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brightsuzaku mostly lazy Since: Mar, 2011
mostly lazy
Mar 27th 2011 at 12:09:45 PM •••

I have a huge Just Bugs Me/Fridge Logic problem regarding much of the movie. Partially because I started moving into thoughts that began to severely perverse the entire message, and talking with friends just made it make even more sense. Now, then... Get ready for a massive wall of text and what's more a wild guess than anything. *deep breath*

We understand that Eywa is implied to be an entity with some form of will and control over the planet. Though, whether that degree of said will and control is great or not is debatable. Either way, the movie had asserted that it's a network, like a brain and its nerves.

Now, imagine that each and every living thing here has a specific function in this "organism"/Eywa, like a cell. There’s a place for everything and everything in its place. It's your basic nature-ey stuff eats stuff, predator and prey balance, with the prime exception that it can send messages and links directly to everything like a nerve impulse telling you that you just burned your pinky on a toaster oven. From here on, in this perspective, the existence of the Na'vi might throw things up a little. I theorized that the Na'vi functioned almost like a form of white blood cell, keeping things in balance. Eywa, Na'vi society, and the other animals themselves keep the Na'vi from deviating too far from their specific function/place. Now, "white blood cell". Why do I say that? Bring in the Unobtainium.

There seems to be no purpose whatsoever to the Unobtainium on Pandora, except that it could be the basis of the entire network, rooted at the great Trees (I guess they're servers). Or is it? What use is a room-temperature superconductor to a massive biological network? Why put the trees right on top of it? I concluded that it was also possibly a lure.

Pandora, Eywa, and the Na'vi are like a massive moon/planet-sized predator. And there might be others like it. By bringing other races to Pandora through the lure of Unobtainium, they definitely a suffer a lot. But ultimately, if they are able to take, and infect, at least one member of the invading/prey race, like Jake Sully, through it they learn and compound more information they can use for themselves. It is implied that the humans will return to Pandora. And with their ability to up/download information, they can consolidate what they need to know through Jake Sully and other human Avatars.

Jake Sully was originally a pretty normal guy. Over time, he becomes inundated with the ways of the Na'vi, and becomes one himself. Was it by his own choices, influenced by the wonderful world he has witnessed? Or is he being assimilated because his lack of knowledge makes him more vulnerable to their influence?

There is no reason for there to be a ceremony that allows an outsider to "Pass Through the Eye of Eywa", and move a mind from one body to another. Fridge Logic made me realize that from the way it looked, they clearly have done this before, even if they had to download the information to remember. They had to have a precedent. And they don't do this to the dead, as they appear to have separate ritual entombment for the dead. This is specific to outsiders.

This massive piece of speculation is totally going to be shot down by the second movie. It may have massive holes and logic errors in it. But, it did create the incredibly cool mental image regarding the last stand of humanity against the Na'vi, as they take our planet and assimilate it into a world like their own. In which they create another trap waiting ensnare another hapless overly-ambitious society. We humans are heavily implied to be too disconnected and sometimes out of tune with our world. Is this a bad thing? Or is the overmind of Eywa really a good thing?

Why else would you call it "Pandora"? Do the Na'vi carry "hope" for the future of Earth, or is it the humans who desperately need hope in order to survive? Are the Na'vi human, or are they merely less than such? What measure is a nonhuman, indeed.

Also, I’m highly in favor of the idea that in the sequel (that will never happen) the humans will create a Quaritch clone (appearing as he was before he arrived at Pandora), and he single-handedly becomes the savior of humanity against Jake Sully. It is made of up mountains of badass.

EDIT: A similar theory regarding Eywa is on the main WMG.

Edited by brightsuzaku Hide / Show Replies
DSFARGEG Since: Jan, 2001
Apr 9th 2011 at 6:46:08 PM •••

Well, most of that is supposed to go in WMG, but a few major mistakes: just because people are intelligent enough to do something well doesn't mean it's been practiced, and neither is the network a form of control - the reason the Na'vi haven't made the mistakes humans have is because they never faced the same problems, and their very nature is sufficiently different. As for unobtainium, it wasn't placed anywhere - elements can and do form with a solar system, and it is never mentioned anywhere that any important place is automatically located around it. As for the network itself, it is biological, not electrical, so unobtainium is extremely unlikely to be part of it.

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Apr 11th 2011 at 3:54:40 PM •••

If you really want to get technical, electricity is very much a part of organisms when it comes to nervous system impulses and whatnot. But that's not really the point right now.

It's an interesting idea, and would serve well as a WMG, but the point about "unobtanium not having a purpose" on Pandora doesn't quite make sense geologically. Hematite doesn't have a 'purpose' for being underground in our own planet, until miners find it and refine it into iron. Whatever's down there is simply a product of whatever major geological events that have happened in the past.

18-Till-I-Die Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 6th 2010 at 12:06:40 PM •••

I originally posted this in the Just Bugs Me Avatar page, but I was told to put it over on the discussion page and I feel it needs to be said frankly, so here it is, replicated in full.

"WMG: Wacky Anti-Na'Vi Fandom? Wut Seriously, did I Qs dop sharply while I was away, to quote Ripley. I hate to break it to you RDA fanboys but there is literally NO justification for what the Humans were doing. They have no right to go to another planet and take someone else’s resources just because they can, and even if, in the most terrifying possible nightmare world, people DID have that right...congrats you have just found justification for the aliens from every alien invasion movie ever to kill every human on Earth. You cannot logically believe that the Humans were even, in the remotest sense, in the right. The level of unwarranted and, frankly, asinine Hype Backlash is downright amazing. So far there are no less than three, that This Troper could count, posts here that begin with the notion of “Lets kill every one of them and rob their corpses!” and yet the (anti)fandom seems to accept this. What exactly is the point? Are you AWARE of how it makes you look? Are you just TRYING to prove the movie’s point about how Humans are stupid, skittish, violent morons? Give them crack? Nuke them from orbit. Impersonate their gods. Really? This (black) Troper is speechless at how this movie really has given every latent racist and Manifest Destiny fanboy a beautiful outlet to prove just how far Western Civilization hasn't come. Don’t even get me started on how the alleged Green Aesop (which itself has become a pejorative, for no good reason I might add) is touted as a reason to kill every Na’Vi ever born. Yikes. Really, some parts of the fandom should just be god damned ashamed. That is what bugs me."

Now maybe you'll say, "Oh you're black, you're just too sensitive about such tings!" but really it's very easy to dismiss such things when you havn't had people actually advocating wiping out YOUR race wholesale. More so, while I understand that Hype Backlash is bound to happen (I don't excuse it, because it's still stupid, but I accept it...like I accept cancer and death) this is simply absurd. There are more posts here about how to kill the Na'Vi than about how, you know, the BAD GUYS were trying to bring about genocide for the most craven, pointless reason imaginable.

To be clear: the humans didn't NEED unobtanium. They had interstellar travel before that (or else how would they have found Pandora originally), and if they simply had to live elsewhere they could have evacuated Earth. They were mining the stuff because it was valuable, and because it was a cheap power source for their spaceships. Nothing more. By advocating wiping out the Na'Vi you're actually suggesting exterminating a sapient species, with a culture and history as rich and important as any on Earth, so that somne greedy Gordon Gecko corporate pricks can get access to cheap space-gasoline.

If the RDA aren't repulsively evil to you, I would like to suggest you root for the aliens in ID4 as well, because they had the exact same plan and were just slightly more open and less smarmy about it.

Yes I'm over-reacting. Sorry if that bothers the nuke-the-whales crowd. —18-Till-I-Die

Edited by 18-Till-I-Die Hide / Show Replies
129.237.222.1 Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 9th 2010 at 10:56:03 PM •••

It's more that the RDA, which the exception of Miles Quaritch HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, displayed a distinct lack of imagination and tactical/strategic planning in their conflict. If humans are going to be portrayed as bastards then people want them to be magnificent bastards. Basically it's a desire for a competent and threatening villainous faction instead of mustache twirling caricatures. At least that was the impression I got from the archived material that was cut from the page.

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jul 10th 2010 at 7:10:03 AM •••

...so in reality, humans ARE actually bastards since rather that being appalled by evil, we decide to one-up the evil by being even more evil.

Edited by diesector21
129.237.222.1 Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 10th 2010 at 4:58:34 PM •••

Not more evil as much as more competent. Kinda like saying, "If I was an evil douche bag with a relativistic spaceship and all the that it implies, I would ____." People weren't conjuring up images of Spess Elf babies spitted on bayonets, they were imagining hard scifi weapons and the effects there of. For me at least it's a desire to see realistic total war involving modern and future technology. Each artillery shell is a minaturized Teller-Ulam nukes, point defense chemically powered lasers, lots of cluster muntions, DU penetration being sprayed out of everything bigger than a .50 caliber, orbital bombardment, and space battleships driven by nuclear explosives that fire other nuclear explosives at other space battleships. I get the feeling that Avatar, the Matrix, the Terminator franchise, and scifi movies in general have let people down and they want to see hard scifi done right on the big screen. But maybe I'm putting to much of my own interests on others. Maybe people are interested in evil humans as a concept, after all look how popular Warhammer40000 is.

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jul 10th 2010 at 7:59:58 PM •••

Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness: the hardness of a sci-fi doesn't have to do anything with what methods of killing sentient beings, but how much it adheres to real-life (scientific) rules. Stuff like Warhammer40000 is on the softer side considering how "out-there" the plot is, and Avatar turns out to be pretty hard when you dig deep. But how solid a sci-fi story is doesn't determine quality, only preference.

If you're suggesting 'hard' sci-fi in a mature sense, then that's just preference. Some people are fine watching sci-fi without orbital bombardment of planets, wholesale genocide, or perpetual war.

Also, a lot of the additional readings for the movie pretty much refute every "Humans should have been bigger bastards than in the movie by doing X" idea. Treaties that limit spacial military power and prohibits WMDs, difficulty in transporting actual modern-age weapons to Pandora (something about ferro-magnetic weaponry), RDA is a business not a military force, etc.

Edited by diesector21
Jerrik Since: Aug, 2009
Jul 10th 2010 at 8:22:02 PM •••

I think the point is that the RDA is portrayed as being evil, but if they were actually evil, they would have ignored all the things saying they weren't allowed to wipe out the Na'vi and just bombed them from orbit or something. In the movie, humanity is put in the position of being villainous enough to be the bad guys, but kept from being villainous enough to actually win. That is kind of annoying.

129.237.222.1 Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 10th 2010 at 9:03:25 PM •••

I think the problem is the James Carmeron understands the premise of hard scifi, but fails the exectution. Lets take that anti WMD treaty. It says it prohibits the use of nuclear weapons in space, but in the same supplimentary material states that nuclear pulse propulsion and confined fusion drives are used for interplanetary travel. Not to mention a starship annihilation drive that can push the ship to 0.7C. Any of those drives could be used as a weapon of massdestruction as is, and that antimatter drive must put out megatons of force a second. They've got an antimatter production facility in Pandora's system, use a kilogram of that stuff of that and you've got a forty megaton explosion. If the treaty said no used of WM Ds this would be fine, but it just says no WM Ds in space with given the very nature of the technology used. I think its a case of Cameron not understanding, or selectively ignoring the implications of his set pieces in order to preserve a story. He could even have pulled it off if he mentioned these things in passing. Quaritch: "He boss you know that next ship we got coming in, well I had my boys talk to the orbital boys and they said that if we "accidently" altered the breaking procedure in this way *hands Selfridge a schematic* we could destroy a 30 km wide and 265 km l-" Selfridge: "I don't think so." Quaritch: "Well who's gonna know?" Selfridge: "Some bleeding heart will cry about it, or that bony bitch in the biology lab will make a stink. And frankly I'm not comfor-" Quaritch: "Stick your comfort up your ass. My men are dying out there, and we have a way to stop it. *turns to leave* One out of ten of the boys on that ship won't make it home, that's on your head now as much as mine." I would have liked to see that scene. Evil, maybe. Shitty writing, a little. But it would have at least been a handwave.

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jul 11th 2010 at 7:33:46 AM •••

...so, where's this supposed 'antimatter production facility' on Pandora? As far as I know, nothing like that exists.

129.237.222.1 Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 11th 2010 at 10:46:22 AM •••

They use the antimatter engines on the starship to decelerate from .7C and enter the Pandora system. Since there is no giant space laser to push them out of the Pandora system like there is in Sol system, they have to use the antimatter engine to accelerate on the return journey. Then they use the giant space laser in Sol system to decelerate. Details here [1]. It's all about saving mass on the ship, which is realistic, but the implications of all this technology described in the supplements makes some elements of story rather silly. No WM Ds in space, well I guess I can't turn on my engines then. We can afford to resurrect species that no longer have a function to us(whales), but somehow most people are supposed to be wallowing in poverty, really? They can make a crapton of antimatter(which is really inefficient to make) using solar powered particle accelerators, yet humanity somehow has a slight energy problem. They can make avatars and whales, and have mind uploads but no transhuman space marines that could unscrew a Navi's head like a jam jar. The biosphere is dead, but humans are prospering if their accomplishments(like interstellar exploration for its own sake be for they found the magic rocks) are any indication, and yet we're still supposed to feel bad about it for no logical reason. And with mind uploads they have officially achieved practical immortality. This is supposed to be a crapsack world? But o noes there is inequality! Well give it 50 years and everyone will be able to afford these wonderful toys. It's like the original cyberpunk assuming that computers would be the perveiw of some technocratic elite. It's not that you couldn't include these elements and still have a crapsack, if "in the future there is only war" or some other reason for the crappiness. But going only from what is presented in the supplements, the setting is wildly anacronistic, inconsistent, and frankly not much worse or better than the state of the world today. The supplements actually hurt the story because they prove that the writting staff did the research and then just discounted anything that didn't fit with their copypasta of Dances with Wolves.

sorry about the spelling errors last night, I was herping so hard that I was derping

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jul 11th 2010 at 2:36:02 PM •••

At this point, your rant can properly fit in into the main JBM page, and some of those points are off-base.

  • You're assuming that technological progress also equals societal progress; just because we'll have space lasers in a given time doesn't mean we tried to fix poverty along the way. Making the tech needed for an ISV to work is completely independent from eliminating homelessness or crime.
  • There are no "transhuman space marines" because avatars cost $5 billion, and the RDA is a business conglomerate.
  • Humans are prospering from WHAT accomplishments? Earth is a crapsack world with severely limited food/water supplies, a nonexistent biosphere, overpopulation, nuclear terrorism, and more. If anything, only the RDA are prospering (read: getting really rich).
  • Mind uploads (human -> avatar) aren't permanent. You destroy the original body, the mind dies. Soul transfers (Pandora-exclusive, not accessible to the RDA) can be used for physical immortality, assuming you're gonna shell out billions of dollars every six decades for a new body. And along the way, you might go insane.

To reiterate: if we're going to continue, this should go into the main JBM page. And some of your rants have already been covered, so...yeah.

Edited by diesector21
129.237.222.1 Since: Dec, 1969
Jul 11th 2010 at 3:51:15 PM •••

A lot of what both of us wrote concerning the condition on Earth is speculation since the supplements are vague to say the least. But I will make one last point then drop it. I'm not sure if equating the cost of manufacture of a custome alien/human hybrid body to making a clone of pre-existing human or some body augmentation for military personel is a good idea. Those last too options seem alot easier.

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jul 11th 2010 at 5:10:51 PM •••

There are still costs in genetics research that may have to be performed and whatnot, but fair enough. Still, manufacturing space marines isn't exactly "limiting spacial military power", and the RDA would get razed by the UN for doing so. All the guns and whatnot were primarily used for self-defense than offense. There used to be a huge section on the JBM page detailing all the ways the RDA should have committed wholesale mass slaughter on the Na'vi, and modified/space marines were brought up. The main point against its use was that space-marines couldn't do something an AMP suit couldn't (better for defense AND could help move stuff around), and AMP suits would probably be cheaper.

Edited by diesector21
MasterHand Mah boi! Since: Jan, 2001
Mah boi!
Jun 8th 2010 at 3:16:44 PM •••

How come the entry I want to make isn't getting through? Can someone maybe figure this out? It shows up on the history, but not on the page or in the markup.

I wonder what's for dinner? Hide / Show Replies
MasterHand Since: Jan, 2001
Jun 8th 2010 at 3:49:53 PM •••

Archive time, then?

I wonder what's for dinner?
diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jun 12th 2010 at 5:05:14 AM •••

So 1600 lines is the max?

Yeah, time to archive then.

AnonymousMcCartneyfan Since: Jan, 2001
Jun 17th 2010 at 12:02:28 PM •••

Someone is trying to get the page cut because of the overflow...

Editing down would be better. There is some repetition on this page.

There is a fine line between recklessness and courage — Paul McCartney
MrDeath Since: Aug, 2009
Jun 17th 2010 at 12:45:32 PM •••

Partly because of the overflow, and because it's so long that it's clear nobody is actually reading anything when they decide they must be the first person to notice the same thing everyone else noticed about the movie.

I put it on the cutlist because the "can't add more entries" thing has been going on for a couple weeks now without something being done, so this oughta grab someone's attention.

Madrugada MOD Since: Jan, 2001
Jun 18th 2010 at 9:09:46 AM •••

So basically, "It's broken, somebody else needs to fix it?"

Cut the duplicates and the natter to get the length below the maximum limit.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
MrDeath Since: Aug, 2009
Jun 18th 2010 at 11:49:36 AM •••

Well, yes. The page is massive, and you'd have to go through the whole thing to pick out the duplicates. I just don't have the time or inclination to do it (I spend too much time on this wiki as it is, so undertaking a project of this size isn't in my best interests), so, yes, I put it on the Cut List so it would get the attention of someone who did.

diesector21 Since: Dec, 2009
Jun 19th 2010 at 4:54:40 PM •••

By the way, the cut request has been turned down. Not sure if anyone with mod powers to have noticed the problem.

BritBllt Since: Jan, 2001
Jun 28th 2010 at 3:52:10 PM •••

Instead of all that, I've just cut the handful of topics that had grown to multi-page levels of discussion, along with two or three silly or inapplicable ones. I don't think condensing is a good idea: it seems more arbitrary and unfair to cut out certain people's contributions than to just cut the threads and let them be raised again on their own, and these topics are so polarizing that leaving just one question and answer isn't enough (if it were, they'd never have gotten so big the first time around). With that said, I'd love to be able to at least save the originals in here.

Let's see... okay, folderizing works! Moving them here...

(Okay, that didn't work. Trying one topic at a time.)

Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
BritBllt Since: Jan, 2001
Jun 28th 2010 at 3:57:54 PM •••

(Removing, since I can't post more than one deleted thread.)

Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
BritBllt Since: Jan, 2001
Jun 28th 2010 at 3:58:24 PM •••

Having multiple folders glitches the discussion page :(

I have them saved, if there's anywhere else they can be safely posted.

Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
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