Avatar (James Cameron film)

It annoys me that the movie requires so much backstory to make any sense. Like that school thing and why the Avatars are being shafted even though they were funded for a purpose and why the Na'vi look humanoid and Earth dying and all those other questions.

edited 17th Nov '14 4:24:07 PM by Tuckerscreator

It appeared in the special edition. So, yes canon.

But that wasn't the version most people saw. And the original version is long enough as it is, only superfans are going to buy the director's cut.

That doesn't stop it from being a thing that is true.

You were unaware of the event and have been informed. Now you can use this information to further develop your thoughts and opinions.

I already knew about that deleted scene. I'm saying that few enough people saw that version that in most cases it doesn't exist anymore.

Canon isn't consensus. Canon is dictated from above. The school shooting backstory is canon.

If people's arguments aren't taking it into account, they are arguing without all the relevant information.

"Canon is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't cease to exist."

(With apologies to Philip K Dick.)

It can't be "humans are bastards" if some of the "good guys" are humans too. And no, not all of the "good" humans were Avatar drivers. There was the pilot who died too.

Now, if you mean there should have been some "bad" Na'vi too, then we might have had a grey conflict but seriously, you're not fixing the so called problem by making more "sympathetic" humans, just changing numbers around.

I think the plot could have been solved by not making the main character an idiot without irony. Aren't Marine's supposed to be smart? Experience should have at least told him toxic plants, infesting bugs and all the other reasons not to just start touching things in a jungle he knows nothing about. I've ended up with clothing full of bugs from brushing up against bushes I thought I knew andI wasn't even trying to touch. That fool acted like he was in a giant popup book.

And yes, trying to complete his mission would have been helpful. It'd be different if he tried, but the incident that got him suspended happened because he was "linking" with the chief's daughter. If he had spent as much time explaining the dozer's coming, at worst, more Na'Vi would have been involved in breaking its camera and he might have even saved face.

But since what's done is done and Jake Sully has already been unleashed upon us, how about machinations? The whole movie was a plot by E'wa to turn Na'vi hostile against the aliens and cause a lot of death, so she could obtain new samples of organic material for the forging of future generations and stress test the Na'vi along the way(Na'Vi V 2.009 has proven obsolete in light of new data, updates shall be put in progress in 10 years. Creating restore point now, ceasing all non vital functions until restore point is complete.) She really got excited by the Avatar project, but realized the scientists would think too hard for her too take advantage of. Then they put an easily manipulated idiot in an Avatar body and she pounced.

As an added bonus, the unobtanium the Earthies are using is in fact rigged. Soon Earth will become a second E'wa ecosystem and the new god will forcibly begin to alter Earth creatures to its liking, bending any sapient ones into worshiping it. Earth will become a world without pollution, without viruses, without parasites, without consequence, without innovation. Life will be cheap and civilization will stagnate. Perhaps there will be a few holdouts? Rebels who refuse to be subjugated by the second E'wa? But even they who are apart from it will have to find a new way to sustain themselves, a new way to live.

Sapient species with mental facilities to think beyond oversimplified Darwinism frequently continue to slaughter each other for territory, resources, and food as much if not moreso than non-sapient species. Sapience means very little to nature; it's ultimately just another evolutionary trait to grant a species an edge over its competition. Sapient life invented bigger and better weapons of mass destruction, and still frequently has trouble with the notion that other members of its own species deserves to exist, let alone another species.

On the flip side of that, there are non-sentient species that are able to form symbiotic bonds and coexist with other elements of nature better than we could imagine too. In fact, plants can be some of the most individually selfless forms of life in existence, despite lacking anything even resembling the ability for thought. Do not mistake intelligence for compassion. They are completely separate traits.

edited 17th Nov '14 8:43:01 PM by TobiasDrake

Where did this idea that humans were going to go extinct without the Unobtanium come from? I don't recall that being in the film. I got the impression that the whole thing was just a space corporation being a bunch of rapacious bastards.

Earth is basically in ruins due to overpollution, and somehow this mineral is supposed to help repair it.

I daresay that supporting the argument that "the one with the bigger gun wins" (ie what is Darwinism to sapient species) tends to make people awful human beings. But again, maybe some of those people are satisfied by constant warfare on the planet, as long as they are not the ones suffering from it. Maybe an insurrection in their neighborhood would help change their mindset.

edited 18th Nov '14 4:07:22 AM by Julep

Those people are satisfied with war in someone else's backyard as long as it's against a people that they do not relate to, that doesn't immediately strike their empathetic cords and make them think, "This is a person with thoughts and feelings." Society often has an Us vs. Them mentality - which is, itself, rooted in the instinctive drive to identify predators - and the Na'vi are very much on the Them side of that equation.

An insurrection in the humans' neighborhood would only further establish the Na'vi as an inhuman Other that should be annihilated for being in the way of our developing culture. If the humans don't recognize the Na'vi as people and instead see them as savage wildmen, then any relationship between human and Na'vi is only going to end in disaster for the latter, either through a campaign of extermination, or through peace treaties and trade negotiations that are increasingly more one-sided in the humans' favor.

Ultimately, like I said, it's not about sentience. We treat our dogs better than we treat members of our own species that suffer the fatal affliction of being different from us. It's about connecting to people, showing them that the Na'vi are Not So Different from us and that their way of life has value that we can understand.

Or, failing that, trading Unobtainum for various Earthly supplies while researching our ways of warfare in secret until such a time as the Na'vi can reasonably defend themselves against a serious military attack on their planet, and then declaring a revolutionary war of independence.

edited 18th Nov '14 7:19:09 AM by TobiasDrake

Another place where Cameron twists the narrative so that negotiation isn't an option, by writing that the Na'vi have rejected trade offers because Ewya already gives them a bunch of natural substitutes. How lucky of them. How lucky indeed.

Yes what a shame they can't be convinced to trade their land for baubles and booze.

It does make some sense though that the Na'vi don't know how to deal with an alien race and vice versa, especially since Pandora has Eywa, which doesn't have any sort of equivalent on Earth.

It's easy to say "live green and in harmony with nature" when the planet itself can smack you for going too far.

That is true. Also, the only exposure the Na'vi have ever had to humans is that one encampment. They don't really understand the full extent of what the humans are capable of, and that they are a very dangerous enemy to make.

The destruction of Home Tree falls under a fairly common human method of dealing with indigenous wildlife that are in the way of our expansion: put the Fear of Man into them. There's a scene in one of the Jurassic Park movies where two hunters are talking about a dinosaur that has no reticence about getting close to them, one makes a point about, "They've never interacted with man before. They don't have any reason to be afraid of us." Then another shocks it with a cattle prod, sending it yelping away, and remarks, "Now they do." That's basically what Quaritch was trying to accomplish.

To the humans, the Na'vi are native wildlife that needs to be put in its place, and to the Na'vi, the humans are arrogant outsiders who do not understand the proper way of life. Without people on both sides of the fence working together to educate each other and build bridges, conflict was inevitable. That, quite frankly, is what Jake Sully and Neytiri's story SHOULD have been about.

Two cultures have come into conflict with each other, and ultimately there are only two possible outcomes: the complete annihilation of one culture, or for both cultures to be forever changed.

edited 18th Nov '14 9:51:55 AM by TobiasDrake

Didn't the dinosaur later come back with friends and eat that dude?

And treating the navi like they're just wildlife that we need to scare out of the way is massively missing the entire point of the plot. Probably intentionally. Its basically every story where some dominant culture has trampled over the natives to get something they want except unlike real life its allowed to have a happy ending where the natives aren't wiped out by disease or turned into slaves or pushed away and away into more and more undesirable land and have their culture nearly completely erased. That's Hollywood razzle dazzle - portraying something fanciful, something that just doesn't happen for real.

Turning the natives into aliens and having it be a different planet instead of the New World and having unobtanium instead of gold or oil or delicious smoked venison doesn't change what is represented here.

edited 18th Nov '14 10:05:20 AM by Bocaj

But making it some essential-for-our-survival one-of-a-kind supermineral does. It makes it more of a choice between wiping out another planet or letting humanity go extinct. The only reason you could justify Jake's decision is because he had nothing left on Earth. Any of us in that same scenario would have looked horrible, essentially telling all our friends and family back home to go fuck themselves for not being giant blue apes connected to a giant brain.

Missed the point where the humans already had a mine, I guess.

They were getting their unobtanium. They just wanted the motherload that the navi lived on top of.

If it was really fate of the world it wouldn't have been left to a corporation, really.

They needed the stuff clearly but it wasn't an 'and we need it yesterday' situation.

Not to mention that the unobtanium was necessary because humans already fucked up their own planet.

edited 18th Nov '14 10:43:35 AM by Bocaj

So that makes it okay then?

Yes it makes it okay that the navi don't want to move to let humans mine under their homes.

Remember how that was the big point of contention? The drive of the entire plot? The reason why Jake SOOOLEE was even piloting around a giant blue cat man? Because they wanted him to talk the navi into leaving their home so they could mine under it? Everything that happens after that happens because the humans got tired of asking politely and just bombed the hell out of the navi to force them to leave their home.

edited 18th Nov '14 12:00:10 PM by Bocaj

That's because the deposit under the tree was the safest deposit in the area. The mountains, like you keep suggesting, are extremely dangerous. That much of the stuff renders radar inoperable, AND that happens to be dragon territory, too much risk compared to the tree.

So, to you, an acceptable alternative is to force people out of their homes and kill them if they refuse to leave?

That's the preferred and acceptable alternative?

Quaritch's guys were handling the Banshees okay until Eywa unleashed the entire flock at them. As long as they go one mountain by one and don't disturb more than a few at a time, they should be fine.

edited 18th Nov '14 12:24:10 PM by Tuckerscreator

When it's that or extinction, damn straight. Unlike a lot of Avatar fans, I LIKE my species and would like to ensure our survival. Even if we've messed up our planet, don't we deserve the chance to at least try to fix it or find a new home?

I'm sure that won't lead to the miners being picked off because they're stationary targets, no sirree.