Avatar review thread

[SylasGaunt]

To get off the milwanker subject I have one small question to ask

I saw the movie on the 18th and thought it was a good movie, only thing that had me was the scene of a Na'vi putting an arrow through the canopy of one of the choppers, looked cool but kind of odd, so I was wondering what a 12 foot tall Na'vi giant firing 6ft+ long arrows could do to bullet proof glass at almost point blank range, it's well known that medieval longbows could pierce iron and weaker steel armors at least until about the 14th century, I did find a site about the English longbow and it states that a longbow can pierce plate armor at ranges of less than 100 yards, and the Na'vi was way closer than that, so I was wondering if everything was scaled up to size, would what happened in that scene actually be possible

edit: here's the site: http://www.archers.org/longbow.htm

To be fair also they were a lot closer than 100 yards.

Plus if we take the guidebook as canon they can only achieve sufficient velocity with the bow when they've gotten a boost from a diving banshee.

Still they've got to have some damn big penetrating power since they were punching all the way through armored RDA security goons and nailing them to whatever was behind them.

[fgalkin]

-We're going to go all around the mulberry bush on this one, but you committed a fallacy in that last paragraph: Humans 300 years ago would have done just fine if all of the oil in the world up and vanished (and was replaced by a material that filled in the underground caverns in its place which was inert). Humans today would die if all of the oil in the world up and vanished. Not all of us, but you would get fairly wide-spread starvation in urban areas if we up and ran out of oil tomorrow.

I offer this point merely to outline the simple fact that some needs change. Some remain the same (food, water, shelter, etc.), but some do change (mainly having to do with how we get the aforementioned items).

So, in other words, if all the oil ran out tomorrow, except say, under New York City, it would be perfectly acceptable to kill every single person living there and raze the city to the ground to get to it, right?

Also, mind you, the situation is completely different- our economy is completely dependent on oil, and will collapse. Human economy in Avatar cannot be dependant on unobtanium, because it's either rare or nonexistent in the Solar System- that's why they've come to Pandora in the first place, isn't it? It seems to be more akin to "hey, there is this magical alternative power source that will solve the energy crisis and stop global warming, but we have to kill the people living on top of it." It's not really about survival. It's about easy solutions and avoidance of responsiblity.

Also, I have seen mentions in this thread of other deposits of unobtanium, that are harder to get. So, it's not even the only deposit, just the most convenient one?

Oh yes, very nice.

If you can point to one single instance of me saying I supported their actions without also qualifying it something like "...so long as it's vital to our survival" or "if it means saving lots of human lives", then yay for you. But that's not what I'm arguing at all. The problem as it was initially presented made it sound as though they were at stake.

It seems the case that it's not, so I don't support it. That's what I've been saying for pages, but a couple of you people seem too dense to be comprehending the words I'm writing.

"Saving lots of human lives" is not the same as "vital to our survival." We can save lots of human lives by killing every single muslim, for example. Do you support doing that?

Moreover, you didn't just write that, you also wrote this

Billions of human lives are worth far more to me than however many roid-smurfs are living on top of this mine

Let's translate this to real world terms, again, in case anyone missed the point what you're saying.

"Millions of American lives are worth far more to me than however many sand-niggers are living on top of this oil well."
"Millions of German lives are worth far more to me than however many yids and slav subhumans are living on top of this land."
Or, as I've said before,
A billion of Chinese lives are worth far more to me than however many pox-skinned white monkeys (you Australians) are living on top of this natural resources"

In other words, you're a little Nazi wannabe internet toughguy weasel who is backpedaling furiously when called on his bullshit.

Have a very day.
-fgalkin

[Knife]

To get off the milwanker subject I have one small question to ask

I saw the movie on the 18th and thought it was a good movie, only thing that had me was the scene of a Na'vi putting an arrow through the canopy of one of the choppers, looked cool but kind of odd, so I was wondering what a 12 foot tall Na'vi giant firing 6ft+ long arrows could do to bullet proof glass at almost point blank range, it's well known that medieval longbows could pierce iron and weaker steel armors at least until about the 14th century, I did find a site about the English longbow and it states that a longbow can pierce plate armor at ranges of less than 100 yards, and the Na'vi was way closer than that, so I was wondering if everything was scaled up to size, would what happened in that scene actually be possible

edit: here's the site: http://www.archers.org/longbow.htm

Well, I know ancient Roman Scorpions, small ballistae, would and could go right through an armored target. The bolt on that sucker was around three feet long. The scale up for a 10 foot person should be pretty close.

[SylasGaunt]

Also, I have seen mentions in this thread of other deposits of unobtanium, that are harder to get. So, it's not even the only deposit, just the most convenient one?

Yep. It's the biggest deposit within 200 kilometers of the base, but nowhere is it said or even suggested that it's the only deposit.

[fgalkin]

Also, I have seen mentions in this thread of other deposits of unobtanium, that are harder to get. So, it's not even the only deposit, just the most convenient one?

Yep. It's the biggest deposit within 200 kilometers of the base, but nowhere is it said or even suggested that it's the only deposit.

So, how can there be any argument that the humans are not giant, obnoxious gits in the movie?

I mean,

"Here we there is this oil deposit under NYC. We want it!"
"But there is one in rural Utah!"
"But it's so faaaaaar! So, fuck off and move. Or we nuke you."

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Knife]

To be fair, I think Jake is a very suspect narrator at the end. That said, to some extent we're being given information that is either biased or incomplete; I get the feeling of an "Alma Problem" on Sully's description of Earth: We don't have much else to go on that's clear, and Sully may or may not be reliable.

Yeah, kind of my point.

I can see his statements being literal (no more trees, etc., period),

Dialogue I mentioned earlier nix's this one.

quasi-literal (limited to areas he wouldn't regularly have exposure to/wouldn't have seen in a while/greenhouses),

Same as above.

or figurative (he means the environment is a wreck).

More likely.

Likewise, a "dying world" could mean "we're running out of energy and we're headed for a train wreck with people dying off in large numbers" or something more philosophical along the lines you suggested.

Possible, but since they just had a big fight to save the Gaia type element of Pandora; it shouldn't be surprising that it may be tip top on his mind durring his narration and his quip about earth may just in fact mean that Earth lost this battle a long time ago. Earth has lost it's soul, sort to speak.

[Broomstick]

Plus if we take the guidebook as canon they can only achieve sufficient velocity with the bow when they've gotten a boost from a diving banshee.

That's actually a somewhat realistic adherence to real world physics, as being on a diving banshee is a decent velocity boost which also boosts the total energy of the arrow. In other words, it's plausible that an arrow which, when fired from a stationary position, can't penetrate a windshield might indeed acquire enough force to do so when launched from a moving platform (banshee). Calculating whether or not that would actually happen would take information we don't have, such as the composition and thickness of the windshield, and information about arrow construction and how fast banshees dive.

Still they've got to have some damn big penetrating power since they were punching all the way through armored RDA security goons and nailing them to whatever was behind them.

Well, yeah - I'd expect what could go through a supposedly armored windshield would do a lot of damage to a squishy human body.

Another thing that occurred to me in regards to number of appendages: It seems all the animals have two "USB ports" except the Na'vi, who have only one. What's up with that?

[Ford Prefect]

It should probably be noted that the film is internally consistent about the power of Na'vi super bows: after the initial divebombing they do not take out any Scorpions with arrows directly. They also can't safely get back to the altitude needed to do another pass, because the RDA is more or less prepared - on the off chance that they let them back off, or if there were more Banshees in reserve, a second pass wouldn't be anywhere near as effective as the initial one, which relied heavily on surprise.

[Darwin]

To get off the milwanker subject I have one small question to ask

I saw the movie on the 18th and thought it was a good movie, only thing that had me was the scene of a Na'vi putting an arrow through the canopy of one of the choppers, looked cool but kind of odd, so I was wondering what a 12 foot tall Na'vi giant firing 6ft+ long arrows could do to bullet proof glass at almost point blank range, it's well known that medieval longbows could pierce iron and weaker steel armors at least until about the 14th century, I did find a site about the English longbow and it states that a longbow can pierce plate armor at ranges of less than 100 yards, and the Na'vi was way closer than that, so I was wondering if everything was scaled up to size, would what happened in that scene actually be possible

edit: here's the site: http://www.archers.org/longbow.htm

To be fair also they were a lot closer than 100 yards.

Plus if we take the guidebook as canon they can only achieve sufficient velocity with the bow when they've gotten a boost from a diving banshee.

Still they've got to have some damn big penetrating power since they were punching all the way through armored RDA security goons and nailing them to whatever was behind them.

diving banshee+full draw+what looked like an extra heavy, 6' long arrow+ flat shot perpendicular to the bulletproof pane=plausible! Assuming heavy anti-vehicle war arrows that aren't designed for use at longer than point-blank, one of those at the end of a dive would be packing It's not much of a reach that Jake coached the Na'vi on the best way to take down the scorpions and other hardware, and outfitted special squads just for that purpose.

a mountain banchee can dive at 250 feet/second, add that to a reasonably conservative arrow launch velocity of 200 feet per second and a heavy, 5lb arrow designed for the purpose (Not unreasonable, I think, given the size of the na'vi and the anti-vtol mission) you're looking at 15,700 ft/lbs of energy, about half that of a 20mm cannon round. Now we saw rifle and pistol fire from the Colonel pierce the canopy of a flyer during the escape, so there you go.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Here's a question to pose to some of you people, if it had not been for the special effects, would you have liked the movie? I just got back from seeing it a few minutes ago, and just found it to be generally a bunch of unoriginal rubbish after the first hour, and the only thing keeping me at all engaged were the special effects. They weren't mind-blowing, but they were cool and enjoyable. Outside of that, it really was just another easily forgettable action movie with sweet fight scenes tied together by formulaic filler.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I just got back from seeing this, unfortunately in 2D, and much as I recognise the theoretical moral depravity of the position, I'll have to side with the milwankers on this one.

Unique alien-mindlink circumstances aside, going purely by the metaphor, I did not see two different cultures, human and alien. I saw the same culture at two different stages of it's development.

Maybe it's just being British, but I can't help remembering that we were primitives like that once, when the Romans came knocking, and look at what we became a dozen or so centuries down the line.

A culture in which warriorhood, physical skills especially skill at arms, is highly respected and the path to political power, in fact in which warriorhood is synonymous with manhood, a culture like that has forfeited all rights to be automatically considered good guys.

Who, in fact, do they fight? The normal rough and tumble of a planet full of things with teeth, or are they in fact very like the amerind population, and the pre- roman British for that matter, continually at war with each other?

How else did the ability to wield weapons and kill things attain a place of honour among them? Societies like that could, and did, evolve into the kind of society that sends out mining expeditions to rape and rob the indigenous people.

Basically I got hit too hard with the political correctness stick and I'm reacting against it, but I reckon that as an armed society with respect for war and warriors they're a legitimate target.

That said, yes, I agree that the humans in the movie are gigantically obnoxious gits. No defence there. On the other hand, I don't see the Na'vi as being much of a step up.

[open_sketchbook]

They live on a planet with creatures that can take out futuristic battlesuits and, it has been stated, they could not domesticate. It's not much of a strech to imagine that fighting a migrating group of those things would require a miliant mindset.

Or, to bring up an example from earlier, inflicting genocide on Saudi Arabia for their oil is totally justified, because they occasionally skirmish with, say, Iraq.

[Zor]

I saw this movie twice (once alone, once with my sister and a mutual friend) and all three of us rather enjoyed it. In general what i can say has been said, although i have developed an odd theory about the Na'vi, as they developed tools as a sort of. One point of note is that tree of souls thing, i know it was a big plot point but rolling the Dozers over seemed to be such a giant dick move that really served no purpose to the goals of RDA. That and i now have something of a tendancy of looking at the Na'vi as something like Remoras in the way the live, they provide a symbiotic relationship to other organisms (such as Banshees and Dire Horses) offering ranged attacks and superior cognative abilities in return for stored food.

As a sidenote, i find those people who bitch about the name of the Mineral to be REALLY annoying. If a scientist was given a sample of this material in a alternate Universe like our own where Avatar was Never made and he would be likely to call it just that and it keeps it from sounding like a trek substance. That and i happen to like the way thr word sounds but i still find people griping about THAT LITTLE POINT to be pointless, unessisary and annoying.

Zor

[Knife]

Here's a question to pose to some of you people, if it had not been for the special effects, would you have liked the movie? I just got back from seeing it a few minutes ago, and just found it to be generally a bunch of unoriginal rubbish after the first hour, and the only thing keeping me at all engaged were the special effects. They weren't mind-blowing, but they were cool and enjoyable. Outside of that, it really was just another easily forgettable action movie with sweet fight scenes tied together by formulaic filler.

Yes.

I like the themes, I rather liked Dances with Wolves, I liked Four Feathers, I like the Pocahontas story line (though The New World was slow as hell), and other movies with the same themes. However, I did like the world Cameron created, and the SFX did add to it.

[Drooling Iguana]

I just got back from seeing this movie, and it was absolutely horrible.

The CGI, was okay, I guess, in that most scenes looked almost as good as they would have if they hadn't bothered with CGI at all and just filmed some guys in blue makeup in a jungle. The scenes where you had humans and Na'vi in the same shot were kinda impressive, but there were maybe half a dozen of them in the entire movie.

The plot was the most clichéd, hackneyed piece of tripe I've seen in a long time, and not a single character that was in any way believable (well, Sigourney Weaver's character was okay, but that was more due to her performance than anything in the script, and the main guy was just bland and uninteresting rather than actively offensive.) The Na'vi come off worst of all, without a single line between them that's not some overdone noble savage cliché or a piece of trite fortune-cookie wisdom about being "one with the planet." The action scenes had me bored to tears and were just the same kinds of mindless explosions you've seen in every action movie ever made.

Now, if this were just yet another summer "blockbuster" and didn't set itself up as anything other than an excuse to eat popcorn and kill a couple of hours I probably would have just considered the thing mediocre, but with it being played up as some great leap forward and representative of the future of filmmaking and then ending up being the pointless waste of time I just sat through I can help but despise everyone involved with this film. 1 star, and that's being generous.

[adam_grif]

In other words, you're a little Nazi wannabe internet toughguy weasel who is backpedaling furiously when called on his bullshit.

Backpeddling? Bollocks. My position hasn't changed at all. The only thing that's even happened is that people have given me evidence to suggest that it's not vital to humanity to get the unobtanium. Which, in accordance with my earliest statements, means that I don't support the attack on them. And I don't.

You have no legs to stand on.

[Samuel]

I should note that they aren't comparable to Earth's hunter gather tribes- they lack agriculture, but are able to sustain large sedentary populations. That is actually rather impressive.

[GrayAnderson]

Alright, I got the add-on book at B&N today. My first reaction is that there are three ways to take the book in light of the conflicting commentary from competing sources:
-The RDA is full of baloney and the activists are correct in their assessments.
-The activists are full of baloney and the RDA is correct in its assessments.
-Both are unreliable and pursuing agendas.

My inclination is towards RDA accuracy on a number of points, primarily because of the internal memo nature of the document. If the book were presented as being a public consumption document or something out of the PR department, I would be more dubious of their statements. By contrast, the feeling that I get from the authors is one of "hopeless idealists" with a dubious-at-best agenda involving the uncontrolled introduction of alien lifeforms into Earth's ecosystem. I accept that other readings of the documents are possible, but that is the feeling that I get upon reading the comments in them.

I would also like to note that one major comment in the book caught my attention, namely the idea of the development of a replacement for Unobtanium. I'm not going to outright call that suggestion "impossible", but I am reminded of the main alternative to drilling oil ultimately (for the interim) being either converting coal over or drilling natural gas. Other options came online, but one was the byproduct of nuclear weapons development and others have taken decades to go anywhere. Such an alternative might in theory be developed, but the practicality is not commented on beyond the general idea in the material we have; simply put, there is a decent chance that we have a wonderful case of pissing in the wind going on here.

Moving along to our usual exchange of comments:

So, in other words, if all the oil ran out tomorrow, except say, under New York City, it would be perfectly acceptable to kill every single person living there and raze the city to the ground to get to it, right?

It would be acceptable to take the city over under eminent domain with compensation for the residents for their property (granted, most of this compensation would be going to rental investors who own the skyscrapers, not those who rent the properties, but that's beside the point). Depending on the urgency of the situation, dictating a price and making it stick would be acceptable (i.e. permitting the property seizure and letting the litigation roll out after the fact).

An armed attack would only become acceptable in the case of armed resistance, and even then only after attempting to clear out non-combatants from the city; invariably, I suspect you would get holdouts (gangs, etc.), and if they offered armed resistance then I would be willing to accept the use of force to get them out.

Moving on to your earlier Australia analogy, under the circumstances you suggested and assuming that Australia refused to sell resources to the Chinese (and that all other buyers were unwilling to sell even in the face of both policy and monetary concessions that China was willing to offer), I would both argue that the Chinese had a right to use armed force to get them and that the Australians had a right to defend themselves against said attack.

I'm reminded of the question of the "trolley problem", as expounded upon in a New York Times article in 2006:

Suppose you are standing by a railroad track. Ahead, in a deep cutting from which no escape is possible, five people are walking on the track. You hear a train approaching. Beside you is a lever with which you can switch the train to a sidetrack. One person is walking on the sidetrack. Is it O.K. to pull the lever and save the five people, though one will die?

and

Assume now you are on a bridge overlooking the track. Ahead, five people on the track are at risk. You can save them by throwing down a heavy object into the path of the approaching train. One is available beside you, in the form of a fat man. Is it O.K. to push him to save the five?

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/healt ... ref=slogin)

I will say that I suspect we have different answers to this question, but this is the context in which I consider the movie.

[K. A. Pital]

I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

I see so many people upstanding for that racist shitbag logic here, I almost want to puke.

They are sickening, worthless shitstains. They should rot in hell.

I totally loved the movie and I'm at loss of words how anyone could root for the fucking bad guys in a movie where "Good" and "Evil" are set in such large huge letter painted over every fucking act and word of the characters.

Yay, xenocide! After all, it's not like the movie isn't about Earth, and merely an analogy, right? Vietnam Exoskeleton Yankees should've totally genocided these stupid Blue Cat Indians. Ugh. I can't believe it.

[Shroom Man 777]

But Stas! They have tactical high orbital strategic geosynchronous precision laser-guided inertial-assisted terrain-cleavage-matching satellite-assisted fly-by-wire stealthy supersonic beyond visual range turboscramramfanjet variable-wing-geometry swing-wing all-glass-canopy thrust-vectoring canard-equipped digital automatic gun-systematic unmanned hydromatic greased lightning megadeathspacestrikes to high-technologically murderkillfuckerize those blue marijuana-smoking liberal peace-loving greenpeace space-tofu-eating tree-hugging hippies! Space rocks, Stas! Space rocks! If might doesn't make right, then space rocks certainly does! Garrr!

[K. A. Pital]

Damn it, I can't believe we have downright Nazi morons in a thread dedicated to a review of a fantastic and solid Good vs Evil space opera movie. I mean... Shit. *waves hands* Can't add much to what fgalkin said. Sickening.

"Let's make the Holocaust more efficient! Damn that pinko green communist primitivist Cameron, death to lower races!"

And fuck you idiot pathetic companion book readers and minutiae researchers who look for an excuse to cheer that genocide. There was NOTHING (in very big, large fucking red letters) in the movie itself that would suggest "Unobtainium" was in any way critical to human survival. Not in ANY way. The movie is a complete work of art. It spells out everything from A to Z, the story is told, villains and heroes are set, and that is about it.

I presumed the movie (and Cameron by proxy) just used it (and the RDA) as metaphors for "any natural resource Earth wants badly" (which is why the ridiculous monicker "Unobtainium") and "RDA" for "Asshole Greedy Corporation" (a-la Union Carbide or the like). Nothing indicated "Unobtanium" was critical to anything but the profits for the greedy fucktard guy played by the fucking pesky actor (good performance, actuallY!)

But it seems someone looked deeper! The corporate Nazis weren't about to exterminate people to plunder their land! In fact, these White Knights were glorious defenders of the lives of little humanses in DAS VATERLAND, and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise. It says so in some fucking books which say Cat Indians are really the bad guys. Or rather, I think so. It was not the Humans genociding Cat Indians. It was the Cat Indians killing Humans. God damn, by right it was not Germans massacring Jews and Slavs! Instead they were saving the German RACE from extinction due to a JEWISH war or every Master Race! Perfidious Cat Indians! Holy fucking crap.

Gray fucking Anderson, you stink of shit.

[Shroom Man 777]

But Stas, the Poles were the ones who attacked first in Gleiwitz!

[Lord Revan]

Here's a question to pose to some of you people, if it had not been for the special effects, would you have liked the movie? I just got back from seeing it a few minutes ago, and just found it to be generally a bunch of unoriginal rubbish after the first hour, and the only thing keeping me at all engaged were the special effects. They weren't mind-blowing, but they were cool and enjoyable. Outside of that, it really was just another easily forgettable action movie with sweet fight scenes tied together by formulaic filler.

it was decent enough without the effects for me, it was kind of "remake" of dances with wolves and that didn't ruin it for me, granted the story wasn't exactly orginal but it was decently done.

[Kingmaker]

Well, the content of this thread has taken a nose-dive.

I saw this movie last night and was entertained but disappointed, and my evaluation of the movie declined as I started to analyze it. This movie was on the high end of alright, and if not for the eye-popping special effects and interesting world-building, it would be on the low end. It is not perfect, it is not a masterpiece, and it is not some revolutionary work of art.

The plot went beyond derivative. I grasp that most plots are derivative to large degree, and what matters it what you do with it. Except that here what they did with it was to put nothing on the cliche skeleton except effects and world-building, and those don't make a plot, they enhance it. The lines were so clearly drawn between good and evil it was obnoxious (which I suspect is responsibly in large part for people rooting for RDA). The Na'vi are such a bunch of noble savage warrior saints who are so obviously superior to the mustache-twirling military-industrialist humans in every way that matters. Cameron might as well have called them elves and been done with it. Moreover, the tone of the movie is what takes the otherwise excusable black and white morality beyond the impossible. This is one of the most condescending and preachy movies I have ever seen. It's made worse by the fact that I find the noble savage to be offensive on multiple levels. The plot is crap, and I found it somewhat technophobic and racist.

The acting was good all around, and the characters. No one stood out as bad or even mediocre, but no one blew my mind either. I actually thought the best performance was by Giovanni Ribisi (who played Parker Selfridge). He managed to pull off a greedy douche of an executive who was nevertheless squeamish and hesitant about escalating the conflict with the Na'vi. Stephen Lang was entertaining, in no small part because he has the most over-the-top badass character in the film. Worthington gives a yeoman's effort, but his character underwhelms. Saldana does a good job as well, especially considering her character was entirely CGI. I felt that some some of the secondary characters' actions came out of the blue or were weakly justified, but inconsistently developed secondary characters is nothing new or upsetting, so I'll pull through somehow. The biggest issue I had with the characters relates back to the plot; specifically, the protagonists have the idiot ball firmly in hand for most of the movie.

Well, despite all of that mostly negative stuff, I would still call this a good (or at least entertaining) movie. The action was pretty cool and the flying battleship (why the fuck do they have a flying battleship?) was awesome. The effects were gorgeous. The plot was hackneyed and cliched, but it was believable given the setup and served its purpose well-enough.I would probably go see this movie again in theatres.

[Shroom Man 777]

What flying battleship? Oh, you mean the big aircraft designed to act as both a gunship and as a heavy transport for power armors and infantry squads?