frigid watched Avatar

[frigidmagi]

I just got back from watching Avatar in 3D. I saw it in Warren threaters in Oklahoma City, a very well built and run threater that I recommend anyone try. If you're over 21 you can get beer and a dinner while you watch the movie. Now to the movie.

The movie is very well done, the effects are amazing and damn life like. The directing was good and so was the acting. Sam did a bang up job as Sully our Dances with Wolves hero of the peice and every other actor and actress managed to sell me on their characters pretty well. Cameron should be proud of this of this movie I think and everyone who was in it can be proud of their proformance. I don't know if this will change the way movies are made but it is a step forward towards it at least.

That said, I couldn't get into it. One, is basically being told I'm the bad guy. Sully and the pilot are the only sympethic military characters in the film and alot of the film is directed at trying to make them not military characters. Every other military character is a psychopath or a grunting sterotype.

Grace the led sciencist didn't really jive with me either. I honestly found her to be a bitch most of the time. I mean her pissing and moaning about Sully being there instead of his brother? You know, yeah it sucks but griping at the guy isn't helpful now is it? He's what ya got otherwise the Avatar goes to waste. Not to fucking mention you would have had time to get used to the fact. I mean let's be honest here she knew all about Noah and the fact Sully was coming instead of the dead brother, so she didn't have any time to get used to it?

That's not to say I was sympethic to the other side, our good Col was straight out of Apocalypse Now, an ex-recon Marine for some reason obessed with helping the mining operation. Honestly security was his job, I would have found it more believible if he simply didn't give a damn beyond that. I known Marines who develop serious cases of professional tunnel vision. I haven't know any who enjoy burning people's homes down around their ears.

I found the Corperate Ref to be a bit of jackass. It's a big planet man, you don't need to strip mine right over the villages. Hell with some work you can simply dig under and they'll never know. Yeah it's more expensive but you're making 20 million a kilo. Buy some tunneling equipment... Oh look the problem is solved.

Now I had to go pee twice so maybe I missed the answer to this question. What were they using the floating rock for? It doesn't show up on any of the tech the humans are using in the base or on the ship. So what's the point of digging it up?

Also I got conflicting data on earth from this movie. The Col says Sully was in Venezula and that was some mean bush (bush only refers to jungle and swamp environments, we wouldn't use it to refer to a urban environment). But later Sully claims there is no green back on earth and humanity has killed the planet (makes me wonder because we see Sully eating eggs and steaks are mentioned, need green to feed chickens and cows man).

I did like Sully and was sympethic with the natives as I was suppose to be (hard not to be, I have no idea what the stakes are for humanity but for the Navi it's their home and the souls of their dead). Ironically I liked Sully best when he was acting as a Marine, which the movie seemed to tring to convince me was negative behavior. I liked Trudy to, but that had as much to do with Michelle Rodriguez as the character. I have my weaknesses what I can say.

I do recommend the movie for the rest of y'all as the problems I had with it were mine and not any with the movie itself.

[LadyTevar]

The Unobtainium is a room-temperature super-conductor, which means it boosts any electrical or magnetic output by a factor of X. Because of this, "Earth will perish without it", assuming because of all the tech it's used in.

The film doesn't go into more detail than that, but other sources mention the spaceship's engines use/need the Unobtainium, and this has lead some on SDnet to suggest it's being used for all Earth inter- and intra-system voyaging. If Earth has colonies inside the Solar System, reliable engines for supply ships is critical, and thus Earth will suffer without.

Now, since the rock is selling for $$$$$ an ounce, I'm thinking RDA is pulling a DeBeers. At the time of the movie, the Unobtainum was limited by the tonnage each ship could carry back, and a ship shows up every 6 T-months at that point in time. Demand was less than Supply, but if the company could have a backup supply warehoused on Earth (or Pandora), they could keep the demand artificially inflated -- just like DeBeers is keeping diamonds a 'scarce' commodity'.

Does that explain it, Frig?

[frigidmagi]

Where did they say Earth will die without it? Actually that makes Jack a rather horrible person... He condemned his entire home planet to death just so a group of his friends could feel better. Billions will die, but we saved... Actually nothing, the humans already burnt the place they wanted to dig on into ashes, so we just made ourselves feel better about our terrible loses. But hey Jack got some tail (literally).

I still think simply tunneling under the village to get the ore would have been better. I mean hell why strip mine in the first place? Move those multi ton dozers over interstellar distances had to be expensive as fuck. Wouldn't smaller tunneling equipment been cheaper? It would be slower but who cares!?! It still takes you 6 fucking years to move the damn rock back home anyways! And at 20 million a fucking ounce, you can bet you still make money hand over fist.

Also, they have to be able to make ships that don't use Unobtainium (I do like the name) otherwise how did they get to Pandora to find the damn rock in the first place? I suppose it could be like oil verus coal ships...

[SirNitram]

Of course, smaller, subsurface mines would make sense. The entire cost of the offensive military operation probably could pay for a hundred more Avatars and people suitable to do diplomacy. But the Shareholders rule, as the COrporate asshole said. So strip-mine and kill, and they got KBR Interstellar on-hand.

I don't think you're being told you're the bad guy. You're not a merc. Frankly, you stop being a Marine when you become a full on Mercenary. Paid guard, sure, fine, Mercenary is different. You don't think you're being told you're the bad guy when KBR and the rest are insulted, right?

[frigidmagi]

They were wearing US uniforms. Mercenaries aren't allowed to wear those.

[fgalkin]

And yet, they were RDA employees, working for the company, on a colony run by the company.

They sure as hell weren't ARMED as a real military.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Charon]

They were wearing US uniforms. Mercenaries aren't allowed to wear those.

I'd be more willing to believe that the company didn't give a shit about the uniforms or that for some reason the U.S. Military doesn't care anymore than believe they were military, considering the movie makes great pains to state during the entire first half of the movie that we are dealing with mercs and not soldiers in an army.

Yeah, I just saw it today. It was very good technically and the story was well done, even if it didn't break into any new territory.

As for tunneling, it might not have disturbed the tribe as much, but I get the feeling that part of the reason that tree was alive was because of the rich deposit of unobtanium.

[frigidmagi]

I didn't see anything in the movie to support that. The tree is alive due to it's connection to the Pandoran World Wide Web Not due to any wonder rock.

It's unlikely there would be anything that deep down to report the tunneling.

[LadyTevar]

There may not have been anything as bad as the surface critters to 'report tunnelling', but any good biosphere has worms, gofers, snakes, and other creatures that live, hunt and reproduce below ground. Eywa would have noticed it, and the information would spread via the Pandora World Wide Web

[frigidmagi]

Huh, those critters don't go down pass 50ft. So no, there is nothing to report.

[Stofsk]

Well I just saw it with my nephews and a friend at IMAX and I can say that it was very, very good. The middle was slow in parts but when the action heated up the effect of the 3D was just phenomenal.

Kudos to James Cameron for this. Supreme effort.

[The Silence and I]

I loved it. The 3d effect was worth every penny and more, and the story was entertaining and engaging. Total win.

As for frigid's gripe, I'll need to see it again (woe is me) to get all the details correct but I was under the impression these were actual marines employed as mercenaries. Officially part of the government's military but without any oversight and effectively serving a company. Without question they were the "bad guys" of the movie but to my mind their uniforms and past assignments did not mean the movie tried to show all marines in a negative light--just these guys and specifically those leading them.

I thought the actions taken by these nameless grunts fell in line with human nature, frankly. You're trained to kill and you volunteered for a line of work that could give you the opportunity. So you're not a tree hugger, let's make that clear. Additionally you do not necessarily emphasize with the aliens, why would you? Now these aliens are trying to kill you, the fucking fauna is trying to kill you, you can't even breath the air and your only boss is encouraging you to be as aggressive as possible. Oh and everyone you associate with is in your shoes and ya'll are going to reinforce extreme attitudes and behavior. It's normally your boss' job to control that, but hey, he likes it. "Us verses them" can make humans gladly do horrific things to other humans--aliens can't even hide behind a human face. Is it so odd to see a group of humans in this situation excited about killing their chosen enemy? The title of "marine" doesn't change your nature.

[Stofsk]

It's not like James Cameron has anything against marines - look at Aliens, where they were the good guys and the aliens were the monsters.

[The Minx]

I was skeptical when I arrived at the theater, probably because I always react that way when a movie is over-hyped. Despite that initial skepticism, I really enjoyed it. I was actually able to forget that I was watching CGI for most of the time, which says a lot about the technical achievement, and both the voice acting and directing was great.

As for the characters:

• Pandora was compelling enough to essentially become a character in its own right, as was probably intended. You really could come to believe that there was an all-encompassing world spirit guarding the whole place. Lovely visuals and awesome work on making the flora and fauna fit together into a believable and yet fantastical world (well, other than the floating mountains, but those were too cool to grouse about). Also, the contrast between the drab corridors of the human habitation and the living world outside was well handled, and fits in with the idea that Sully eventually felt more alive in the avatar, and more dreamlike in his own body.
• Sully was convincing, and I came to like him in both of his incarnations, despite my initial skepticism. He seemed like that out-of-place kid who finally comes home.
• The Na'vi were... somewhat stereotypical, but very likable anyway, as they were meant to be. Perhaps I should call them "archetypal" instead. :)
• The corporate stooge was really annoying (as he was meant to be), but at least he had the decency to be bummed out after witnessing the slaughter at the Home Tree.
• Grace was annoying to me initially too, but she grew on me. Her initial hostility to Sully was a bit illogical, but people aren't always logical in real life. She may have been in a similar position as Sully, hating her general situation, and taking it out on people without really realizing it. She came into her own as the story progressed and we came to learn more about her character.
• The Colonel... yea, right out of Apocalypse Now. Well, you've got to have a bad guy, this is Hollywood, after all.

I thought the actions taken by these nameless grunts fell in line with human nature, frankly. You're trained to kill and you volunteered for a line of work that could give you the opportunity. So you're not a tree hugger, let's make that clear. Additionally you do not necessarily emphasize with the aliens, why would you? Now these aliens are trying to kill you, the fucking fauna is trying to kill you, you can't even breath the air and your only boss is encouraging you to be as aggressive as possible. Oh and everyone you associate with is in your shoes and ya'll are going to reinforce extreme attitudes and behavior. It's normally your boss' job to control that, but hey, he likes it. "Us verses them" can make humans gladly do horrific things to other humans--aliens can't even hide behind a human face. Is it so odd to see a group of humans in this situation excited about killing their chosen enemy? The title of "marine" doesn't change your nature.

I agree here, and just to point out, the pilot and Sully were military personnel too. I don't really think Cameron went to that much of a length not to make them marines, he just went to some length not to make them stereotypical. Still, I can see where frigid is coming from. Perhaps Cameron could have thrown in a few sympathetic extras among the guys in uniform.


Anyway, if Earth is so desperate for the Unobtainium, there is no way they are just going to curl up and die because 2000 natives overran the first installation that was sent there. There are a lot more "sky people" where these came from. I guess that's where the sequel comes in.

Avatar: how it should have ended.

Hopefully, they'll come to some sort of smart arrangement.

[Armaina]

I went and saw Avatar with my Parents and youngest brother for my birthday, in 3DEEE. (going on the Superbowl was great, the theater was so empty!) First of all 3D = Never Again. It was fine when I saw Up, but watching Avatar in 3D was reaaaally straining my eyes and I had a very difficult time focusing and I just ended up getting a headache with some of the very fast scenes. I would have been much happier to watch it normally.

One of the things that bugged me about the movie was that they tried too hard to make us just hate the humans, just no redeeming qualities in most of the main ones that weren't scientists. I just came across as trying way to hard to me and didn't come off as natural.

And another thing, why has no one made any acknowledgment of the human tech?

All the vehicles were very believable and not ultra high sophisticated, you could look at them and really get a sense that they were from out future time line, it really felt like the designers for the ships really did their research on current technologies and possible advancements. Also, the interfaces and screens were set such that it made me think of current flexible OLED screen prototypes, it really does feel like such a thing is completely possible in a few decades. This is wonderful to me, because most sci fi usually deals with super advanced technology that would possibly take centuries or more to achieve, this actually had things that felt a bit 'closer' to our current time line, making it feel much more 'grounded' and believable, if that makes any sense. Major kudos to them for that.

Also, I'm very angry that Grace died :| I mean characters die I'm okay with that, just.. I wanted Grace to live as a Na'Vi because it would have been perfect. But, oh well.

However, the thing that bothered me THE MOST about the movie... PAPYRUS.. AAAUUUGHH Seriously you go through all that trouble to create this wonderfully involved world and then you slap papyrus on it?! Could they just not be bothered to create their on font for the series, it would have worked so much better if they made something much more personalized or ugh at least have chosen a better font. Seriously Papyrus is the new Comic Sans :|

So.. how soon do you think it'll be till tthere's a cartoon?