Avatar film earnings over 2 billion

[NecronLord]

But even if it did, the twin brother thing served no purpose. He could've just been an avatar made from a soldier to provide security to the scientists and nothing would've changed.

Audience identification character. This is why Doctor Who travels with humans (usually), and why Holmes has Watson. The point of having an outsider come into the program is to allow them to get their exposition on. They couldn't justify unloading all that stuff on just-another-scientist. Just-another-scientist would know what wildlife does what, and all that sort of thing, Sully, being an audience identification character, learns it throughout act one.

[AniThyng]

Bullshit. Westerners have made an art form out of this, particularly since the 19th century.

Which Westerners? That's like me saying that Asians made an 'art form' out of rape and pointless suicide attacks based on the actions of Imperial Japan. After all, I hardly think Luxembourg or Belgium have wronged many people lately.

This may be news to you, but perhaps you have heard of the Belgian Congo? It wasn't just the UK and France (and the Dutch. And the Germans. And teh Spanish. And the Portugese.) that indulged in colonialism. Also, Imperial Japan became imperial japan precisely because it was modeling itself after those same western nations - either indistrialize and secure resources and overseas colonies or suffer the same fate as China and be utterly humiliated.

Or perhaps you think the UK came to asia to civilize the darkies first, with resource exploitation being the secondary motive, rather than the other way around?

[NecronLord]

This may be news to you, but perhaps you have heard of the Belgian Congo? It wasn't just the UK and France (and the Dutch. And the Germans. And teh Spanish. And the Portugese.) that indulged in colonialism. Also, Imperial Japan became imperial japan precisely because it was modeling itself after those same western nations - either that or suffer the same fate as China and be utterly humiliated.

There are several western nations that didn't have empires, although he's wrong to mention Belgium. But that's neither here nor there, Mike is quite right, unsurprisingly.

[Darth Wong]

Just to punctuate the point, westerners even use other nations' failure to employ such rhetorical tricks as evidence of evil. How many times have you heard people quoting that Arab line about "pushing Israel into the sea" as proof that Arabs are inherently unreasonable and cannot be negotiated with? You can't discuss Israel without hearing that line, repeated ad nauseum. And what does it really mean? If anything, it just means that the Arabs are more honest than the Israelis, who would love to simply be rid of the Palestinians but won't just come right out and say it (at least not to western media) because they are accustomed to playing the western game.

[AniThyng]

This may be news to you, but perhaps you have heard of the Belgian Congo? It wasn't just the UK and France (and the Dutch. And the Germans. And teh Spanish. And the Portugese.) that indulged in colonialism. Also, Imperial Japan became imperial japan precisely because it was modeling itself after those same western nations - either that or suffer the same fate as China and be utterly humiliated.

There are several western nations that didn't have empires, although he's wrong to mention Belgium. But that's neither here nor there, Mike is quite right, unsurprisingly.

True, but the analogy was flawed from the get go anyway - Imperial Japan stands out as the obvious anomaly in East Asia, while the converse is much harder - off the top of my head the only major western European nations that didn't have their fingers in colonial empire building would be the Swiss, Luxumburg, Leichenstein(spelling?) and the Scandinavian countries + Denmark.

[NecronLord]

With the exception of some propaganda, Imperial Japan doesn't fit the profile Wong mentioned. The profile isn't 'be total dicks' it's manipulate the law to get away with the maximum possible. Imperial Japan didn't do that. It just declared conquered peoples subhuman and organised rape gangs. They didn't really do much to hide the evil.

[AniThyng]

With the exception of some propaganda, Imperial Japan doesn't fit the profile Wong mentioned. The profile isn't 'be total dicks' it's manipulate the law to get away with the maximum possible. Imperial Japan didn't do that. It just declared conquered peoples subhuman and organised rape gangs. They didn't really do much to hide the evil.

I assume by "some propaganda" you mean the East Asia co-prosperity sphere and things like that? Though my point was more along the lines that Imperial Japan quite obviously distinguishes itself from the rest of East Asia in general, and that while a whole lot more brutal, Japanese Imperialism is in essense not all that different from European Imperialism. They really did try to impose thier way of life on conquered peoples and it wasn't all Rape of Nanking. (See: Korea. Taiwan.) In Malay history books they manage to get away with being only marginally worse then the British they kicked out....

It's much harder to come up with a significant counterexample of a non-imperialist western european nation (assuming one is generous enough to extend "lately" to cover the past century or so.

[Samuel]

True, but the analogy was flawed from the get go anyway - Imperial Japan stands out as the obvious anomaly in East Asia, while the converse is much harder - off the top of my head the only major western European nations that didn't have their fingers in colonial empire building would be the Swiss, Luxumburg, Leichenstein(spelling?) and the Scandinavian countries + Denmark.

Sweden had a colony in the Americas named, imaginatively enough, New Sweden, but aside from that they weren't involved much outside Europe.

I think the largest true exception would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Or is it too far east?

[Simon_Jester]

True, but the analogy was flawed from the get go anyway - Imperial Japan stands out as the obvious anomaly in East Asia, while the converse is much harder - off the top of my head the only major western European nations that didn't have their fingers in colonial empire building would be the Swiss, Luxumburg, Leichenstein(spelling?) and the Scandinavian countries + Denmark.

I'd chalk this up more to lack of means than to lack of the desire to do so. It's not as if East Asians were all that bashful about oppressing, conquering, and extracting tribute from each other before Europeans showed up.

People are people, and a significant fraction of them are bastards who like to pick on weaker groups and profit from their suffering. I've never heard of an era of history that made me think otherwise of it.

Bullshit. Westerners have made an art form out of this, particularly since the 19th century.

Are they the only people who have committed abuses against people they conquered and wanted to get wealth out of? Or are they just the people who've been doing it in the modern era, when people will actually care about the fact that you're killing and torturing foreigners unless you're careful to skirt the limits of what your PR people can spin away?

Go back a millenium or two and you see (for example) China repeatedly invading Vietnam. Neither of them had ever even heard of "the West," but that didn't stop the Chinese from marching into Vietnam and stabbing people until the survivors agreed to give them money. Likewise the people of the Central Asian steppes, who were very up-front about the fact that they were killing people for tribute. Or the Aztecs, whose pre-Columbian history consisted largely of marching around fighting wars and then, if possible, sacrificing captives to the gods.* I'm not sure how this is actually better than committing similar atrocities while pretending that you aren't a ruthless bastard who kills people for looking at you cross-eyed.

Since when is being honest about what a bastard you're being that big a virtue? How does it make any real difference compared to what a bastard you're being?

There are several western nations that didn't have empires, although he's wrong to mention Belgium. But that's neither here nor there, Mike is quite right, unsurprisingly.

The only ones I can think of either didn't have an empire because they were someone else's empire (like Poland), or because they were too small or poor to afford one (like Denmark or Andorra).

*Yes, there were other Mesoamerican cultures; I mentioned the Aztecs specifically for a reason.

[AniThyng]

True, but the analogy was flawed from the get go anyway - Imperial Japan stands out as the obvious anomaly in East Asia, while the converse is much harder - off the top of my head the only major western European nations that didn't have their fingers in colonial empire building would be the Swiss, Luxumburg, Leichenstein(spelling?) and the Scandinavian countries + Denmark.

Sweden had a colony in the Americas named, imaginatively enough, New Sweden, but aside from that they weren't involved much outside Europe.

I think the largest true exception would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Or is it too far east?

I don't know if it really counts as an exception or not, but think it's pretty hilarious that out of all the European countries mentioned so far, it's also the only one that had an actual Emperor. (Aside from British monarchs being also Emperor/Empress of India anyway)

Go back a millenium or two and you see (for example) China repeatedly invading Vietnam. Neither of them had ever even heard of "the West," but that didn't stop the Chinese from marching into Vietnam and stabbing people until the survivors agreed to give them money.

This might have been covered in that other thread about how much(or little) East Asia fears China, but it's pretty obvious that Western Imperialism had a much greater impact.

Edit: Touche...I forgot that the German Kaiser was an Emperor.

[Simon_Jester]

The German Kaiser was regarded as an emperor (he had the same title as the guy running Austria-Hungary); arguably, so was the Russian Czar.

[Darth Wong]

Bullshit. Westerners have made an art form out of this, particularly since the 19th century.

Are they the only people who have committed abuses against people they conquered and wanted to get wealth out of? Or are they just the people who've been doing it in the modern era, when people will actually care about the fact that you're killing and torturing foreigners unless you're careful to skirt the limits of what your PR people can spin away?

They were the ones who claimed they were doing it in order to help those people. When Genghis Khan raped and pillaged, he did not pretend he was "bringing civilization" to them or talk about an "asian man's burden".

Go back a millenium or two and you see (for example) China repeatedly invading Vietnam. Neither of them had ever even heard of "the West," but that didn't stop the Chinese from marching into Vietnam and stabbing people until the survivors agreed to give them money. Likewise the people of the Central Asian steppes, who were very up-front about the fact that they were killing people for tribute. Or the Aztecs, whose pre-Columbian history consisted largely of marching around fighting wars and then, if possible, sacrificing captives to the gods.* I'm not sure how this is actually better than committing similar atrocities while pretending that you aren't a ruthless bastard who kills people for looking at you cross-eyed.

What are you, fucking retarded? Yes, atrocities are bad. But if you commit atrocities and you lie about it, that's still an additional negative. You can't add?

Moreover, the lying is used in order to justify the behaviour, ie- to exceed the moral standards of any given era by pretending you are doing something other than what you are doing. In short, it is used in order to increase the likelihood of committing and getting away with these atrocities.

Besides, all of this is beside the point; I mentioned the western habit of weasely justifications with respect to some critics' idiotic claims that if Quaritch could attack the natives at all, then he might as well bombard them from orbit. The fact that a bunch of white people took umbrage at a rather plain factual remark and started going all red-faced trying to explain that A) "it's not true" or B) "OK, it's true but it's not a hugely important moral distinction" just means that they're being thin-skinned and missing the point.

[stormthebeaches]

I don't see why its specifically a "Western" trait to create justifications for atrocities. Almost every nation in the modern world prepares some kind of justification for when they commit atrocities. It's just common sense.

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't see why its specifically a "Western" trait to create justifications for atrocities. Almost every nation in the modern world prepares some kind of justification for when they commit atrocities. It's just common sense.

Moral superiority?

[Ford Prefect]

I remember way back before Avatar was released, and there was a bunch of gnashing of teeth over the film from some Spacebattlers, MJ12 Commando said soemthing along the lines of 'Come on guys, this is James Cameron. Name a film of his which hasn't been good'. In retrospect someone could have said Piranha II: The Spawning, otherwise the guy has consistently been directorial gold. It's sort of like the Battle Angel Alita film: I'm a big fan of that manga, and if you told me that any other director was doing a PG-13 live-action adaptation I'd probably just roll my eyes in response. With James Cameron I'm willing to be optimistic.

[Connor MacLeod]

heh. MJ12 was, as I recall, also glorifying the "tribal internet" capability and obsessing over how hard sci fi the movei appeared. Like the Matrix movies, it was good entertainment, but its a joke to read anything more into that.

[Darth Wong]

I don't see why its specifically a "Western" trait to create justifications for atrocities. Almost every nation in the modern world prepares some kind of justification for when they commit atrocities. It's just common sense.

It's a matter of degrees. As I said, the difference between the Arabs and the Israelis is that the Arabs generally admit that they would love to get rid of the Israelis.

[Vympel]

Personally I think any movie called "Battle Angel Alita" is going to be fucking retarded and I hope Cameron stays well away for the sake of his reputation.

[Ford Prefect]

heh. MJ12 was, as I recall, also glorifying the "tribal internet" capability and obsessing over how hard sci fi the movei appeared. Like the Matrix movies, it was good entertainment, but its a joke to read anything more into that.

I wouldn't take everything MJ says seriously, because a lot of his 'positions' are deliberately designed to be as ridiculous as possible as a parody of 'serious' versus debating, and many of the others exist purely because he doesn't like people on Spacebattles, so he takes the most extremely opposite stance. Admittedly it's clear he thinks the tree internet is cool (and frankly I think it's pretty awesome myself), but it's pretty clear that much of his 'don't fuck with the Na'vi' stuff exists because of the endless and stupid whining about the film.

Personally I think any movie called "Battle Angel Alita" is going to be fucking retarded and I hope Cameron stays well away for the sake of his reputation.

I realise that you aren't being entirely serious, but goddamn that is a dumb thing to say.

[The Romulan Republic]

Bullshit. Westerners have made an art form out of this, particularly since the 19th century.

So you admit that you consider sweeping attacks on Westerners factually accurate and justifiable?

Nice black/white fallacy, but that doesn't mean you can't point out that certain parties have been doing it more than others lately.

I never denied "that certain parties have been doing it more than others," nor do I have any objection to your saying so. Rather, I merely argued that it was not in any way a universal trait among westerners, as you appeared to be implying.

In other words, nice straw man fallacy.

To steal a quote, while Christians preached a peace that they never achieved, Islam came unashamedly with the sword. There has always been an especially strong western/Christian propensity for dressing up aggression as something else.

While it is undoubtably true that certain behaviors are more characteristic of the west, and/or of the modern era, the kind of excuse-making you're talking about is surely not restricted to a specific cultural background. Not even close.

[Bakustra]

Bullshit. Westerners have made an art form out of this, particularly since the 19th century.

So you admit that you consider sweeping attacks on Westerners factually accurate and justifiable?

So, where is there anything equivalent to Manifest Destiny or the "white man's burden" amongst non-Western societies? Surely you can point to something like this, if this "sweeping attack" is factually inaccurate and unjustifiable.

Now, Imperial Japan doesn't count. They deliberately modeled themselves after the West in a number of respects, so them utilizing the traditional Western excuses for brutality, colonialism, and imperialism is unsurprising.

I would argue that this tradition actually developed in the 1500s and 1600s with the dawn of colonialism. Initially, the Spanish made no bones about using their new lands in the Americas for raping, pillaging, and slaving. However, they then made use of the idea of the "doctrine of discovery" to declare that the natives didn't own the land (the doctrine emerged in the Crusades as a way to avoid paying Muslims for land that the Crusaders stole) and so it rightfully belonged to the Spanish. Criticism from people like Bartolome de las Casas and Francis de Vitoria led to the Spanish adopting the justification of "Christianizing" the natives, which, in one form or another, has become the bog-standard justification for everything the West did involving anywhere beyond Europe and the Mid-East, though more and more in its mutation of "civilizing"; and nowadays it's shifted around to "democracy".

[Darth Wong]

Bullshit. Westerners have made an art form out of this, particularly since the 19th century.

So you admit that you consider sweeping attacks on Westerners factually accurate and justifiable?

Yes. It is. Manifest Destiny. White Man's Burden. Did you not bother reading anything about the goddamned 19th century? Hell, it wasn't until the mid 20th century when white people finally started admitting that the world didn't owe them a debt of gratitude for conquering them, and quite frankly I think it took the Nazi Holocaust to shake them out of it.

Nice black/white fallacy, but that doesn't mean you can't point out that certain parties have been doing it more than others lately.

I never denied "that certain parties have been doing it more than others," nor do I have any objection to your saying so. Rather, I merely argued that it was not in any way a universal trait among westerners, as you appeared to be implying.

In other words, nice straw man fallacy.

You're accusing me of a strawman fallacy when you're idiotically claiming that if I claim something to be a "westerner" trait, that must mean that every single man, woman and child in every western nation is in complete agreement on it? That's a good one.

To steal a quote, while Christians preached a peace that they never achieved, Islam came unashamedly with the sword. There has always been an especially strong western/Christian propensity for dressing up aggression as something else.

While it is undoubtably true that certain behaviors are more characteristic of the west, and/or of the modern era, the kind of excuse-making you're talking about is surely not restricted to a specific cultural background. Not even close.

And since when did I say that no human being outside of western countries has ever done this in the history of mankind? Oops, I never said any such thing, did I fucktard? Instead, you're actually admitting that I'm right but you're objecting that your incredibly exaggerated strawman version of my statement is wrong. Ooooh, what a triumph for you!

[Anguirus]

That depends. For example with the cartoonish villiany displayed by the leaders (yes I know the rank and file get their "oh what have we done" looks when they blow shit up) I wonder why they didn't start dropping rocks on the Na'vi. Not because I want it to happen, but because people like Quaritch are portrayed as drooling bloodthirsty colonialist maniacs who don't give a crap about how many lives they destroy.

1) I've reached the unfortunate conclusion that lots of people on the Internet non-ironically wanted that to happen, because instead of making one or two jokes about it they instead will not fucking shut up about it.

2) Others have commented on how you misread the political situation in the film, but I think you have also misrepresented the two villains.

Selfridge just wants the Na'Vi to comply and get out of the fucking way. There's not any hint, despite his callousness, that he is possessed of actual bloodlust. He represents evil borne from arrogance and greed.

Quaritch probably would snicker if the Na'Vi got wiped out, but it's the last thing the man would choose to do himself. It's like suggesting that George S. Patton would enjoy being commander of SAC. This guy jumped out of a chopper in a mecha while on fire and fucking loved it. He's getting his hands dirty fighting a worthy opponent and he loves it...that's his whole character.

[Shroom Man 777]

Bah, its not like he had any particular warrior insight that allowed the Na'vi to achieve victory or anything.

Yes there was. None of those other Na'vi blueys would've known what a jet intake was and how shoving grenades into them would be unhealthy. While his tactics in the big war weren't so shit-hot, his being a soldier made him less limp-dicked than any scientist save for Gordon Freeman.

Heck, even him being disabled didn't matter. There wasn't a hint of conflict in him about going back home and getting new legs for his real body. What about family? Friends? Anyone to actually think about whilst making this huge life changing decision to go native / turn "traitor"?

[/quote]

There was. The whole reason why he was willing to side with Quarritch at first was precisely because of the promise of having new legs. And the reason he stabbed Quarritch and the RDA in the dick is because, with his Avatar and his new life amongst the Na'vi, he already HAD his new legs and his Avatar body had BECOME his real body - that's why he said shit about how his "dream" was becoming more "real" and shit. Like, when he said "Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream." How much more angst would Sam Worthington had to act and emote to convey this point?

PS: His family, at least his bro, was dead. Like, in the supplemental technical commentary of Avatar it said that his daddy liked hookers and he was raised in an orphanage or some shit.

[[R_H]]

Bah, its not like he had any particular warrior insight that allowed the Na'vi to achieve victory or anything.

Yes there was. None of those other Na'vi blueys would've known what a jet intake was and how shoving grenades into them would be unhealthy. While his tactics in the big war weren't so shit-hot, his being a soldier made him less limp-dicked than any scientist save for Gordon Freeman.

Knowing that a jet engine's intake is vulnerable to well, almost every object, isn't an insight only a soldier could have provided.