Avatar review thread

[adam_grif]

True, but there isn't much to spend it on either. 4800 is trivially easy to mine, the only strange thing is that it would fill up the bar so much.

[aieeegrunt]

The "way to biff that one" guy seems way too gay looking to be in a mainstream video game. Has any mainstream game ever had a homosexual character?

[septesix]

Just saw the movie earlier this week and loved it. The story might be simple but I think , like many have pointed out, it is exactly what it need, so you can focus on the spectacular visual instead of worrying about what's happening.

Also my 2 cents on the whole conflict over the unobtanium: It's pretty clear to me that the RDA guys are in it for the profit alone. Let's face it, if you can build star-ship to go between stars, you should be able to develop the technology to mine and extract them without strip-mining the place, (I believe there was an opening shot showing the strip mine on Pandora), but it will be more expensive and cut into their profit margin!

The Na'vi doesn't care if we are mining the unobtanium , they just don't want their home and their worlds get destroyed in the process.

In fact, the whole situation with the hometree reminds me about the debate to drill for oil in the Alaska's wilderness preserve, except in this case there's an even stronger case against exploiting it.

[Intio]

Saw it last week, and there isn't much to add when the thread is forty pages long

Yes the CGI was stunning, with elements from various focal ranges blending in seamlessly and coherently, as well as enough real physics adding subtle nuances (distance haze, humidity etc.)

The problem was I just stopped caring. I knew early on how the story was going to go, so I only saw the characters as placeholders in a grander mechanism - the archetype of the natives and their struggle.

The 3D aspect was touch and go for me. My right eye is weaker than my left, and I think that may have been responsible for the problems. Whenever something really popped out of the screen it simply became a double image - anything that was only subtly projected was fine, though I did sometimes have to blink very rapidly to keep the 3D effect else I would start to lose it again. But anything that projected far from the screen almost never worked, and sometimes it had a feedback effect where the entire scene would start to go out of focus. (I know that out of focus depth was used intentionally in some scenes, I'm not talking about that). I suspect that my right eye just couldn't resolve its image in sync with my left.

I also think my expectations of Pandora were raised too high, since I had heard on and on about how beautiful it was supposed to be. It was, but not anything that blew my mind away. In fact, as I said to my brother who was with me (and really loved the movie), I found the miitary hardware to be the most beautful stuff in the movie.

[septesix]

I think in 3D Movies in general ,there is really a big problem as far as the viewing experience goes. With a space as big as a movie theater, you really need to projects almost different sets of images for different seating location to create the same sense of depth or pops. This is especially obvious if the camera is closing up on some objects that is very 'close' to the audience, although it is better for a wide scenery shots.

Also, the Out-of-focus effects, so prevalent in regular 2D movies, simply doesn't feel quite right in a 3D setting. I would like to see someone to shoot a 3D movie without using it and see if the subject isolation can still be done.

The Pandora wildlife is disappointing to me in some way too. The biggest problem I have is the lack of really interesting use of the hexapods. Sure they have 6 limbs. but they act and move just like regular 4 leg terra animals. What I would really love to see is something like a mantis for Pandora: Limbs that have been specialized for certain use because it was free from locomotion purpose.

[wautd]

Finally got to see it last night and it turned out to be better than I expected.

- I felt empaty for the good guys/aliens, but even the villains (the colonel, the corporate director) had their own kind of charm.
- I had seen the story before (dances with wolves etc..) but it had enough things to be original. Believable eplanations why the natives had a chance against the colonial force.
- Beautiful scenery and interesting fauna. A somewhat believable alien world.
- The first 3D movie that actually worked for me (Beowolf gave me a headache, lets not even speak of my bloody valentine).

Looking forward to possible sequels.

[aieeegrunt]

I am not sure how a sequel would work; if the humans return they'll be fully aware of and prepared for megafauna zerg rush, so there goes the only chance the Navi have at succesful resistance.

[Srelex]

Didn't Cameron imply that the sequel might not necesserily involve the humies?

[Intio]

I think in 3D Movies in general ,there is really a big problem as far as the viewing experience goes. With a space as big as a movie theater, you really need to projects almost different sets of images for different seating location to create the same sense of depth or pops. This is especially obvious if the camera is closing up on some objects that is very 'close' to the audience, although it is better for a wide scenery shots.

If it's relevant, I was almost in the exact centre of the seating, offset to the side only slightly.

[adam_grif]

Didn't Cameron imply that the sequel might not necesserily involve the humies?

Nooooooooooo!

You're dashing our hopes of Avatar 2: This Time It's Personal, where the RDA comes and drops asteroids on the natives!

[Admiral Valdemar]

Who needs a sequel just yet? Jim is going to re-release the movie this summer with 40 minutes extra footage, hopefully much of which was more akin to his original Project 880 vision.

But more Final Boss, uh, I mean Quaritch, and Na'vi sex, is good too.

[Srelex]

Who needs a sequel just yet? Jim is going to re-release the movie this summer with 40 minutes extra footage, hopefully much of which was more akin to his original Project 880 vision.

But more Final Boss, uh, I mean Quaritch, and Na'vi sex, is good too.

He is? Can I have a link?

And so soon? At least Lucas waited a while before putting out the SEs. How many more swimming pools does Cameron want to fill with banknotes?

[Kanastrous]

Two Olympic-sized ones ought to do it.

Maybe they'll put my bar back in, too.

[Patrick Degan]

Didn't Cameron imply that the sequel might not necesserily involve the humies?

Nooooooooooo!

You're dashing our hopes of Avatar 2: This Time It's Personal, where the RDA comes and drops asteroids on the natives!

No no no —A2:TTIP would involve Quaritch being so badass that he comes back from his own death to exact revenge on the N'avi and Jakesolly.

[Kanastrous]

Jeez, he's Miles Quaritch, not Chuck Norris...

[Admiral Valdemar]

Exactly. So he'll do better than that.

[Bug-Eyed Earl]

Jeez, he's Miles Quaritch, not Chuck Norris...

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/03/09/st ... lain-role/

[Iosef Cross]

I was a bit disappointed:

It took him 12 years to make another movie and compared to his (Cameron's) previous record, this movie is below his average. The story is pretty bland and predicable, however the technology and GCI stuff is pretty cool. A good movie, but not as good as I was expecting.

[Vympel]

People are going to sit around for an extra 40 minutes? Come on. The movie was already starting to drag at its current length by the time the tree got blown up.

[adam_grif]

People are going to sit around for an extra 40 minutes? Come on. The movie was already starting to drag at its current length by the time the tree got blown up.

[Admiral Valdemar]

/\ That.

RotK ended forty minutes before the credits rolled. And people didn't leave their seats. If the extra time in AVTR is shit blowing up, or stuff from Project 880 left off, it will at least be entertaining and not DULL.

[Iosef Cross]

Isn't RotK is the longest film in the last 20 years made by mainstream producers?

Well, it was way better than Avatar.

[Zixinus]

Ok, after thirty pages, I think people are just recycling old arguments.

For the milwankers and everyone crying foul at the improper use of technology: it doesn't matter and the point is moot. Because even with canopies that could be penetrated with glass, even without radar and being overwhelmed by ten times their numbers, the RDA mercs nearly won[!

If it weren't for the Suddenly Very Helpful animals flocking in, the RDA would have managed to bomb the place. The Na'Vi got heavily slaughtered, especially on the ground. It seems that despite any disadvantages/stupidies, bullets kill the Na'Vi just fine. The Na'Vi, regardless how hard and well they fought, they would have been defeated.

So any wanking about the lack of orbital bombardment or tactics is moot.

If anything, Cameron shows technology to be neutral. Notice that despite having access to bows, Jake and the other avatar guy still carried their machine guns. In the ending sequence, we saw several of them also totting those machine guns. They used radios. The Na'Vi were not stupid.

Now then, my actual opinion:

I think the film was great. When I first saw the trailer, I thought I would expect a lot of ludism but instead, I got a fairly good film. Whether it was based on Dances with Wolves, I don't care. Technology wasn't the culprit, it was simple human greed and corporate culture (quarterly earnings).

What I like is the characterization: while not the deepest, it certainly tried to show everyone human (or at least three-dimensional), even the villain.

He wasn't evil for the sake of it, but because he thought he was just doing his job. He clearly should have been held on a more tighter leash, especially with the relocation thing. He clearly hates Pandora and everything on it (which considering his experiences, may not be unreasonable). He threated Jake pretty decently, all things considered (he did supposedly keep his promise about giving back Jake's legs). He fought well and hard, thus being a very capable villain.

There is less newagism than I expected as well: the mother-tree thing is not mystical, merely not understood by humans and endeared by the locals, who have woven a mythology around it. Sure, it takes some ideas, but in the context of Pandora, they make perfect naturalistic sense.

Of course, there are small details, like how do the avatars synchronize with their human brains but what the hell. It's fiction, it builds on the idea of telepresence, there is little point in reading too much into it. That's how you can fry your brain (reading a little into the fluff, the creator of the Avatar project is "Dr. Cordell Lovecraft " for God's sake).

I am curious what would happen after the ending: the rest of the avatars are still there and can be used, as well as all the stuff we saw around the avatar project (we saw human-stlye houses and I think even a garden).

I wonder whether in the sequel we would see a future Na'Vi society.

[Coyote]

But Zixinus, you forget: because Avatar was popular and successful, it's "cool" to bash it and shows how "independent" you are. Just like... everyone else.

[arun2110]

I was directed here by a friend because there was a discussion about a story I wrote called Consequences set in the Avatar universe. Too bad my friend found out about this now. I would have liked to defend myself when this topic was active, but what the hell. Seeing as how people basically sullied my name implying I'm a racist, a nazi lover and such when I wasn't around, I think I can be excused posting a reply to them now.

I'm not sure if it matters, but my apologies for bringing up this necroed thread. That said, I'm reasonably sure I'll be banned for raising this thread from the dead. Oh, well. Ciao and all that in case I am.

Note that I've replied to multiple people in this reply and that I've replied to them in the sequence they posted their replies.

Murazor,
You said,

Having seen this movie twice, I can say that the movie was technically well done and that the somewhat shallow plot didn't stop me from having great fun watching it.

So I am hard pressed to understand how it is generating so much stupid nerd-hate.

I'm not sure what you mean by nerd-hate. As for technically well done, visually spectacular doesn't excuse the lack of a great plot.

Take for example this rather hideous piece of fanfiction that somebody recommended in Spacebattles. It is an author tract where the humans decide to drop a dino killer asteroid in Pandora because they ABSOLUTELY need the unobtanium and by turning the whole planet against them, Sully CLEARLY leaves them no other choice.

The long series of stupid questions that the writer includes in his author notes (that are about half as long as the story itself) I happen to find particularly annoying.

It's not a fanfic. It's kind of a rant at all the incredibly stupid things I saw in the movie. What surprised me was the tantrums it provoked. Being called a racist several times by idiots was funny as hell. I believe one really enlightened soul manages that down in this thread. Oh well, it takes all sorts to make this world.

The author's notes isn't half as long as the story. As for being filled with stupid things, happy to hear I annoyed you.

Why does everything on the planet have a neural interface? What’s the evolutionary prerogative for a land based herbivore and flight capable carnivore to have a compatible neural interface with to date communication protocols with the Na’vi? Is this evidence that life on Pandora was engineered?

Why does everything glow? Bioluminescence requires energy and there’s only so much of it in any ecosystem. So, unless it offers an advantage in attracting mates/prey or evading predators, genetic mutations that lead to it will be less competitive than those that don’t and will therefore lose the evolutionary race. And yet, everything on Pandora glows…

These are perhaps the less retarded questions of the bunch, although using Earth as the absolute benchmark of what traits are "competitive" in a planet like Pandora (that will rarely if ever experience true darkness because of its orbit around a gas giant) is still wrong.

The laws of evolution do not change. The constraints that act on them do. You know, such things as competition, atmospheric composition from other organisms, gravity, resource availability, energy scarcity, etc.

But enough about that. Let's talk about true darkness. Is this true darkness the absence of any photons, whatsoever in a given volume of space or, are we talking about absence of frequencies that an organism might find useful? Or are we talking about seven feet up a well digger's ass? If you could explain what you mean, I'd be enlightened as to what exactly you're driving at here.

Was Quaritch such an idiot that he did not fortify the mining base with trouble brewing on the horizon with the locals? I mean, his people are several thousand years more advanced than the Na’vi and more organized, too, and he says a group of 20000 will overrun the human base if they charge enmasse. Didn’t he order the construction of ditchworks (or whatever they call those), the clearing of killzones, the laying of mines and generally fortifying the base? All he’d have to do is hold out for a week or two and any “army” of Na’vi would melt away as the neighborhood ran out of food.

Somehow the guy seems to have missed that Quaritch could hold a meeting with every human in Hell's Gate attending in a not particularly large mess hall. And that every Na'vi hunter/warrior has air transportation that makes his wet dreams about trenches and minefields useless.

So, he had a few hundred people at most. My response is, so what? Did you miss all the huge earth moving equipments - you know, the excavators, the trucks, etc? Machines = vastly increased productivity. Building trenches, clearing kill zones, mining approaches are things one would want to do when the nearest response team is more than a decade away and on other planet. When you're alone on another planet with help far, far away, it's saner to be a world class paranoid than to not build fortifications at all. And clearing kill zones and building trenches ensure that the Na'vi are denied one axes of attack. They have to use the air to be effective and even that would mean they'd be exposed for the last part of their assault approach because of all the cleared trees and bushes in the kill zone. So, mines, kill zones and trenches aren't useless.

Why the hell did the humans fly so low when advancing into the area with the flying mountains? Why not fly as high as possible until the very last moment so that none of the Pandoran forces could range on them at all?

For that matter, why use explosives to off the Sacred Tree? Why not simply crash the big re-entry vehicle at supersonic velocities in a ballistic trajectory?

Head meet wall. Somehow, the idea of using the very expensive and impossible to replace (the interstellar starship only carried two) space shuttle as a kinetic impactor doesn't strike me as a good idea when the bombing run would have worked just fine if Sully hadn't had forewarning about Quaritch' approach vector and timing. 

Bombing run would have used up precious mining explosives, boyo. You know, the stuff the miners use to loosen the earth to get at the really expensive mineral? Better to lose the replaceable shuttle - there's a spare, after all - than to lose the mining explosives and wait another fifteen years for replenishment.

There's also another perspective to this. The profits from the mining have to be huge on earth. Certainly more than one bigassed shuttle. Better to lose the shuttle to be sure you got your target than to lose the mine and lose the profits. This is the rational choice. Losing the colony means earth without unobtanium for at least fifteen years.

It would also serve one to remember that in battle, you don't go for minimal force. That's a misnomer. What you do is use a hammer when a tong would technically suffice because you  don't want what'd happen if the tong fails. Is this wasteful in terms of money and other resources? Absolutely. But it does not waste the lives of your people and that's the most crucial thing of all. How much money is worth that?

Why do the armored suits have glass canopies and not even bullet proof canopies at that?

Once again, guy seems to have missed that the only broken canopy was the one in Quaritch's mech... which had fallen from a exploding ship and even then it required repeated hits with the mech's oversized arm to crack the crystal.

Why have a canopy at all when exteriors cameras, IR sensors, radar mapping, feed from drones, etc would suffice? The suits are to protect the wearer, give them longer endurance and enable them to carry heavier caliber weapons. Don't see much point in having glass windows when you have world class armor for the rest protecting the machinery. How is it you skip this part and go directly to how strong the glasses are? Don't matter how strong they are, dude/dudette, they shouldn't be there at all.

Why were all the human soldiers standing and shooting in the forest with their torsos completely exposed to Na’vi archers?

Never mind that the infantry was carrying body armour. 

Yes, how silly of me that I did not know what the fancy dresses the ground pounders wore were. Wearing armor is excuse to expose your unarmored legs, hands, face to enemy fire. Excellent. Fool me to miss such an obvious notion as that.

 
Why does Sully think that its better to live as a pre-historic people with all the curses that come with it – uncertainty over next meal, disease, reduced lifespan – is better than living in the modern world with all that entails (education, freedom to choose your life, medicine, security, health, wealth, etc)?

This guy must have been sleeping through the film. There is no other explanation.

No, I wasn't. But tell me what did I miss? That the indigenes were tribal hunter-gatherers? Or that even with Eywa aiding them, there weren't a great many of them? Perhaps this is because of - oh, I don't know - uncertainty over next meal, disease, reduced lifespan from hunting accidents, lack of medical healthcare, etc?

I get the noble savage part depicted in the movie. But I have never thought of any such culture as noble savages. Only savage. See, I'd rather live in the modern polluted world than in ancient rome, carthage, apache country and all that. My children are guaranteed to survive childhood, see and I won't live to see my wife die during labor or die young in some common accident myself and make her a widow. That alone is enough to make me turn my back on all the noble savage cultures in the world, never you mind all the other advantages to be had in the modern world.

What kind of a freak and a pervert is Sully to fall in love with an alien? I mean, I can understand it if he’d permanently transferred to the alien body, but that wasn’t the case. He was controlling the Na’vi avatar using his mind through a remote connection, and did not do a real transfer until the very end after the miners leave. So, does this mean he’s into beastiality? And does this also mean that we can expect a duck/goat lover for a hero in a movie in the near future?

This one is so ludicrously over the top that it probably deserves no commentary.

All in all, I am sadly convinced that this is not a troll trying to annoy the fans of the movie, but a butthurt fanboy that feels that he has made good points with these questions. 

Tell me, oh, broadminded sage, would you condone a man loving a dog the way mates love each other if the dog were uplifted to sentience? What about a chimpanzee? A Gorilla? If you do not, I see no reason why I should condone a pervert loving any alien be they blue skinned or hotter than miss universe.

Why do I call Jake a pervert? Well, it could be something to do with the fact that he was remote piloting the na'vi body and wasn't actually inhabiting it. If he'd transferred to the Na'vi body permanently and was removed from interacting with humans for a long period of time, I can understand falling for the alien, but when he's operating the body in a shift that follows his body's internal clock and has plenty of chance to interact with females within the colony and - I have no doubt on this - has access to human porn, why does he love an alien? It's the human hormones that matter because he is remotely piloting the body and is not living in it. And I'm supposed to say a human who makes lovey-dovey eyes at an alien is normal? I don't consider humans who fuck dolls or animals normal either. Fuck a human - any-which-way or be called a pervert. It's as simple as that. Or am I supposed to call him a differently aroused person because I don't want to hurt your or his feelings?

Gramzamber,
You said,

Does that even qualify as fanfiction? It seems more like incoherent yelling at Jake Sully, I can't even tell where the "story" ends and the author's notes begin.p

It starts from the part that says "Author's notes:" And incoherent yelling at Jake Sully? Seriously. Reading and comprehension classes, I recommend strongly.

Sarevok,
You said,

The fanfic is excellent. It does not take sides. It slams RDA for being incompetent assholes who were acting like amoral colonials. The Navi don't receive any blame. Jake and the traitor scientists had very good intentions but their methods were wrong. They chose violence instead of negotiation. The fanfic explains this clearly. Summed up it highlights what really happened in the movie - all sides except the Navi were guilty when situation turned ugly. Its not exactly high literature but if someone thinks its biased they need to start watching fox news again.

Thanks for being the one lone voice of support in this thread. And thanks for getting the story.

Murazor again,
You said,

The fanfic is excellent. It does not take sides.

I find your definition of excellence to be considerably unlike my own.

He has a right to his opinion just like yours. The whole world doesn't have to agree with you. Take all sorts to make this world, don't you know?

It slams RDA for being incompetent assholes who were acting like amoral colonials. The Navi don't receive any blame. Jake and the traitor scientists had very good intentions but their methods were wrong. They chose violence instead of negotiation.

That wasn't how things happened at all. When Sully ascertained that the Na'vi weren't going to bow to the demands of the RDA and get the fuck out of their home, the RDA discarded negotiation and choose violence by sending the airforce to blow the Hometree.

Prior to that, the scientists and Sully were telling the Na'vi to get the fuck out of the tree and tried to stop the Omaticaya from sending a raiding party against the workers making the road towards the Hometree. 

After the initial human attack, there had been loss of life and property in the Na'vi's side and Quaritch seized power in Hell's Gate because of the crisis that he had created in the first place. Quite simply, there was no more room for negotiation. Unless by "negotiation" you mean "bending over to the demands of a murderous bastard in a power trip".  

When sully ascertained negotiations weren't possible, RDA went to limited war. This is how it happens in the real world. Wars start when diplomacy breaks down. But when the RDA had achieved their objectives- namely the destruction of the home tree - and retreated to their lines, Sully started a war against them. A war to the knife as it were against the RDA's limited war. This is like you break someone's car and they bring their friends and relatives bearing guns to kill you and your family. Excellent escalation right there. Awesome! Kudos to Sully. I don't think anyone after Genghis and Tamerlane have thought along these lines, which puts him in some really great company. Thumbs up and all that.

As for Quaritch taking command, well, if you'd read the story, I did not say Quaritch was a hero. I called him an idiot, only of a slightly lesser degree than Sully. The way I remember it, my point was, it took a bunch of incompetents and bleeding hearts to escalate a mine/tribe conflict into a planet/mine conflict. Just pointing that out since it seems to have flown past you.

The fanfic explains this clearly. Summed up it highlights what really happened in the movie - all sides except the Navi were guilty when situation turned ugly. Its not exactly high literature but if someone thinks its biased they need to start watching fox news again.

It is funny that you should mention Fox News, when the author of the story felt the need to make up several facts for further bashing of the movie characters. Like painting Quaritch as a "civilian relations puke" or inventing that his troops had "artillery and mortar teams" that he didn't use to justify his calling the character an incompetent retard.

There's this thing called artistic license. I found Quaritch's actions so stupid and so utterly unlike a competent veteran and officer that I introduced those two to underscore his incompetence. Or are writers not allowed to do that now? Perhaps one should send everything to you for approval before putting one's stuff out on the net?

The mortar and the civilian relations puke stuff were because I could not believe that such a large and well armed body of troops would be without mortar and artillery support - artillery being called the king of battle for a very good reason - and because I could not imagine any veteran making such stupid decisions.

But, hey, what would I know! It's not like I'm Subedei/Scipio reborn unlike you.

Jim Raynor,
You said,

t is funny that you should mention Fox News, when the author of the story felt the need to make up several facts for further bashing of the movie characters. Like painting Quaritch as a "civilian relations puke"

What the fuck?

The scarred, musclebound hardass who had been a veteran of several wars in various shithole countries, who calmly jumped from an exploding ship while his arm was on fucking fire is a "civilian relations puke" in this writer's eyes.

I've never seen a popular hit movie gain such a thoroughly retarded hatedom this fast.

Jumping out of the exploding ship while on fire showed he had brass balls. So did all the soldiers who fought in Stalingard. Does that make all of them command material? No? Well, what gave you the idea that this made Quaritch command material then? I mean, the guy walks away on his own mission in the middle of a close ambush his troops are desperately engaged in after his ride goes down and does not try to exert command over his troops, organize the fight back/break through and counterattack? Again, what part of this makes you think he was a veteran line officer of several campaigns?

Courage, wisdom, and the ability to command and lead make a leader. Not brass balls alone. That at best makes for an army that shoves its dick into the enemy’s cheese grinder while grinning obliviously. Come to think of it, wasn’t that what Quaritch’s forces did?

Samuel,
You said,

inventing that his troops had "artillery and mortar teams" that he didn't use to justify his calling the character an incompetent retard.

Would those have even been useful? The forest would interfere with your ability to fire up and firing foward would be easier done by footsoldiers. They might be able to kill the big creatures, except that would have no effect on the final outcome of the battle which was decided in the sky. The ground attack seems to just have been to crush the Na'vi and prevent them from rallying more troops.

Repeat after me, fear and physical exhaustion are interchangeable and the longer the fear, the greater the exhaustion. Artillery does not kill a lot of people. It is an excellent psychological weapon, however, as well as a force multiplier. Remember the massive, hellish bombardments of WWII on the eastern front as well as the ones on the western front in WWI. Guess how many people actual fell to those volleys? Not all that many on the battlefield, to be truthful. Certainly not enough to leave the front defenseless. But what it does is drive so much fear into the hearts of the enemy that they become a quivering mass of flesh with no fight in them. There are stories of german soldiers so shell-shocked they did not raise their guns or detonate their suicide charges on the eastern front during WWII when the russians attacked after such bombardments.

Artillery also disperses troops. Since you need modern weapons or huge concentrations of stone age "warriors" to overrun a modern base, dispersing the attackers has the effect of increasing your defenses. Artillery makes the enemy hunker down when he should be pressing his assault. By itself, isn't the last one a good enough reason to have artillery?

So, no, it wasn't about killing the hordes of attacking Na'vi. It was about driving the fear of god into their hearts and reducing their effective numerical superiority.

I've never seen a popular hit movie gain such a thoroughly retarded hatedom this fast.

The miracle of the internet. I wonder when we will get to a day where all movies have such fans.

Hopefully, soon. But seeing the sorry state of education around the world, my hope is a forlorn one.

Jungalli,
You said,

My guess would be that the bioluminesence attracts nocturnal pollinators.

Maybe. But how many noctural insects are there? Everything glowed. Everything. And when everything glows, what evolutionary advantage do you get by glowing?

Anguirus,
You said,

Is anything sadder than an armchair genocidal warmonger?

And the hate fest continues.

Junghalli again,

The Na’vi had no great stores of food and what there were for the Omaticaya burned down with their tree. As a people they hunted their daily meals and lacked the logistical wherewithal to support large concentrated populations (this was the primary reason for the small size of their tribes.) When Sully united the various tribes for his war, he did not understand that he had at best a month to win the war before his army started running out of food. Fortunately for him, the idiot Quaritch ignored this factum as completely as Sully himself did.

I think Eywa was probably solving a lot of the logistics problems for them by the simple measure of sending lots of animals toward their position to get killed. If not for that this would have been a good point. Of course Sully couldn't know that he'd have this resource at the beginning, but we don't know what his initial plans were.

A grown predator the size of what we saw in the movie would eat a lot and would need a huge range to hunt in for the prey population to sustain itself. But that's not the real problem with your argument. You see, you have to ask yourself if it is okay to brainwash animals into committing suicide? Because that's what you're saying Eywa should do. Why should Eywa's life be worth more than the animal's life? Why should Na'vi life, for that matter be worth more than the animal's life? Ethical and moral quandry there unless you agree with the guy who executed the mission to exterminate everything on the planet. The same guy who practically said, "me before you and yours." So, why is it okay for Eywa to make such arbitrary decisions, but not for humans?

Why does everything on the planet have a neural interface? What’s the evolutionary prerogative for a land based herbivore and flight capable carnivore to have a compatible neural interface with to date communication protocols with the Na’vi? Is this evidence that life on Pandora was engineered?

I figure the neural interface's primary role is to serve as a way for Eywa to control the animals. The Na'Vi just exploit it (and lots of parasites, symbiotes, and slavemaker animals which we didn't see probably do the same).

Slight problem with your reasoning. If Eywa meant to control only animals, why do Na'vi have it? Does this mean the Na'vi evolved from animals for a purpose that Eywa alone knows. If so, does this mean Eywa still controls the Na'vi with that religion of theirs. Ooh!

And on a related note, if the Na'vi are tools of Eywa fulfilling some niche that we don't see in the movie, that gives a whole new meaning to the term tree-hugger. LOL

Why does everything glow? Bioluminescence requires energy and there’s only so much of it in any ecosystem. So, unless it offers an advantage in attracting mates/prey or evading predators, genetic mutations that lead to it will be less competitive than those that don’t and will therefore lose the evolutionary race. And yet, everything on Pandora glows…

Like I said, I figure it's probably to attract nocturnal polinators.

And you have my reply above this.

For that matter, why use explosives to off the Sacred Tree? Why not simply crash the big re-entry vehicle at supersonic velocities in a ballistic trajectory?

That shuttle is probably a pretty expensive piece of hardware to just casually destroy like that. In retrospect it might have been a good idea but hindsight is always 20/20. And I'm personally pretty skeptical that Eywa's intelligence was entirely in that one tree, and if I'm right destroying it probably wouldn't have done as much good as Quaritch thought it would anyway. If they had a spare sattelite thruster on hand slapping a bunch of junk on it and using it as an improvised RFG would probably have been a better idea, but again, I'm skeptical of how much good it would have really done.

Consider lost profit from deteriorating security situation. Consider going for fifteen years shorthanded. Consider damage to critical equipment with few spares and replenishment fifteen years away... You get the idea, right? The shuttle, though costly, is the cheaper alternative considering all this.

And finally, why didn't the human miners do their mining with tunnels. Surely, for a mineral worth 20 million dollars back on earth, they could build whatever support was needed to support home tree underground and then mine out the reserves?

It simplified the logistics chain only to use the simpler equipment required for open-pit mining. Given that they were dealing with a sparsely populated world and shipping was supposedly super-expensive it probably seemed like a sensible decision at the time.

PS, his fanfic has the Na'Vi and/or Eywa act like retards for not making any attempt to negotiate with humans when they came back or any concessions when threatened with getting smacked with a dino-killer (let's leave alone the assumption that the human society in Avatar needs unobtanium bad enough to commit genocide over it). They act like much worse retards there then you can accuse them of acting like in the film.

Excavating tons and tons of material does not require simple machines. It requires complex, hardy ones. But I'll give you the point that it'd be simpler in some aspects. Open pit mines are also excellent hazard zones for mudslides and such. There's danger in all types of mining under you want to pan for the mineral.

Er, the humans did not negotiate when they came back. Their attempt at a landing party was beaten off. By Eywa and its staple of animals. As for committing genocide of unobtanium, what did the spanish do to the S. Americans for gold, silver and emerald? Or how about Japan and China? Or England and India? Or England and China? Or Belgium and Congo? Or Sudan and Darfur? Or... I think I'll stop here.

Samuel,
You said,

Like I said, I figure it's probably to attract nocturnal polinators.

Also, whenever they are touched they light up. It could help attract predators to eat the herbivores that would otherwise get them. However, as more plants have the adaption, they would have to get brighter in order to compete.

Or start glowing dimmer and start attracting insects during the day... *shakes head* Evolution does not mean competing with the other guy symmetrically. We, for example, did not become ten feet tall to combat the predators once we got on the planes. Sure, we got taller, but that was so we could see over the grass. Beyond that, we got smarter. A hell of a lot smarter and that's our biggest evolutionary advantage over everything else on Earth.

Jim Raynor,
You said,

[Quote[The Na’vi had no great stores of food and what there were for the Omaticaya burned down with their tree. As a people they hunted their daily meals and lacked the logistical wherewithal to support large concentrated populations (this was the primary reason for the small size of their tribes.) When Sully united the various tribes for his war, he did not understand that he had at best a month to win the war before his army started running out of food. Fortunately for him, the idiot Quaritch ignored this factum as completely as Sully himself did.

Did this fucktard writer miss the part where thousands of Na'vi were surrounding the human camp, preparing to overrun it? Quaritch knew that offense is the best defense, which is why he reacted with a preemptive strike against the tree.[/Quote]

One word for you, Jim. Dysentry. Stone age hunter gatherers with little idea of sanitation gathering in the thousands at one point - a big outbreak of dysentry and every other communicable disease possible. End result: Death en masse.

And while you're muling over that one word, chew on this fact: Up to the discovery of antibiotics, more soldiers died off the battlefield than in a fight. Many, many, many more soliders.

For that matter, why use explosives to off the Sacred Tree? Why not simply crash the big re-entry vehicle at supersonic velocities in a ballistic trajectory?

Yes, sacrifice one of the few (couple?) actual spaceships that you have, when any resupplies from Earth would have taken half a fucking decade to get there. Because jumping straight to a kamikaze attack is more sensible than simply dropping bombs. Oh, wait.

Fly the shuttle in on autopilot, um? Using up those mining explosives means far bigger impact on profits than using and losing the shuttle as a KEW. Think things through. This particular fucktard seems to be driving fucking supercarriers through your fast sinking logic.

PS, his fanfic has the Na'Vi and/or Eywa act like retards for not making any attempt to negotiate with humans when they came back or any concessions when threatened with getting smacked with a dino-killer (let's leave alone the assumption that the human society in Avatar needs unobtanium bad enough to commit genocide over it). They act like much worse retards there then you can accuse them of acting like in the film.

You know, I thought fanfiction implied that the author was an actual FAN of a fictional story. This "fanfic" was nothing but bashing, and unfounded bashing to boot. The writer clearly missed the point on numerous things, if in fact he was being honest and not intentionally twisting the facts to fit his own personal dislike of the movie.

What kind of brain-damaged dork thinks "suck asteroid losers, humanity FUCK YEAH!!!" is an appropriate sequel to the story ofAvatar? Or that giving Neytiri a terminal illness out of the blue, is a good way to start story? And then that obnoxious author insert character Admiral Deepak takes over in Chapter 2, going off on a monologue about how everyone in the movie sucked.

I'm tempted to do a point-by-point critique of this awful mess. But the "story" is so short that anyone can skim through the stupidity for themselves in a few minutes.

Wow. *sniggers* Pissed you off, did I? Good. I think you have made my day, three months after you threw this rant, today.

Zor,
You said,

A breif glance through that has given me all i need to know about this crackpot

As for the Nerd Rage, i am certain that a big chunk of it comes from general anti-furry sentiment. That "fanfic" is pretty good confirmation of this fact and don't expect logic from those who support it. Blue skinned girl with tentacles in place of hair is fine, but add some pronounced Canines, stripes and a Rhinarium and you get her generating a sizzling pot of Nerd Rage. 

Ah, you're one of those who called me a racist. Know what that means, kiddo? At worst, I was being a xenophobe. But I prefer to think of myself as a straight guy attracted to chicks. And everything with a boob doesn't qualify as a chick.

Shroom man 777,

The fanfic is excellent. It does not take sides. It slams RDA for being incompetent assholes who were acting like amoral colonials. The Navi don't receive any blame. Jake and the traitor scientists had very good intentions but their methods were wrong. They chose violence instead of negotiation.

Are you AN ASS?

Schindler and the traitor Polish partisans had very good intentions but their methods were wrong. They chose violence instead of negotiation AFTER the fucking Nazis destroyed their homes, murdered their loved ones, and initiated the violence by committing fucking atrocities.

Jesus Shitchrist, the RDA were the ones who went to the Soul Tree with the intention of destroying it in a deliberate act of terror, calling it a "preemptive" strike. The only Na'vi "violence" was the fucking act of self-defense! 

How the fuck do you negotiate with a bunch of assholes who'll only say "no" when you ask them "please don't evict us from our homes"? How the fuck do you negotiate with a bunch of assholes who intend to commit violence and wage war when their demands aren't met? 

Defending the tree is self-defense. Attacking the enemy when the enemy has ceased offensive operations against you is called launching an offensive of your own.

You wage war against an enemy you stand a chance of defeating. You lose hopelessly against someone who controls orbitals. Difference there. A big one, too. Your fate will be similar to what happened to the Khwarezmian Empire.

Why does everything glow? Bioluminescence requires energy and there’s only so much of it in any ecosystem. So, unless it offers an advantage in attracting mates/prey or evading predators, genetic mutations that lead to it will be less competitive than those that don’t and will therefore lose the evolutionary race. And yet, everything on Pandora glows…

Bioluminescence requires energy and there's only so much of it in any ecosystem that has evolved in an environment where flying sky-mountains are a common occurrence.

Ah, forgive this stupid one, master. But what does flying sky-mountains have to do with bioluminescence?

Just because something floats doesn't mean it's powered, just in case this escaped you.

For that matter, why use explosives to off the Sacred Tree? Why not simply crash the big re-entry vehicle at supersonic velocities in a ballistic trajectory?

Because there are flying mountains everywhere around the Sacred Tree? 

Yes, I can see now. A high yield KEW against one of those floating rocks will expend all energy against said rock alone and will not ignite the surrounding forest. Kinda like how the Tunguska blast did not damage the forest on the ground at all.

Because you brought me a chuckle, I'll let you have one: "Oh, how could I have forgotten this? Oh, woe is me! I’m losing my intelligence and going senile at an young age! Is there no one around to help me regain a modicum of my intelligence? Oh, noes!"

as Quaritch such an idiot that he did not fortify the mining base with trouble brewing on the horizon with the locals? I mean, his people are several thousand years more advanced than the Na’vi and more organized, too, and he says a group of 20000 will overrun the human base if they charge enmasse. Didn’t he order the construction of ditchworks (or whatever they call those), the clearing of killzones, the laying of mines and generally fortifying the base? All he’d have to do is hold out for a week or two and any “army” of Na’vi would melt away as the neighborhood ran out of food.

Why didn't the Shell company order a shitload of landmines around its oil wells?

Mines and additional fortifications are also a bitch to transport when your supplies take lightyears to ship.

They had guys with guns, they had gunships with guns. That was enough. Jesus Christ, the RDA was a fucking mining venture not a fucking military campaign. Jesus Christ.

Are these people dense? Are they retarded? This isn't even the Goddamn Batman!

Tell that to The East India company and their private armies equipped with artillery trains.

It behooves that a small colony of miners intent on antagonizing and exploiting a precious resource in another world with reinforcements many light years away to mine and fortify their camp.

Mines are also easy to make onsite - today, mines are as cheap as 5 to 10 USD. I would think that smart mines that report their locations to you would be even easier for a culture that’s mastered travel between the stars.

The guy isn't even consistent with the movie. He invents numbers, capabilities the RDA didn't have (like FTL), criticizes them for not doing impossible things ("LOL build orbital stations! Just in case we need to bomb the planet from orbit!"). Mentioning his invention of Quaritch being a "civilian relations puke" for most of his career is just pure cruelty

And, of course, he needs to extensively justify how starting an economic recession is somehow less moral than genocide. Not that he ever justifies that lack of unobtainium will cause an economic collapse: in the beginning of the movie, the US economy is already shit, even with unobtainium flowing freely.

Well, you got my sex right. Kudos.

That said, I was told by a fan that the distance between pandora and Earth is between 4 and 5 light years. To get a transit time of around seven years, you need a peak velocity of something like 70-90 percent the speed of light ( considering the time having to do with acceleration and deceleration times involved.) At 90% the speed of light, you are going to get some really awesome blueshift. Awesome as in hard X-rays and all that. You better have very thick lead shields or you’re fucking toast inside your ship. So are all your instruments unless they’re shielded against EMP.

But wait, that’s not all. At that velocity, a micrometeorite impact is going to be worse than a 1000 pound bomb against your hull. So, thick, powerful armor with the shield.

So, absent FTL, what miraculous material did mankind come up with to beat these two problems? Or as I think if most likely the case, they did not consider this in the story at all, did they?

Also, a shuttle in geostationary orbit is an impromptu orbital station. Just so you know.

And moving on, the choice is, a tribe of at most a thousand kicked out of their homes so that a world of many billions does not sink further into depression. Now, phrased this way, do you favor the tribe or the world? To put this in better perspective, you’re driving a bus carrying sixty passengers on a narrow bridge over a raging river. You see a kid in the middle of the road, blocking your way. The kid is too close and you can’t avoid him/her even if you slam the emergency breaks. If you try to avoid the kid, your bus will fall into the bridge and a lot of your passengers are going to drown to death, which is not a pleasant way to die. What do you do? Note that the sane answer is break and hit the kid, hoping the kid will pull through. The insane one is, “the kid is helpless. I must not hurt him/her and so will swerve the bus.” So, to emphasize, what will you do?

Deplorable though were the decisions that the Head of the Mining Operation Parker Selfridge and Quaritch made, their actions were illegal and in direct violation of the mining charter. Sully could have gathered evidence of their actions and pleaded the indigene’s case with the concerned authorities after returning to Earth. This process could have taken a decade – due mostly to the transit times between Earth and Pandora – and a few Na’vi tribes may have suffered at the hands of the miners, but it would have preserved the peace between our peoples.

Yeah, after fifteen years of abuse at the hands of the RDA while the company fought a legal battle on Earth, the natives would've been totally fine with a diplomatic solution. Sure.

EDIT: Oh, yeah, the funniest part was the one about doing a kamikadze run with a ridiculously expensive SSTO spacecraft to blow up a fucking tree. Not to mention the humans need the shuttles to refuel their interstellar starships

A kamikaze is when one goes on a suicide mission. I was talking about remote piloting the shuttle. Kind of a basic thing when we have UAVs today, you know.

As for native tribes being happy with diplomatic solution, I’d say yes. They would have built new houses (or in their case, found a new tree), had kids, buried parents, you know get on with life instead of going on a holy quest to rid the world of the humans.

I was under the impression that there were two shuttles. But beyond that, are you telling me the ship used reaction drives to propel itself to relativistic speeds? *chuckles* good one that. For a minute there, I thought you were being serious about this.

NecronLord,
You said,

What the hell is this about holding the Na'vi up until they starve? Napoleon could sustain five hundred thousand men in the field with far inferior logistics ability - he had a few spotter baloons. They have an entire airforce of banshees they can use for provisioning.

Birds can’t carry too much weight. Causes problems with their flight. So, unless the Na’vi bred the banshees for longer wing spans and stronger back muscles over many, many generations, I don’t see how what you propose is going to be all that feasible. Why? Well, ask yourself this very simple question. What percentage of their banshee wing do you think the Na’vi should commit to log flights everyday? (We’ll get to why it’s got to be everyday in a little while) Since they have to use hunters for log as per your assertion, that’s going to bite into their combat strength - questions like how combat capable would the banshee be after carrying food for a dozen indigenes from afar or how much more food would the banshee itself claim and where would it get this food or how are the Na’vi going to dispose of all the shit that’s going to be produced or how about the disgruntlement among the warriors because they’re being reduced to REMFs?)

But enough about birds. Let’s talk about my favorite part in your reply. Napoleon and his army. Let’s see, Napoleon fought in Europe with its mostly well maintained and vast network of roads. Don’t see none in Pandora. Napoleon had armies of wheeled wagons. Don’t see none in Pandora again. Napoleon had millions upon millions as well as the excess from the french colonies to fund his war (food, cloths, bullets, new horses, boots, sword buckles, etc.) The Na’vi have a bunch of old crones and little children back home who have no way of communicating with the warriors much less sending them supplies. Napoleon had good communication lines. The Na’vi have the Eywa, which might work for conferences, but not managing campaigns. Napoleon had doctors to take care of dysentry and any of the other communicable and frequently deadly diseases that ancient armies were afflicted with. The Na’vi have no experience managing gatherings of tens of thousands in a single place. Napoleon had dried jerky (or whatever was there in his time) and biscuits. The Na’vi eat raw food, which means they can’t store supplies because the shelf life is shit. (which gets us back to why they’ll need those log flights everyday.) Napoleon had this nice little invention called money that meant even if a soldier is gone for a long time, his spouse, mom, pop and kids won’t go hungry back home. The Na’vi certainly don’t. Napoleon knew which terrain would support how many men. The Na'vi? Nope on this, too. (This last point is crucial because the Great Alexander lost a hell of a lot of men when he chose the wrong season of the year to march back towards Greece from India.)

Is there anything I missed? I’m sure there is, but I hope I drove this point deep into your heart. Just because you know Napoleon’s name doesn’t mean you know shit about logistics. And I say this as someone who works in that domain creating software that optimizes log trains for multibillion dollar corporations like walmart, kroger, home depot, etc. Hell, son, the Na’vi aren’t even going to know how much in weight a Na’vi consumes everyday and how much water is needed for the same. Do you expect me to believe that they can manage a large body of several thousand for long periods of time? Are you out of your goddamned mind?

Shroom Man 777,
You said,

Nazi Germany was in total economic shit before the war. This justifies the Holocaust and World War 2. All those repossessed Jewish gold (EMINENT DOMAIN! ) and those shaved hair used for textiles, not to mention the slave labor and all the lebensraum, justifies this. lol

This is my favorite among all your posts in this chain. I note the implied assertion that I’m a Nazi sympathizer, a jew hater and a holocaust denier/supporter, plus a supporter of slavery. That’s easily the most wide sweeping insult delivered so far. To satisfy my curiosity, are you sure you are anything but a troll?

That said, I did not celebrate Rear Adm. Deepak’s actions in the story. Neither did the man himself. He knew he was doomed for his sins, but he could do nothing else because he had no other choice. If it was a local war, you move to some other mining spot and hope you can patch up things later. But when the planetary intelligence goes to war with you, it means you are at war with the planet. If you want to take back the mines, you can’t leave the planetary intelligence around because god knows what it’d do. And the only way you can even remotely be sure the planetwide intelligence is taken out is to cause an extinction level event.

Shroom Man 777,
You said,

On another note I'd like to say that this is amazing, really.

Though simplistic and stuff, Cameron seems to have touched people very deeply with Avatar. I mean, in here, you can see all the milwankers and fucktards rise up in a tide of utter ugliness as they try to justify morally reprehensible military actions. Despite the very basic storytelling, Cameron was trying to show us that same ugliness that haunts our humanity, and I think he's succeeded quite profoundly in a metafictional way.



EDIT:

Call it... audience participation.

Yes, O’ Great Liberal Maven. Now, should all the military fucktards drop dead so that you can live in peace?

Stas Bush,
You said,

Jake and the traitor scientists had very good intentions but their methods were wrong. They chose violence instead of negotiation.

"Traitor scientists" Like they (scientists) should have had loyalty to some greedy corporation perfectly willing to graze the Na'Vi or even mass slaughter them to get the unobtanium. Why?

Oh, betrayal! The star-spangled banner of the RDA, kill a Na'Vi for Mommie and all that... Let's all be loyal to Shell Helix or, for a more apt analogy, the East India Company. We can even devise sort of a hymn - "God save the... um... fourth quarter profits... yeah".

They aren’t even loyal to their salt. That point did not seem to raise in their hearts at all. Does that not even matter to you? I suppose for you, it’s you and your family and screw the country, and the guy who employees and feeds you, right?

And before you go half-cocked about mass slaughter, the RDA had issues with 1 tribe which they solved by kicking out the tribe. Where was the mass slaughter there? Or did Sully and co have prescience?

If you are American, I feel sorry for America. Hell, I feel sorry for whatever your country is, even if it’s a hell-hole (oh sorry, enlightened nation) like Sudan, China, Pakistan, Cuba or North Korea.

PeZook,
You said,

"Traitor scientists" Like they (scientists) should have had loyalty to some greedy corporation perfectly willing to graze the Na'Vi or even mass slaughter them to get the unobtanium. Why?

But Stas! The RDA paid for their transportation! This means the company owns their souls! Didn't you see how Grace was compelled to do anything Selfridge said? It was totally in the movie, dude! Totally!

Personally, I think by "traitor" he means something more like "race traitor". But I'm sure he has many black friends and so cannot, by definition, be a racist fuck!

(Witness his accusation that Sully must be a perverted animal fucker if he falls in love with a Na'Vi woman)

[/quote]

To quote myself from further up the chain: “Tell me, oh, broadminded sage, would you condone a man loving a dog the way mates love each other if the dog were uplifted to sentience? What about a chimpanzee? A Gorilla? If you do not, I see no reason why I should condone a pervert loving any alien be they blue skinned or hotter than miss universe.

“Why do I call Jake a pervert? Well, it could be something to do with the fact that he was remote piloting the na'vi body and wasn't actually inhabiting it. If he'd transferred to the Na'vi body permanently and was removed from interacting with humans for a long period of time, I can understand falling for the alien, but when he's operating the body in a shift that follows his body's internal clock and has plenty of chance to interact with females within the colony and - I have no doubt on this - has access to human porn, why does he love an alien? It's the human hormones that matter because he is remotely piloting the body and is not living in it. And I'm supposed to say a human who makes lovey-dovey eyes at an alien is normal? I don't consider humans who fuck dolls or animals normal either. Fuck a human - any-which-way or be called a pervert. It's as simple as that. Or am I supposed to call him a differently aroused person because I don't want to hurt your or his feelings?”