. I suppose it was somewhat better than the stuff we saw off George Lucas the better part of a decade ago. Maybe if I'd seen it in 3-D? Probably not, since the action sequences were tepid too.

And who said anything about making it longer? Snipping out most of the noble savage tripe would have left plenty of room for exposition on stuff that hasn't been done twenty times before (and better). Wouldn't even require much exposition. Actually, they could have skipped the exposition and given the smurfs an actual culture instead of the quasi-native American caricature they had. That'd be a lot better too.

[Boris Godunov]

It's a fairy tale. There's a reason they called the stuff "unobtainium". It's not because they couldn't find a random name generator.

I thought the "unobtainium" name was stupid, too, but someone informed me that Cameron didn't make it up--it's actually a real term used by Engineers as a bit of an inside joke to refer to extremely rare/costly materials. It's also been used by other science fiction writers before.

It's just a MacGuffin anyway.

[Elok]

I saw it on IMAX this weekend. Say what you will, the visuals are pretty damned amazing.

Yes, the plot is pedestrian bordering on banal, the logic at times horrendous and the dialog risible. It was a bit disconcerting to see some fairly good actors (esp. Ribisi) looking so stilted delivering the drek that Cameron writes.

But it was certainly entertaining when it needed to be and worth seeing it once in the theater. I don't see a reason to get offended over it...

I'm more "annoyed" than offended, TBH. I reacted similarly to WALL-E, which IIRC Asher thought was awesome. And I'd react the same if it had been an equally preachy movie about the virtues of free markets and relaxing gun control. Maybe I get annoyed where you don't because I'm more centrist than you or Asher? I mean, when/if you saw "300," did you feel twinges of irritation all 300 times they invoked blind, stupid jingoism and xenophobia?