Avatar: Way Of Water *spoilers*

[Zor]

I rather liked this film.

Pandora is beautiful as ever and the Underwater environments are beautiful. The Humans returning is glorious in it's horror (having ISVs fly down, burning out the surrounding enviroment with it's anti-matter drives to winch down skyscraper sized landing things full of soldiers, vehicles, gear and equipment). The Metkayina are an interesting modification on the Na'vi and I can understand their motivations. Even if the Son of the Chief is kind of a shithead.

Having the RDA hunt Tulkans (which are sapient people even though they lack dexterous manipulator apendages) for anti-aging stuff is both suitably evil and entirely within their MO. And yes, the fact that it is probably not even strictly necessary is part of it. They probably could work out a way to grow the stuff in bio-reactors using cell cultures, but that would take lots of R&D and the investors don't want a bad quarterly report.

I like the cast. Jake balancing being a father and a War-Leader is solid motivation. Kiri is lovable. Quaritch is also well done as a villain.

This film leaves things open for a sequel and frankly I want to see it.

Any particular reason why the humans didn’t, I don’t Know, agent orange and/or nuke the place? Or develop a bio weapon / virus that could wipe them out (surely if they could create avatars they could do that?)

They do use defoliants to keep an area around Bridgehead clear. As for Bioweapons, Eywa can combat that.

Zor

[wautd]

This film leaves things open for a sequel and frankly I want to see it.

I believe they are planning 2 or 3 more sequels (they already filmed part of the 3rd movie if I'm not mistaken.

I'm on the fence for this movie myself. I would mostly want to see it's for its visuals, but I can't shake the feeling that I'll be dissapointed by the writing or that it'll be a rehash of the first movie but with more water.

[Crazedwraith]

I'm on the fence for this movie myself. I would mostly want to see it's for its visuals, but I can't shake the feeling that I'll be dissapointed by the writing or that it'll be a rehash of the first movie but with more water.

It's not quite a rehash of the first film because the character dynamics are a bit different but there a lot of similarities in the basic plot I'd say.

I don't think this film is going to change anyone's opinion on Avatar. If you hated the natives vs humans plot and naturism and writing of the first one, you'll dislike this one. It has very similar strengths and weaknesses.

[bilateralrope]

New Avatar film boycotted by indigenous peoples

10:12am, Friday 23 December 2022. By Stefan Dimitrof

The sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar: The Way of Water, has taken the world by storm, making US$134 million in its open weekend here and US$300.5 million internationally for a grand total of $434.5 million.

With some such as PressBooks' Hannah Fitzgerald calling Avatar "just Pocahontas with blue people In space", the tribal aspects in the film drawing responses from native people from across the planet haven’t gone unnoticed, with some critics calling out Avatar director James Cameron for cultural appropriation.

Now, with the release of the new Avatar film, comments made by Cameron saying the Lakota Sioux Nation was a "hopeless" and "dead-end society" in an interview with The Guardian in 2010 have resurfaced.

This was after Cameron visited the Xingu Tribe in the Amazon, which was struggling against developers of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam and, while there, he witnessed cultural ceremonies.

"I felt like I was 130 years back in time, watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed and they were being killed and they were being asked to displace," he said then.

'Horrible and racist'

Cameron also said that if the Lakota Sioux in the past were able to see the future of their people and the problems and pressures of modern society causing their kids to have some of the highest suicide rates in the US, “they would have fought a lot harder".

Karuk journalist Chiara Sottile responded to the “deeply offensive" comments on Twitter and rejected the comments: "James Cameron saying the Lakota should have 'fought a lot harder' against forced removal and imperialism, calling Indigenous peoples 'hopeless' and 'a dead-end society"

"I am not hopeless (I hope for an apology!). Native people are still here, still brilliant."

Cameron is also being accused of having white-orientated casting with the only black Latina actress Zoe Saldaña and Aotearoa’s own Cliff Curtis (Ngāti Hauiti, Te Arawa) and Duane Evans Jr (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi) as the only non-white people cast in the film.

Yuè Begay, Nádleehí and Navajo influencer and co-chair of Indigenous Pride L.A said on Twitter that the new Avatar film was “horrible and racist” and that Cameron was "guilty of favouring non-Indigenous folk" in casting for Na'vi calling it ‘Blueface’.

I'm not sure what to say about this.

[madd0c0t0r2]

We also see Quarritch not give a shit about his upload and not regard it as actually himself, likewise nu-Quarritch doesn't care for his predecessor. So culturally there they don't see the upload/reconstruction as a continuation of self.

Thematically that's appropriate for Quarritch, who is unable to develop or grow as a character as he has made himself into a perfect cog in the industrial-military machine.

It may not say much about wider earth culture.

[MKSheppard]

What I took away from the first movie was that it 'wasn't' the actual Military but a hired mercenary force as the whole thing was an undertaking by a private company.

It helps if you think of them as Space Wagner, running cheap commercial grade equipment.

[MKSheppard]

They do use defoliants to keep an area around Bridgehead clear. As for Bioweapons, Eywa can combat that.

I don't think they need to use defoliants. Remember the scene when they landed? I think they hit the place with the equivalent of a Crown Fire times 1000. Total Soil Sterilization down to umpty meters.

[MKSheppard]

So their goal now is to suck out space whale brains? To maybe help slow aging (for the rich)? They flew all the way over just for that? When they already at a level where they can create Navi clones capable of being remotely piloted via brain waves?

I think at this point the RDA is doing multiple profit streams; trying to maximize as much profit as they can get back from Pandora; so of course they're going to try to commercialize every presumable thing they can from Pandora.

This also explains the VTOLOL GLASS CANOPIES.

Profit max/costs min'ing leads them to use cheap plexiglass canopies for everything, as it is both cheaper to manufacture as well as to ship to pandora (weighs less = less energy to send umpty light years) than military grade armor glass laminate.

LINK

Soviet designers actually put a person inside a mock Mi-28 Havoc, then fired a number of different weapons at the armored glass. A number of guns appear to be trained at the glass, from what appear to be puny 7.62x39 rounds from an AK-47 all the way to a KPV 14.5-millimeter anti-aircraft heavy machine gun.

The exact composition of the Mi-28's glass armor is unknown, but it's alleged to be between 1.7 to 2.1 inches thick. The glass is probably made of alternating layers of laminated glass and polycarbonate.

And for 99% of what they do, flying around higher and faster, it works better than everything because they're in a VTOL against people riding dragons with pointy spears.

tl;dr Space Wagner has been buying surplus UH-1 Space Hueys from Space America, rather than the new UH-60 Space Blackhawks to save money and boost the profit margin of RDA by 0.001%

[MKSheppard]

We also see Quarritch not give a shit about his upload and not regard it as actually himself, likewise nu-Quarritch doesn't care for his predecessor. So culturally there they don't see the upload/reconstruction as a continuation of self.

I think ego comes into play here.

Quarrevok cannot conceive of a manner in which he will be defeated, a trained MUHREEN RAH RAH HUP HUP -- by a bunch of PRIMITIVES with spears. So he doesn't consider the possibility that it might happen, so he's dismissive of a potential upload surviving while he doesn't.

Fastforward to:

Nu-Quarrevok seeing how Quarrevok the Original (TM) went down like a little bitch to a bunch of PRIMITIVES with spears; dismisses Quarrevok the Original as being weak.

[MKSheppard]

So, this is something I just realized.

So the brain backup tech is available, and is cheap enough to be used on expendable grunts (the fire team with Quarritch got backed up as well)....

...So....why wouldn't RDA back up Jake Sully before they put him into a freezer for the trip to Pandora? The technology was already available in Avatar 1 times; it's how they had it on site to back up Quarritch.

From the RDA's POV, it makes absolute sense to back up Jake Sully -- they need him to run his brother's avatar at the time. What if there's an accident going to Pandora with cryotubes? Just flush what's left of Jake Sully the original down the toilet and load the Jake Sully Chip into the Avatar body they had ready and go on like nothing happened. Just don't tell Jake what happened.

So....Avatar 3, Jake vs Jake when the RDA and Quarritch decide the best way to defeat Jake Sully is with a copy of him on their side!

[Lord Revan]

So, this is something I just realized.

So the brain backup tech is available, and is cheap enough to be used on expendable grunts (the fire team with Quarritch got backed up as well)....

...So....why wouldn't RDA back up Jake Sully before they put him into a freezer for the trip to Pandora? The technology was already available in Avatar 1 times; it's how they had it on site to back up Quarritch.

From the RDA's POV, it makes absolute sense to back up Jake Sully -- they need him to run his brother's avatar at the time. What if there's an accident going to Pandora with cryotubes? Just flush what's left of Jake Sully the original down the toilet and load the Jake Sully Chip into the Avatar body they had ready and go on like nothing happened. Just don't tell Jake what happened.

So....Avatar 3, Jake vs Jake when the RDA and Quarritch decide the best way to defeat Jake Sully is with a copy of him on their side!

If they could do that sure they would have just done that with the brother and needed Jake in the first place. I suspect there's limits to the tech we don't know that prevent that.

EDIT:there's also the matter that any copy of Jake would share the values of the original and the original wasn't exactly one to blindly following orders no matter what either.

[MKSheppard]

I don't think this film is going to change anyone's opinion on Avatar. If you hated the natives vs humans plot and naturism and writing of the first one, you'll dislike this one. It has very similar strengths and weaknesses.

I realized something a while ago. Avatar is the movie equivalent of a demo scene program. It's not really meant to have a plot plot plot; but to showcase technology that Cameron developed; similar to how Doom, Quake and Doom 3 were really to showcase ID's game engine.

For example, in Avatar 1, they used infrared tracking lights to track the actors on set for the post-3d rendering. But that doesn't work underwater as IR gets absorbed fast in water.

So Cameron had to develop ultraviolet tracking systems that could work underwater. That took years.

He's basically going to recoup his production costs on developing the tech via making a OK movie with it; and then make profit licensing the tech to other movie makers who work in/near water.

And he spent a year on developing a script only to throw it all away:

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/jame ... 235381140/

“When I sat down with my writers to start ‘Avatar 2,’ I said we cannot do the next one until we understand why the first one did so well,” Cameron said. “We must crack the code of what the hell happened.”

Cameron and his team came to the following conclusion: “All films work on different levels. The first is surface, which is character, problem and resolution. The second is thematic. What is the movie trying to say? But ‘Avatar’ also works on a third level, the subconscious. I wrote an entire script for the sequel, read it and realized that it did not get to level three. Boom. Start over. That took a year.”

That's why the films are so divisive -- there's a group of people who can't get over calculating spherical masses of iron and glass canopies and VTOLOLs.

[Zor]

So, this is something I just realized.

So the brain backup tech is available, and is cheap enough to be used on expendable grunts (the fire team with Quarritch got backed up as well)....

...So....why wouldn't RDA back up Jake Sully before they put him into a freezer for the trip to Pandora? The technology was already available in Avatar 1 times; it's how they had it on site to back up Quarritch

ISVs take six years to reach Pandora.In that interim, things that were in the R&D stage when they shipped him out became more practical so they could install Mindstates directly onto RECOM bodies.

Zor

[Adam Reynolds]

I'd forgotten just how fun it was to read Shroom's posts about topics like this. Thanks for that.

[Tribble]

I don't think this film is going to change anyone's opinion on Avatar. If you hated the natives vs humans plot and naturism and writing of the first one, you'll dislike this one. It has very similar strengths and weaknesses.

I realized something a while ago. Avatar is the movie equivalent of a demo scene program. It's not really meant to have a plot plot plot; but to showcase technology that Cameron developed; similar to how Doom, Quake and Doom 3 were really to showcase ID's game engine.

For example, in Avatar 1, they used infrared tracking lights to track the actors on set for the post-3d rendering. But that doesn't work underwater as IR gets absorbed fast in water.

So Cameron had to develop ultraviolet tracking systems that could work underwater. That took years.

He's basically going to recoup his production costs on developing the tech via making a OK movie with it; and then make profit licensing the tech to other movie makers who work in/near water.

And he spent a year on developing a script only to throw it all away:

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/jame ... 235381140/

“When I sat down with my writers to start ‘Avatar 2,’ I said we cannot do the next one until we understand why the first one did so well,” Cameron said. “We must crack the code of what the hell happened.”

Cameron and his team came to the following conclusion: “All films work on different levels. The first is surface, which is character, problem and resolution. The second is thematic. What is the movie trying to say? But ‘Avatar’ also works on a third level, the subconscious. I wrote an entire script for the sequel, read it and realized that it did not get to level three. Boom. Start over. That took a year.”

That's why the films are so divisive -- there's a group of people who can't get over calculating spherical masses of iron and glass canopies and VTOLOLs.

Well, as expected I felt the film was a dumb as a bag of bricks plot wise, and also a bit too long, but like the first one it was worth going just to see the visuals.

[Shroom Man 777]

New Avatar film boycotted by indigenous peoples

I'm not sure what to say about this.

Yeah their concerns are valid. OTOH during the first movie some Palestinians dressed up as Na'vi.

This also explains the VTOLOL GLASS CANOPIES.

Barring vital complex components, a lot of their gear - probably like the base fuselages and also canopies - are manufactured on site using raw resources but I don't think they have Seimens or Toshiba super-precise titanium-carving Soviet-submarine-construction grade gear lol.

And again, Pandora is a place where the most high valuable areas tend to have immense "natural ECM" and the terrain isn't just beneath you but actually floats around you, and landings will involve maneuvering around massive foliage. So clear canopies are obviously necessary. And we see Neytiri having to dive bomb in order to get guaranteed arrow penetration, this isn't the easiest of move, but she's a super experienced vet and makes it look easy. We've seen canopies withstand arrows launched from the ground without gravity assist.

tl;dr Space Wagner has been buying surplus UH-1 Space Hueys from Space America, rather than the new UH-60 Space Blackhawks to save money and boost the profit margin of RDA by 0.001%

They probably only buy surplus UH-1 engines and avionics while the rest of the chopper hull is built IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS.

...So....why wouldn't RDA back up Jake Sully before they put him into a freezer for the trip to Pandora? The technology was already available in Avatar 1 times; it's how they had it on site to back up Quarritch.

From the RDA's POV, it makes absolute sense to back up Jake Sully -- they need him to run his brother's avatar at the time. What if there's an accident going to Pandora with cryotubes? Just flush what's left of Jake Sully the original down the toilet and load the Jake Sully Chip into the Avatar body they had ready and go on like nothing happened. Just don't tell Jake what happened.

So....Avatar 3, Jake vs Jake when the RDA and Quarritch decide the best way to defeat Jake Sully is with a copy of him on their side!

At the time mass RDA personnel death due to organized local uprising was an unlikely occurrence so they didn't consider it? They only thought of the backups on the eve of the big confrontation. So... "why didn't Jake get a backup?" is simply answered by... before the runup to the climax of the film, they weren't doing backups and hadn't thought of it.

They backed Quarritch and crew up and THEN grew the bodies in the years in between the films, right?

At the beginning of the first film, the Avatar program was a niche sideshow project that the beancounters probably thought wasn't worth the money due to the lack of ROI, it was just a concession to keep their eggheads happy. Quarritch and Selfridge were implied to regard the project as a nuisance - though the chance inclusion of an ex-Marine did have Quarritch realize its potential for intel gathering (see his talk with Jake in the beginning of the first film). Back then because the project didn't enjoy real support the Avatar bodies were bespoke, few were made, which was precisely why the science team were desperate to get a replacement for that dead scientist/Jake's brother to the point of recruiting the unqualified twin (Jake).

ONLY when a soldier in Navi body Avatar launched a successful insurgency did they realize there was something useful for the RDA, if only to stop the soldier-in-Navi-body insurgent through soldier-in-Navi-body counter-insurgency. COIN: Counter Insurgent Navi-soldier-body!

People's problem is that it has to be a OOOH LOGICAL sequence of developments and predictions and maneuvers and tech progression like some RTS tech tree when a lot of developments, whether in a fictional storyline or even in real life operations, are unscripted and ad hoc or on the fly dependent on reactions. Protagonists and antagonists alike may not calculate their actions like some Machiavellian Moriarties, who knew. If you wanted that go read Harry Potter Methods of Rationality

"Nooo McGonnagall polymorphing defies thermodynamics Hermione I shall show you GRAPHITE TRANSFIGURATION gasp Voldemort's last horcrux is a NAVI BODY IN PANDORA!!!!"

Avatar Toruk Maktos of Rationality

[Shroom Man 777]

Obviously the issue that goads everyone is that the Na'vi are backward primitive savages who cheat because their planet's god-hivemind keeps coming to their rescue whenever they succumb to the greater firepower of the American MUHREENS.

Also it's blasphemous because it implies that the Na'vi god is stronger than America's God. Someone call the 700 Club, it's time to see the Avatar series for what it really is with its anti-American, anti-CHRISTIAN messaging!

BALLS said Colonel Miles Quarritch in his VTOL gunship.

Avatarmageddon???

[ray245]

Yeah their concerns are valid. OTOH during the first movie some Palestinians dressed up as Na'vi.

I think one of my issues is they have White-American actress trying to do a "maori" accent, which is very jarring.

The film series still have an issue with the role of white-saviour-complex (less so in the second), but yeah, getting white actress to do "native" accent is something I wish they could have done away with.

Just hire more maori actors or something.

[Shroom Man 777]

Yeah their concerns are valid. OTOH during the first movie some Palestinians dressed up as Na'vi.

I think one of my issues is they have White-American actress trying to do a "maori" accent, which is very jarring.

The film series still have an issue with the role of white-saviour-complex (less so in the second), but yeah, getting white actress to do "native" accent is something I wish they could have done away with.

Just hire more maori actors or something.

I do agree and I get why indigenous peoples would get miffed and I would prefer less "Marginalized Earth People BUT SPAAAACE" and more unique space stuff. Anyway at least they did hire a lot of POC particularly for Beefcakes Cool-Dad. Casting Kate Winslett isn't optimal but I'll give em some slack since she and Jim go way back.

[Broomstick]

Jake Sully joins the Water Tribe.

I was thinking Dances With Whales.

Initial thoughts after just coming back: It's the first film only bigger, underwater, and far too long. That's not entirely fair but... yeah that's kind of the short version.

Cameron loves the sea, and it’s very obvious here. I do think at least half an hour of this movie could have been cut without adversely affecting the plot, and improving the pacing. Sure the cinematography and CGI is gorgeous, but I’m not sure I want three hours of it.

Jake starts a family has four kids, including an adopted daughter that's played by Sigoury Weaver and is the virgin birth of her Avatar.

My theory is that Eywe couldn’t transfer Grace’s consciousness to her Avatar but creating a parthenogenic daughter/clone and downloading traits into her was possible for Eywe, who then elected to do that for whatever reasons made sense to Eywe.

Earth comes back with a shitload of ships and really opens up shop. Meanwhile Quaritch and some of his redshirts had their minds backed up and uploaded into Avatar bodies. So you may be seeing an issue here; some really contrived means to keep all the original cast (except Trudy I now realise) onboard and bring them back.

Beyond that, though – it seems the possibility of cloning/downloading a person is already in existence in this milieu. Did Earth scientist/techs come up with that from prior studies of Pandora? It’s clearly linked to the Avatar tech. In the first movie it doesn’t seem those on Pandora are aware of the possibility of consciousness transfer but aftewards, with Jake as an example, they are. Except Quarritch recorded a message to his possible future blue self so someone was aware.

Which leaves the question – is this tech already present/used on Earth? And if so, by whom? Presumably, rich and powerful people. Who presumably keep quiet about the details because if not everyone might want resurrective immortality.

Jake was leading a resistance but when Quaritch comes after him, he flees to the water tribes and his family learn their ways. Eventually Quaritch learns where he is, commanders a whaler ship. (the new unobtainiam is super-whale brain-fluid that makes I immortal, I am not kidding).

I got a real “exterminate the buffalo/bison and only use a smidegeon” vibe from that. Which is really how the US bison were nearly exterminated – massive slaughter, often utilizing only the hide or sometimes just the tongue (other times just shooting them dead and leaving them rot).

As for the brain-fluid – it only makes sense to travel light-years to exploit something if that something is both extremely rare and extremely valuable. In the first movie it was unobtanium, in the second it’s magic brain-fluid. It could be there are several highly valuable things being extracted from Pandora and we’ve only seen two of them.

And having gone to all the trouble of resurrecting Quaritch they of course don't kill him again.

After having gone through a massive battle and losing loved ones Jake/the Na’vi don’t make sure Quarritch is dead. Which is a bit baffling to me.

But still watchable enough once it gets going but I'd really prefer a intermission or two.

That’s the thing, though – it’s gorgeous to watch. I was entertained, even if I can see several flaws in this movie.

[Broomstick]

Any particular reason why the humans didn’t, I don’t Know, agent orange and/or nuke the place? Or develop a bio weapon / virus that could wipe them out (surely if they could create avatars they could do that?)

The first movie with the unobtainium being the excuse for the human presence definitely leads to that question – if it’s a mineral it doesn’t need a biosphere, so wipe out most of the life forms and mine at leisure.

With the introduction of the Magic Brain Fluid there’s the problem that it’s an organic product – wipe out the life form that produces it and no more MBF. So there’s an incentive to preserve the biosphere to some degree in order to keep obtaining this sort of thing.

As I said last post – there could be multiple very valuable, very rare items available on Pandora to justify a human presence there.

They're certainly not subtle on the 'Human's are bastards' angle this time around, there no attempt to show why the humans are doing what they are doing outside of £Money$.

Money works. Money was largely the reason for European expansion during the colonist period. Rich old dudes in London or Madrid or Paris or wherever were NOT financing very expensive expeditions and colonies solely out of the goodness of their hearts and/or scientific curiosity – they did it to get rich.

Likewise, we’re never going to get a human presence in our solar system outside low Earth orbit, much less around alien stars, unless there’s some sort of profit to be made from the effort.

The closest to a sympathetic human (outside of the one raised by Na'vi) is a marine biologist who seems to be mildly uncomfortable about working with space whalers but doesn't really do or even say anything about it.

Give said biologist is utterly dependent on the Human power structure on Pandora not only for food and water but the very air he breathes complaining might be a life-threatening action.

Even the new unobtainian seems to be in place to make humans worse people, the original wasn't really defined but seemed to suggest some sort of power or spaceflight requirement which might have benefited everyone and although it was mined via the blowing up of giant trees looked like it could have been collected with much less harm the new one stopes aging and is clearly implied that only the very rich could get it and is obtained from the brains of sentient alien whales via killing them.

Sure, the unobtanium mines could have been done in a more ecologically friendly manner… but that’s not as profitable (back to money again) and more difficult. We see this on our own planet where we are still destroying local environments to obtain this or that mineral when we could get it in a less destructive manner. But we don’t.

They could at least send a competent military force that isn't weak to bows and arrows and rocks this time. FFS, even the Russian military isn't as completely awful as what we saw in the first movie.

What I took away from the first movie was that it 'wasn't' the actual Military but a hired mercenary force as the whole thing was an undertaking by a private company.

I don't think that excuses it, given how IRL PMCs operate and equip themselves. They tend to be ruthless and well-equipped, not mustache twirlingly stupid with gear that barely functions.

Yes, my takeaway from the first movie was that the Bad Guys were just over teched security guards.

In this Big Green People movie, they kind of plainly state that the bad guys were and always have been actual, professional, ranked military personel.

Yep, I got the impression in the first movie that they were there as security. It’s not unusual for private security to be staffed with ex-military. Working in an unfamiliar environment it can be tricky to know what actually will or won’t work. Also, humans on Pandora are working with a hideously expensive multi-year supply line issue. They probably didn’t arrive with an arsenal but rather with the means to make one out of local materials. They wouldn’t be importing bullets from Earth, they’d be making them from local minerals, possibly obtained as a by-product of mining unobtanium. This could easily lead to highly trained professionals having limited choice in weaponry.

Likewise, the various aircraft, exo-suits, and so forth were probably built on Pandora out of locally obtained materials with only certain very critical components (computer chips, as an example) being brought in my interstellar ship. This could, again, affect the quality and characteristics of said machinery. This might be why exo-suit canopies can be penetrated by Na’vi weaponry – they’re not made of high-tech materials but rather what the human colony was able to produce on its own.

Every shipment of unobtanium back to Earth probably represents a significant leap in ability to transport things by interstellar ship. Which somewhat justifies the fleet of ships that arrives in the second movie.

The addition of the Na'vi Medicine Women having two scenes where 'Native Medicne' is shown working was really cringy. The first scene was actually interesting/neat in showing social/character interaction. The second one? Didn't quite have me walking out of the cinema but, geeze it were annoying.

Yes.

The use of herbs and such to treat wounds at least makes some sense – the Na’vi should have at least the same capability of humans to find useful substances in their environment. The “treatment” for seizure, though – normally post-seizure a person will come to of their own accord, which might have been what happened to Kiri (likely, even) and perhaps neither treatment modality was of any real use.

Wait, what?
*reads rest of comments*
So their goal now is to suck out space whale brains? To maybe help slow aging (for the rich)? They flew all the way over just for that? When they already at a level where they can create Navi clones capable of being remotely piloted via brain waves?

It was set up with the introduction of the Blue Squad that when you download a person’s memories and personality into a clone/Avatar it’s questionable as to whether or not they’re the same person. A Magic Brain Fluid that stops aging would eliminate that particular conundrum, with the back up of a clone/Avatar for instances of death by misadventure as opposed to aging.

At least in the first movie is was implied that it was all private companies which couldn’t get away with too much lest they get caught.

Yep.

But we don’t know what politics/events occurred back on Earth between the two movies. Could be that the discovery of immortality in a vial along with Jake Sully finding a way to truly go native and organize said natives might have altered some things.

Or since this involves whales, resurrect captain Ahab?

The outcast tulkin/space whale IS the Captain Ahab expy, with the human whaling captain being the Moby Dick expy.

Edit: as for the floating mountains, I always thought it had something to do with the raw energon unobtainium on the planet, kinda like that episode of Beast Wars?

Yep. The idea was that the interaction of the Pandora and Polyphemus magnetic fields on unobtanium deposits leads to floating landscapes. It also accounts for the weird, arcing/looping terrain which is supposed to be an effect of magnetic fields.

[Broomstick]

I dig the movie because of the accurate way it presents Americans.

Although at times it's about as subtle an anvil dropped on one's head...

The human presence there being limited in the equipment they can bring is not unrealistic? This is like complaining that conquistadores couldn't bring siege engines.

Yep. Any they would have wanted they would have had to built once they reached their destination.

My follow up question would be why they don't just have digital immortality at this point given that they have brain uploading with Avatars for someone who very clearly died. Why cant they do the same with vat-grown human bodies for the ultra-wealthy a la Altered Carbon?

We don’t know but that they are in fact doing that… but only for the very, very wealthy, and very much on the down-low because otherwise everyone would want it. And, again, there are issues as to whether or not such a person is truly the original person or just a sort of copy/new version. Who knows what the legal ramifications might be?

From the beginning it has been emphasized that making an Avatar is very expensive as well as labor and time intensive. So much so that when Jake’s brother was killed instead of tossing his Avatar into the waste bin they required Jake Scully just to get some use out of it.

I am curious as to why they’ve kept Grace’s Avatar alive so very long – doing so undoubtedly consumes limited resources. Sure, if they found the Avatar was pregnant there was the justification of bringing the baby to term and probably some scientific/medical research, but years later? Well, maybe the comatose body doesn’t require that much resource and they already have the necessary equipment. It’s just a question that occurred to me.

How dare a film... have bad guys?

Interestingly they repeat the oft assumed thing that Earth is dying so they have to come to Pandora but rather than unobtainium being crucial to saving Earth they now just want to move to Pandora full time. I was assuming RDA was out and this as a real effort at colonisation from EarthGov at first.

Except then it introduces the super-whale brainfluid immortality serum as the real reason and money earner so it's a little confused.

Except maybe NOT confused, just a difference between facts and propaganda – after all, you have to tell the starving masses something so they don’t get uppity when you’re pouring resources into interstellar travel instead of basic food/clothing/shelter for said masses. But you don’t them knowing about eternal youth/immortality because they’d all want some.

I believe they are planning 2 or 3 more sequels (they already filmed part of the 3rd movie if I'm not mistaken.

What I heard is that movie #3 was filmed at the same time, more or less, in part so the child actors wouldn’t “age out” of their roles (although with the CGI this isn’t the issue it used to be – note 70+ Sigourney Weaver playing a teenager).

I'm on the fence for this movie myself. I would mostly want to see it's for its visuals, but I can't shake the feeling that I'll be dissapointed by the writing or that it'll be a rehash of the first movie but with more water.

The person I saw it with stated the story was better this time around, and I think arguably it is, but it’s not an incredibly deep or amazing plot line. Some of it was somewhat predictable. It’s not bad, but the script is not what makes it blockbuster material.

It’s a …. bit…. rehashed from the first movie. The theme of Jake having to learn/adopt a new culture is definitely gone over again, with the addition of his children also having to do the same.

There’s a bit that gave me a rehashed Titanic/Poseidon Adventure vibe, but it made sense in context so I’ll forgive that.

Unquestionably, though, the visuals are spectacular, and improved over the 2009 movie. There are various YouTube treatments/comparisons of the CGI and effects from the two movies and yes, the new movie is WAY better visually and technically.

Probably worth seeing at least once on the big screen in 3D (unless you’re a person for whom 3D doesn’t work well), but feel free to go early/on a discount day/whatever gets you a better price.

New Avatar film boycotted by indigenous peoples

10:12am, Friday 23 December 2022. By Stefan Dimitrof

The sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar: The Way of Water, has taken the world by storm, making US$134 million in its open weekend here and US$300.5 million internationally for a grand total of $434.5 million.

With some such as PressBooks' Hannah Fitzgerald calling Avatar "just Pocahontas with blue people In space", the tribal aspects in the film drawing responses from native people from across the planet haven’t gone unnoticed, with some critics calling out Avatar director James Cameron for cultural appropriation.

Now, with the release of the new Avatar film, comments made by Cameron saying the Lakota Sioux Nation was a "hopeless" and "dead-end society" in an interview with The Guardian in 2010 have resurfaced.

This was after Cameron visited the Xingu Tribe in the Amazon, which was struggling against developers of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam and, while there, he witnessed cultural ceremonies.

"I felt like I was 130 years back in time, watching what the Lakota Sioux might have been saying at a point when they were being pushed and they were being killed and they were being asked to displace," he said then.

'Horrible and racist'

Cameron also said that if the Lakota Sioux in the past were able to see the future of their people and the problems and pressures of modern society causing their kids to have some of the highest suicide rates in the US, “they would have fought a lot harder".

Karuk journalist Chiara Sottile responded to the “deeply offensive" comments on Twitter and rejected the comments: "James Cameron saying the Lakota should have 'fought a lot harder' against forced removal and imperialism, calling Indigenous peoples 'hopeless' and 'a dead-end society"

"I am not hopeless (I hope for an apology!). Native people are still here, still brilliant."

Cameron is also being accused of having white-orientated casting with the only black Latina actress Zoe Saldaña and Aotearoa’s own Cliff Curtis (Ngāti Hauiti, Te Arawa) and Duane Evans Jr (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi) as the only non-white people cast in the film.

Yuè Begay, Nádleehí and Navajo influencer and co-chair of Indigenous Pride L.A said on Twitter that the new Avatar film was “horrible and racist” and that Cameron was "guilty of favouring non-Indigenous folk" in casting for Na'vi calling it ‘Blueface’.

I'm not sure what to say about this.

I think we should listen to this criticism. I think they raise valid points.

I’m a bit surprised the Maori haven’t weighed in regarding appropriations of facial/body markings and haka as well, which were also in the movie. Or maybe they have and I just haven’t seen it yet.

I think one of my issues is they have White-American actress trying to do a "maori" accent, which is very jarring.

The film series still have an issue with the role of white-saviour-complex (less so in the second), but yeah, getting white actress to do "native" accent is something I wish they could have done away with.

Just hire more maori actors or something.

Oh, yeah…. What a novel idea – hire more Maoris to portray a quasi-Maori culture. Really, they should have done that. And hired more non-White actors because it’s not like you aren’t changing skin colors and other traits anyway so it doesn’t matter what the original actor looked like.

[Shroom Man 777]

I dig the movie because of the accurate way it presents Americans.

Although at times it's about as subtle an anvil dropped on one's head...

It needs to be accelerated by a diving ekran in order to penetrate VTOL glass canopies though.

Oh, yeah…. What a novel idea – hire more Maoris to portray a quasi-Maori culture. Really, they should have done that. And hired more non-White actors because it’s not like you aren’t changing skin colors and other traits anyway so it doesn’t matter what the original actor looked like.

They did do this though, with Cool-Dad Beefcakes.

The use of herbs and such to treat wounds at least makes some sense – the Na’vi should have at least the same capability of humans to find useful substances in their environment. The “treatment” for seizure, though – normally post-seizure a person will come to of their own accord, which might have been what happened to Kiri (likely, even) and perhaps neither treatment modality was of any real use.

It's a seizure involving Eywa mind-meld experiences that they are familiar with in their daily lives, which the human scienticians have only began to explore, so presumably the people who mind-meld with Eywa regularly in an ecology of creatures that can mind-meld... would also have considerable experiences regarding mind-meld mishap medications mending maladies?

In the first movie it doesn’t seem those on Pandora are aware of the possibility of consciousness transfer but aftewards, with Jake as an example, they are. Except Quarritch recorded a message to his possible future blue self so someone was aware.

Which leaves the question – is this tech already present/used on Earth? And if so, by whom? Presumably, rich and powerful people. Who presumably keep quiet about the details because if not everyone might want resurrective immortality.

It's not consciousness transfer but consciousness recording and copying? Selfridge explains the tech to Quarritch so presumably it was already in use on Earth or something but wasn't really considered on Pandora because there was no reason to worry about dying en masse... until conflicts escalated.

[Broomstick]

Oh, yeah…. What a novel idea – hire more Maoris to portray a quasi-Maori culture. Really, they should have done that. And hired more non-White actors because it’s not like you aren’t changing skin colors and other traits anyway so it doesn’t matter what the original actor looked like.

They did do this though, with Cool-Dad Beefcakes.

Hiring just one Maori does not really make up for it. Going from zero to one does not rate even a golf-clap.

It's a seizure involving Eywa mind-meld experiences that they are familiar with in their daily lives, which the human scienticians have only began to explore, so presumably the people who mind-meld with Eywa regularly in an ecology of creatures that can mind-meld... would also have considerable experiences regarding mind-meld mishap medications mending maladies?

I had the impression that mind-meld-triggered seizures in Na'vi are rare, and it's quite possible that Kiri's not-quite-pure-Na'vi heritage might have been a factor (or not). On the other hand, the physical touching and manipulation of Kiri's body might have been the best treatment to bring her around after such a seizure and the native knowledge superior. We can't really know. It's very ambiguous.

[ray245]

They did do this though, with Cool-Dad Beefcakes.

As Broomstick said, this is a poor excuse. This is just tokenism at its best, and creates a host of issues.

The unfortunate fact of the Avatar movies is that it still reproduces a lot of bad approaches towards depicting native cultures, ranging from white-saviour stories to getting white actors to play native-esque roles.

It's what happens when you get a white director isn't willing to think more deeply about the host of issues he will have as creator from a white-background. Still way too much of a "white-gaze" at things if you ask me.