IDEA! Avatar 2: Ava-Tarrer

[Cesario]

Too bad the natives are clearly of the opinion (and the audience is called upon to agree with them) that the Na'vi way of life is the ideal. There is no compromise here. No acknowledgement that there are positive aspects of both cultures that could be put together into a greater whole. Just an outright rejection of everything in the human way of life and a complete embracing of everything in the Na'vi way of life, which actually has no technology more advanced than bows and arrows.

All the while, the Na'vi are a dependent species who can only live their idylic lives because they're being actively watched over and cared for by an insufficiently advanced alien keeping them as pets.

You mean how the audience is called upon to agree with you that RDA is the good guy right?

No, that's the opposite of what I said. The audience is called upon to villify the RDA by the narrative. It is simply a flaw with the narrative that the RDA has a legitimate point.

Too bad the Na'vi actually were doing human things like going to school until RDA gunned them down. But don't let that fact get in the way of the bullshit theory. I guess there goes your there is no compromise here as well. As well as the no acknowledgement about positive aspects of human culture (or else why would they go to a human school). You are either goddamn retarded, was high on drugs when you watched avatar (or when reading through this thread), or just outright dishonest.

Since it's so obvious to a mental giant like you, why don't you do a "goddamn retard" like me the favor of pointing out even one thing either the Na'vi or the narrative put forward as a positive aspect of human culture capable of improving the Na'vi's lives.

Your nerd rage is no longer amusing.

Awe, you're breaking my heart.

Hey I guess Selfridge is also a luddite as well right? After all he rejected Grace's suggestion they explore the biological technology that is Erwa. LOL selective quotation of evidence for TEH WIN.

Not believing something exists isn't the same as consiously rejecting something you know exists.

Like I said, it's like the entire situation is nothing more than a mysterious "god" contriving a situation to turn humans into the bad guys.

It was.
That "god" you refer to has a name.
His name is James Cameron.
He wrote Avatar.
He decided to use the humans as the villains in his story.

Why yes, I was subtly implying that very thing.

So he has them doing morally reprehensible things throughout the plot, and never making any effort to redeem themselves.

Unfortunately, he didn't. If he had, I would have no need to object to his narrative's treatment of its characters and setting. James Cameron accidentally gave the humans far more justification and had them behave far better, than the cardboard cutout of a villain required for so one-sided a narrative.

He did not assign them a noble cause.

More accurately he did not intentionally assign them a noble cause. Unfortunately all his nods to realism added up. One of the perils of trying to write very hard scifi.

He made greed their driving motivation.

Which became problematic when he tried to use that justification to have them do things that cut into their bottom line.

Avatar is a very one-sided morality story.
Deal with it.

Narratively that's exactly what it is. The problem is that when you look at the details, things get more complicated. More attention to those details might have prevented this contradiction between the narrative and the fictional reality.

Like I said, it's like the entire situation is nothing more than a mysterious "god" contriving a situation to turn humans into the bad guys.

It was.
That "god" you refer to has a name.
His name is James Cameron.
He wrote Avatar.
He decided to use the humans as the villains in his story.
So he has them doing morally reprehensible things throughout the plot, and never making any effort to redeem themselves.
He did not assign them a noble cause.
He made greed their driving motivation.

Avatar is a very one-sided morality story.
Deal with it.

That's not quite accurate. He did not vilify all humans; just the corporatist and militarist humans. The scientists looked like good guys.

Interestingly, this is one of the only places where the narrative breaks with the Na'vi's point of view. The Na'vi, who are living their idylic lives and supposed to be where the audience sympathy lies, have no respect for the scientists and indeed consider leaving one of them to burn to death after the second time she saved their children's lives. But even then, the narrative gives voice to the idea that the Na'vi are right to reject and mistrust the scientists through Grace's own guilt about "not giving myself all the way" and "holding back". Only by litterally dying for the sins of her fellow scientists (sins that include having ideas about the universe and not knowing already everything they wanted to learn from the Na'vi) does she atone for their sinful nature and allow the rest of her people the chance to not be forced off the planet at gunpoint.

It's easy to see why this sticks in the craw of conservatives who have spent the last 150 years promoting the exact opposite value judgement, ie- that corporatists and militarists are the noble saviours of our society, while scientists are dangerous, irresponsible, and amoral.

Oddly, the Na'vi, with whom we are supposed to sympathise, do not value scientists in the least, and do value militarists.

[Darth Wong]

What the fuck are you talking about, retard? The Na'vi don't give a shit about how humans live their own lives. They're angry at humans because the humans are fucking up their home, not because humans use science and technology. You've made up this entire moronic narrative about Na'vi Ludditism out of thin air.

You sound exactly like FOXNews people pretending that Middle Eastern people are angry at America because of the way Americans live, rather than being angry at Americans for what they're doing in the Middle East. I'll say to you the same goddamned thing I say to them: if I walk up to a Muslim and punch him in the face, and he gets angry, it's a pretty safe bet that he's angry at me because I punched him in the face, not because I'm an atheist. Even if he doesn't like atheists, that's not the obvious impetus for his anger, is it?

[Cesario]

What the fuck are you talking about, retard? The Na'vi don't give a shit about how humans live their own lives. They're angry at humans because the humans are fucking up their home, not because humans use science and technology. You've made up this entire moronic narrative about Na'vi Ludditism out of thin air.

You sound exactly like FOXNews people pretending that Middle Eastern people are angry at America because of the way Americans live, rather than being angry at Americans for what they're doing in the Middle East. I'll say to you the same goddamned thing I say to them: if I walk up to a Muslim and punch him in the face, and he gets angry, it's a pretty safe bet that he's angry at me because I punched him in the face, not because I'm an atheist. Even if he doesn't like atheists, that's not the obvious impetus for his anger, is it?

Doesn't quite work when he outright says he's mad at you because you're an atheist and doesn't mention getting punched in the nose at any point.

[madd0ct0r]

and back to the script - which section is this exactly?

[Cesario]

and back to the script - which section is this exactly?

Where in the script did they not say anything about the environmental impact of the mining?

Or do you just want to see where in the script they start in on the lectures about the evils and inadequicies of humans not already knowing everything about and embracing the Na'vi way of life or being offended that humans have ideas of their own?

If it's the later, I think I can help you find something like that somewhere.

NEYTIRI
Your fault! You are like a baby, making
noise, don't know what to do. You should
not come here, all of you! You only come
and make problems. Only.

MO'AT
We have tried to teach other Sky People.
It is hard to fill a cup which is already
full.

MO'AT
(to Jake)
My daughter will teach you our ways.
Learn well, Jakesully. We will see if
your insanity can be cured.

[Shroom Man 777]

Or do you just want to see where in the script they start in on the lectures about the evils and inadequicies of humans not already knowing everything about and embracing the Na'vi way of life or being offended that humans have ideas of their own?

NEYTIRI
Your fault! You are like a baby, making
noise, don't know what to do. You should
not come here, all of you! You only come
and make problems. Only.

Oh my god, turns out this guy doesn't know how to survive in an alien environment hostile jungle planet that has a mind of its own, and the Na'vi do know better in the context of the Pandoran environment because... they've lived there their entire lives.

MO'AT
We have tried to teach other Sky People.
It is hard to fill a cup which is already
full.

Turns out the ways of people who live in that environment for, like, ever, and have interacted on some level with the world-spanning consciousness is actually more applicable for their environment than the ways of other guys who... aren't from there... and who haven't even figured out how that place works?

Also, was Mo'at even expressing offense at the humans not being to learn their ways fast enough? She was just stating that they were hard to teach and/or slow learners. That's like saying that a teacher who says that a student has trouble learning and flunks his classes is all personally offended and raaarrrr.

MO'AT
(to Jake)
My daughter will teach you our ways.
Learn well, Jakesully. We will see if
your insanity can be cured.

The Na'vi know that Eywa is real and extends throughout the entire biosphere. So for them, yeah, strange guys going in and cutting down trees and massacrating lifeforms and wrecking the biosphere is pretty much insane and offensive. In the context of, you know, living in a living planet, rampant environmental destruction and disregard of nature is insane.



It's like Englishmen getting frustrated because no matter how many times they try to tell em, a bunch of American tourists are always driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh my god, how dare the Englishmen lecture tourists for not following the traffic rules of London, or being offended that the Americans have ideas of their own in which side of the road to drive in and never listen to the locals who explain the rules of the land.

You'd make a stereotypical lousy tourist, Cesario. If you were visiting a mosque and the imam tells you to remove your shoes, or a Japanese house and the sumo wrestler tells you to remove your shoes, you'd throw a shit fit at how the sumo imam is offended that you have ideas of your own. If someone told you to observe the basic courtesies of the strange new land you're visiting, you'd get indignant and bawl about how they are saying that you are inadequate. How reprehensible!

[madd0ct0r]

MAX and the lab staff are glumly packing files and equipment,
under the watchful eye of armed SEC-OPS TROOPERS. JAKE,
GRACE, NORM stare bleakly at each other.

GRACE
They bulldozed a sacred site on purpose,
to trigger a response. They're
fabricating this war to get what they
want.

NORM
I can't believe that.

JAKE
Yup. That's how it's done. When people
are sitting on shit you want, you make
them your enemy. Then you're justified in
taking it.

JAKE
The Sky People have sent a message that
they can take whatever they want, and no
one can stop them. But we will send them
a message. Ride out, as fast as the wind
can carry you, tell the other clans to
come. Tell them Toruk Macto calls to
them. Fly now with me brothers and
sisters! Fly! And we will show the Sky
People that this is our land!

[PeZook]

Or rather it requires extremely low temperatures to function at all without Unobtainium, which cause engineering problems when you're trying to repurpose it for other uses. Note Tedious explaining how Unobtainium actually did solve problems that made the technology practical for applications other than a giant space laser in-universe.

Oh no! We have a giant generator with stellar power output! But the generator can only work on the Moon!

If only it was connected to some sort of device that could beam the energy around, precise enough to focus the beam on a starship throughout five and a half months!

Since you take issue with that example, let's talk about the gunpowder engine. We have a power source with greater energy density than gasoline, and we can use it to make bombs, guns, and artillery pieces, so obviously that means we can trivially make use of that same energy source to make a wheel spin without solving any other engineering problems whatsoever.

Of course the laser is nothing like gunpowder - it's a ready-made way to transfer your stellar energy output to, say, power satellites in Earth orbit.

Or, here's a novel idea: instead of building three massive orbiting antimatter reactors (the ships) and a fourth, even more massive one to propel the former out of the system, install all four on the Moon and move the population there.

Each generator like these could give 3.3 billion people 1000x the electricity consumed today by an average American. So four reactors could easily sustain some 12 billion people on the Moon,solving all the problems with habitat-living by throwing energy at them. (They could probably do better than 12 billion, even, since I calculated the output using assumptions that lower it by at least an order of magnitude).

You have to face the truth: either the humans have no energy crisis at all, much less one that threatens their food supply (hence why the don't turn the fucking holoads off),or they do have one and just aren't doing anything about it despite the obvious capability to do so (which incidentally is what the EU supports...), in which case they have no right to rape loot and pillage other people's land to sustain their insatiable hunger for energy.

Pretty much. Either the Space UN are some combination of callous, in our pockets already, stupid, or uninvolved, or they are not. The massacre going down with no consequences proves it was the former.

Because we all know a corrupt government body will let you get away with literally anything, right? That's why Blackwater murdered hundreds of people in reprisal for their operators being ambused and shot in Iraq, right?

Pretty much, yeah. Or rather, a massively radioactive world is another "environment known to man", and thus, by definition must be less hostile than the one we just burned off.

Oh god, you're not serious, are you?

Pandora is obviously not "the most hostile environment known to man." All you have to do to know that is look at it.

You can walk around the place wearing tropical uniforms and a breathing mask, for fuck's sake.

If we could do it in "the most hostile environment known to man" that quickly, there's every reason to believe we could do it more quickly in the less hostile envivornment resulting from us killing everything on Pandora.

Irradiated wasteland you can't traverse without a fully enclosev environmental suit that carries its own atmosphere, and where you can't use internal combustion engines does not make it easier to exploit than a planet with a temperate climate, plentiful oxygenin the atmosphere and harmless radiation levels.

And wait, weren't you claiming there's an existential crisis on Earth? At the very least you're looking at 20 years with NO unobtainium while new equipment gets shipped in and mining is restored

Actually, the supporters of the film are the ones who seem to think the only alternative is anarchy and tribalism. I'm rather of the view that feeding the population and not letting everyone die horribly for the convenience of the magical blue space elves is perfectly doable.

Look, you retarded dolt, you're making up this false dilemma that either humanity gets all the unobtainium it wants or it has a mass die-off. YOU are the one who says the only alternative to rampant consumption is to "shut down all the power", instead of LIMITING ITS USE TO NECESSITIES.

They clearly have enough power generation to meet all their needs and more, they just waste it all on rampant overconsumption.

Nobody in this thread has ever said humanity should revert to a hunter-gahterer lifestyle ; They should just shut down their fucking sky-covering holoads.

[Darth Wong]

What the fuck are you talking about, retard? The Na'vi don't give a shit about how humans live their own lives. They're angry at humans because the humans are fucking up their home, not because humans use science and technology. You've made up this entire moronic narrative about Na'vi Ludditism out of thin air.

You sound exactly like FOXNews people pretending that Middle Eastern people are angry at America because of the way Americans live, rather than being angry at Americans for what they're doing in the Middle East. I'll say to you the same goddamned thing I say to them: if I walk up to a Muslim and punch him in the face, and he gets angry, it's a pretty safe bet that he's angry at me because I punched him in the face, not because I'm an atheist. Even if he doesn't like atheists, that's not the obvious impetus for his anger, is it?

Doesn't quite work when he outright says he's mad at you because you're an atheist and doesn't mention getting punched in the nose at any point.

I see you are now resorting to outright lying.

[Ford Prefect]

I see you are now resorting to outright lying.

Some people dislike this movie so much that their minds breath into life entire scenes and sequences to better justify their dislike of it. So while in the actual film the Omaticaya's only issue is with the RDA encroaching on their land, people invent this notion of huge blue hands squeezing the life out of Western Civilisation. I don't want to read too far into the absence of dialogue on the matter, but the RDA have a bunch of 100,000 ton fusion powered monsters carving out a four kilometre wide toxic pit somewhere near Hell's Gate and no Na'vi ever mentions it. I think impliedly the Na'vi were fine with the RDA doing its thing in that little corner of Pandora up until it started moving into Omaticaya land.

Some people are just really wrapped up in this movie being some sort of closet Greenpeace funded ecoterrorism manifesto, though

[PeZook]

Some people dislike this movie so much that their minds breath into life entire scenes and sequences to better justify their dislike of it. So while in the actual film the Omaticaya's only issue is with the RDA encroaching on their land, people invent this notion of huge blue hands squeezing the life out of Western Civilisation. I don't want to read too far into the absence of dialogue on the matter, but the RDA have a bunch of 100,000 ton fusion powered monsters carving out a four kilometre wide toxic pit somewhere near Hell's Gate and no Na'vi ever mentions it. I think impliedly the Na'vi were fine with the RDA doing its thing in that little corner of Pandora up until it started moving into Omaticaya land.

Some people are just really wrapped up in this move being some sort of closet Greenpeace funded ecoterrorism manifesto, though

Well, some warriors at least were angry at the environmental devastation - like the group led by Neytiri's sis, Sylvanni (or something ) that burned down a killdozer.

They were hunted down and executed by RDA's security troops, with kids dying in the crossfire, which led to the Omaticaya getting seriously pissed.

HOW DARE THE OMATICAYA BE ANGRY ABOUT THAT?!

[mr friendly guy]

No, that's the opposite of what I said. The audience is called upon to villify the RDA by the narrative. It is simply a flaw with the narrative that the RDA has a legitimate point.

Oh my god, the sarcasm flew right over your thick head. Maybe if I put more of it might be more obvious.

Since it's so obvious to a mental giant like you, why don't you do a "goddamn retard" like me the favor of pointing out even one thing either the Na'vi or the narrative put forward as a positive aspect of human culture capable of improving the Na'vi's lives.

Are you for real? I just fucking gave the school example and you just ignore it like the lying dipshit you are. What, are you saying schools don't improve lives now? Oh wait, you are the sad little turd who wishes to have most of his fellow students machine gun down. Ah, that explains it.

Awe, you're breaking my heart.

I didn't realise a fuckwit who thinks its A Okay to have school students machine gun down has a heart. You sure fooled me.

Not believing something exists isn't the same as consiously rejecting something you know exists.

Like how rejecting tech that isn't useful to you is rejecting all technology in general. Gotcha. I guess thats why the Na'vi absolutely refused to use two way radios when fighting. Wait, you didn't actually address this point except to say its ironic, which doesn't actually refute the point that the Na'vi aren't above using advance technology when its useful to them. Ergo your statement that the Na'vi rejected ALL human culture is blatantly wrong.

Since the original point flew over your head, I will state it so even a retard like yourself gets it.
Those who argue RDA are in the right, essentially subscribe to a might makes right philosophy, except when the other side is mightier of course. They refuse to acknowledge it so they make all sorts of useful excuse like the Na'vi don't like technology wah wah. Not only is this irrelevant because technological levels have jack shit to do with this, but its not even true because the Na'vi went to school, use two way radios etc. You are literally pulling shit from your arse to come up with pseudo justification.

[Darth Wong]

According to Douchebaggio, the Na'vi were angry because humans use technology, not because humans are destroying their habitat. Therefore, if the humans wiped out the Na'vi habitat with huge monsters instead of huge machines, the Na'vi would have been perfectly happy with that.

[Steve]

Well, now that I got the gist of Cesario's opinions and arguments straight from the source, no more need for the omnipotent judge story device.

I think there are two big issues to deal with for your views, Cesario.

One is that, quite simply, nothing in the movie actually indicates this is the truth. Some expanded universe info states it, but it was excluded for a reason (I cynically suspect it was because it was feared that it'd make the audience less likely to root for Jake, though it's just as likely from Hollywood's distaste for movies too far past 2 hours). So for a lot of people, the argument that "Humanity needs it or we'll starve and lose the ability to breathe in our poisoned atmosphere" is nothing more than an invention by specieists and fascists to justify rooting for the destruction of a society's home and, eventually, the plan to destroy the most cherished holy site in an entire civilization to cow them.

The second is... if this is true... it makes RDA worse. It makes RDA, or at least Selfridge and Quaritch, into ludicrously irresponsible fools who allowed their greed and prejudices to outweigh their responsibility. Selfridge's obsession with the bottom line and making money becomes especially horrifying if we accept the premise of the "mass starvation and asphyxiation without Unobtainium" idea.

So, yes, the Na'vi weren't negotiating. They didn't want Humans digging around their land for that necessary mineral, period. Humans try and they get shot at with super-arrows. That sucks. But that just means you have to be that much more careful in setting up your mining operations. You minimize the clash with the Na'vi. You mine what you can get to regardless of quality. You don't go provoking every tribe in the region of your operations by wiping out the home of one of them. If you absolutely must get to the Unobtainium lode below Home Tree.... mine under them.

But above all else, you do not gamble the survivability of the Human race trying to maximize profits when you've got only a small outpost on a hostile alien world surrounded by thousands of aliens who will want to kill you!

Ergo, I still consider Selfridge and Quaritch to be the antagonists of the movie, and while it would diminish the justifications given by the others, I still think the Na'vi were justified in opposing them at least in terms of not wanting to give up their home.

A final thought.

Unobtainium exists nowhere in the universe known to either of the parties involved except for Pandora. Attempts to replicate its properties as a room temperature superconductor by humans and thus eliminate the need to perform interstellar mining operations have not been successful. Pandora is the only source of Unobtainium, so if the legitimate need for Unobtainium is to be met, it must be met by the deposits on Pandora.

Honestly? This feels ridiculous. It feels like something to just further justify the plot, and while I don't remember it from the movie I wouldn't be surprised if I just forgot it. Pandora as the only source of Unobtainium? How did Humanity know to find it there? How did they get there without it being present (even if in minute quantities) in our solar system? I mean, you get the same effect just by saying Pandora is the only planet-sized body that Unobtainium has been found on and that all other sources are found in minor quantities on asteroids and such. So why?

Oh, whatever.

Anyway, that's my view on the points you've asserted.

[Darth Wong]

It's worth pointing out that Selfridge didn't even say the Home Tree deposit was unique or necessary; just that it was the biggest one for 200km in any direction IIRC. The whole confrontation was basically about getting the ore cheaply and easily, not doing something that was impossible any other way.

[Ahriman238]

And without further belaboring the obvious, the company has had contact with the Na'vi for decades prior to the film, and for a time the Na'vi welcomed the Avatar scientists. Part of the problem was probably the science staff laughing off their quaint culture and silly superstitions (something similar sometimes happened with European settlers in Africa, and the locals were frequently proven right in a horrific manner.) and part of it that, well...

According to the early script/EU (If you want to dismiss this as cannon, feel free) Pandora contains no virii, and no harmful bacteria. There are no diseases and injuries never become infected. When the RDA, intentionally or not, releases diseases on the local biosphere, benign bacteria mutates within hours into antibodies that utterly anhiliate the invaders. I consider this a huge clue that Pandora was artificially created. The RDA has a side venture in which they release diseases and collect the antibodies to ship home as cures for every disease.

That makes modern medicine look a whole lot less impressive, and I can just picture some suit trying to explain in small words that the sky-people medicines make the sickness go away, just to have the Na'vi ask what sickness is. Roads? They don't do enough trade to make that really practical, individuals can navigate the jungles easily and every adult of the Omaticaya (I suspect this is not true to ALL Na'vi everywhere) have a Banshee to ride. And even if all of these things worked and were as useful on Pandora as on Earth, it still wouldn't be enough, because the price they want is the Omaticaya's home, and hunting grounds, their nation and their livelihood. What could possibly be worth that?

Oh, and it's easy to imagine how the first expeditions got to Pandora before the unobtanium made antimatter-fueled lighthuggers possible. Just use Orion Rockets and you can reach it in twenty years or so, you'd have to automate or maybe use the stasis tech we know exists in-universe.

[Cesario]

Or do you just want to see where in the script they start in on the lectures about the evils and inadequicies of humans not already knowing everything about and embracing the Na'vi way of life or being offended that humans have ideas of their own?

NEYTIRI
Your fault! You are like a baby, making
noise, don't know what to do. You should
not come here, all of you! You only come
and make problems. Only.

Oh my god, turns out this guy doesn't know how to survive in an alien environment hostile jungle planet that has a mind of its own, and the Na'vi do know better in the context of the Pandoran environment because... they've lived there their entire lives.

MO'AT
We have tried to teach other Sky People.
It is hard to fill a cup which is already
full.

Turns out the ways of people who live in that environment for, like, ever, and have interacted on some level with the world-spanning consciousness is actually more applicable for their environment than the ways of other guys who... aren't from there... and who haven't even figured out how that place works?

Also, was Mo'at even expressing offense at the humans not being to learn their ways fast enough? She was just stating that they were hard to teach and/or slow learners. That's like saying that a teacher who says that a student has trouble learning and flunks his classes is all personally offended and raaarrrr.

Trouble is, that's her only explaination for why this was the plan:

NEYTIRI
(SUBTITLED)
I was going to kill him, but there was a
sign from Eywa.

Not knowing things that you note are inevidably not going to be known nets a death sentence.

MO'AT
(to Jake)
My daughter will teach you our ways.
Learn well, Jakesully. We will see if
your insanity can be cured.

The Na'vi know that Eywa is real and extends throughout the entire biosphere. So for them, yeah, strange guys going in and cutting down trees and massacrating lifeforms and wrecking the biosphere is pretty much insane and offensive. In the context of, you know, living in a living planet, rampant environmental destruction and disregard of nature is insane.

And I'm sure eventually the Na'vi might get around to saying that the poor environmental policies are what they consider insane, instead of what they explicitly spelled out, which was just walking around outside without knowing everything about the environment already.

It's like Englishmen getting frustrated because no matter how many times they try to tell em, a bunch of American tourists are always driving on the wrong side of the road. Oh my god, how dare the Englishmen lecture tourists for not following the traffic rules of London, or being offended that the Americans have ideas of their own in which side of the road to drive in and never listen to the locals who explain the rules of the land.

You'd make a stereotypical lousy tourist, Cesario. If you were visiting a mosque and the imam tells you to remove your shoes, or a Japanese house and the sumo wrestler tells you to remove your shoes, you'd throw a shit fit at how the sumo imam is offended that you have ideas of your own. If someone told you to observe the basic courtesies of the strange new land you're visiting, you'd get indignant and bawl about how they are saying that you are inadequate. How reprehensible!

If they tried to kill me over a cultural misunderstanding they'd never bothered to explain to me, yeah, I think I'd consider myself justified in considering them the bad guys.

MAX and the lab staff are glumly packing files and equipment,
under the watchful eye of armed SEC-OPS TROOPERS. JAKE,
GRACE, NORM stare bleakly at each other.

GRACE
They bulldozed a sacred site on purpose,
to trigger a response. They're
fabricating this war to get what they
want.

NORM
I can't believe that.

JAKE
Yup. That's how it's done. When people
are sitting on shit you want, you make
them your enemy. Then you're justified in
taking it.

JAKE
The Sky People have sent a message that
they can take whatever they want, and no
one can stop them. But we will send them
a message. Ride out, as fast as the wind
can carry you, tell the other clans to
come. Tell them Toruk Macto calls to
them. Fly now with me brothers and
sisters! Fly! And we will show the Sky
People that this is our land!

Of course, we don't actually have to go with Jake and Grace's blind speculation, when we've got an omniscient narrator who's been letting us in on Quaratch and Selfridge's meetings already. And they've said nothing about manufacturing an incident. Though the fact that Jake only learned the Tree of Voices was a sacred site while he was fucking in it seems to put the lie to the idea that the dozers were deliberately sent to run it over to provoke the Na'vi.

Once again, human beings are not temporally transcendent entities (except for Jake, who has prophetic dreams even without the aid of Na'vi space worms).

Or rather it requires extremely low temperatures to function at all without Unobtainium, which cause engineering problems when you're trying to repurpose it for other uses. Note Tedious explaining how Unobtainium actually did solve problems that made the technology practical for applications other than a giant space laser in-universe.

Oh no! We have a giant generator with stellar power output! But the generator can only work on the Moon!

If only it was connected to some sort of device that could beam the energy around, precise enough to focus the beam on a starship throughout five and a half months!

Yeah, let's point that giant orbital laser at the ground. No problems could possibly come from that.

Since you take issue with that example, let's talk about the gunpowder engine. We have a power source with greater energy density than gasoline, and we can use it to make bombs, guns, and artillery pieces, so obviously that means we can trivially make use of that same energy source to make a wheel spin without solving any other engineering problems whatsoever.

Of course the laser is nothing like gunpowder - it's a ready-made way to transfer your stellar energy output to, say, power satellites in Earth orbit.

That's still an engineering problem that needs to be solved. One they obviously hadn't solved in this universe.

Or, here's a novel idea: instead of building three massive orbiting antimatter reactors (the ships) and a fourth, even more massive one to propel the former out of the system, install all four on the Moon and move the population there.

Each generator like these could give 3.3 billion people 1000x the electricity consumed today by an average American. So four reactors could easily sustain some 12 billion people on the Moon,solving all the problems with habitat-living by throwing energy at them. (They could probably do better than 12 billion, even, since I calculated the output using assumptions that lower it by at least an order of magnitude).

So, evacuate the planet earth? That's a great idea. Now, if only they had enough space ships to do that. Wait, I seem to recall something about an exotic component or two that's required to make their space ships workable at large scales...

You have to face the truth: either the humans have no energy crisis at all, much less one that threatens their food supply (hence why the don't turn the fucking holoads off),or they do have one and just aren't doing anything about it despite the obvious capability to do so (which incidentally is what the EU supports...), in which case they have no right to rape loot and pillage other people's land to sustain their insatiable hunger for energy.

Because a light bulb is equivalent in power usage to a farm tractor?

Pretty much. Either the Space UN are some combination of callous, in our pockets already, stupid, or uninvolved, or they are not. The massacre going down with no consequences proves it was the former.

Because we all know a corrupt government body will let you get away with literally anything, right? That's why Blackwater murdered hundreds of people in reprisal for their operators being ambused and shot in Iraq, right?

Because Blackwater got completely ingored when they were massacring people, right?

Pretty much, yeah. Or rather, a massively radioactive world is another "environment known to man", and thus, by definition must be less hostile than the one we just burned off.

Oh god, you're not serious, are you?

Pandora is obviously not "the most hostile environment known to man." All you have to do to know that is look at it.

You can walk around the place wearing tropical uniforms and a breathing mask, for fuck's sake.

If we could do it in "the most hostile environment known to man" that quickly, there's every reason to believe we could do it more quickly in the less hostile envivornment resulting from us killing everything on Pandora.

Irradiated wasteland you can't traverse without a fully enclosev environmental suit that carries its own atmosphere, and where you can't use internal combustion engines does not make it easier to exploit than a planet with a temperate climate, plentiful oxygenin the atmosphere and harmless radiation levels.

Not my words. That's from the film. Apparently the humans in this universe got really good at dealing with pressure, cold, and radiation, while not advancing much in the area of "arrow to the face" and "crushed by a giant rhino thing".

And wait, weren't you claiming there's an existential crisis on Earth? At the very least you're looking at 20 years with NO unobtainium while new equipment gets shipped in and mining is restored

And? Inevidable versus urgent. Were you reading at all during this entire conversation?

Actually, the supporters of the film are the ones who seem to think the only alternative is anarchy and tribalism. I'm rather of the view that feeding the population and not letting everyone die horribly for the convenience of the magical blue space elves is perfectly doable.

Look, you retarded dolt, you're making up this false dilemma that either humanity gets all the unobtainium it wants or it has a mass die-off.

Some, all it wants, clearly exactly the same thing. Dolt.

YOU are the one who says the only alternative to rampant consumption is to "shut down all the power", instead of LIMITING ITS USE TO NECESSITIES.

They clearly have enough power generation to meet all their needs and more, they just waste it all on rampant overconsumption.

Nobody in this thread has ever said humanity should revert to a hunter-gahterer lifestyle ; They should just shut down their fucking sky-covering holoads.

What are necessities, exactly? The manufacture of food? We can't cut that off, right? How about getting that food to the people who will starve without it? Obviously that's not something we can get rid of too, so transportation infrastructure has to stay intact. Population will need to be limited if we don't just want the problem to get worse, so we're going to need to deal with birth control and education, so probably shouldn't gut the communication infrastructure. Oh, people still need to breathe, so we've got to keep pumping out those filter masks or an equivalent.

So, you want to switch off the advertisements. That'll save how much power relative to the rest of the infrastructure that's keeping the human race from dying out that has to replace the work of the entire planet's biosphere on top of everything we know will be required from just our modern prospective?

What the fuck are you talking about, retard? The Na'vi don't give a shit about how humans live their own lives. They're angry at humans because the humans are fucking up their home, not because humans use science and technology. You've made up this entire moronic narrative about Na'vi Ludditism out of thin air.

You sound exactly like FOXNews people pretending that Middle Eastern people are angry at America because of the way Americans live, rather than being angry at Americans for what they're doing in the Middle East. I'll say to you the same goddamned thing I say to them: if I walk up to a Muslim and punch him in the face, and he gets angry, it's a pretty safe bet that he's angry at me because I punched him in the face, not because I'm an atheist. Even if he doesn't like atheists, that's not the obvious impetus for his anger, is it?

Doesn't quite work when he outright says he's mad at you because you're an atheist and doesn't mention getting punched in the nose at any point.

I see you are now resorting to outright lying.

Oh, was there an actual Muslim that you punched in the face that you're refferencing?

I see you are now resorting to outright lying.

Some people dislike this movie so much that their minds breath into life entire scenes and sequences to better justify their dislike of it. So while in the actual film the Omaticaya's only issue is with the RDA encroaching on their land, people invent this notion of huge blue hands squeezing the life out of Western Civilisation. I don't want to read too far into the absence of dialogue on the matter, but the RDA have a bunch of 100,000 ton fusion powered monsters carving out a four kilometre wide toxic pit somewhere near Hell's Gate and no Na'vi ever mentions it. I think impliedly the Na'vi were fine with the RDA doing its thing in that little corner of Pandora up until it started moving into Omaticaya land.

Some people are just really wrapped up in this movie being some sort of closet Greenpeace funded ecoterrorism manifesto, though

Once again, humans were dying before the Home Tree incident. The Na'vi never mentioned a word about the environmental impact of the mining, just about how the humans weren't living exactly like them and how they stunk.

Some people dislike this movie so much that their minds breath into life entire scenes and sequences to better justify their dislike of it. So while in the actual film the Omaticaya's only issue is with the RDA encroaching on their land, people invent this notion of huge blue hands squeezing the life out of Western Civilisation. I don't want to read too far into the absence of dialogue on the matter, but the RDA have a bunch of 100,000 ton fusion powered monsters carving out a four kilometre wide toxic pit somewhere near Hell's Gate and no Na'vi ever mentions it. I think impliedly the Na'vi were fine with the RDA doing its thing in that little corner of Pandora up until it started moving into Omaticaya land.

Some people are just really wrapped up in this move being some sort of closet Greenpeace funded ecoterrorism manifesto, though

Well, some warriors at least were angry at the environmental devastation - like the group led by Neytiri's sis, Sylvanni (or something ) that burned down a killdozer.

They were hunted down and executed by RDA's security troops, with kids dying in the crossfire, which led to the Omaticaya getting seriously pissed.

HOW DARE THE OMATICAYA BE ANGRY ABOUT THAT?!

More like how is it possible they're so blase about something like that as to never bring it up? Massacre of children and that's never mentioned while you're busy looking for things to throw at the evil alien invaders as proof that they're demons?

No, that's the opposite of what I said. The audience is called upon to villify the RDA by the narrative. It is simply a flaw with the narrative that the RDA has a legitimate point.

Oh my god, the sarcasm flew right over your thick head. Maybe if I put more of it might be more obvious.

More like I don't see why you would bother? What was witty about your line there? Where were you going with it?

Since it's so obvious to a mental giant like you, why don't you do a "goddamn retard" like me the favor of pointing out even one thing either the Na'vi or the narrative put forward as a positive aspect of human culture capable of improving the Na'vi's lives.

Are you for real? I just fucking gave the school example and you just ignore it like the lying dipshit you are. What, are you saying schools don't improve lives now? Oh wait, you are the sad little turd who wishes to have most of his fellow students machine gun down. Ah, that explains it.

Schools don't improve lives in and of themselves. Schools are a mechanism whereby the things that do improve lives, knowledge and ideas, can be transfered. The only thing we know the Na'vi learned at that school was English. What ideas and knowledge did the Na'vi find of value asside from the linguistic skills to listen in on the communications of the human invaders?

Awe, you're breaking my heart.

I didn't realise a fuckwit who thinks its A Okay to have school students machine gun down has a heart. You sure fooled me.

Not believing something exists isn't the same as consiously rejecting something you know exists.

Like how rejecting tech that isn't useful to you is rejecting all technology in general. Gotcha. I guess thats why the Na'vi absolutely refused to use two way radios when fighting. Wait, you didn't actually address this point except to say its ironic, which doesn't actually refute the point that the Na'vi aren't above using advance technology when its useful to them. Ergo your statement that the Na'vi rejected ALL human culture is blatantly wrong.

And you know, that communication technology, dispite the Na'vi only ever using it in pursuit of killing all humans, is yet another example of something that the humans could have offered the Na'vi in trade. Pity the Na'vi refused diplomatic contact, rejected the very idea of trade, and told the humans that there was nothing they had to offer.

Since the original point flew over your head, I will state it so even a retard like yourself gets it.
Those who argue RDA are in the right, essentially subscribe to a might makes right philosophy, except when the other side is mightier of course. They refuse to acknowledge it so they make all sorts of useful excuse like the Na'vi don't like technology wah wah. Not only is this irrelevant because technological levels have jack shit to do with this, but its not even true because the Na'vi went to school, use two way radios etc. You are literally pulling shit from your arse to come up with pseudo justification.

Again, my main problem was the Na'vi's refusal to talk, not their prefference for a primitivist lifestyle.

According to Douchebaggio, the Na'vi were angry because humans use technology, not because humans are destroying their habitat. Therefore, if the humans wiped out the Na'vi habitat with huge monsters instead of huge machines, the Na'vi would have been perfectly happy with that.

You weren't paying attention. (What else is new?) Where did I ever say the Na'vi were angry because human use technology? The Na'vi had nothing to say on the subject of habitat devistation. They did have a lot of judgemental dickery about how humans were stupid for not already knowing things they'd spent their whole lives learning and there was a bit about how us aliens stink. Not a word on habitat destruction or massacred children.

Those are things we would expect a human population in the same place as the Na'vi to actually care about, but clearly the Na'vi are psychologically a lot more alien than we've given them credit for.

Well, now that I got the gist of Cesario's opinions and arguments straight from the source, no more need for the omnipotent judge story device.

Too bad. I was enjoying that.

I think there are two big issues to deal with for your views, Cesario.

One is that, quite simply, nothing in the movie actually indicates this is the truth. Some expanded universe info states it, but it was excluded for a reason (I cynically suspect it was because it was feared that it'd make the audience less likely to root for Jake, though it's just as likely from Hollywood's distaste for movies too far past 2 hours).

Actually, that expanded universe material was designed to make the humans look worse. To re-emphasise how horrible their environmental stewardship had been on earth. I don't imagine they realized that this material actually justifies the humans' actions.

So for a lot of people, the argument that "Humanity needs it or we'll starve and lose the ability to breathe in our poisoned atmosphere" is nothing more than an invention by specieists and fascists to justify rooting for the destruction of a society's home and, eventually, the plan to destroy the most cherished holy site in an entire civilization to cow them.

Yes, a lot of idiots have been claiming I'm making shit up from whole cloth from the beginning, and have continued to do so long after I provided a source. Even to the point of vandalizing a wiki that they'd suggested I use to find the evidence in.

Suffice it to say, I'm not really getting a sense of intelectual honesty from my opposition here.

The second is... if this is true... it makes RDA worse. It makes RDA, or at least Selfridge and Quaritch, into ludicrously irresponsible fools who allowed their greed and prejudices to outweigh their responsibility. Selfridge's obsession with the bottom line and making money becomes especially horrifying if we accept the premise of the "mass starvation and asphyxiation without Unobtainium" idea.

So, yes, the Na'vi weren't negotiating. They didn't want Humans digging around their land for that necessary mineral, period. Humans try and they get shot at with super-arrows. That sucks. But that just means you have to be that much more careful in setting up your mining operations. You minimize the clash with the Na'vi.

Minimize how?

You mine what you can get to regardless of quality. You don't go provoking every tribe in the region of your operations by wiping out the home of one of them.

Thing is, that "provoking every trime in the region" thing wasn't anticipated by anyone in the film on eithe side of the conflict. Right or wrong, the expectation of all involved was that the ones who were forced to move would lick their wounds and move on. That was what we saw happening before Jake pulled his stunt.

If you absolutely must get to the Unobtainium lode below Home Tree.... mine under them.

There's no actual evidence that was an option. In fact, it's kind of a plot point that resources and mining equipment are incredibly limited due to the fact that they're mining in another star system.

But above all else, you do not gamble the survivability of the Human race trying to maximize profits when you've got only a small outpost on a hostile alien world surrounded by thousands of aliens who will want to kill you!

No one, no one, believed that this was in any way a gamble. You can call them stupid for not considering the possibility of a large-scale war followed by divine intervention by a planetwide superconsiousness, but judging their ethics based on things they didn't know at the time is unfair.

Ergo, I still consider Selfridge and Quaritch to be the antagonists of the movie,

Of course they were the antagonists of the film. That's a narrative term that simply requires that they occupy a specific place in the narrative. It doesn't require that they be the good guys. The cops in any given heist film are the antagonists, but that doesn't make them the bad guys.

and while it would diminish the justifications given by the others, I still think the Na'vi were justified in opposing them at least in terms of not wanting to give up their home.

How do the Na'vi make out in terms of arrowing the humans they were killing before the Home Tree incident?

A final thought.

Unobtainium exists nowhere in the universe known to either of the parties involved except for Pandora. Attempts to replicate its properties as a room temperature superconductor by humans and thus eliminate the need to perform interstellar mining operations have not been successful. Pandora is the only source of Unobtainium, so if the legitimate need for Unobtainium is to be met, it must be met by the deposits on Pandora.

Honestly? This feels ridiculous. It feels like something to just further justify the plot, and while I don't remember it from the movie I wouldn't be surprised if I just forgot it. Pandora as the only source of Unobtainium? How did Humanity know to find it there? How did they get there without it being present (even if in minute quantities) in our solar system? I mean, you get the same effect just by saying Pandora is the only planet-sized body that Unobtainium has been found on and that all other sources are found in minor quantities on asteroids and such. So why?

Oh, whatever.

Anyway, that's my view on the points you've asserted.

The unique-to-pandora nature of Unobtainium is just a contrivance to justify the plot. I have complained at a few points in this thread about the number of contrivances that were forcing the humans' hand in this, and likened this to the actions of a twisted god. Set up a native american paralell that everyone would have to be blind not to see, then contrive things further and further to try and make people repeat history. All the while the humans in universe see the paralells, are doing everything they can to avoid repeating the mistakes of history, and only Quaratch snaps and goes on a kiling spree in the face of this obviously evil god.

[Steve]

Since I'm heading to bed shortly for work, I'm saving a full response until tomorrow, Cesario.

But I will remark on one thing.

How do the Na'vi make out in terms of arrowing the humans they were killing before the Home Tree incident?

Again:

I still think the Na'vi were justified in opposing them at least in terms of not wanting to give up their home.

IOW, attacking human miners who are at a sight that isn't over the blasted remains of Home Tree? That's not covered by this. This covers acts of self-defense to protect their domicile.

Also, can you link to the wiki entry you say has since been vandalized?

[Cesario]

Since I'm heading to bed shortly for work, I'm saving a full response until tomorrow, Cesario.

But I will remark on one thing.

How do the Na'vi make out in terms of arrowing the humans they were killing before the Home Tree incident?

Again:

I still think the Na'vi were justified in opposing them at least in terms of not wanting to give up their home.

IOW, attacking human miners who are at a sight that isn't over the blasted remains of Home Tree? That's not covered by this. This covers acts of self-defense to protect their domicile.

That's what I was asking. Thank you.

Also, can you link to the wiki entry you say has since been vandalized?

It's right here:
http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unobtanium

It was posted on this board late on January 6. There is a ping in the edit history on January 7 that was quickly reverted, but not before Darth Tedious quoted and emphasised the edited section.

[mr friendly guy]

Schools don't improve lives in and of themselves. Schools are a mechanism whereby the things that do improve lives, knowledge and ideas, can be transfered. The only thing we know the Na'vi learned at that school was English. What ideas and knowledge did the Na'vi find of value asside from the linguistic skills to listen in on the communications of the human invaders?

Now you are engaging semantic whoring with this "in and of themselves." The point is the Na'vi not being willing to negotiate is bullshit because a) they learnt the language to communicate and b) they actually went to a human place to talk. Your bullshit has been ripped apart and you just continue to shift the goalposts.

You say the Na'vi didn't want anything useful from the humans, when its pointed out they went to school, you just say it doesn't count because they don't improve lives in and of themselves.

And you know, that communication technology, dispite the Na'vi only ever using it in pursuit of killing all humans, is yet another example of something that the humans could have offered the Na'vi in trade.

Don't shift the goalposts. Earlier you said this gem

Too bad the natives are clearly of the opinion (and the audience is called upon to agree with them) that the Na'vi way of life is the ideal. There is no compromise here. No acknowledgement that there are positive aspects of both cultures that could be put together into a greater whole. Just an outright rejection of everything in the human way of life and a complete embracing of everything in the Na'vi way of life, which actually has no technology more advanced than bows and arrows.

The Na'vi did embrace aspects of human culture like learning English and using two way radios. You lost, so you shift the goal posts to what parts of human culture they embraced wasn't good enough. I know you are stupid, but this board limits the edit function, so anyone can look back and see what you really wrote. Want to shift any more goalposts.

Again, my main problem was the Na'vi's refusal to talk, not their prefference for a primitivist lifestyle.

Oh really

Except for the part where the Na'vi were giving lectures about how the evil, soul-less humans aren't at one with nature, or like our great hero, after becoming the leader of the Na'vi tells their god that humans killed the planet earth. No, there was clearly no luddism here at all.

Aside from the fact you mistook environmentalism for luddism, you were clearly against the primitivist lifestyle there with a likening of it to luddism. And lets not forgot the other quote I have of you from above.

You are clearly a lying dipshit who shifts the goalposts. And this is just from the posts you have replied to me. I shudder to think what I would find if I had to re-read what you wrote to others.

But this a red herring right. If the Na'vi said lets take it to a vote, and 50.1% voted against adopting technology you would still say RDA were right to attack. You would just use that Earth is dying and it neeeeeeds the unobtanium. Like I said, your whole rants against primitives is a red herring to cover up for your jerking off militarism and imperialism.

[PeZook]

Yeah, let's point that giant orbital laser at the ground. No problems could possibly come from that.

I am sure the people in Cesarioworld have not mastered complicated engineering principles like "plug hundreds of smaller emitters into the same power source", but it shouldn't be much of a problem elsewhere.

That's still an engineering problem that needs to be solved. One they obviously hadn't solved in this universe.

Yes, they concentrated on building c-fractional starships four kilometres long to go to the next star system over in search of magic rocks that would have the ability to solve their energy woes.

That's waaaaaaaaaay easier

So, evacuate the planet earth? That's a great idea. Now, if only they had enough space ships to do that. Wait, I seem to recall something about an exotic component or two that's required to make their space ships workable at large scales...

Oh, right, I forgot the laser was built by leprechauns and thus needed no spacelift or orbital industry. Their four kilometer long orbiting antimatter reactors were also built by leprechauns, apparently.

*sigh*

You're right, that plan is impossible. Now, if the movie showed us some sort of small intra-system vehicle capable of operating inside a gravity well of a gas giant, equipped with re-entry shielding and fusion engines and sporting a large cargo bay, it would be completely different. Imagine how many such vehicles you could build for the cost of one Venture Star! It would be a total game changer, man.

We could call them something cool and mythological, like Valkyrie shuttles - taking the worthy from polluted Earth hell to paradise.

God, it's too bad nothing like that was ever shown in the film. It would've been awesome!

Because a light bulb is equivalent in power usage to a farm tractor?

It's not a "light bulb". The entire fucking sky in Jake's city is covered by the ads: in case of an energy crisis, it's exactly the sort of thing you shut off to conserve energy.

Not to mention that this implies they are still wasting energy on producing consumer goods that producers have to try to sell. All of this while their food supply is in danger.

As I wrote, either they have enough energy to do all that, or they're too stupid to live and thus have no right to sate their hunger by raping other people's livelihoods.

Because Blackwater got completely ingored when they were massacring people, right?

They got away with murdering dozens of unarmed civilians.

By your logic, this clearly means they would have also gotten away with genocide.

Seriously, you should drop it, because now you are arguing against reality. You're not going to prove a corrupt government body has no limits to what it will allow, because you might as well be arguing against gravity.

Not my words. That's from the film. Apparently the humans in this universe got really good at dealing with pressure, cold, and radiation, while not advancing much in the area of "arrow to the face" and "crushed by a giant rhino thing".

Yeah, people in the film always speak with utter scientific precision. Hyperbole is not allowed in Hell's Gate, it cuts into corporate profits

And? Inevidable versus urgent. Were you reading at all during this entire conversation?

If they can live for 20 years with no unobtainium whatsoever, then you've really shot your home tree argument in the foot, you know that?

What are necessities, exactly? The manufacture of food? We can't cut that off, right? How about getting that food to the people who will starve without it? Obviously that's not something we can get rid of too, so transportation infrastructure has to stay intact. Population will need to be limited if we don't just want the problem to get worse, so we're going to need to deal with birth control and education, so probably shouldn't gut the communication infrastructure. Oh, people still need to breathe, so we've got to keep pumping out those filter masks or an equivalent.

So, you want to switch off the advertisements. That'll save how much power relative to the rest of the infrastructure that's keeping the human race from dying out that has to replace the work of the entire planet's biosphere on top of everything we know will be required from just our modern prospective?

What part of "in an energy crisis, the first things to go are those least needed" is too complicated for you to understand?

If your food supply is in danger, you save wherever possible, period. You don't cover the sky in ads, you don't let bars have massive TVs that cover all the walls, you institute strict power rationing.

One TV probably doesn't eat much power. Twenty billion wallscreen TVs are another matter entirely.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I just can't get over the fact that the planetary environmental equivalent of a shallow-depth tropical scuba dive is still being defended as "THE MOST HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT KNOWN TO MAN!!!1!"

[PeZook]

By the way, how many miners were killed by the Na'Vi in the three months that Jake was off hitting on the chief's daughter?

[Darth Tedious]

Also, can you link to the wiki entry you say has since been vandalized?

Apparently requesting a citation for an unreferenced and completely unsupported fact is vandalism.

And since then, I went and found an official source (for the mention of an energy crisis, though not for human dependency on it for survival).

[Steve]

Also, can you link to the wiki entry you say has since been vandalized?

Apparently requesting a citation for an unreferenced and completely unsupported fact is vandalism.

And since then, I went and found an official source (for the mention of an energy crisis, though not for human dependency on it for survival).

A good point.

OTOH, adding the citation requests yourself and then coming back here to post the articles with citation requests included as if they were there the whole time? That sounds like trying to score cheap points.


And to respond to a few points by Cesario.

Yes, a lot of idiots have been claiming I'm making shit up from whole cloth from the beginning, and have continued to do so long after I provided a source. Even to the point of vandalizing a wiki that they'd suggested I use to find the evidence in.

The source you provided, at least in terms of the wiki, had the disadvantage of... being a wiki. Which means anyone can post anything there and so long as it isn't refuted or opposed it stays, regardless of actual truth.

So I'm afraid it's not very strong evidence.

Minimize how?

Well, for starters.... how about not destroying a tribe's home just to get directly to a deposit?

Mine deposits that don't require you to destroy their home. Defend yourself, yes, but don't go looking for a fight by attacking their freaking home.

Thing is, that "provoking every trime in the region" thing wasn't anticipated by anyone in the film on eithe side of the conflict. Right or wrong, the expectation of all involved was that the ones who were forced to move would lick their wounds and move on. That was what we saw happening before Jake pulled his stunt.

Honestly, it looked more to me like the RDA people simply discounted the possibility, and the Omaticaya were still reeling from demoralization when Jake tamed the big damn pterodactyl... but that doesn't mean the other tribes wouldn't have acted eventually in some manner.

Really, the only main thing Jake's intervention did was cause RDA to lose. (And even then only because he had the nerve to ask the planetary consciousness for direct help.)

There's no actual evidence that was an option. In fact, it's kind of a plot point that resources and mining equipment are incredibly limited due to the fact that they're mining in another star system.

So how do they mine in the first place if they can't dig underground?

Actually, I'm being a bit facetious there, tunnel-making is a different beast than mining directly, yes.

I'd want to ask someone more familiar with mine engineering (oh Sheppp.....*) for how much work it'd require. But consider that Hell's Gate had the means to repair and maintain all of the equipment that not only sustained the mining operations but the outpost itself and the Avatar project. All of those delicate medical and science instruments. The trailers used as field stations. The VTOL transports (With their GLASS CANOPIES!!!!). Just having the outpost exist as it did indicates a level of self-sufficiency that might make underground mining sustainable. Since ultimately they could probably just get away with using timber to maintain the tunnel structure, and Pandora has shitloads of timber. (Maybe that's the reason for Colonel Quaritch's battle armor having that BIG FUCKIN' KNIFE, to quote the Spoony One).

* - Yes, I know, Shep's not a mine engineer. But he is a Research-Fu Master.

Of course they were the antagonists of the film. That's a narrative term that simply requires that they occupy a specific place in the narrative. It doesn't require that they be the good guys. The cops in any given heist film are the antagonists, but that doesn't make them the bad guys.

My bad for thinking too squarely in writer-speak. I still consider them the bad guys. I still think they weren't right. That should clarify my position.


Frankly, you're not going to convince anyone. There is simply not enough evidence shown to sustain the "humanity on the verge of destruction" argument you've made. Whatever has made you think that true simply isn't prominent enough in the material for others to accept it. Without that being accepted, your arguments aren't going to go anywhere, and just serve to provoke the hard-core Avatar fanbase into ever more shrill denunciations of your posts. You should really get out before you provoke any further animosity.