According to my dad, PG-13 movies today, would be rated R 30 years ago.

The sex was the girl alien riding the guy alien and she's gasping for air and thats all you see. You only see like 5 seconds of it and it's really mostly implied.

PG-13 today is R even 10 years ago lol, but that's how things change I guess.

Agreed.

I still liked it and there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe because I am a tree hugging hippie in the military and I feel for this guy xD

I personally think it's made of chunky winsauce. The plot was nice, like a romanticized version of Europeans colonizing America (but more satisfying). The graphics were nice, and though much of talk was cheesy, the rest of it makes up for it. 17/20.

Screw you detractors, you just think that bashing something without really knowing why is cool.

The characters were two-dimensional and never develop, especially on the human side. The human motivation is never explained beyond "Hurr we're evil" and of course every human apart from the science team is all gung-ho for killing the aliens. Not even just accepting orders or seeing it as a necessary evil, but whipping themselves into a bloodlust.

The "unobtainum" is never elaborated upon as to why they're so desperate to have it apart from "it sells for a lot of money" (really? More money than the cost of an entire interstellar expedition?) Again, even just a little bit of justification on their part would have been nice.

Of course, as bland and evil as they were, I was still sympathizing with the humans because at least they weren't the regurgitation of every Hollywood Native American cliche of the past fifty years. Yes, yes, we get it. Technology bad. Trees good. The white man is ignorant and greedy. It's like I've heard this message a thousand times before! Stop making white guilt movies, seriously. The Na'vi are so perfect and wonderful, every aspect of their civilization is superior to ours. Ironic, really, because the movie relies so heavily on the technology that it despises.

Noble savage cliches aside, we of course have the meathead white guy hero saving the day. Really? No one else thought to attack the giant dragon-thing from above before? Thank god you were here to help, Jake! Unite the tribes? Apparently the Na'Vi rely on the trees for their fucking brains too, because that seems like a pretty obvious idea. Of course the audience needs someone to relate to because gods forbid the main character isn't the traditional action movie star.

Then don't even get me started on the Na'vi princess (whatever her name was) falling in love with Jake, who A) was described as an "idiot" and a "child" by her in every scene, B) is another species, C) she was engaged or something to that other guy (but the white man always gets the girl) and D) Jake is her world's equivalent of Hitler, Judas and Benedict Arnold rolled into one. "Gee, I'm really sorry that I got half your civilization wiped out... let's go bang under the Tree of Souls!"




Now that I've expressed my anger with the story, how about we pick apart some technical issues?

First of all, what the hell is up with the human military? Seriously? You have mech/bomber cockpits that cannot withstand a bow and arrow? What sort of environment were these things designed for? And how about that whole "let's convert the shuttle into a bomber" plan. Hey, I've got a better idea! How about you drop something from orbit? (Even if you didn't, say, have a missile, you could just bring the shuttle up a couple miles above the target, kill the engines and let kinetic energy do your work for you) But no, instead we're going to escort the fragile shuttle directly over the target (with bombs we have to push by hand? You couldn't even put some wheels on the things?) and get our asses kicked by wild birds.

Then of course every animal on the planet has some sort of tentacle that you can merge minds with? Exactly what evolutionary purpose does that serve? You could argue that their planet-deity made them that way because it's oh-so-loving towards the Na'vi, but then again, every animal on the planet seems to want to kill on eat them, so I'm not sure I buy it. And even if you can explain the existence of these tentacle mind rapers, the humans understand enough about them to perfectly replicate their function? Especially ludicrous in light of the fact Sigourney Weaver seems shocked that the planet is some inter-connected database and she's the biggest Na'vi expert around. (The avatars aren't just cloned Na'vi, one of the scientists mentions that they're human-Na'vi hybrids or some such). Humanity can perfectly replicate the functions of a lifeform they don't understand, but making mech cockpits out of something other than safety glass eludes their grasp.

You've also got the fact that every living thing on the planet glows when touched (what kind of defense mechanism is that?). Especially hilarious to me were the spinning helicopter lizards which just sort of hover in place when startled.

Oh, also: floating mountains, wtf? Even if you can explain that one, how about the fact the floating mountains have waterfalls? How is the water replenished? Even if you want to claim that it rains enough to refill the constantly flowing waterfalls (even though the
entire planet seems to be a rainforest, we never see it rain...)




Yeah, so that's why I don't like it.

Since the main character goes from posing as one of them while informing the other humans in their war to saving them, I'd say development occurs. The motivation was money; in order to continue extracting unobtanium and maximizing profits, the indigenous peoples had to be subdued or reasoned with, and the latter seemed impossible.

Like the Spanish, who traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and knocked down empires, just for gold, this is a corporation doing it. At the very least, even if it's not technologically feasible (this wasn't a complete framework for the future, just a film), it directly correlates to a period from human history.

So its theme is human greed and the evils of corporatism. Wow, how horrible. As for the 'irony' about it, try getting Americans to watch a simple film anymore.

Fine. I also noted the dragon-thing bit, but no film is perfect. As for the uniting the tribes thing, I don't think that was particularly unbelievable. When your home is destroyed and you see that kind of firepower, you give up hope. Jake gave them hope with his nice dragon, and did the obvious next thing.

A tribute to the shallow-mindedness of women? . It's a fairly common film occurrence, in all of the Bond films and a ton of others. Plus, romance makes the $$. Almost every film has romance, and what's nicer than interspecies romance? Additionally, I never noticed him telling her that he gave them the 'blueprints' to the tree or anything. The only thing that he was directly responsible for was the Tree of Souls thing, but he saved that in the end.

I'm sure everyone noticed this. It's a film where savages destroyed intergalatic travelers. Of course it's not going to be technologically accurate. And as for the tentacle, I think it's a nice idea. Evolutionarily viable? Probably not. Then again, I'm sure the Na'vi feed their animals, so perhaps it is. Like if pigs were nothing but big blobs of meat; hey, that's all we use them for, but that won't be normally evolutionarily viable, right? And there's always their god to turn to. Even without that, give the creator some creative license. It was a very nice idea. Maybe not 100% evolutionary viable, but very attractive, it wove into the story, and... well, I like it. . Also, really, how do you think REGULAR mountains get their water? Just because a specific movie doesn't show a snowy scene doesn't mean it never snows in that movies' world.

It might be that you don't need to decipher the entire Na'vi genome to fuse it with that of humans; we don't know. You're really nitpicky. Did you ever like any science-fiction film? This one was more original than most of them, not featuring evil aliens bent on destroying our glorious civilization with their evil tentacles and huge weapons with tiny inch-long weak spots. It had a message, it had romance, it had character development, it had graphics, and it had nice, original concepts.

Spoiler Alert

Not every human was gung-ho for killing the aliens. When it shows the people at command watching the destruction, a great amount of the people there were extremely saddened by the ordeal, and not just the science teams, but the people who worked at the head quarters, and even the Corporate head overseeing the operation looked like he felt wrong about the whole thing; And we did see a pilot outright refuse go with it. You also have to remember that that the military people that were gung-ho weren't Marines but Mercenaries. They came there to kill and profit from it. Realistically most or all of them would be embittered by the extremely harsh environment where everything was hostile and huge. The Na'vi are 10 foot giants, they would be extremely intimidated by them.

I'm glad that they didn't drone about details that weren't really important to the events going on, just as they didn't bother giving the Corporation a name. I read an article about the astrophysical plausibility of Avatar and it mentioned Unobtanium being some sort of room temperature superconductor for energy. I didn't catch this detail in the movie, however, so I'm not sure how we were supposed to derive that, perhaps by the fact that it was floating on that node at the guy's desk.

Agreed, but I didn't think it was that bad.

I think it is more likely that the Na'vi wouldn't even try to attack it. Simply because there was no great need to, and because it is so rare anyway. I agree it was a pretty cliche move, but I hardly think it is worth complaining over.

She only called him an idiot and child in the first couple scenes when they met. I actually think they did it well, showing her grow from resenting to being attracted to Jake. It was clear from the way she moved an interacted with him how she felt about him. I don't see where your points about Hitler, Judas and Benedict Arnold are coming from, either. He did not do anything to them. He didn't wipe out half of her civilization, and the humans hadn't at that point either, when they 'banged under the tree of souls'. It is clear that they knew that not all humans were the same, that's how they learned English in the first place, from that Science girl's school.


They did withstand arrows, as you can see them scratch the cock pit glass when they were being shot at from the ground as they hovered and destroyed the Home Tree. When, however, the force was compounded by the speed of the flying banshee things' decent they were able to break through the glass. You should also realize that these aren't just normal sized bows and arrows, but rather bows and arrows proportional to 10 foot Na'vi. In the end it is still some form of glass and with the acceleration of the fliers, I thought it was realistic.

yeah, lets hope some open payload will make it passed whatever protective atmosphere Pandora must have without igniting. I'm sure bringing the massive crates of explosives up into orbit wouldn't waste a bunch of time either.
Launching a missile would be undermined by the Flux Vortex (corny name). Why destroy your shuttle by using it as your bullet when you could, say, not destroy your shuttle in the process. And why should they not push the crate by hand? When you make an improvisational plan it isn't going to be perfectly pretty. What purpose would wheels serve anyway, besides letting it roll out when you don't intend it to.

I agree that the evolutionary practically of the meld thing isn't great. However, I do think that it would be largely beneficial to each creature to have them, as they probably use it between eachother and other things, like the soul tree. And if creatures so extremely different can link with eachother, why not a human/na'vi hybrid? It isn't that the humans understand it (they obviously don't), it was just that Sam was able to utilize his biology and use it, after many months. He sucked at it too, at first, and if you notice none of the other Avatars used it. So yeah, it isn't so realistic, but it is good Science Fiction, especially over all the many Space Dramas. Things like that make it fun.

Yeah, I can't imagine any reason they would do that.

I thought the same thing. The assumption you are supposed to make, I believe, is that it has largely to do with the unobtanium we also saw floating. The waterfalls are there the same way any waterfall exists. And no, we don't know that they were pouring constantly, only for the duration in the movie we saw.


Most of your points just seem like attempts to nitpick over trivial things. It's like you are looking for a reason to dislike it. In any show or movie you watch you have to suspend some measure of disbelief. If everything was realistic, then nothing would be very exciting.

In all I enjoyed the movie, despite its flaws; it was interesting, and fun to watch. Despite it being pretty anti-industrial, it didn't portray technology in a very negative light. Everything about the humans was clean and shiny; typically movies with this motive show massive amounts of heavy black smoke coming from huge, dirty power plants. It was more about the motives behind the push. I thought it was too extreme behavior, when Jake called the humans aliens and talked about them killing their mother. I suppose spending all that time in an Avatar body could really distort reality for you; however, I felt his motivation should've been more about defending humanity in stopping their inhumanity. In this way he wasn't at all betraying his race, but saving it. Ah, well.

P.S. I didn't read Centreri's post before posting, if any points are similar.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 26 2009, 2:34 am by Kaias. Reason: Typo

He didn't develop, he went from being a dumbass marine on the human side to a dumbass marine on the Na'vi side.


It hardly makes sense for them to build this entire operation, develop the avatar technology, invest all these resources just for a bit of cash. I know it correlates to historical events, but more backstory on their motivations would have been nice. The corporation in the film was more powerful and had more resources than the combined efforts of all humanity today - how did this come to be? Why are they so desperate for profit that this effort (despite the ridiculous risks involved) seems like a good idea?


Here, this sums up my feelings more eloquently than I could.


The kind of firepower that's stopped by bows and arrows?


He did tell them that he was sent there to spy on them or something and then the humans came and destroyed their home. It wouldn't be hard (even for them) to put 2 and 2 together. I certainly got the impression that they knew he was responsible.


First of all, yes, I am nitpicky. Especially so in this case, however, because Cameron and half the internet has been raving and ranting about how much effort was put into the world, how everything was perfect and made into this believable, living world. I remember an interview where he was bragging about hiring linguists to make sure his language was accurate, and how it was going to be the next Klingon. That kind of arrogance seems to invite criticism.

And actually I absolutely love sci-fi. It's my favorite genre. And I don't think that it was original at all, it's the same story we've seen for decades. Which is especially disappointing in science fiction, which prides itself on going beyond that.



I know I came off hostile, but I was annoyed you assumed no one could have legitimate reasons to dislike the movie.

I liked the movie. So if people liked the movie, they care not if you didn't like- or whatever your reasons are.

So? You think being with the Na'vi would have some effect on intellect? This isn't a point on anything.
And whoever landed on the Americas had more resources than all of humanity 1000 years before that. This is a film. It's not going to describe everything that ever happened in the universe. It's not a complete picture of the universe, it's a continuous story.

And my same response applies. OH NO A CLICHED THEME, BURN THE FILM.

That comes later, and the arrows weren't able to break through anything but the glass on the helicopteresque vehicles.
It was exactly like that, and really, that he later returned with a legendary mount and promised to lead them to victory is enough of an incentive, in their eyes, to follow him.

What you did wasn't criticism, it was flaming. <_<. The concept of the story isn't original (how many are these days?), but the science fiction elements like the melding with other animals and some of the animals themselves is. In that sense, it's much more original than most of the crap coming out from Hollywood, which has not an iota of originality.
No, I assumed no one could have legitimate reasons to think that the movie was a piece of shit pile of suck, like you did.

It was alright, but the movie copied off a lot of video game series.

Example:

Home Base's internal structure looked exactly like the Pillar of Autumn.
People were placed in cryo.
Weapons used were on par with Halo weaponry. You can't say anything about the M6 or Assault rifle being in there.
Payload ship was a UNSC Pelican.
Strikers were Terran Banshees.
There were Terran Goliaths.
Flying winged dinosaur creatures were a mixture of Hippogryphs and Wind Riders.
Hometree is the World Tree.


Also. Does no one else realize that at the end, he swapped bodies from his original to his... blue form, that he isn't actually who he is, and it really is his brother?

They looked more like the ones in Matrix, not Goliaths.

Not to me, they didn't.

The couldn't, because EM interference from the nuke would destroy the properties of unobtanium that made it desirable. (As stated belong, it's a room-temperature superconductor.)


See the problem is, it's developed so much OUT of the movie, that Jame Cameron thought he didn't need to throw ANY of this in the movie.

Unobtanium is sought out by the humans because it's a room temperature super-conductor. This is also why the mountains float; they have traces of ferrous magnetic material which Pandora, with it's unobtanium veins, repels due to the Meissner effect. Waterfalls, meh, same way mountains on Earth get them.

Apparently, they spent a long fucking time developing the scientific backstory to every. single. detail. of the Proxima Centauri star system as portrayed in the movie - including the physics of the mountains, the gravitational interactions of all the bodies, the celestial bodies not seen on screen, a full taxonomic classification for every single species that inhabits Pandora, etc. etc. I think you're a person who'll actually LOVE the movie if you get all the technical books and shit and read them.

I have not yet seen the movie, so I'm not reading this thread fully and avoiding spoilers:

Simple question: would this be a decent movie to bring a down to earth girl to casually, or is it more of a guy's movie? Thanks. =)

It's good to bring a girl to

I actually liked this movie
I had my doubts, i figured, "this is going to be really damn retarded"
But after watching it i was like, "That was awesome!"
Sooo, Thats my awesome story ^_^

I just watched this today in theaters. I thought it was pretty good except the humans seemed kind of retarded and... inhuman, and some parts were almost unbearably cheesy...