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Did they intentionally make the blue creatures look, dress, and worship the land like Native Americans? Hmm I wonder what their motives were when they were making the plot to this movie? It seems like another guilt-trip, which I already had enough of by the 5th grade.
It's almost like they took the plot of a Native American battle against the European colonialists and used that as the script of the movie. Except they changed the setting to another planet and the Native Americans to blue aliens.
I wish they put more effort into the plot and dialogue. It would've been a great movie if the plot was even remotely interesting. It's a sci-fi movie and they still couldn't come up with an interesting plot?
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Sanya12364 Posts
On December 29 2009 05:19 Mooga wrote:
Did they intentionally make the blue creatures look, dress, and worship the land like Native Americans? Hmm I wonder what their motives were when they were making the plot to this movie? It seems like another guilt-trip, which I already had enough of by the 5th grade.
It's almost like they took the plot of a Native American battle against the European colonialists and used that as the script of the movie. Except they changed the setting to another planet and the Native Americans to blue aliens.
I wish they put more effort into the plot and dialogue. It would've been a great movie if the plot was even remotely interesting. It's a sci-fi movie and they still couldn't come up with an interesting plot?
Dancing with Wolves!!!
in space! blue aliens! exotic flora and fauna! with floating rocks!
Yeah, it's not very original.
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On December 29 2009 04:54 GGTeMpLaR wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 04:45 Shauni wrote:On December 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. I think you should try to see things from other people's perspectives before you name them 'retards'. Yes, basically everything in this thread is opinions and your counterarguments to almost any criticism of the movie is that ITS JUST OPINIONS RETARDS. How is that constructive, understanding or enlightening at all? Yes, all we have is our opinions and it's no use stating the obvious (the plain facts). Do we have to write 'I think' in every sentence not to offend you? Also try not to stereotype against an entire country for starters, if you want to be constructive/understanding/enlightening that is.
You don't agree that this movie was incredibly American in the execution? It follows the Hollywood plot-device into every detail. The pace of the movie, the catchy dialogue, the sentimental moments, the heroic moments, the characters, the action and the ending. Exactly everything in the film was a textbook of how you should make a successful hit in Hollywood. It's not stereotyping - by saying American I'm not talking about underground indie movies, I'm talking about blockbusters and similar Hollywood movies.
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On December 29 2009 05:18 TanGeng wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 04:47 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 02:57 TanGeng wrote:
You imagined up some of your stuff, mainerd - made some assumptions that could not be made and ignored some factors to create the false idea of Navi isolationism. As for Avatar, its kind film is a high budget blockbuster. What production company is going to risk that kind of money on a creative, provocative, but untested script?
As for the villains of the movie, the two big ones are Miles Quaritch and Selfridge (what names!) The main villain is Quaritch, who had a military force and itched to use it and justify his existence or whatever. He showed visible disgust that Sully even mentions the idea of a diplomatic solution. This is a natural phenomenon of paying for a standing army. Sooner or later it gets used. When you have a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. Everything started to look like it could use a military solution.
Selfridge is singularly focused on mining the ore. He doesn't have any moral quandaries about violating the territorial rights of the natives. Nor does he try to understand the value of the stuff that he is bulldozing. It's not isolationism but the constant destruction of territorial property that drives the natives to reject the "sky people." This simple act in ignorance or in malice is wrong and the reason for the conflict. To blame the Navi for isolationism is simply crazy.
Technology is not entirely negatively portrayed. The interstellar ship was beautiful. The technology of the avatar program was also depicted positively. It's everything else on Pandora that is portrayed negatively - the huge bulldozers, all of the military equipment, and the gas masks. It screamed that all those humans and all those machines didn't belong. what is the alternative here? humans on expedition bring guns and tools to protect them from the environment. this is not negative, this is human nature. it's been true about explorers for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. you don't just sail to a new world with good tidings to keep your ass alive. even if the navi were peaceful, there were still giant alien tiger things that looked like they'd probably love to snack on a human. ive said it before, but ill say it again: james cameron chose the name unobtainum deliberately. it is what the humans need. you're right that selfridge's singular mindset was to get it. but it was not like he was an emotional husk of a man, and i don't agree he was a villain. if he had no moral quandaries, why was quaritch meeting him in his office and telling him he'd be humane? why did he look shocked at the the strike on the home tree? but if you felt his actions were without merit for SOMEONE (humanity), then i guess you could construe him as villainous. yes he talked about profits, but whats the alternative, having some crusade to acquire the mineral at out of pocket costs for his company to save the earth? that's nothing like human nature. if it's not isolationism, what is it? their territory is being destroyed, but they make no attempt to drive the humans from their land, not until jake joins their cause. they just get rid of their only way of communication with the humans, and slink around in the jungle basically pretending the humans weren't a problem while they were carving giant holes in pandora. they had an opportunity to learn from another sentient alien race and they tossed it aside in favor of hiding in the trees. turning a blind eye to your problems, especially as a people, is an isolationist view, and even more so when the problem is an "invasion" by someone. in the long run negotiations would have been counter productive. the humans would mine the precious mineral and keep moving/destroying whatever was on top of it. but the navi exacerbated the problem by ignoring it. more humans died, and more navi died, because they did not seriously consider the consequences of their actions. this wasn't some different, alien way of thinking, the film showed that the navi had a very humanlike concept of logic at times. were the humans wrong in going after the mineral in the first place? i don't think so, but that's just opinion. are the policies the humans adhered to to get unobtanium really that surprising and inconsistant with human nature? On Decembjavascript:addUBB('url')er 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. anything that wasn't spelled out directly on screen is of course speculation. however i don't think i'm pushing a very unreasonable series of points here. and yes it is my opinion. :D That's isolationism? You mean consistently firing arrows the incoming bulldozers and forcing the mining expedition to deploy escort forces is isolationism? That's pretending humans aren't a problem? What do you expect natives to do in that situation? Keep diplomatic channels open, maintain normal relationship? Isn't that more pretending nothing is happening? Or perhaps the non-isolationist path would be all-out-war on first evidence of systematic trespassing and property destruction. Given what happened in the movie, the Navi might have been wiser to try something like that, but you're given the benefit of hindsight. As for Selfridge, do you really expect to walk onto somebody else's property, destroy what is there and then extract the resources that you want? Is it even plausible to deny that it isn't invading and stealing? That's what Selfridge is doing. He's invading and stealing. The only benefit of doubt that he gets is that he knows not the value of the trees he is destroying.
well it is isolationism and turning a blind eye when the navi could have formed a larger army, like they did when jake switched sides, and expelled the humans forthwith. would any navi clan really object to that once they saw the result of the human mining? instead they fired some arrows at tires then went home and slept in their hammocks. perhaps they felt like this was going to solve the human problem, but that's a pretty limited vision, and the navi seemed capable of more in depth thinking than that. yes i had the benefit of hindsight, but how many years had the navi and the humans been interacting? at least 5+, probably much more. but by the time jake arrives and there are giant holes in their planet, they are still uncommitted to finding a solution either via negotiation (which i admit probably would not have worked) or via a serious campaign to drive out the invasion. given that time frame, small sorties on human groups might as well be isolationism. idealistic, if nothing else.
you are right about selfridge, i was just unsurprised at the role he played in the mining operation. it was stealing, but it was also business (nefarious business at best). over the course of the movie he goes from dehumanizing them to make himself feel better (or maybe that's how he actually felt) to what i thought looked like a sickly understanding that he f'd up (opinion alert). is he really a villain if he came out of it with conflicted emotions about the decisions he was making?
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On December 29 2009 05:34 mainerd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 05:18 TanGeng wrote:On December 29 2009 04:47 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 02:57 TanGeng wrote:
You imagined up some of your stuff, mainerd - made some assumptions that could not be made and ignored some factors to create the false idea of Navi isolationism. As for Avatar, its kind film is a high budget blockbuster. What production company is going to risk that kind of money on a creative, provocative, but untested script?
As for the villains of the movie, the two big ones are Miles Quaritch and Selfridge (what names!) The main villain is Quaritch, who had a military force and itched to use it and justify his existence or whatever. He showed visible disgust that Sully even mentions the idea of a diplomatic solution. This is a natural phenomenon of paying for a standing army. Sooner or later it gets used. When you have a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. Everything started to look like it could use a military solution.
Selfridge is singularly focused on mining the ore. He doesn't have any moral quandaries about violating the territorial rights of the natives. Nor does he try to understand the value of the stuff that he is bulldozing. It's not isolationism but the constant destruction of territorial property that drives the natives to reject the "sky people." This simple act in ignorance or in malice is wrong and the reason for the conflict. To blame the Navi for isolationism is simply crazy.
Technology is not entirely negatively portrayed. The interstellar ship was beautiful. The technology of the avatar program was also depicted positively. It's everything else on Pandora that is portrayed negatively - the huge bulldozers, all of the military equipment, and the gas masks. It screamed that all those humans and all those machines didn't belong. what is the alternative here? humans on expedition bring guns and tools to protect them from the environment. this is not negative, this is human nature. it's been true about explorers for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. you don't just sail to a new world with good tidings to keep your ass alive. even if the navi were peaceful, there were still giant alien tiger things that looked like they'd probably love to snack on a human. ive said it before, but ill say it again: james cameron chose the name unobtainum deliberately. it is what the humans need. you're right that selfridge's singular mindset was to get it. but it was not like he was an emotional husk of a man, and i don't agree he was a villain. if he had no moral quandaries, why was quaritch meeting him in his office and telling him he'd be humane? why did he look shocked at the the strike on the home tree? but if you felt his actions were without merit for SOMEONE (humanity), then i guess you could construe him as villainous. yes he talked about profits, but whats the alternative, having some crusade to acquire the mineral at out of pocket costs for his company to save the earth? that's nothing like human nature. if it's not isolationism, what is it? their territory is being destroyed, but they make no attempt to drive the humans from their land, not until jake joins their cause. they just get rid of their only way of communication with the humans, and slink around in the jungle basically pretending the humans weren't a problem while they were carving giant holes in pandora. they had an opportunity to learn from another sentient alien race and they tossed it aside in favor of hiding in the trees. turning a blind eye to your problems, especially as a people, is an isolationist view, and even more so when the problem is an "invasion" by someone. in the long run negotiations would have been counter productive. the humans would mine the precious mineral and keep moving/destroying whatever was on top of it. but the navi exacerbated the problem by ignoring it. more humans died, and more navi died, because they did not seriously consider the consequences of their actions. this wasn't some different, alien way of thinking, the film showed that the navi had a very humanlike concept of logic at times. were the humans wrong in going after the mineral in the first place? i don't think so, but that's just opinion. are the policies the humans adhered to to get unobtanium really that surprising and inconsistant with human nature? On Decembjavascript:addUBB('url')er 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. anything that wasn't spelled out directly on screen is of course speculation. however i don't think i'm pushing a very unreasonable series of points here. and yes it is my opinion. :D That's isolationism? You mean consistently firing arrows the incoming bulldozers and forcing the mining expedition to deploy escort forces is isolationism? That's pretending humans aren't a problem? What do you expect natives to do in that situation? Keep diplomatic channels open, maintain normal relationship? Isn't that more pretending nothing is happening? Or perhaps the non-isolationist path would be all-out-war on first evidence of systematic trespassing and property destruction. Given what happened in the movie, the Navi might have been wiser to try something like that, but you're given the benefit of hindsight. As for Selfridge, do you really expect to walk onto somebody else's property, destroy what is there and then extract the resources that you want? Is it even plausible to deny that it isn't invading and stealing? That's what Selfridge is doing. He's invading and stealing. The only benefit of doubt that he gets is that he knows not the value of the trees he is destroying. well it is isolationism and turning a blind eye when the navi could have formed a larger army, like they did when jake switched sides, and expelled the humans forthwith. would any navi clan really object to that once they saw the result of the human mining? instead they fired some arrows at tires then went home and slept in their hammocks. perhaps they felt like this was going to solve the human problem, but that's a pretty limited vision, and the navi seemed capable of more in depth thinking than that. yes i had the benefit of hindsight, but how many years had the navi and the humans been interacting? at least 5+, probably much more. but by the time jake arrives and there are giant holes in their planet, they are still uncommitted to finding a solution either via negotiation (which i admit probably would not have worked) or via a serious campaign to drive out the invasion. given that time frame, small sorties on human groups might as well be isolationism. idealistic, if nothing else. you are right about selfridge, i was just unsurprised at the role he played in the mining operation. it was stealing, but it was also business (nefarious business at best). over the course of the movie he goes from dehumanizing them to make himself feel better (or maybe that's how he actually felt) to what i thought looked like a sickly understanding that he f'd up (opinion alert). is he really a villain if he came out of it with conflicted emotions about the decisions he was making?
How is that isolationism?
They didn't know what they could do against the "sky people". If you had animals and bows/arrows you'd feel pretty overwhelmed against gunships/rockets/bullets as well. That's why Jake had to be there to rally all the people up. He was the only one that had the hope that the human forces could be defeated. And even then, Eywa had to intervene.
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Just got back from seeing this movie, and made sure to avoid this thread and threads like it until after I saw it, and damn am I glad I did that.
Sure, I can agree that anyone calling this movie a masterpiece probably hasn't seen enough movies (I'm not saying they're wrong, because obviously a label like that is completely subjective) although I'll admit this is my new favorite movie 
and before anyone flames me for that comment, I'm not calling it the best movie ever made, I'm not calling it a work of art, but seeing that movie was probably one of the most entertaining movie-watching experiences I've had. Sure the plot follows the hero's journey down to the letter just about, and as such is completely predictable, but it was still fun as hell watching everything unfold. It's a Hollywood movie, if you want a serious and logical commentary on society/history/politics, then watch an independant film, there are many good ones that do a better job of this. Hollywood doesn't want to change society's views on anything or inspire any sort of new thinking, they just want to make money giving the masses what they want, and people just like to feel good. If you went into this movie expecting anything other than a cliched feel-good storyline where logical viewpoints are less important than the story they want to tell, then I can understand why you'd be disappointed =/
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Finally saw it in imax 3d, so glad I waited, was well worth it.
Plot, dialogue, all cliche, but I don't really care, it worked, I loved the characters and the acting, I cared about the characters and the movie was tugging on my heart more then once, which is rare, I haven't felt emotionally involved with a movie in ages. Visuals were insane, CG is at a whole new level, the 3d stuff was so immersive that I stopped noticing it until the movie was over and I realized how flat our normal world is. Overall most entertaining movie I've seen this decade, going to see it again it was so good.
You can easily bash on the plot all day, or the dialogue (main character is a male marine.. he talks like one... get over it) but as far as movies go, they don't get any better in this day and age. This one had me locked to my seat for the whole 3 hours, I didn't even notice time go by I was so immersed, first thing I wanted to do when it was over was to watch it again, first time I've felt that after watching a movie, usually only happens with really good books.
Despite my gushing praise, I really hated the message of the movie,and the plot itself is weak. There's the whole colonialism thing, with a modern twist, it's a corporation operating on its own agenda and it mirrors the bush war in iraq with some of the rhetoric. The message isn't just about the loss of life and war, but environmental concerns as well. The primitive Na'vi are seen as 1 dimensional perfection, living with nature in perfect harmony, but living with zero technology is anything but a paradise, it's a constant struggle for survival, and as different as the Na'vi and humans appear to be, they are both the same, hostile and destructive, they both bend nature to their needs. Humans stopped relying on horse power ages ago because it's inefficient and much more destructive to the environment then harnessing the power of a car with 200 horse power. The "balance" of nature crap really irks me. Extinction is a natural part of nature, when one species goes, it leaves a vavuum to be filled by another stronger one, nature is impartial to the victor. Anyway, i'm gonna stop ranting, it really takes away from the movie. Bottom line, go see it, turn off your brain for 3 hours, be entertained.
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On December 29 2009 06:28 BanZu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 05:34 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 05:18 TanGeng wrote:On December 29 2009 04:47 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 02:57 TanGeng wrote:
You imagined up some of your stuff, mainerd - made some assumptions that could not be made and ignored some factors to create the false idea of Navi isolationism. As for Avatar, its kind film is a high budget blockbuster. What production company is going to risk that kind of money on a creative, provocative, but untested script?
As for the villains of the movie, the two big ones are Miles Quaritch and Selfridge (what names!) The main villain is Quaritch, who had a military force and itched to use it and justify his existence or whatever. He showed visible disgust that Sully even mentions the idea of a diplomatic solution. This is a natural phenomenon of paying for a standing army. Sooner or later it gets used. When you have a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. Everything started to look like it could use a military solution.
Selfridge is singularly focused on mining the ore. He doesn't have any moral quandaries about violating the territorial rights of the natives. Nor does he try to understand the value of the stuff that he is bulldozing. It's not isolationism but the constant destruction of territorial property that drives the natives to reject the "sky people." This simple act in ignorance or in malice is wrong and the reason for the conflict. To blame the Navi for isolationism is simply crazy.
Technology is not entirely negatively portrayed. The interstellar ship was beautiful. The technology of the avatar program was also depicted positively. It's everything else on Pandora that is portrayed negatively - the huge bulldozers, all of the military equipment, and the gas masks. It screamed that all those humans and all those machines didn't belong. what is the alternative here? humans on expedition bring guns and tools to protect them from the environment. this is not negative, this is human nature. it's been true about explorers for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. you don't just sail to a new world with good tidings to keep your ass alive. even if the navi were peaceful, there were still giant alien tiger things that looked like they'd probably love to snack on a human. ive said it before, but ill say it again: james cameron chose the name unobtainum deliberately. it is what the humans need. you're right that selfridge's singular mindset was to get it. but it was not like he was an emotional husk of a man, and i don't agree he was a villain. if he had no moral quandaries, why was quaritch meeting him in his office and telling him he'd be humane? why did he look shocked at the the strike on the home tree? but if you felt his actions were without merit for SOMEONE (humanity), then i guess you could construe him as villainous. yes he talked about profits, but whats the alternative, having some crusade to acquire the mineral at out of pocket costs for his company to save the earth? that's nothing like human nature. if it's not isolationism, what is it? their territory is being destroyed, but they make no attempt to drive the humans from their land, not until jake joins their cause. they just get rid of their only way of communication with the humans, and slink around in the jungle basically pretending the humans weren't a problem while they were carving giant holes in pandora. they had an opportunity to learn from another sentient alien race and they tossed it aside in favor of hiding in the trees. turning a blind eye to your problems, especially as a people, is an isolationist view, and even more so when the problem is an "invasion" by someone. in the long run negotiations would have been counter productive. the humans would mine the precious mineral and keep moving/destroying whatever was on top of it. but the navi exacerbated the problem by ignoring it. more humans died, and more navi died, because they did not seriously consider the consequences of their actions. this wasn't some different, alien way of thinking, the film showed that the navi had a very humanlike concept of logic at times. were the humans wrong in going after the mineral in the first place? i don't think so, but that's just opinion. are the policies the humans adhered to to get unobtanium really that surprising and inconsistant with human nature? On Decembjavascript:addUBB('url')er 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. anything that wasn't spelled out directly on screen is of course speculation. however i don't think i'm pushing a very unreasonable series of points here. and yes it is my opinion. :D That's isolationism? You mean consistently firing arrows the incoming bulldozers and forcing the mining expedition to deploy escort forces is isolationism? That's pretending humans aren't a problem? What do you expect natives to do in that situation? Keep diplomatic channels open, maintain normal relationship? Isn't that more pretending nothing is happening? Or perhaps the non-isolationist path would be all-out-war on first evidence of systematic trespassing and property destruction. Given what happened in the movie, the Navi might have been wiser to try something like that, but you're given the benefit of hindsight. As for Selfridge, do you really expect to walk onto somebody else's property, destroy what is there and then extract the resources that you want? Is it even plausible to deny that it isn't invading and stealing? That's what Selfridge is doing. He's invading and stealing. The only benefit of doubt that he gets is that he knows not the value of the trees he is destroying. well it is isolationism and turning a blind eye when the navi could have formed a larger army, like they did when jake switched sides, and expelled the humans forthwith. would any navi clan really object to that once they saw the result of the human mining? instead they fired some arrows at tires then went home and slept in their hammocks. perhaps they felt like this was going to solve the human problem, but that's a pretty limited vision, and the navi seemed capable of more in depth thinking than that. yes i had the benefit of hindsight, but how many years had the navi and the humans been interacting? at least 5+, probably much more. but by the time jake arrives and there are giant holes in their planet, they are still uncommitted to finding a solution either via negotiation (which i admit probably would not have worked) or via a serious campaign to drive out the invasion. given that time frame, small sorties on human groups might as well be isolationism. idealistic, if nothing else. you are right about selfridge, i was just unsurprised at the role he played in the mining operation. it was stealing, but it was also business (nefarious business at best). over the course of the movie he goes from dehumanizing them to make himself feel better (or maybe that's how he actually felt) to what i thought looked like a sickly understanding that he f'd up (opinion alert). is he really a villain if he came out of it with conflicted emotions about the decisions he was making? How is that isolationism? They didn't know what they could do against the "sky people". If you had animals and bows/arrows you'd feel pretty overwhelmed against gunships/rockets/bullets as well. That's why Jake had to be there to rally all the people up. He was the only one that had the hope that the human forces could be defeated. And even then, Eywa had to intervene.
you make a good point
still the navi seemed complicit from my point of view. they didn't even try to band together and attempt to uproot the human expedition before jake. as quaritch said at the briefing, their numbers kept growing and if he had not authorized the preemptive strike the humans would have been over run. instead of fighting 20,000 or more navi, quaritch, now knowing the location of the soul tree or w/e, got to do his preemptive strike and fight 2,000 instead, so he kind of lucked out there. yah eywa intervened, tho i think this would have been unnecessary if the navi had banded together earlier, and before quaritch knew about the soul tree. unless they had nuclear weapons of course, which is total speculation. with nukes power in numbers is pretty insignificant.
perhaps all they needed was someone to tell them what to do, but they really couldn't figure out that 20,000+ navi could overwhelm a couple hundred humans, even if they were outmatched with weapons?
OK i am grasping at straws. but they navi's defense of their home was just pathetic imo before jake, and that inaction made their own losses and the human's worse. i just disagree that it's so easy to see the navi as good and the humans as bad. i think there is more to it than that. they both have flaws.
edit: i understand that jake grabbing the tukor or w/e maybe have been a kind of sign to the clans for uniting... but that sign kind of pales in comparison to aliens flyin in from space and digging up ur forests.
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On December 29 2009 07:19 EAGER-beaver wrote:
Finally saw it in imax 3d, so glad I waited, was well worth it.
Plot, dialogue, all cliche, but I don't really care, it worked, I loved the characters and the acting, I cared about the characters and the movie was tugging on my heart more then once, which is rare, I haven't felt emotionally involved with a movie in ages. Visuals were insane, CG is at a whole new level, the 3d stuff was so immersive that I stopped noticing it until the movie was over and I realized how flat our normal world is. Overall most entertaining movie I've seen this decade, going to see it again it was so good.
Yeah, I actually cared for some of the characters in this movie
+ Show Spoiler +It sucks that Tsu'Tey died, but at least he went out like a badass. Shooting a bow in mid air, throwing humans off the ship, etc. It was pretty obvious he was going to die when he got the chance to fight and besides I think it would be weird to keep him around with Jake and all.
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On December 29 2009 07:40 mainerd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 06:28 BanZu wrote:On December 29 2009 05:34 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 05:18 TanGeng wrote:On December 29 2009 04:47 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 02:57 TanGeng wrote:
You imagined up some of your stuff, mainerd - made some assumptions that could not be made and ignored some factors to create the false idea of Navi isolationism. As for Avatar, its kind film is a high budget blockbuster. What production company is going to risk that kind of money on a creative, provocative, but untested script?
As for the villains of the movie, the two big ones are Miles Quaritch and Selfridge (what names!) The main villain is Quaritch, who had a military force and itched to use it and justify his existence or whatever. He showed visible disgust that Sully even mentions the idea of a diplomatic solution. This is a natural phenomenon of paying for a standing army. Sooner or later it gets used. When you have a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. Everything started to look like it could use a military solution.
Selfridge is singularly focused on mining the ore. He doesn't have any moral quandaries about violating the territorial rights of the natives. Nor does he try to understand the value of the stuff that he is bulldozing. It's not isolationism but the constant destruction of territorial property that drives the natives to reject the "sky people." This simple act in ignorance or in malice is wrong and the reason for the conflict. To blame the Navi for isolationism is simply crazy.
Technology is not entirely negatively portrayed. The interstellar ship was beautiful. The technology of the avatar program was also depicted positively. It's everything else on Pandora that is portrayed negatively - the huge bulldozers, all of the military equipment, and the gas masks. It screamed that all those humans and all those machines didn't belong. what is the alternative here? humans on expedition bring guns and tools to protect them from the environment. this is not negative, this is human nature. it's been true about explorers for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. you don't just sail to a new world with good tidings to keep your ass alive. even if the navi were peaceful, there were still giant alien tiger things that looked like they'd probably love to snack on a human. ive said it before, but ill say it again: james cameron chose the name unobtainum deliberately. it is what the humans need. you're right that selfridge's singular mindset was to get it. but it was not like he was an emotional husk of a man, and i don't agree he was a villain. if he had no moral quandaries, why was quaritch meeting him in his office and telling him he'd be humane? why did he look shocked at the the strike on the home tree? but if you felt his actions were without merit for SOMEONE (humanity), then i guess you could construe him as villainous. yes he talked about profits, but whats the alternative, having some crusade to acquire the mineral at out of pocket costs for his company to save the earth? that's nothing like human nature. if it's not isolationism, what is it? their territory is being destroyed, but they make no attempt to drive the humans from their land, not until jake joins their cause. they just get rid of their only way of communication with the humans, and slink around in the jungle basically pretending the humans weren't a problem while they were carving giant holes in pandora. they had an opportunity to learn from another sentient alien race and they tossed it aside in favor of hiding in the trees. turning a blind eye to your problems, especially as a people, is an isolationist view, and even more so when the problem is an "invasion" by someone. in the long run negotiations would have been counter productive. the humans would mine the precious mineral and keep moving/destroying whatever was on top of it. but the navi exacerbated the problem by ignoring it. more humans died, and more navi died, because they did not seriously consider the consequences of their actions. this wasn't some different, alien way of thinking, the film showed that the navi had a very humanlike concept of logic at times. were the humans wrong in going after the mineral in the first place? i don't think so, but that's just opinion. are the policies the humans adhered to to get unobtanium really that surprising and inconsistant with human nature? On Decembjavascript:addUBB('url')er 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. anything that wasn't spelled out directly on screen is of course speculation. however i don't think i'm pushing a very unreasonable series of points here. and yes it is my opinion. :D That's isolationism? You mean consistently firing arrows the incoming bulldozers and forcing the mining expedition to deploy escort forces is isolationism? That's pretending humans aren't a problem? What do you expect natives to do in that situation? Keep diplomatic channels open, maintain normal relationship? Isn't that more pretending nothing is happening? Or perhaps the non-isolationist path would be all-out-war on first evidence of systematic trespassing and property destruction. Given what happened in the movie, the Navi might have been wiser to try something like that, but you're given the benefit of hindsight. As for Selfridge, do you really expect to walk onto somebody else's property, destroy what is there and then extract the resources that you want? Is it even plausible to deny that it isn't invading and stealing? That's what Selfridge is doing. He's invading and stealing. The only benefit of doubt that he gets is that he knows not the value of the trees he is destroying. well it is isolationism and turning a blind eye when the navi could have formed a larger army, like they did when jake switched sides, and expelled the humans forthwith. would any navi clan really object to that once they saw the result of the human mining? instead they fired some arrows at tires then went home and slept in their hammocks. perhaps they felt like this was going to solve the human problem, but that's a pretty limited vision, and the navi seemed capable of more in depth thinking than that. yes i had the benefit of hindsight, but how many years had the navi and the humans been interacting? at least 5+, probably much more. but by the time jake arrives and there are giant holes in their planet, they are still uncommitted to finding a solution either via negotiation (which i admit probably would not have worked) or via a serious campaign to drive out the invasion. given that time frame, small sorties on human groups might as well be isolationism. idealistic, if nothing else. you are right about selfridge, i was just unsurprised at the role he played in the mining operation. it was stealing, but it was also business (nefarious business at best). over the course of the movie he goes from dehumanizing them to make himself feel better (or maybe that's how he actually felt) to what i thought looked like a sickly understanding that he f'd up (opinion alert). is he really a villain if he came out of it with conflicted emotions about the decisions he was making? How is that isolationism? They didn't know what they could do against the "sky people". If you had animals and bows/arrows you'd feel pretty overwhelmed against gunships/rockets/bullets as well. That's why Jake had to be there to rally all the people up. He was the only one that had the hope that the human forces could be defeated. And even then, Eywa had to intervene. you make a good point still the navi seemed complicit from my point of view. they didn't even try to band together and attempt to uproot the human expedition before jake. as quaritch said at the briefing, their numbers kept growing and if he had not authorized the preemptive strike the humans would have been over run. instead of fighting 20,000 or more navi, quaritch, now knowing the location of the soul tree or w/e, got to do his preemptive strike and fight 2,000 instead, so he kind of lucked out there. yah eywa intervened, tho i think this would have been unnecessary if the navi had banded together earlier, and before quaritch knew about the soul tree. unless they had nuclear weapons of course, which is total speculation. with nukes power in numbers is pretty insignificant. perhaps all they needed was someone to tell them what to do, but they really couldn't figure out that 20,000+ navi could overwhelm a couple hundred humans, even if they were outmatched with weapons? OK i am grasping at straws. but they navi's defense of their home was just pathetic imo before jake, and that inaction made their own losses and the human's worse. i just disagree that it's so easy to see the navi as good and the humans as bad. i think there is more to it than that. they both have flaws. edit: i understand that jake grabbing the tukor or w/e maybe have been a kind of sign to the clans for uniting... but that sign kind of pales in comparison to aliens flyin in from space and digging up ur forests.
Before the Humans started tearing down trees and before they blew up the Home Tree, did they do anything to the Na'vi other than try to educate them?
I'm not sure but what I thought was that they didn't like the human colony being there but it wasn't to the point where they needed to take action. It was after they were actually attacked and when the trees were destroyed that they realized they needed to do something. However, because of how useless their weapons were against the gunships and how devastating the attack on the Home Tree was, they realized that there was nothing they could do anyway.
My point is that the Na'vi, at first, lacked a strong motive to attack the humans.
During and after the attack they obviously had a motive.
However, after the attack, they lacked the willpower and hope to attack the humans.
Afterwards, Jake was the hope and he helped gather the willpower. Also, Eywa made all the difference in the battle.
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Kinda OT but did anyone see Terra ?
I haven't seen Avatar (yet) but the story of Terra seems very similar to that of Avatar. I know Pocahontas is also pretty much the same, but in Terra it's actually about humans against aliens.
Sorry if it's been mentioned before.
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On December 29 2009 08:44 BanZu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 07:40 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 06:28 BanZu wrote:On December 29 2009 05:34 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 05:18 TanGeng wrote:On December 29 2009 04:47 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 02:57 TanGeng wrote:
You imagined up some of your stuff, mainerd - made some assumptions that could not be made and ignored some factors to create the false idea of Navi isolationism. As for Avatar, its kind film is a high budget blockbuster. What production company is going to risk that kind of money on a creative, provocative, but untested script?
As for the villains of the movie, the two big ones are Miles Quaritch and Selfridge (what names!) The main villain is Quaritch, who had a military force and itched to use it and justify his existence or whatever. He showed visible disgust that Sully even mentions the idea of a diplomatic solution. This is a natural phenomenon of paying for a standing army. Sooner or later it gets used. When you have a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. Everything started to look like it could use a military solution.
Selfridge is singularly focused on mining the ore. He doesn't have any moral quandaries about violating the territorial rights of the natives. Nor does he try to understand the value of the stuff that he is bulldozing. It's not isolationism but the constant destruction of territorial property that drives the natives to reject the "sky people." This simple act in ignorance or in malice is wrong and the reason for the conflict. To blame the Navi for isolationism is simply crazy.
Technology is not entirely negatively portrayed. The interstellar ship was beautiful. The technology of the avatar program was also depicted positively. It's everything else on Pandora that is portrayed negatively - the huge bulldozers, all of the military equipment, and the gas masks. It screamed that all those humans and all those machines didn't belong. what is the alternative here? humans on expedition bring guns and tools to protect them from the environment. this is not negative, this is human nature. it's been true about explorers for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. you don't just sail to a new world with good tidings to keep your ass alive. even if the navi were peaceful, there were still giant alien tiger things that looked like they'd probably love to snack on a human. ive said it before, but ill say it again: james cameron chose the name unobtainum deliberately. it is what the humans need. you're right that selfridge's singular mindset was to get it. but it was not like he was an emotional husk of a man, and i don't agree he was a villain. if he had no moral quandaries, why was quaritch meeting him in his office and telling him he'd be humane? why did he look shocked at the the strike on the home tree? but if you felt his actions were without merit for SOMEONE (humanity), then i guess you could construe him as villainous. yes he talked about profits, but whats the alternative, having some crusade to acquire the mineral at out of pocket costs for his company to save the earth? that's nothing like human nature. if it's not isolationism, what is it? their territory is being destroyed, but they make no attempt to drive the humans from their land, not until jake joins their cause. they just get rid of their only way of communication with the humans, and slink around in the jungle basically pretending the humans weren't a problem while they were carving giant holes in pandora. they had an opportunity to learn from another sentient alien race and they tossed it aside in favor of hiding in the trees. turning a blind eye to your problems, especially as a people, is an isolationist view, and even more so when the problem is an "invasion" by someone. in the long run negotiations would have been counter productive. the humans would mine the precious mineral and keep moving/destroying whatever was on top of it. but the navi exacerbated the problem by ignoring it. more humans died, and more navi died, because they did not seriously consider the consequences of their actions. this wasn't some different, alien way of thinking, the film showed that the navi had a very humanlike concept of logic at times. were the humans wrong in going after the mineral in the first place? i don't think so, but that's just opinion. are the policies the humans adhered to to get unobtanium really that surprising and inconsistant with human nature? On Decembjavascript:addUBB('url')er 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. anything that wasn't spelled out directly on screen is of course speculation. however i don't think i'm pushing a very unreasonable series of points here. and yes it is my opinion. :D That's isolationism? You mean consistently firing arrows the incoming bulldozers and forcing the mining expedition to deploy escort forces is isolationism? That's pretending humans aren't a problem? What do you expect natives to do in that situation? Keep diplomatic channels open, maintain normal relationship? Isn't that more pretending nothing is happening? Or perhaps the non-isolationist path would be all-out-war on first evidence of systematic trespassing and property destruction. Given what happened in the movie, the Navi might have been wiser to try something like that, but you're given the benefit of hindsight. As for Selfridge, do you really expect to walk onto somebody else's property, destroy what is there and then extract the resources that you want? Is it even plausible to deny that it isn't invading and stealing? That's what Selfridge is doing. He's invading and stealing. The only benefit of doubt that he gets is that he knows not the value of the trees he is destroying. well it is isolationism and turning a blind eye when the navi could have formed a larger army, like they did when jake switched sides, and expelled the humans forthwith. would any navi clan really object to that once they saw the result of the human mining? instead they fired some arrows at tires then went home and slept in their hammocks. perhaps they felt like this was going to solve the human problem, but that's a pretty limited vision, and the navi seemed capable of more in depth thinking than that. yes i had the benefit of hindsight, but how many years had the navi and the humans been interacting? at least 5+, probably much more. but by the time jake arrives and there are giant holes in their planet, they are still uncommitted to finding a solution either via negotiation (which i admit probably would not have worked) or via a serious campaign to drive out the invasion. given that time frame, small sorties on human groups might as well be isolationism. idealistic, if nothing else. you are right about selfridge, i was just unsurprised at the role he played in the mining operation. it was stealing, but it was also business (nefarious business at best). over the course of the movie he goes from dehumanizing them to make himself feel better (or maybe that's how he actually felt) to what i thought looked like a sickly understanding that he f'd up (opinion alert). is he really a villain if he came out of it with conflicted emotions about the decisions he was making? How is that isolationism? They didn't know what they could do against the "sky people". If you had animals and bows/arrows you'd feel pretty overwhelmed against gunships/rockets/bullets as well. That's why Jake had to be there to rally all the people up. He was the only one that had the hope that the human forces could be defeated. And even then, Eywa had to intervene. you make a good point still the navi seemed complicit from my point of view. they didn't even try to band together and attempt to uproot the human expedition before jake. as quaritch said at the briefing, their numbers kept growing and if he had not authorized the preemptive strike the humans would have been over run. instead of fighting 20,000 or more navi, quaritch, now knowing the location of the soul tree or w/e, got to do his preemptive strike and fight 2,000 instead, so he kind of lucked out there. yah eywa intervened, tho i think this would have been unnecessary if the navi had banded together earlier, and before quaritch knew about the soul tree. unless they had nuclear weapons of course, which is total speculation. with nukes power in numbers is pretty insignificant. perhaps all they needed was someone to tell them what to do, but they really couldn't figure out that 20,000+ navi could overwhelm a couple hundred humans, even if they were outmatched with weapons? OK i am grasping at straws. but they navi's defense of their home was just pathetic imo before jake, and that inaction made their own losses and the human's worse. i just disagree that it's so easy to see the navi as good and the humans as bad. i think there is more to it than that. they both have flaws. edit: i understand that jake grabbing the tukor or w/e maybe have been a kind of sign to the clans for uniting... but that sign kind of pales in comparison to aliens flyin in from space and digging up ur forests. Before the Humans started tearing down trees and before they blew up the Home Tree, did they do anything to the Na'vi other than try to educate them? I'm not sure but what I thought was that they didn't like the human colony being there but it wasn't to the point where they needed to take action. It was after they were actually attacked and when the trees were destroyed that they realized they needed to do something. However, because of how useless their weapons were against the gunships and how devastating the attack on the Home Tree was, they realized that there was nothing they could do anyway. My point is that the Na'vi, at first, lacked a strong motive to attack the humans. During and after the attack they obviously had a motive. However, after the attack, they lacked the willpower and hope to attack the humans. Afterwards, Jake was the hope and he helped gather the willpower. Also, Eywa made all the difference in the battle.
hmm, i had not considered that the mining operation was not a big enough motive for the navi to respond en masse. i suppose since the whole idea of mining of minerals was foreign to them, as was everything else about humans, it could explain why they needed a truly horrific event to open up their eyes to the realities. i just assumed that since they understood the connectivity the planet had as a whole, through the tree network, the mining would be such an affront that they would want to stop it in its tracks... also the fact they shut down grace's school seems like they were offended to the point where they were done talking. their response afterwards just did not seem proportional - small sorties against the dozers. their concern just really seemed to be lacking. admittedly "isolationism" was a poor term for me to use to describe this inaction on their part.
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On December 29 2009 05:19 Mooga wrote:
Did they intentionally make the blue creatures look, dress, and worship the land like Native Americans? Hmm I wonder what their motives were when they were making the plot to this movie? It seems like another guilt-trip, which I already had enough of by the 5th grade.
It's almost like they took the plot of a Native American battle against the European colonialists and used that as the script of the movie. Except they changed the setting to another planet and the Native Americans to blue aliens.
I wish they put more effort into the plot and dialogue. It would've been a great movie if the plot was even remotely interesting. It's a sci-fi movie and they still couldn't come up with an interesting plot?
Transformers 2
Plot=we need a plot?
giant robots+special effects and Megan Fox=box office win
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space cowboys meet indians john sully i mean jake sully lully
seen movie 3 times lullll imax is the best but that is no brainer like this post
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On December 29 2009 05:34 mainerd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2009 05:18 TanGeng wrote:On December 29 2009 04:47 mainerd wrote:On December 29 2009 02:57 TanGeng wrote:
You imagined up some of your stuff, mainerd - made some assumptions that could not be made and ignored some factors to create the false idea of Navi isolationism. As for Avatar, its kind film is a high budget blockbuster. What production company is going to risk that kind of money on a creative, provocative, but untested script?
As for the villains of the movie, the two big ones are Miles Quaritch and Selfridge (what names!) The main villain is Quaritch, who had a military force and itched to use it and justify his existence or whatever. He showed visible disgust that Sully even mentions the idea of a diplomatic solution. This is a natural phenomenon of paying for a standing army. Sooner or later it gets used. When you have a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. Everything started to look like it could use a military solution.
Selfridge is singularly focused on mining the ore. He doesn't have any moral quandaries about violating the territorial rights of the natives. Nor does he try to understand the value of the stuff that he is bulldozing. It's not isolationism but the constant destruction of territorial property that drives the natives to reject the "sky people." This simple act in ignorance or in malice is wrong and the reason for the conflict. To blame the Navi for isolationism is simply crazy.
Technology is not entirely negatively portrayed. The interstellar ship was beautiful. The technology of the avatar program was also depicted positively. It's everything else on Pandora that is portrayed negatively - the huge bulldozers, all of the military equipment, and the gas masks. It screamed that all those humans and all those machines didn't belong. what is the alternative here? humans on expedition bring guns and tools to protect them from the environment. this is not negative, this is human nature. it's been true about explorers for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. you don't just sail to a new world with good tidings to keep your ass alive. even if the navi were peaceful, there were still giant alien tiger things that looked like they'd probably love to snack on a human. ive said it before, but ill say it again: james cameron chose the name unobtainum deliberately. it is what the humans need. you're right that selfridge's singular mindset was to get it. but it was not like he was an emotional husk of a man, and i don't agree he was a villain. if he had no moral quandaries, why was quaritch meeting him in his office and telling him he'd be humane? why did he look shocked at the the strike on the home tree? but if you felt his actions were without merit for SOMEONE (humanity), then i guess you could construe him as villainous. yes he talked about profits, but whats the alternative, having some crusade to acquire the mineral at out of pocket costs for his company to save the earth? that's nothing like human nature. if it's not isolationism, what is it? their territory is being destroyed, but they make no attempt to drive the humans from their land, not until jake joins their cause. they just get rid of their only way of communication with the humans, and slink around in the jungle basically pretending the humans weren't a problem while they were carving giant holes in pandora. they had an opportunity to learn from another sentient alien race and they tossed it aside in favor of hiding in the trees. turning a blind eye to your problems, especially as a people, is an isolationist view, and even more so when the problem is an "invasion" by someone. in the long run negotiations would have been counter productive. the humans would mine the precious mineral and keep moving/destroying whatever was on top of it. but the navi exacerbated the problem by ignoring it. more humans died, and more navi died, because they did not seriously consider the consequences of their actions. this wasn't some different, alien way of thinking, the film showed that the navi had a very humanlike concept of logic at times. were the humans wrong in going after the mineral in the first place? i don't think so, but that's just opinion. are the policies the humans adhered to to get unobtanium really that surprising and inconsistant with human nature? On Decembjavascript:addUBB('url')er 29 2009 04:08 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Still think it's funny how retards are trying to argue their opinions as facts. anything that wasn't spelled out directly on screen is of course speculation. however i don't think i'm pushing a very unreasonable series of points here. and yes it is my opinion. :D That's isolationism? You mean consistently firing arrows the incoming bulldozers and forcing the mining expedition to deploy escort forces is isolationism? That's pretending humans aren't a problem? What do you expect natives to do in that situation? Keep diplomatic channels open, maintain normal relationship? Isn't that more pretending nothing is happening? Or perhaps the non-isolationist path would be all-out-war on first evidence of systematic trespassing and property destruction. Given what happened in the movie, the Navi might have been wiser to try something like that, but you're given the benefit of hindsight. As for Selfridge, do you really expect to walk onto somebody else's property, destroy what is there and then extract the resources that you want? Is it even plausible to deny that it isn't invading and stealing? That's what Selfridge is doing. He's invading and stealing. The only benefit of doubt that he gets is that he knows not the value of the trees he is destroying. well it is isolationism and turning a blind eye when the navi could have formed a larger army, like they did when jake switched sides, and expelled the humans forthwith. would any navi clan really object to that once they saw the result of the human mining? instead they fired some arrows at tires then went home and slept in their hammocks. perhaps they felt like this was going to solve the human problem, but that's a pretty limited vision, and the navi seemed capable of more in depth thinking than that. yes i had the benefit of hindsight, but how many years had the navi and the humans been interacting? at least 5+, probably much more. but by the time jake arrives and there are giant holes in their planet, they are still uncommitted to finding a solution either via negotiation (which i admit probably would not have worked) or via a serious campaign to drive out the invasion. given that time frame, small sorties on human groups might as well be isolationism. idealistic, if nothing else. you are right about selfridge, i was just unsurprised at the role he played in the mining operation. it was stealing, but it was also business (nefarious business at best). over the course of the movie he goes from dehumanizing them to make himself feel better (or maybe that's how he actually felt) to what i thought looked like a sickly understanding that he f'd up (opinion alert). is he really a villain if he came out of it with conflicted emotions about the decisions he was making?
Yea the movie was very "disney", especially the villian.
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imo
the storyline was pretty plain and doesn't make much sense, but you don't have to care about this
the visuals were stunning
the end o.o
it's like asking if you want to watch "harold and kumar escape from guantanamo bay" or "the matrix"
one makes no sense and entertains, one is really deep and entertains, i'd watch both. =\
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I went to see Avatar today with somewhat low expectations in terms of the actually content but the story far surpassed my expectations and I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the ending was not predictable, not to me at least.
One big LOL moment for me though was:
+ Show Spoiler +The evil general guy is in his goliath machine at the end and he pulls out a knife, like that machine really comes with a big jumbo knife for hand to hand combat with large animals.... People plugging their hair into large carnivorous flying reptiles was fine though.
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Some strange things here, a few people saying the storyline makes no sense, thats not really fair. It makes sense, it has to, they have been using the same storyline in stories like this since Pochahantis.
No, its not original. In a sense. Yes, there are points that do somewhat seem a little bit too much. Do I think it hinders the experience? Slightly. Could this have been better? Yes.
Let me put it to you this way. It is not the best movie I have ever seen, but I think I enjoyed watching it as much or more as any movie I have ever seen in my life. Visuals are amazing, story is old and done yes, but it still keeps you guessing as far as what will happen next (to a certain extent). It is EXTREMELY well acted and orchestrated, everything fits.
This was one of the first movies I have seen in a LONG time, that I felt so attatched to the fate of the characters and the world the movie created. Spectacular job of character development.
In short, I think this movie will be remembered as one of the first classic movies of the millenium.
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I also want to point out that I was expecting little when I went to see the movie, my friend actually had to talk me into going to see it because I wanted to go workout instead. Quite happy that he did.
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EPT
