Tribble wrote: ↑2022-12-19 09:23pm
Any particular reason why the humans didn’t, I don’t Know, agent orange and/or nuke the place? Or develop a bio weapon / virus that could wipe them out (surely if they could create avatars they could do that?)
The first movie with the unobtainium being the excuse for the human presence definitely leads to that question – if it’s a mineral it doesn’t need a biosphere, so wipe out most of the life forms and mine at leisure.
With the introduction of the Magic Brain Fluid there’s the problem that it’s an organic product – wipe out the life form that produces it and no more MBF. So there’s an incentive to preserve the biosphere to some degree in order to keep obtaining this sort of thing.
As I said last post – there could be multiple very valuable, very rare items available on Pandora to justify a human presence there.
Bedlam wrote: ↑2022-12-20 03:10am
They're certainly not subtle on the 'Human's are bastards' angle this time around, there no attempt to show why the humans are doing what they are doing outside of £Money$.
Money works. Money was largely the reason for European expansion during the colonist period. Rich old dudes in London or Madrid or Paris or wherever were NOT financing very expensive expeditions and colonies solely out of the goodness of their hearts and/or scientific curiosity – they did it to get rich.
Likewise, we’re never going to get a human presence in our solar system outside low Earth orbit, much less around alien stars, unless there’s some sort of profit to be made from the effort.
Bedlam wrote: ↑2022-12-20 03:10amThe closest to a sympathetic human (outside of the one raised by Na'vi) is a marine biologist who seems to be mildly uncomfortable about working with space whalers but doesn't really do or even say anything about it.
Give said biologist is utterly dependent on the Human power structure on Pandora not only for food and water but the very air he breathes complaining might be a life-threatening action.
Bedlam wrote: ↑2022-12-20 03:10amEven the new unobtainian seems to be in place to make humans worse people, the original wasn't really defined but seemed to suggest some sort of power or spaceflight requirement which might have benefited everyone and although it was mined via the blowing up of giant trees looked like it could have been collected with much less harm the new one stopes aging and is clearly implied that only the very rich could get it and is obtained from the brains of sentient alien whales via killing them.
Sure, the unobtanium mines could have been done in a more ecologically friendly manner… but that’s not as profitable (back to money again) and more difficult. We see this on our own planet where we are still destroying local environments to obtain this or that mineral when we
could get it in a less destructive manner. But we don’t.
Jub wrote: ↑2022-12-20 03:58am
They could at least send a competent military force that isn't weak to bows and arrows and rocks this time. FFS, even the Russian military isn't as completely awful as what we saw in the first movie.
Batman wrote: ↑2022-12-20 04:05am
What I took away from the first movie was that it 'wasn't' the actual Military but a hired mercenary force as the whole thing was an undertaking by a private company.
Jub wrote: ↑2022-12-20 05:41am
I don't think that excuses it, given how IRL PMCs operate and equip themselves. They tend to be ruthless and well-equipped, not mustache twirlingly stupid with gear that barely functions.
Dass.Kapital wrote: ↑2022-12-20 06:10am
Yes, my takeaway from the first movie was that the Bad Guys were just over teched security guards.
In this Big Green People movie, they kind of plainly state that the bad guys were and always have been actual, professional, ranked military personel.
Yep, I got the impression in the first movie that they were there as security. It’s not unusual for private security to be staffed with ex-military. Working in an unfamiliar environment it can be tricky to know what actually will or won’t work. Also, humans on Pandora are working with a hideously expensive multi-year supply line issue. They probably didn’t arrive with an arsenal but rather with the means to make one out of local materials. They wouldn’t be importing bullets from Earth, they’d be making them from local minerals, possibly obtained as a by-product of mining unobtanium. This could easily lead to highly trained professionals having limited choice in weaponry.
Likewise, the various aircraft, exo-suits, and so forth were probably built on Pandora out of locally obtained materials with only certain very critical components (computer chips, as an example) being brought in my interstellar ship. This could, again, affect the quality and characteristics of said machinery. This might be why exo-suit canopies can be penetrated by Na’vi weaponry – they’re not made of high-tech materials but rather what the human colony was able to produce on its own.
Every shipment of unobtanium back to Earth probably represents a significant leap in ability to transport things by interstellar ship. Which somewhat justifies the fleet of ships that arrives in the second movie.
Dass.Kapital wrote: ↑2022-12-20 06:10am
The addition of the Na'vi Medicine Women having two scenes where 'Native Medicne' is shown working was really cringy. The first scene was actually interesting/neat in showing social/character interaction. The second one? Didn't quite have me walking out of the cinema but, geeze it were annoying.
Yes.
The use of herbs and such to treat wounds at least makes some sense – the Na’vi should have at least the same capability of humans to find useful substances in their environment. The “treatment” for seizure, though – normally post-seizure a person will come to of their own accord, which might have been what happened to Kiri (likely, even) and perhaps
neither treatment modality was of any real use.
Tribble wrote: ↑2022-12-20 07:32am
Wait, what?
*reads rest of comments*
So their goal now is to suck out space whale brains? To maybe help slow aging (for the rich)? They flew all the way over just for that? When they already at a level where they can create Navi clones capable of being remotely piloted via brain waves?
It was set up with the introduction of the Blue Squad that when you download a person’s memories and personality into a clone/Avatar it’s questionable as to whether or not they’re the same person. A Magic Brain Fluid that stops aging would eliminate that particular conundrum, with the back up of a clone/Avatar for instances of death by misadventure as opposed to aging.
Tribble wrote: ↑2022-12-20 07:32am
At least in the first movie is was implied that it was all private companies which couldn’t get away with too much lest they get caught.
Yep.
But we don’t know what politics/events occurred back on Earth between the two movies. Could be that the discovery of immortality in a vial along with Jake Sully finding a way to truly go native and organize said natives might have altered some things.
Tribble wrote: ↑2022-12-20 07:32am
Or since this involves whales, resurrect captain Ahab?
The outcast tulkin/space whale IS the Captain Ahab expy, with the human whaling captain being the Moby Dick expy.
Tribble wrote: ↑2022-12-20 07:32am
Edit: as for the floating mountains, I always thought it had something to do with the
raw energon unobtainium on the planet, kinda like that episode of Beast Wars?
Yep. The idea was that the interaction of the Pandora and Polyphemus magnetic fields on unobtanium deposits leads to floating landscapes. It also accounts for the weird, arcing/looping terrain which is supposed to be an effect of magnetic fields.