Avatar review thread

[bz249]

Well most of the other creatures do get killed by bullets despite also having carbon fiber. Its only the big ones which shrug it off. Since you seem to know more about it than me, how thick of carbon fiber does it need to be to survive bullets?

The bad thing with carbon fibers that they are extremely brittle, just like normal bones anyway. Also they are designed to withstand tensile stress* but they are bad for compression stress and even worse for shearing.

*Because of that property materials like kevlar are good ad stopping soft bullets like the ones fired from a hand gun (the bullets energy is converted into a tension for the induvidual fibers)... however against a sharp object they fail (the main mechanism is different).
Firing a bullet to a bone may deflect the bullet, but more likely the bullet simply shatters the structure and did not lose too much energy.

What could stop a rifle bullet is a viscosity, if you have a ductile solid (metal) it can stop it after a relatively small distance (range of centimeters). Some soft, but "dense" matter (like human tissue) would stop it after a longer distance (range around one meter), so what is more important is the viscosity of the animal meat. In water they can fly longer. If they have very dense muscles (for big animals it is possible) than it is possible that bullets are stopped before they can damage important organs.

[Shroom Man 777]

Perhaps a lot of their alien internal organ structure behaves like non-Newtonian fluid, would that help?

[Zac Naloen]

It could be that the Carbon-Fibres make up part of the strength of the Pandora bones and do not comprise all of the structure.

[SylasGaunt]

They do say they're reinforced with them so that indicates that it's not just carbon fiber. IIRC the only animals that have an explicitly all carbon fiber skeleton are the flying ones.

http://www.pandorapedia.com/lib/exe/det ... itanothere

That's a look at the creature that's brought this up and according to the entry that big hammerhead structure is pretty much solid bone, and it's got armor plate all over its back and shoulders, and the hammer itself is built heavily enough for territorial fighting.

[Old Plympto]

Any idea of the atmospheric composition of Pandora? It doesn't seem to poison humans, just asphyxiate them. Even after a exposure up to a minute or so, one can put back a rebreather mask and be fine. Also, fire appear to be able to have a sustained burn on Pandoran wood just like it was Earth atmosphere.

[Rye]

It's one of the most beautiful films I've seen in a long time, and despite the story being kind of predictable, it was rendered with extreme talent and was always interesting. While there are legitimate criticisms about, I don't find the scientific ones important or terribly interesting, since it was a decent tale well told. My main problems with it were the hamfisted Iraq references, not vast bony land-monsters that shrugged off bullets.

[SylasGaunt]

Any idea of the atmospheric composition of Pandora? It doesn't seem to poison humans, just asphyxiate them. Even after a exposure up to a minute or so, one can put back a rebreather mask and be fine. Also, fire appear to be able to have a sustained burn on Pandoran wood just like it was Earth atmosphere.

Atmosphere's ~20% denser than our own, and it's got a C02 composition of roughly 18% with hydrogen sulfide thrown in, but beyond that it's mostly oxy-nitrogen.

One thing I noticed in the movie is that it's really easy to forget sometimes just how damn HUGE the Na'vi are until a scene pops up with them in frame with humans like when Tsu'tey started knocking the shit out of the mercs in the shuttle.

[Anguirus]

Here's the review I put on my Facebook page as soon as I got home from the showing. Warning: lengthy and not particularly eloquent.

It's very unusual that I don't eat and breathe spoilers on the Internet for upcoming "geek" movies, particularly those that are connected to long-established franchises. However, when a brand new sci-fi movie peeks over the horizon, I have of late been shutting off the flow. "Moon" I remained unspoiled for, and I still know very little about "District 9" (hope to see it soon). Likewise with James Cameron's "Avatar." It really came onto my radar when the first breathless reports came in of how awesome it looked, which was followed almost immediately by a massive hype backlash. I decided to bow out right then and there. I followed a bit of the pre-emptive nerd love and hatred but I saw no videos whatsoever (since I don't watch TV, I pretty much missed the massive ad blitz). And yet, I went to the midnight showing, because:

1) I wanted to see the movie before the reviews really started becoming unavoidable,
2) I like midnight showings, and most importantly,

3) James Cameron, whatever his faults, would not spend $300 million on a remake of FernGully.

And he didn't. I will deliver my verdict on the film, and then launch into a spoiler-filled commentary and critique, so those who are likewise avoiding spoilers will know when to bow out.

Verdict:

If you like spectacle and amazing special effects, see this movie on the big screen *in 3D*.

If you like space opera, get the DVD.


Now to the spoilers.


It is undeniable that this movie succeeded in sucking me in and engaging me for well over two hours. It is extremely effective on the visual level, and works pretty well on an emotional level as well. However, the movie has one of the worst cases of Fridge Logic that I've ever seen.

Allow me to explain this concept. On the website TVTropes, Fridge Logic is the term for the phenomenon that occurs when you're watching a movie, you get up to get a drink, and when you're opening the fridge something clicks in your head and you go "heeeey, that doesn't make any sense."

Well, on the car ride home lots of things occurred to me that don't make any sense.

James Cameron is highly adept at certain aspects of world-building. As seen in Aliens and the Future War scenes of the Terminator films, he can create a highly convincing facade of a different world, but at some level his interest seems to drop off and once he feels like he has the audience sucked in, the exposition suddenly disappears.

In this film, the first 20-30 minutes are riveting. The technology of future-humanity, the resource they're after, their war with the Na'vi, and the frustration of Sigourney Weaver's character in failing to achieve compromise between the two sides are all elegantly introduced. But the questions that are raised by the answers we are given are not themselves answered, even though they could easily have been integrated into the story or, if not, simply explained away by a line of dialogue.

For instance, there is a region on Pandora where mountain-sized chunks of land levitate. In the same region (on the ground) the Tree of Souls (sic?) rests. Again, in the same region, radar fails to operate. All of these features of this region are key to the plot, but none of them are explained or integrated with each other. The most obvious *apparent* explanation for the levitation is the material "unobtainium," the MacGuffin that the humans are after which does, in fact, levitate. However, the humans are not seeking to mine the mountains (which would apparently then have quintillions of dollars worth of the stuff, it goes for millions per ounce for reasons that were carelessly not written into the script). They are after unobtainium which exists under a different tree in a different region.

Basically, this film has a horribly bad case of "it will all get explained in the DVD special features or the tie-in book."

So the world-building ends when the plot of Jake Sully being initiated into the alien tribe starts up. This event is precipitated by what appear to be the ONLY two blatantly magical events in the film.

(Now let me reiterate that, and assess the positive and negative in that statement. There's almost no "magic" in the film. No lightning-bolt wielding shamans, virtually nothing that doesn't have a scientific explanation [which we'll get to]. But Jake is spared and he's nominated as a "Chosen One" by two weird omens. Most gallingly, these omens weren't necessary to the story, as one of the tribe elders promptly tosses out a different reason why Jake is unique and of interest to them.)

The film is then taken over by the "Jake goes native" scenes. This certainly doesn't happen instantly, and perhaps Cameron felt that he had to give Jake long enough to become one of the Na'vi naturalistically. However, they also feel like a waste because almost none of the Na'vi get any character development, and the romance--which is, story-wise, the most important thing that is being established at this point--simply...happens. Anakin + Padme seriously makes more sense and is better-foreshadowed. (Heck, the romance is one of the few things that isn't foreshadowed, often clumsily.) This is an almost-unforgivable weakness in the film, as it just feels like "Pocahontas boffing the special white dude." They fall in love because it's required to make the rest of the script work.

There is a second gaping plot hole that feels like it exists to preserve one of Cameron's first draft "big emotional scenes." Jake's whole job is to make peace with the Na'Vi, who are established very early in the film as targeting the human workers. He's given three months to negotiate peace. But he doesn't TELL them this because he's too busy trying to "become a man" in the tribe so that they will then listen to him. But he doesn't do this before the bulldozers come uncomfortably close, and then his girlfriend can go "I trusted you and you lied" and blah blah blah. Thing is, they are fighting a goddamn guerrilla war already. How did they not already know where the bulldozers were? And if they didn't, THEN WHO'S FIRING SIX-FOOT LONG ARROWS INTO THE FUCKING DUMP TRUCKS?

I guess what I'm getting at here is that the movie's first act is breathtaking. And the third act...this is going to surprise you...is excellent as well, except for the last five minutes of the film being a bit rushed. But the second act, the whole damn thing, is a beastly failure, except for the effects eye candy.

(It's worth noting here: the effects are fucking phenomenal. There are scenes when 12 foot CGI Na'Vi interact with real people and it's seamless. And I'm LOOKING FOR THE SEAMS. Also, the creatures are amazing...but more on that later.)

So the third act, where a bunch of big blue guys with bows fight futuristic helicopter gunships and heavy metal exoskeletons? Total groaner, right? It actually works somehow. Mostly because the blue guys don't win. Oh no. If you want to see a bunch of blue guys get fucking massacred by machine guns, you should buy a ticket for this movie. They only hold their own for five minutes because they have home field advantage, they outnumber the humans, the humans are arrogant, and they are fucking 12 foot monsters who can put an arrow through plate glass without breaking a sweat. If you don't think any of that should matter against a modern military, look up the Zulus sometime.

And they still lose HORRIBLY. They are saved by deus ex machina. Now, I don't have to tell you why that's a bad thing. HOWEVER, it's a deus that's been part of the movie since reel 1 and was *well* foreshadowed. Let's just say that we here on Earth may think of ourselves as lords of sky, sea, and land, but if every other animal on the planet suddenly switched into "kill all humans" mode, we would have our SHIT RUINED. FAST. And we don't even live on a planet where the PREY ANIMALS are BULLETPROOF.

So to wrap up the third act, the final brawl between good and evil...well, it's a rousing good brawl. Good guy vs. bad guy with an interesting twist. It also had a moment that well-pleased this feminist. And listen carefully to the score...during a shot where an exoskeleton-like machine is fighting with a vicious creature, James Horner does a riff that is strongly reminiscent of his Aliens score for five seconds or so. Very clever and appreciated!

That's probably enough for many of you guys. See it or don't see it based on how much you like effective, fun space opera with plot holes. (Good litmus test: did you like Star Trek?) It's not the Second Coming, and it's not even as good as Terminator, so stop waving your dick James Cameron. You made a blockbuster, not a masterpiece.

I'll now launch into a biology-geek spiel. Like every other aspect of this movie, this was hit-or-miss. Most of the animals are based on a six-limbed structure. From this basic frame, some truly breathtaking creatures have been cooked up by the crew here. In particular there is a beautiful and brilliant little lizard-like critter that lives in symbiosis with a plant that is a smaller cousin of one that appeared earlier in the film, one that can expand and contract very rapidly. This allows it to glide! (Ok, it's a Hollywood, they gain a little too much altitude, but it is a low-gravity planet, I can buy that with leaping & air currents they could get up a little ways). They seriously put that much thought into a creature that's onscreen for a few seconds. Awesome.

The Na'Vi are the odd furries out though. They don't have six limbs...they didn't even put on vestigial ones. They have two nipples, two eyes, two nostrils...in other words, WAY too human. One kinda nice touch is that the avatars have significantly more human-like fingers and toes than the Na'Vi, but they are still jarringly mammalian in an alien world. It also makes little sense that they're bright blue...it doesn't seem to serve any purpose as camouflage, and they have red blood so it must be all pigmentation.

It also annoyed me that the flora was a mix of the totally original and the overly familiar. I can understand why the trees had to be, well, trees to get the right audience reactions, but the giant mushrooms? Not even all Earth fungi create mushrooms, why are they on this planet?

As far as Na'Vi culture, it's mostly miss. Some things I did appreciate, such as the no-doubt MPAA-mandated "bras" being little more than ceremonial necklaces, as opposed to, well, jungle bras. The occasional nip-slip does happen, as it would inevitably, but sorry furry fans, it's not lingered on or sexualized. They manage to finesse it reasonably well with males wearing something similar, just down a bit lower. Their religion also is pretty straightforward and even kinda logical considering their circumstances (again, more on this in a bit). But, lots of things seem like they are part of the culture because, somewhere on Earth, a non-white person did that thing. There's a bone nose piercing. There are hoop earrings. There are head-dresses. Most of the Na'Vi we meet come off as vaguely "black" whereas the vast majority of the humans are American White. It's disappointing and it's predictable.

Anyway, one last biology/culture thing that I actually liked is the concept of the forest being one big nervous system. Probably a lot of people rolled their eyes at this, but it's not as crazy as you'd think...there are single fungal individuals that extend for an entire forest, miles and miles, uncounted tons of biomass. And we are only scratching the surface of interplant communication here on Earth. It's an interesting concept for sci-fi, anyway. The nervous system biolinks that the Na'Vi shared with the animals were relatively original, they gave a concrete basis to the "treehugger crap" religion. And they gave a real reason for the Na'Vi to fight to the death for their land, and a reason for the lack of understanding with the humans, who weren't part of the system.

Anyway, I'm finally gonna shut up. Honestly, I would have preferred a three-hour movie that made a bit more sense to the final product that concentrated on feeling and spectacle at the expense of realistic character development, world-building, and plot coherence. There's a lot of story here, and good story, and it hurts to see it executed clumsily.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Any idea of the atmospheric composition of Pandora? It doesn't seem to poison humans, just asphyxiate them. Even after a exposure up to a minute or so, one can put back a rebreather mask and be fine. Also, fire appear to be able to have a sustained burn on Pandoran wood just like it was Earth atmosphere.

Atmosphere's ~20% denser than our own, and it's got a C02 composition of roughly 18% with hydrogen sulfide thrown in, but beyond that it's mostly oxy-nitrogen.

There's your answer right there. Hydrogen Sulfide gas is EXTREMELY hazardous to humans. Exposure at levels as low as 50 parts per million (ppm) can irritate the mucus membranes, and by the time you get to 500-1000ppm you're going to be unconscious in under a minute from inhaling it. Even an atmosphere at 0.01% H2S is going to be unbreathable to humans, this stuff is so nasty when you're at an oil refinery you have to wear an H2S detector on your chest at all times, because one of the first things it does is shut off your sense of smell, which means you can't tell you're being exposed.

[SylasGaunt]

For instance, there is a region on Pandora where mountain-sized chunks of land levitate. In the same region (on the ground) the Tree of Souls (sic?) rests. Again, in the same region, radar fails to operate. All of these features of this region are key to the plot, but none of them are explained or integrated with each other. The most obvious *apparent* explanation for the levitation is the material "unobtainium," the MacGuffin that the humans are after which does, in fact, levitate. However, the humans are not seeking to mine the mountains (which would apparently then have quintillions of dollars worth of the stuff, it goes for millions per ounce for reasons that were carelessly not written into the script). They are after unobtainium which exists under a different tree in a different region.

Basically, this film has a horribly bad case of "it will all get explained in the DVD special features or the tie-in book."

That part is actually explained in part in the film (albeit not explicitly) and in more detail in supplementary material.

In the film you see it's the strongest part of the magnetic flux vortex which is pretty much what's keeping the islands up. As for why not to mine there well for one there's the fact that a LOT of banshees live in the area.

In the supplemental material one incident is pointed out where a bunch of RDA personnel were killed mining there when a ship-sized chunk of rock dropped out of the sky and landed on them. Theories on that apparently range from 'Eywa did it' to 'Perhaps removing the super magnetic rock screwed with the floating'.

However, they also feel like a waste because almost none of the Na'vi get any character development, and the romance--which is, story-wise, the most important thing that is being established at this point--simply...happens. Anakin + Padme seriously makes more sense and is better-foreshadowed. (Heck, the romance is one of the few things that isn't foreshadowed, often clumsily.) This is an almost-unforgivable weakness in the film, as it just feels like "Pocahontas boffing the special white dude." They fall in love because it's required to make the rest of the script work.

I personally thought it was handled better than that.. for one thing Jake and Neytiri were working closely together for a number of months. I didn't find it odd that they might form an attraction as a result.

Thing is, they are fighting a goddamn guerrilla war already. How did they not already know where the bulldozers were? And if they didn't, THEN WHO'S FIRING SIX-FOOT LONG ARROWS INTO THE FUCKING DUMP TRUCKS?

Brink of war according to the corporate guy. The sense I got from the dialogue was that the diplomatic situation was steadily deteriorating and had gotten to the point where both sides were either taking pot shots at each other, or it had gotten to the point that their respective hot heads were doing it. Isolated skirmishes, a raid here or there, but not a full on war yet, though you could certainly see it from there.

And they still lose HORRIBLY. They are saved by deus ex machina. Now, I don't have to tell you why that's a bad thing. HOWEVER, it's a deus that's been part of the movie since reel 1 and was *well* foreshadowed. Let's just say that we here on Earth may think of ourselves as lords of sky, sea, and land, but if every other animal on the planet suddenly switched into "kill all humans" mode, we would have our SHIT RUINED. FAST. And we don't even live on a planet where the PREY ANIMALS are BULLETPROOF.

Does it still count as Deus Ex Machina if it's forshadowed as heavily as this instance was?

The Na'Vi are the odd furries out though. They don't have six limbs...they didn't even put on vestigial ones. They have two nipples, two eyes, two nostrils...in other words, WAY too human.

To be fair there's a huge variety in the 'number of limbs' department here on Earth to.

One kinda nice touch is that the avatars have significantly more human-like fingers and toes than the Na'Vi, but they are still jarringly mammalian in an alien world. It also makes little sense that they're bright blue...it doesn't seem to serve any purpose as camouflage, and they have red blood so it must be all pigmentation.

I noticed the avatars actually have more than the Na'vi, having 5 fingers and toes. Their eyes are smaller to.

[neoolong]

Well, the avatars are a mix of DNA after all. I thought that was an interesting addition that they didn't end up just having them look exactly like "The People."

[GrayAnderson]

Some thoughts on the movie, spoiler tagged out of caution more than anything: Spoiler

1) Very well-done characters all around. They were believable, not cardboard cutouts like you get way too often in these movies. The corporation is not evil in the usual sense of "Rah, rah, rah, kill them all!" The one time where they do try to kill off a bunch of natives, it is in an attack on a legitimate military target (namely, a massing enemy force that could probably overwhelm the human base...their ammo supply does have a finite limit, even if that limit is high, and enough natives could probably run them out of ammo and/or overrun the base).

2) Beautiful scenery, visuals, and (for once) a good use of 3D as more than a crutch to drive up the ticket price and/or to zap the audience with (as it felt like with A Christmas Carol). Here, the 3D understated more than anything, used to give a two dimensional image three dimensions in a sense. The world was immersive, too.

3) I do find that the environmental overtones were a little heavy-handed (particularly if you add in some of the outside material...in some cases this pushes the suspension of disbelief a bit further than I'd like); simply put, I believe that I've developed a capability for either blocking stuff like that out or simply disagreeing with it and moving on. I did not find myself siding with who Cameron wanted me to, though to be fair I wasn't unconditionally on the other side, either.

4) There were a raft of conflicts in the movie: Science vs. business, industry vs. nature, human vs. alien, etc. They came together in interesting ways, and I liked how they meshed at times.

As to the characters:
-My opinion of Jake Sully is that while the character is well-done, etc., I find his actions to be genuinely reprehensible. This is not a man who is standing up in the face of genocide, this is not a committed pacifist, this is someone who agreed to serve on the security forces for the humans, was serving with a leadership that was willing to go to great lengths and expense (the hybrids could not have been cheap given that they were willing to pull Sully in at the last minute to save the use of the avatar rather than write off the loss...and his was one of a substantial number, too) to avoid casualties even when the fighting started and was as far as I can tell trying for a very long time to negotiate in good faith for the resources they wanted/needed and who as far as I can tell kept their word as much as anyone. In short, as I see it he was not serving alongside evil people, he was serving alongside decent people and he turned his back on them and caused the death of many of them because he fell in love with one of the aliens. Sorry folks, but in my book that's treason rather than heroism unless you've got a much better reason for it (i.e. .
-Grace Augustine was my favorite character, even if I didn't like her and the others running off into the woods towards the end of the movie. I found her motivations (pursuing information and science) to be the most readily identifiable.
-Col. Quaritch could be a jerk, agreed, but he was a straightforward, honest jerk who looked out for his men. He told Sully that if Sully worked with him he'd arrange for Sully to get his legs back. He followed through with that, which is more than most antagonists do. He was a bit too eager to go shoot things up, but if that's your only flaw then I'm hardly inclined to call you an evil person for it.
-The executive on the site seems to have been a competent administrator who didn't know how to deal with the natives. Not an inept bumbler, but someone who was trying to make a messy situation work (and not succeeding). He also probably doesn't know how to leverage his force like someone in that position probably should know how to (or have someone on staff who did, and Col. Quaritch was a bit too trigger-happy for that).

I've got more thoughts on the movie, but I'll let those come out as discussion continues. Let's just say, though, that I can be very hard to push in the direction that a director wants me to go as far as my sympathies are concerned.

[neoolong]

Sully only really turned against the humans when they decided to just bomb the natives, there was the dozer scene, but that was a little different. He was pretty much all about finding a peaceful solution until then. It wasn't just because he fell in love, though that may have been part of seeing that they didn't deserve to get kicked off their land and their living deity destroyed. Trudy, despite not having any interaction with the natives that I can recall, also decided that it wasn't right to simply blow up Hometree.

The RDA wasn't reasonable. When the natives said no, it was pretty much just bomb the fuck out of them. Just because they offered to buy the land before doesn't mean that they're decent.

[open_sketchbook]

Don't you know that willingness to commit genocide on a sentient species is alright so long as it makes life easier for you?

[GrayAnderson]

Don't you know that willingness to commit genocide on a sentient species is alright so long as it makes life easier for you?

Oh, I disagree with genocide point blank. I didn't see a genocide happening, however. First, a definition:

genocide (countable and uncountable; plural genocides)

1. The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity.
2. Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Source: Wiktionary.

Now, what I saw were two attacks in the course of the movie:
1) Hometree. An attack that, while the morality backing it was questionable at best, was carried out with the expressly stated intent (which as far as I can tell was actually implemented) to minimize casualties, particularly among civilians. That is not a genocide.
2) The Vortex: A target that was housing a rapidly growing number of enemy warriors presumed, not unreasonably, to be massing for an attack on the human base. Regrettably, I see the bombing plan here as an attack on a legitimate target (an enemy base with thousands of their warriors, quite possibly the bulk of their military capability) that would prevent further attacks on human facilities.

I can agree that the attack on Hometree was not on the sturdiest moral grounds, put mildly. However, it is one thing to dispute the morality of a given action and entirely another to use the term "genocide" to describe it. The attack on Hometree was no more a genocide than, even absent any justification whatsoever, Iran-Contra or the invasion of Iraq. There was no systematic mass killing. The attack on the Vortex was at most comparable with the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima, and in this case it was actually a highly militarized target rather than one which was primarily civilian.

[neoolong]

It occurs to me that the established reason for the RDA being on Pandora is because Unobtanium sells for 20 million a kilo. In other words, it's pretty much just profit and not because they need it or their civilization is fucked. Which it really shouldn't since they seem to have the capability of colonizing other worlds. Unless there are only two inhabitable planets in the galaxy.

It's not really a situation where they were attacked first and thus have to retaliate against the Na'vi. It's not really fair to call Jake's massing army a legitimate target if the sole reason why they're massing in the first place is because you blew up their homes.

[GrayAnderson]

It occurs to me that the established reason for the RDA being on Pandora is because Unobtanium sells for 20 million a kilo. In other words, it's pretty much just profit and not because they need it or their civilization is fucked. Which it really shouldn't since they seem to have the capability of colonizing other worlds. Unless there are only two inhabitable planets in the galaxy.

It's not really a situation where they were attacked first and thus have to retaliate against the Na'vi. It's not really fair to call Jake's massing army a legitimate target if the sole reason why they're massing in the first place is because you blew up their homes.

1) Your first two statements are not mutually exclusive. It is quite possible that it is selling for that amount of money because without it, civilization is up the infamous creek. I'm at least fairly certain that it's not selling at that price because people like the look of it. The movie is not clear on how bad things are getting on Earth (Sully's comments could easily be taken as somewhat hyperbolic about there being 'no green' on Earth; outside material, however, certainly leans in the "bad to worse" direction).
1b) An interesting point is raised by this: How much of that $20,000,000 goes into costs? The financial geek in me would love to see the RDA's cost accounting files and see what's going into burdening.
2) Civilization has a practical distance limit; even getting close to light speed (which the ships seem to do for much of their trip), you're looking at multi-decade turnaround times only out to Tau Ceti, let alone further out. Also, at some point a resource extraction operation becomes impractical due to time problems...you can't exactly run a resource extraction operation when it takes a century to get there, get your resources, and get back. Two habitable planets in a sphere of a dozen or two dozen light years is not even necessarily improbable, especially when you consider that number two (Pandora) is marginal at best for human habitation due to the atmosphere.
3) I disagree on the point you make concerning the massing army. Even if the force were merely planning to disable human defensive capabilities and kick the humans off the planet, the chance of the facilities being damaged to the point of losing their breathable atmosphere and/or of the natives not being even as concerned about civilian casualties as the humans were and going on a rampage is something that would have to be weighed. Considering the mood that the natives are probably in, I'm certainly not inclined to assume their best behavior if they had attacked.

[SylasGaunt]

And there's also the fact that the Army wasn't the true target remember. The true target was the Tree of Souls with the expresss purpose of blowing a great big hole in the Na'vi's culture, killing off whatever remnant remains of their ancestors, and generally seeking to traumatize their culture into submission.

Oh and guess where the civilians were while the warriors were going off to fight? At the tree.

[neoolong]

1) Your first two statements are not mutually exclusive. It is quite possible that it is selling for that amount of money because without it, civilization is up the infamous creek. I'm at least fairly certain that it's not selling at that price because people like the look of it. The movie is not clear on how bad things are getting on Earth (Sully's comments could easily be taken as somewhat hyperbolic about there being 'no green' on Earth; outside material, however, certainly leans in the "bad to worse" direction).

The movie doesn't say anything else about it. If they wanted the viewers to view as more than profit-oriented, they easily could have slipped Selfridge another line about why they're there.

3) I disagree on the point you make concerning the massing army. Even if the force were merely planning to disable human defensive capabilities and kick the humans off the planet, the chance of the facilities being damaged to the point of losing their breathable atmosphere and/or of the natives not being even as concerned about civilian casualties as the humans were and going on a rampage is something that would have to be weighed. Considering the mood that the natives are probably in, I'm certainly not inclined to assume their best behavior if they had attacked.

Not my point. The RDA instigated that reaction from the natives, through no actual fault of the native population. Yeah, it's an army and it's likely going to attack, but it simplifies the situation too much to say that it's a legit target simply because of that fact. The Na'vi weren't going out attacking humans until the humans encroached on their territory and started mining. I'd wager that if it was a simple scientific expedition, there really wouldn't be any bad relations at all. Most of the Na'vi had no real problem with Grace after all.

[Companion Cube]

I'd wager that if it was a simple scientific expedition, there really wouldn't be any bad relations at all. Most of the Na'vi had no real problem with Grace after all.

No doubt about that; after the destruction of the Home-tree, the Na'Vi make a point of recovering Grace's avatar when they retreat. In earlier scenes, you can see Na'Vi children flocking around her.

[Oskuro]

Ok, I haven't seen it yet, so I've avoided reading most of the thread just in case. Thought I might link this spoiler-less video review:

Escape to the Movies: Avatar

[Samuel]

2 things I found off. The ending- was that the only mining base on the entire planet? It seems odd that the human presence was so concentrated.

Also, why didn't anybody notice that the lifeforms on the planet share a system for connecting with each other? It is the sort of thing that screams artifical origin.

[SylasGaunt]

Uhm.. they did? In fact Grace uses this exact point to try and stop the attack on hometree (the being connected not the artificiality thing).

[Zor]

2 things I found off. The ending- was that the only mining base on the entire planet? It seems odd that the human presence was so concentrated.

This makes some sense to me, RDA's starships can only carry so much stuff and this bottleneck could easilly be enough resources and people to keep one sight with the equipment required to keep things going.

Zor

[Samuel]

Uhm.. they did? In fact Grace uses this exact point to try and stop the attack on hometree (the being connected not the artificiality thing).

Not the planet, the animals. The neural connection between them and the Navi is something that I don't think any biologist would believe to be natural.