New Avatar trailer is out

[D.Turtle]

From what I've seen in various trailers it seems that a sizable human faction is opposed to the actions of the military and wants some form of a peaceful solution. So it won't have to be the military being defeated, but just losing enough that the peace faction can revolt/displace the military faction/end the war/something.

We'll just have to wait and see, but concluding from the trailers that "..." is how it will end and that sucks, might be a tad hasty.

From everything I've heard, however, (including people who saw a partial screener at a movie theater) this movie will be worth it just for the 3D experience. It supposedly blows other 3D movies out of the water in that respect.

[Shroom Man 777]

I didn't see T4. I was interested in seeing T4 until it came out and pretty much everyone said it was terrible. In the case of T4, though, I would actually argue (bearing in mind that I haven't seen it) that it was Christian Bale who had the "leading man" spot; not Sam Worthington.

T4 wasn't actively terrible. It just had a shitload of potential that wasn't actualized and wasn't used super-effectively, making it so-so, and a so-so Terminator film is a pretty big disappointment.

Sam Worthington had equal parts in T4 with Bale, and the storyline with his character was far more intriguing and less static tho.

There are a binillion ways for noble savages to overcome technological conquerors, mang.

In a direct stand-up final epic showdown fight? Name one.

The technological conquerors on the planet amount to something analogous to a machine gun nest while the noble savages come at them in a combination of a human wave attack and a stampede of wildebeest. After terrible losses, the sheer number of natives just drowns the dudes?

But geeze, who says that this movie is resolved because a bunch of loinclothed space-injuns took on a heavily-armed military force in a conventional face-to-face battle and won?

[PeZook]

From everything I've heard, however, (including people who saw a partial screener at a movie theater) this movie will be worth it just for the 3D experience. It supposedly blows other 3D movies out of the water in that respect.

Well, my eyes are broken, so I can't enjoy the "3D experience" (it pretty much translates to "headache" for me )

But geeze, who says that this movie is resolved because a bunch of loinclothed space-injuns took on a heavily-armed military force in a conventional face-to-face battle and won?

Did you see the trailer? It ends with a short scene of Space Indians charging en masse at power armored dudes. And the dudes charging back, too.

Of course, there was a charge in The Last Samurai as well, so it's not a definitive answer

If the humans think the planet is too much trouble and just leave the fuck outta there, that means the aliens do win the war.

They only win if the humans leave them the fuck alone afterwards. Which they may or may not do, depending on how important the bullshit technobabble mineral is.

[mr friendly guy]

Even if they can kill the fuck out of human soldiers, they can't win. American indians also won some spectacular victories, and it didn't help them accomplish squat.

Think about it: if the natives killfuck the humans, slaughter them and drink their blood, what will happen? The humans will either leave (which is a tactical victory) or kill the natives from orbit if they want the mineral badly enough.

It seems when you check out the offical avatar site, they have a link to the mining companies website. Obviously its an in universe website just like how Darth Wong's I want you for the empire website is "in universe". Perhaps of note is this line from said website

The largest single non-governmental organization in the human universe, the Resources Development Administration (RDA) has monopoly rights to all products shipped, derived, or developed from Pandora and any other off-Earth location. These rights were granted to the RDA in perpetuity by the Interplanetary Commerce Administration (ICA), with the stipulation that they abide by a treaty that prohibits weapons of mass destruction and limits military power in space.

and this one

The company's early expeditions to Pandora were seen as a colossal risk; the construction of the ISV Venture Star alone put an enormous strain on capital resources. But with exclusive mining rights to unobtanium (which is valued at $40 million per kilo), and potential profits from countervirals, biofuels, and cosmetics, the enormous capital investment has paid off.

So it seems by law the humans on Pandora can't have WMDs, and have limited power in space. So if the natives do kill all the humans and drink their blood, they will win, unless the humans are willing to come back in more numbers. That option seems less likely given the strain they already put on their finances to fund the current expedition, unless you count their ship as a sink cost.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Wow, they are calling the material "unobtanium" thats rather awesome in its own way.. but $40million PER KILO? how could you ever justify such a cost? How could you ever Profit after purchasing a substance with such an insane cost?

[neoolong]

Inflation?

[mr friendly guy]

I should point out the preview says only 20 million / kilo. Unless the character in the preview is refering to it straight out of the ground, unrefined etc, its most probably a mistake on the site. And yeah, inflation was also my thoughts as well.

[Patrick Ogaard]

The price of californium easily exceeds those $20 to $40 million figures. According to the PDF that can be accessed from here -- http://www.osti.gov/bridge/purl.cover.j ... nN/native/ -- the 1999 price was at $60 per microgram, which would figure out to 60 million dollars per kilogram before one adds in ten years of inflation and the myriad other factors that could drastically affect the price.

So, yeah, a suitably rare substance that has various lucrative applications could actually be worth insane amounts of money per kilogram.

[PeZook]

Those exotic substances are in very small demand, though. It's not like you can sell 100 tons of californium with ease, and in order to recoup the massive capital investment RDA would probably have to sell quite a few kilos of unobtainum.

Of course, the actual use of the mineral doesn't really matter: they can dig it out, and they can sell enough to expect to get back the cost of building their giant fucking mothership with a sizeable profit.

It seems when you check out the offical avatar site, they have a link to the mining companies website. Obviously its an in universe website just like how Darth Wong's I want you for the empire website is "in universe". Perhaps of note is this line from said website

These rights were granted to the RDA in perpetuity by the Interplanetary Commerce Administration (ICA), with the stipulation that they abide by a treaty that prohibits weapons of mass destruction and limits military power in space.

Ah, yeah - I thought that was exactly the way to make the humans not use massive orbital bombardment. Have the resource expedition be a private company bound by government regulations not to killfuck the natives, and make them only start an all-out war when they get desperate.

So if the natives do kill all the humans and drink their blood, they will win, unless the humans are willing to come back in more numbers. That option seems less likely given the strain they already put on their finances to fund the current expedition, unless you count their ship as a sink cost.

Again, it all depends on just how important the bullshit mineral is (I think I like that name more than unobtanium) to the overall human economy. If it's precious enough, the humans will come back eventually with another plan and/or more numbers - the point here is that the natives can only wait and then react, since they can't force the humans to leave and stay away from the planet, and probably won't outrace them technologically. Unless Former Human Guy makes a plan to blow up the ship via guile so that nobody knows what the fuck happened. In which case the dirty apes will come back anyway to snoop around.

On another note, I think the title of the movie is really clever, despite Overthinking It's objections. After all, from the perspective of Blue Cat Dudes, humans are nothing short of gods: They dwell in the sky and come down with their terrible magicks to destroy the land...and they send messengers in Cat Dude form to speak on their behalf! Descended from the heavens! Former Human Dude is a true avatar of a vastly powerful force

[Sarevok]

Based on information released so far the unobtainium has properties making it crucial for following application.

- anti gravity
- FTL travel/
- FTL communications
- high speed trains.

Forget trains. Thats just eyewash. The first three properties alone make unobtainium worth a full scale interstellar invasion.

[Companion Cube]

They don't have FTL travel, do they? Going by the Human Hardware video, the mothership takes almost six years to travel the four light-years to the Alpha Centauri system.

[Shroom Man 777]

But geeze, who says that this movie is resolved because a bunch of loinclothed space-injuns took on a heavily-armed military force in a conventional face-to-face battle and won?

Did you see the trailer? It ends with a short scene of Space Indians charging en masse at power armored dudes. And the dudes charging back, too.

Of course, there was a charge in The Last Samurai as well, so it's not a definitive answer

TOMO KURUZU! HAI! *does kata*

They only win if the humans leave them the fuck alone afterwards. Which they may or may not do, depending on how important the bullshit technobabble mineral is.

Well... that might happen, that might not. There could be other wars, other stories, other sequels.


You know, perhaps a great way to deliver a hippie eco-message more effectively might be to actually portray the blue forest-spirit-tree-hugging cat people losing horrifically. Depict humans coming in with their PMCs, murdering the catpeople by systemic execution and have them line up rank and file for bullets to the brain, have the much criticized power armor go stomping little children and babies and using their power-knives to cleave pregnant cat-people open, have that Avatar guy and his other alpha-males used as underfed slave labor to mine unobtanium until they themselves waste away from starvation and heavy metal poisoning.

Do a montage, depict the complete and thorough sci-fi raping of an entire verdant world for human profit until there's nothing left but the dead husk of trees and those power armors using space-shovels to dig mass graves for the catpeople and using their flamers to make giant funeral pyres.

Use that fancy shmancy 3D shit to render shit so grotesquely realistically in glorious CGI, to make people vomit their popcorns out and make children weep like slaughtered pigs.

That would drive the message home very well. No sugar coating. No faux bullshit victory. Game over, man. Game over.

[Bounty]

It's hilarious how sad nerds get their panties all twisted over this. You nitwits don't even know if the natives win or even how they will put up a fight; but this movie is still Satan incarnate because... somehow... it'll be an affront to mecha?

You can't write whiny bitching this good.

[McC]

It's hilarious how sad nerds get their panties all twisted over this. You nitwits don't even know if the natives win or even how they will put up a fight; but this movie is still Satan incarnate because... somehow... it'll be an affront to mecha?

You can't write whiny bitching this good.

You seem to have missed all of the parts where people are saying, "The trailer makes it look like X. If X is the case, that's stupid. Maybe X won't be the case, though. Jim Cameron's got a good track record, after all. We just don't know enough right now."

But, of course, reading comprehension is probably too much to ask of you. Worthless sniping doesn't take nearly as much brain power, so for someone with your limited faculties, it's a much more attainable goal.

[Crazedwraith]

Except you didn't much say that you just said "There better be a sad ending otherwise it will suck"

[McC]

Except you didn't much say that you just said "There better be a sad ending otherwise it will suck"

No, the excerpt from the Overthinking It post I linked said that. I said substantially more than that.

[Zac Naloen]

It's hilarious how sad nerds get their panties all twisted over this. You nitwits don't even know if the natives win or even how they will put up a fight; but this movie is still Satan incarnate because... somehow... it'll be an affront to mecha?

You can't write whiny bitching this good.

You seem to have missed all of the parts where people are saying, "The trailer makes it look like X. If X is the case, that's stupid. Maybe X won't be the case, though. Jim Cameron's got a good track record, after all. We just don't know enough right now."

But, of course, reading comprehension is probably too much to ask of you. Worthless sniping doesn't take nearly as much brain power, so for someone with your limited faculties, it's a much more attainable goal.

Some people are saying that.


Others are being far too pessimistic about something they know so little about. Maybe Bounty wasn't directing his post at you or those who are qualifying their statements?

[McC]

Some people are saying that.

Others are being far too pessimistic about something they know so little about.

Granted.

Maybe Bounty wasn't directing his post at you or those who are qualifying their statements?

Then he should have used a more specific invective than "you nitwits" so soon after a discussion that concerned the implications of the trailer.

[Terralthra]

Maybe Bounty wasn't directing his post at you or those who are qualifying their statements?

Then he should have used a more specific invective than "you nitwits" so soon after a discussion that concerned the implications of the trailer.

If you assume that you are a nitwit, there's nothing much anyone can do to stop you.

[mr friendly guy]

Maybe Bounty wasn't directing his post at you or those who are qualifying their statements?

Then he should have used a more specific invective than "you nitwits" so soon after a discussion that concerned the implications of the trailer.

If you assume that you are a nitwit, there's nothing much anyone can do to stop you.

How do you figure that one? I would have thought the more obvious explanation is that McC suspected Bounty was calling him a nitwit, and since he clearly found that offensive I think you statement seems to totally miss the point or at best a rhetorical trick. A stupid one, but a rhetorical trick nevertheless.

In any event, Bounty has a point. People are jumping on and assuming a lot of things, and I am not even refering to McC. I am refering to those who have said earlier about its stupid because humans can orbital bombard them, based on a 3.5 minute trailer which shows no indication these group of humans possess the means, and which if someone just digged a bit from the official website it clearly states they don't have the means.

[Sarevok]

"I am refering to those who have said earlier about its stupid because humans can orbital bombard them, based on a 3.5 minute trailer which shows no indication these group of humans possess the means, and which if someone just digged a bit from the official website it clearly states they don't have the means."

1. A starships reaction drive is it's greatest weapons. You don't NEED nuclear weapons if your drive is capable of interstellar flight. The starships propulsion system makes it a potential planet killer weapon should they wish to just do a final solution on the Pandora problem.

2. Even without apocalyptic relativistic missile attacks they have plenty of tactical options ! Their ship sits in high orbit. Anything aimed at the surface could impact with more destruction and precision than any non nuclear weapon.

3. Tactical orbital strikes followed by gunship raids should be enough to clear a large radius devoid of any hostile lifeforms. The miners can work there uninterrupted in peace.

[Bounty]

Ladies and gentlemen, a nitwit.

Not to dissuade you from enjoying yourself wanking to words like "tactical" and "orbital strike", but all that is completely irrelevant. The movie has a plot you do not yet know, so saying "lol it's stupid because they don't use <milwank>" is asinine. There may be (actually, there are, but whatever) very good reasons why the humans can't just go space Nazi on innocent creatures, and there may be (actually, again, there probably are) valid ways to make the locals put up an effective defence.

But non of that is of any concern to you and your ilk; you just have a Pavlovian reaction to any story that might present big space guns as not being the final perfect solution to any problem. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

[mr friendly guy]

I sure hope these orbital bombardment people complained a lot about Attack of the Clones and how Republic forces had to land troops on the ground instead of you know blowing them from orbit. At least Star Wars canon indisputedly has orbital bombardment capability. The avatar trailer on the other hand doesn't show it and the website indicates the company is handicapped by law into how much military power they are allowed to have in space, not to mention the trailer fucking states they are supposed to (supposed being the definitive word here) find a diplomatic solution.

[Sarevok]

Not to dissuade you from enjoying yourself wanking to words like "tactical" and "orbital strike", but all that is completely irrelevant. The movie has a plot you do not yet know, so saying "lol it's stupid because they don't use <milwank>" is asinine. There may be (actually, there are, but whatever) very good reasons why the humans can't just go space Nazi on innocent creatures, and there may be (actually, again, there probably are) valid ways to make the locals put up an effective defence.

Don't be a bigger retard than you already are. The humans can do anything from destroying a small structure to shattering the planets crust. Their starships speed and the fact it sits in orbit gives them a wide range of options. Whether they will not due to politics back home or loss of unobtainum mines is another issue altogether. So is the issue of exactly how much firepower can brought to bear from space until unobtainium deposits are threatened. Small scale strikes like the hypothetical THOR platforms should be very much useful given they are already willing to use guns and explosives.

[Companion Cube]

Here's something that isn't of great relevance to the plot, but still interesting. An excerpt from the script describes the human mothership Venturestar as running on "hybrid antimatter/fusion engines" with which it attains a big chunk of light-speed during flight. Yesterday I was browsing the slower-than-light section of Atomic Rocket, where there's a section on the Valkyrie spacecraft, from a 1990s SF novel. This is a spindly starship that runs on antimatter-initiated fusion, as well as direct antimatter annihilation. The concept seemed a bit familiar, and when I visited the author's website today he turned out to be a scientific consultant on Avatar.