Avatar film earnings over 2 billion

[Sarevok]

Yep. I hope Avatars financial sucesss prompts studios back Cameron with lots of financing for the Battle Angel Alita movie.

[Axiomatic]

People used the phrase "race traitor" unironically to describe Jake Sully almost everywhere in the geek-controlled portions of the internet. It was pretty dismaying for me to discover how many places, which I had thought were fun, were actually infested with stormfronters.

Seriously, Race Traitor. What the fuck.

Racism did not die after the Civil Rights Act. It just learned how to disguise itself. There are still a shitload of people out there who don't call themselves racists and may even believe they're not racists, but whose political opinions on race boil down to "let's find a politically correct way to express the same basic sentiment on race that my grandfather did".

Yes, but I'd fooled myself into believing that nobody smart enough to be on the internet (yeah, I know, it sounds silly now to me, too) couldn't possibly still be a racist. At least nobody who hung out on the same forums as I do and was considered a respected regular rather than a drive-by troll.

[Darth Wong]

Yep. I hope Avatars financial sucesss prompts studios back Cameron with lots of financing for the Battle Angel Alita movie.

At this point in time, I suspect that Hollywood executives would pretty much suck Cameron's cock on demand. His last two films are #1 and #2 on the all-time revenue list; they must think he's Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one.

[Simon_Jester]

People used the phrase "race traitor" unironically to describe Jake Sully almost everywhere in the geek-controlled portions of the internet. It was pretty dismaying for me to discover how many places, which I had thought were fun, were actually infested with stormfronters.

Seriously, Race Traitor. What the fuck.

Yeah. If they just said "traitor," I could see it, because you can make a pretty good case for Sully having turned on people he had been loyal to before, and who were sincerely trying to look out for his interests. He had very good reasons to do it, but... he still did it.

"Race traitor..." That brings up so many bad associations that it says more about the speaker than it does about the speaker's opinions.

[Vympel]

District 9 was a pretty good movie, but it's overrated by the fans. It doesn't really give you anything positive to go with the negative. Avatar does, like it or not. The sheer beauty of Pandora is a positive. The sense of immersion is a positive. District 9 is nothing more than grinding theme park ride through the depravity of the human soul. The only moment in the whole movie which can induce a smile is the flying pig kill

District 9 isn't a 'feel good' movie like Avatar is, thats true, but it did end on a positive note. Wilkus was a far better character than Sully, who redeemed himself in a much more satisfying way.

I found the Na'vi pretty flat, and thus I wasn't very sympathetic to them- they are caricatures that seem like they've been engineered so the audience will like them as much as possible (as has been pointed out, with their big cute Disney Eyes, and their big cute animal ears and nose, and their creepy sexualised bodies to bring in the nerd/furry crowd).

I got more emotional response of sheer horror and sadness from seeing the Prawns plight than I did out of the Na'vi's plight - that the film managed this with really damn ugly and disgusting aliens is a credit to the film. I never felt sorry for the Na'vi - there was simply no sense of anything real going on. It was all a big cartoon wank. Entertaining, but not particularly engaging.

[Shroom Man 777]

District 9 isn't a 'feel good' movie like Avatar is, thats true, but it did end on a positive note. Wilkus was a far better character than Sully, who redeemed himself in a much more satisfying way.

I dunno mang. I didn't really get into Wikus' character. But maybe that was because I got distracted by outside shit while watching the movie. Anyway, Wikus wasn't really a good protagonist, IMO. And I think I liked Sully's plight and shit better.

Oh please, that's not a legitimate critique of the film. That's Internet armchair bloodlust and deserves all the mocking it can get.

Garrr! Grim! Gritty! Realistic! *insert graph of 1960s weapons systems* Grrrr!

I really think those people are just sore that the naturalistic Na'vi emasculated their military-industrial bullshit weapons systems.

This is why we need a movie where the US military and the Strategic Air Command gets its shit ruined by Micheal Moore and an army of tap-dancing soul-singing registered-democrat penguins defending the precious Antarctic environment from the Arab-American-Oil Company.

[PeZook]

District 9 isn't a 'feel good' movie like Avatar is, thats true, but it did end on a positive note. Wilkus was a far better character than Sully, who redeemed himself in a much more satisfying way.

It was the only positive note in the film, though, and nowhere near as final, since Christopher can still return with a genocidal alien battlefleet

[Shroom Man 777]

Might makes right, PeZook, and after the aliens orbitally bombard Earth and fuck all the humans over, we can go on negotiating with them as equals because *mumble mumble* and it's morally justified for them to extract human blood if it allows them to run their space trains on time. I mean, imagine the power output of that bigass alien spaceship hovering in the sky for years, if Christopher wasn't an idiot he could've totally used that system to vaporize Apartheid South Africa from orbit while unleashing his Su-24 Frogfuckers on the Afrikaaners, and after he puts all of them in concentration camps and establishes a Prawn Minority Rule all over Earth and imprisons human freedom fighters like Nelson Shroomdela, everything will be A-OK!

God forbid Earth-Gaia unleashes an army of flying insectivore ant-eaters on the Prawns. That's just bullshit. The Prawns must use fixed wing aircraft from airfields because if they use stupid helicopters I will scream bullshit about fucking VTOL!

[DPDarkPrimus]

Yep. I hope Avatars financial sucesss prompts studios back Cameron with lots of financing for the Battle Angel Alita movie.

At this point in time, I suspect that Hollywood executives would pretty much suck Cameron's cock on demand. His last two films are #1 and #2 on the all-time revenue list; they must think he's Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one.

Maybe he'll actually get around to making that Battle Angel Alita movie now?

[Vympel]

I dunno mang. I didn't really get into Wikus' character. But maybe that was because I got distracted by outside shit while watching the movie. Anyway, Wikus wasn't really a good protagonist, IMO. And I think I liked Sully's plight and shit better.

Sully didn't really have a "plight". I mean yeah he's disabled and his twin brother is dead. And then after the first 5 minutes of the film, none of that matters anymore and everyone forgets about it. Its simply a plot device to place him on Pandora. Heck, they probably would've been better off just making him his twin brother, for all the difference it made, really (i.e. none apart from lip service to how his being a warrior somehow makes him more acceptable to the Na'vi). It would've kept the length down too.

[PeZook]

Sully didn't really have a "plight". I mean yeah he's disabled and his twin brother is dead. And then after the first 5 minutes of the film, none of that matters anymore and everyone forgets about it. Its simply a plot device to place him on Pandora. Heck, they probably would've been better off just making him his twin brother, for all the difference it made, really (i.e. none apart from lip service to how his being a warrior somehow makes him more acceptable to the Na'vi). It would've kept the length down too.

Him being a soldier makes him able to, well, fight. I'd find rather hamfisted if the movie played out the same with Jake's scientist twin brother, with him becoming a Na'Vi warrior and all.

[Vympel]

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

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.

[Axiomatic]

If Sully was supposed to be just a scientist guy, then, well, every single action sequence in the movie no longer makes any kind of sense at all. Hell, none of his interactions with Quartich make any sense at all, since Sully's brother would treat any request from the man the same way the head scientist Grace did, by basically spitting in his face.

Oh, and this isn't Half Life, you can't have a scientist find a crowbar and murder the hell out of the army in something you intend an actual audience to watch.

[PeZook]

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.

That's kind of a bad use for a massively expensive toy, seeing that ordinary mooks in gas masks could do the same thing just fine. I got the impression that avatars were not really supposed to go around the planet collecting samples anyway, it was just that the Na'Vi kicked them out and decided not to talk to them, so they kept themselves occupied another way.

[Vympel]

That's kind of a bad use for a massively expensive toy, seeing that ordinary mooks in gas masks could do the same thing just fine. I got the impression that avatars were not really supposed to go around the planet collecting samples anyway, it was just that the Na'Vi kicked them out and decided not to talk to them, so they kept themselves occupied another way.

Whilst true, its the sort of thing no one would bat an eyelid about if Sully's totally irrelevant background had been truncated.

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"?

[Gramzamber]

Tends to come up whenever someone asks why the humans didn't just drop nukes/space rocks on the Na'vi and be done with the whole thing.

Oh please, that's not a legitimate critique of the film. That's Internet armchair bloodlust and deserves all the mocking it can get.

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.

[PeZook]

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.

Because the Venture Star's captain would basically tell them to go to hell?

In order to bomb the Na'Vi from orbit, they'd need more resources than they actually had on hand: namely, they'd need to use the starship itself to find and tow an asteroid to the proper orbit. And risking they'd miss and destroy the antimatter production facilities needed to get them home

[Axiomatic]

Tends to come up whenever someone asks why the humans didn't just drop nukes/space rocks on the Na'vi and be done with the whole thing.

Oh please, that's not a legitimate critique of the film. That's Internet armchair bloodlust and deserves all the mocking it can get.

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.

Except Quartich isn't portrayed like that at all.

He's portrayed as someone who has a job to do, and who knows damn well that it's stupid to ask the Na'vi to leave. He doesn't think the Na'vi are stupid to not want to leave, or wrong. He knows it's the only thing they can do. He also knows that it's going to come to a fight sooner or later, that it can't NOT come to a fight, and he'd frankly prefer to get it done and over with.

[Darth Wong]

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.

Because they are operating under a legal charter. They have to justify all of their actions to governmental authorities back home. That's why they go to the bother of concocting flimsy justifications for their actions. But the more outrageous their attacks, the more difficult it would be to concoct these flimsy justifications.

Look at the torture-happy Republitards. Once they reach the point of drowning people and forcing them into medieval-style stress-position cages, it's pretty obvious that they're committing torture so you might ask why they don't just go all the way and stick red-hot pokers up peoples' asses, right? Well, that's because these types of douchebags like to skirt the edge of what they can get away with, not go flaming right over it.

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.

Quaritch is not actually in charge. That's why he has to make up bullshit about how the Na'Vi would suffer only minimal casualties, even though he couldn't care less about their casualties. Then later, he uses the self-defense excuse for his bombing run. He always comes up with an excuse, a justification, a weasely way of justifying his actions.

How the fuck can you have lived through the past 10 years on this planet and not understand that this is how western people do things nowadays?

[Vendetta]

Yep. I hope Avatars financial sucesss prompts studios back Cameron with lots of financing for the Battle Angel Alita movie.

At this point in time, I suspect that Hollywood executives would pretty much suck Cameron's cock on demand. His last two films are #1 and #2 on the all-time revenue list; they must think he's Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one.

Maybe he'll actually get around to making that Battle Angel Alita movie now?

I think he's waiting for cybernetics to become sufficiently advanced that we can build Gally/Alita for reals.

[The Romulan Republic]

How the fuck can you have lived through the past 10 years on this planet and not understand that this is how western people do things nowadays?

I think its rather bigoted of you to make such sweeping statements about how "western people" behave.

I'd say, rather, that that is how the greedy and corrupt have always behaved. Making up flimsy excuses to justify your blatantly illegal/immoral actions is an unfortunate aspect of human history, not limited to any one time, culture, or geographical area.

[Darth Wong]

How the fuck can you have lived through the past 10 years on this planet and not understand that this is how western people do things nowadays?

I think its rather bigoted of you to make such sweeping statements about how "western people" behave.

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

I'd say, rather, that that is how the greedy and corrupt have always behaved. Making up flimsy excuses to justify your blatantly illegal/immoral actions is an unfortunate aspect of human history, not limited to any one time, culture, or geographical area.

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.

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.

[Srelex]

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.

[Darth Wong]

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.

OK, powerful western imperialist nations. Is that sufficiently specific to satisfy your pedantic nitpickery?

[NecronLord]

I found the Na'vi pretty flat, and thus I wasn't very sympathetic to them- they are caricatures that seem like they've been engineered so the audience will like them as much as possible (as has been pointed out, with their big cute Disney Eyes, and their big cute animal ears and nose, and their creepy sexualised bodies to bring in the nerd/furry crowd).

You know, I never got the feeling they were sexualised. At all. The only time I paid attention to anything below the neck was when they were doing something interesting.