*not a full 1001, just all the stuff I could think of after a few viewings, readers are encouraged to help me get up to over NINE THOUSAND
- It sucks
- So in this one part of the world rocks float but water and blue people still fall?
- Na’vi ride “dragons” by sticking their feet into the creatures’ breathing holes. How does that not get them bucked off? How would you feel if some large insect crawled onto the bridge of your nose and stuck its heels into your nostrils?
- Speaking of which, isn’t it lucky that the Na’vi’s feet never slip, plug the air hole on their dragons and suffocate their ride?
- What’s the big deal with the big damn tree? Ok, a bunch of Na’vi are living there but later we see that other Na’vi are living elsewhere just fine. Imagine for a moment the cure for cancer (all cancer) was discovered to be some sort of natural product and my home was sitting on top of one of the largest deposits of the stuff ever seen. Just what’s gained from my ancestral land could cure all cancer cases for the next century. Do I have a right to refuse excavation of my land despite the fact that doing so will kill billions of people? Maybe, but it still makes me a selfish asshole and that’s what the Na’vi are – selfish assholes.
- So the big tree comes down and then the Na’vi attack the humans. Why? They’ve already lost the tree. The humans only bother with striking first because the Na’vi made aggressive overtones (and indeed, were planning on attacking first). As far as we know, the humans were just going to pack up the unobtanium and leave. Why attack them? Petty revenge? Oh right: selfish assholes.
- Why is unobtanium so valuable? I don’t mean because it does something for humans (power the warp drive let’s say). For unobtanium to have value means that the humans must have obtained enough of it at some point to make highly desirable and wide commercial use of it. But then why be on Pandora? If the stuff is ubiquitous enough that it has value, then that means they can find it elsewhere… like the gas giant that Pandora is orbiting. If Pandora is not only a PR nightmare, but dangerous enough to require heavy funds just for security, then the company should already be looking elsewhere for the stuff.
- You can’t get a spine fixed in “this economy” on “vet benefits”? That doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. The most expensive part of any military is the care and training of the soldiers. There’s no way it would be cheaper for the marines to replace Jake Sully especially if he has combat experience. (maybe the air force but not the marines – just kidding guys ;))
- Technology has advanced enough we have mastered interstellar travel and air to space vehicles, but mining has taken a step backwards? The company has enough resources to get a huge ship to Pandora but not enough to set up an underground operation and dig sideways to the unobtanium? Replacing it with nutrient rich soil?
- They have an entire world to examine and they can’t find any unobtanium elsewhere? Nothing less controversial?
- So unobtanium floats under its own power on the company exec’s desk but the big ore of it underneath the tree doesn’t make the tree float?
- The Na’vi domesticate animals by joining their brains directly to the beasts and taking it over? Say what you will about human domestication methods, but at least we never mind raped anything.
- Why do those “mind jacks” exist? How come there’s never been a predator to evolve which forces itself into the prey’s mind through those jacks into becoming docile and easily eaten?
- Where are all the insects around here? If they fly into a Na’vi’s hair, is the Na’vi then mind raped by the bug?
- It is hinted at that all the plants on the world for a sort of neural network, creating a kind of “world mind”. At the climax of the movie, all the animals begin fighting back against the humans. It is implied this is the will of the world mind. How? Do the animals jack into the world mind once every morning to get their daily schedule? (ex “Awww man, just eating and pooping again? I can’t wait for mating season.”) Does the world mind have wifi to remotely jack into the animals?
- Why did it take so long for the world mind to react? The opening of the movie reveals that humans have already dug a sizable hole into the world (remember, each plant destroyed is a part of the brain of the world) and later they have massive bulldozers scouring the landscape. Yet the world mind doesn’t react until asked to by the main character? Sorry, if someone started digging into my brain, I’d react violently extremely quickly.
- Pandora is said to be a highly dangerous world. Yet the animals never react to the humans until commanded to do so by the world mind. Why didn’t they attack when their territory was invaded? Earlier in the film, the hammerhead rhinos attacked the main character by himself. What, 1 little blue guy counts as more of a threat than hundreds of marauding humans?
- Pandora is mentioned as having lighter gravity. Ok, would make sense why the Na’vi are so tall. However, they (and the rest of Pandoran life) should all be weaklings. Muscles develop in response to the demands of life and gravity. The “dragons” attacking the “helicopters” – a life form evolved for flying in a light gravity environment vs a machine constructed and designed to fly in a heavy gravity environment – should have been like a sparrow attacking a concrete brick. Giant panther vs mech should have been like a rubber ball hitting a wall – bounce. The average human should be able to defeat the average Na’vi in any contest of strength, yet we see the Na’vi push humans around.
- So at the end the Na’vi sheppard the humans onto a shuttle and send them to go back home. Oh wait, how do they know? Too bad the Na’vi don’t have their own spaceships, I guess the humans will just fly up to theirs and plot an orbital bombardment.
- Speaking of which, why do the humans bother to load up crates of explosives (gee, hope you didn’t need those for mining) and manually push them out of the back of the shuttle onto the Na’vi’s most sacred place. Here’s an idea: load a big ass rock into the shuttle (remember: low gravity), go into orbit AND DROP IT. They don’t even need explosives. People are building a similar weapon right now onaround earth (see #2).
- “I was a stone cold aerial hunter. Death from above.” Says the main character as he flies by the sheer face of a mountain pointing his bow at it. What’s he going to hunt? Pet rocks?
- Why the heck to the “dragons” have a stuff protrusion on the UNDERSIDE of their heads? Might they need to look at their feet or check where they’re landing? Guess it’s a good thing if they try to hide or something their heads will stick up noticeably.
- It makes no damn sense for everything to be bio-luminescent.
- At the beginning of the movie, we see several arrows or spears sticking out of a bulldozer’s wheel. Weapons, made by an “all natural” society – pierced the wheel of an outdoor vehicle. Logically, every time those things go out into the wild, they should all have flat tires because they’re running over the same supplies the Na’vi use to make their weapons which pierced. the. tires.
- Isn’t it funny how the atmosphere of Pandora is not breathable by humans but fire burns exactly the same way there as it does in our atmosphere?
- Wait, technology is bad? But without technology Jake wouldn’t have defeated the bad guys and they would have bombed the place that they shouldn’t.
- And it just goes on…
Oh, and if you can’t get enough of Monkey Migraine‘s assistance in the comments, just wait: there’s more! (he actually bothers with going through the extra-movie sources – so hats off for his inner strength of will)
Hunting Muses 
Dude, just forget this stupid movie and move on. It’s not like the Star Wars prequels where something sacred has been s**t on. Ya, it made a ton of money and was critically successful when it shouldn’t have. Not the first, and not the last.
Let’s just focus on the good stuff coming up this summer. If PoP sucks, then we’ll have plenty to talk about.
Now that I got out of my system I feel better.
I’m hoping Iron Man will be soothing. (redhead Scarlett Johanson in a leather bodysuit will help)
4 words for you: “willing suspension of disbelief”
I can’t imagine you liking any movie that’s not a documentary if you’re THAT critical about everything.
2 more words for you: calm down.
Have a good day! 🙂
Suspension of disbelief snaps if the story can’t follow it’s own internal rules and logic.
However, I will agree with you on one thing. Had the movie been written as a faux-documentary – perhaps where Jake Sulley was a scientist using the avatar to go “under cover” (ala Jane Goodall) to learn about Pandora and its species – in a style like National Geographic, that would have been awesome, and not stupid.
What’s that line…. “suspension of disbelief, not ‘hung by the neck until dead’.”
hahahahaha
I award you high praise for that!
I agree with Miles, I think you are becoming obsessed with hating Avatar! Let the smurfs…I mean blue people be!
I would kill for a hardcore Smurfs reboot using the Avatar SFX. Imagine the epic battles between the Smurf armies and Gargamel’s minions. Not to mention Smurfette’s makeover. …Actually, I’m just gonna rewatch Avatar and pretend they’re the smurfs.
* Jake is a respected combat veteran, but the military of the future is so f’d-up that they’ll let him roll around in a wheelchair instead of fixing his legs with some basic healthcare.
* Na’vi have enormous eyes, which would mean they’d be blind in daylight.
* The Na’vi are wonderful, peace-loving people who have highly skilled and trained methods of combat.
* The technology exists to telepathically interface with genetically engineered alien clones, but apparently not to interface with planes, cars, computers, armored exo-skeletons, or anything else in the movie
* The story is beyond cliched. There isn’t a single thing in it that hasn’t been seen before and better.
* Blending human DNA and alien DNA is impossible.
* Even if you could blend human and alien DNA, the end result would be something other than the Avatars, which look exactly like the Na’vi without the slightest difference.
* Most of the animals have six legs for no apparent reason or benefit. And the designers were too lazy or stupid or fearful of shocking audiences with something different to work out how their locomotion would be, because they had the horse-things run with the forelegs and middle legs moving in unison and the rear legs moving in opposite.
* The big, bad sergeant apparently hates Pandora because he got scars from some dumb animal; worst motivation ever. He’s a soldier – getting hurt is part of the job. Does this mean that if he got shot in combat in France, that he would dedicate the rest of his life to exterminating everything on Earth?
* Jake doesn’t seem upset about his brother’s death AT ALL. He watches them burning his twin brother’s corpse like he’s watching a documentary on mollusks.
* The Avatar project is the stupidest idea in the history of ideas. So the idea is that they spend millions of dollars to create clones of the aliens to make them like us? Clearly it didn’t work, so the project would have been scrapped immediately. The very idea makes no sense. This would be like the Europeans wearing make-up to look like the Native Americans. Or why didn’t the scientists just paint themselves blue and put on stilts? Or try to pass themselves off as real Na’vi and blend into the population to study them? Or pass themselves off as Na’vi and work to change their opinions from the inside?
* The Na’vi arrows bounce harmlessly off vehicles in one scene, then punch right through armored vehicles in others.
And so on.
hahahaha, Loved all of these, but there’s one minor correction.
I noticed the other day that there is one difference: the Na’vi have only 4 fingers, the avatar “hybrids” have 5.
Which just brings up even more stupidities and questions.
Yeah, you’re right about the fingers. And the eyes are apparently different. Which still doesn’t make sense. And I’m determined to help you get to 1001. Some more…
* There’s no explanation for how the Avatars are able to interface with the humans over long distances,
* Apparently the company has no knowledge of what Jake is doing or even where he is when he’s in the Avatars. So apparently the company invested millions on extremely expensive Avatar alien clones, but didn’t bother to put any kind of GPS tracking devices in them. “Yeah, go ahead and fly off to a remote location, and send our million-dollar alien clones out into the jungle. Let us know how that turns out…”
* Somewhat related: even though the Avatars are capable of transmitting what they see and hear to their drivers, the scientists apparently never figured out how to tap into the feed so they could see and hear what’s going on on a videoscreen or something like that to observe remotely.
* Jake’s voice is exactly the same as a Na’vi and as a human, even though the Pandoran atmosphere is supposed to be denser, and his Avatar has a larger chest, throat, etc.
* The Na’vi attacked the helicopter gunships with arrows, aiming for the windows and pilot, when a smarter strategy would have been to drop rocks or logs onto the oh-so-vulnerable propellers – instant crash.
* The Na’vi’s bones are supposedly reinforced with carbon fibre, but carbon is actually very soft and pliable. It’s only hard when it’s mixed with something else to form an alloy, which couldn’t occur “naturally.”
Oops, typo. That first one was supposed to be:
* There’s no explanation for how the Avatars are able to transmit information with the human drivers over long distances, unaffected by weather, distance, or terrain. Apparently, it works by magic. That’s because in reality, any kind of system of beamed transmission could be interrupted and cause the Avatars to collapse, useless.
* The AMP exoskeletons the military uses have hands so they can hold guns. It would be easier and make more sense to just bolt the guns onto the arms and skip the hands altogether
* The AMP exoskeletons also have big knives on them for fighting hand-to-hand. Could anyone have foreseen that the huge guns the suits carry wouldn’t do the job and they would need a huge knife, instead? They could also have put a chainsaw on it.
* The Na’vi have navels and breasts, even though Cameron has publicly stated that the Na’vi are not placental mammals.
* Once the company finds out that the Na’vi are capable of interfacing with every animal and every plant in the entire planet, they completely ignore the discovery to go after more unobtainium. That is, of course, instead of leaping on a discovery that could lead to untold applications that might make them more money than unobtainium ever could.
* The price of 20 million dollars a kilo for unobtainium is obviously meant to explain why the company would go to so much effort for it. However, the high price also limits demand, since only the wealthiest customers would be able to pay for it. So in reality, the profit would be quite low on this enterprise, certainly not enough to make it profitable.
* Yes, I know the name “unobtainium” is an established joke used in science circles. It’s still a crappy name to actually call something. It would have been easier and less jarring to call it something more realistic. Like “pandorite” or “pandoranium.”
* Neytiri explains to Jake that he’ll know when the Mountain Banshee “chooses” him because it will try to kill him. Any animal would react violently to someone jumping on its back, wrestling it to the ground, and forcing its mind-controlling tentacles into it. Neytiri’s statement implies that if the Mountain Banshee didn’t choose him, then it wouldn’t try to kill him. So if I were Jake, I would have gone with a Mountain Banshee that didn’t “choose” him.
* At one point, Jake dips his spear into a puddle of goo in a tree and sets it on fire to make a torch. Since Jake just arrived on the planet, has no knowledge or understanding of any native flora or fauna, and doesn’t have a torch at that point, he would have no way of knowing that the goo was flammable. It could easily have been a puddle of goo that would soak his torch and make it impossible to light.
* The dialogue is riddled with cliches that any film school student wouldn’t have gotten away with. “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” “Come get some.” “I didn’t sign up for this s**t.” “Let’s dance.” Really?! Cameron, you couldn’t have spent an extra five seconds to come up with some original lines?
* The “meals on wheels” line was insulting. No real soldier would make fun of another soldier’s war injury.
* The ending is a deux ex machina that comes out of nowhere and explains nothing. We’re supposed to believe that the Na’vi have been sitting on the ability to transfer someone’s mind from one body into another. Why? Because they can all sit together in front of the tree and sway and little tentacles come out and presto. Of course, if the Na’vi have this ability, then it would radically alter their society. No one would ever need to die – they could just take anyone who’s dying and transfer them into a dead body or even an animal’s body. But apparently they’ve been saving this incredible ability to use exclusively on Jake and Grace.
* The highly important USB connections of the Na’vi are completely unprotected and vulnerable. Instead of having them encased in some sort of casing or sheath, they’re exposed and dangling on the ends of their ponytails.
* Even though this is an alien planet that has evolved and developed completely independent of Earth, the Na’vi look and act just like Native Americans. They even use bows and arrows just like on Earth.
* The Na’vi have the ability to store the thoughts and memories of their ancestors in their trees, but are still living at a Stone Age level of technology. On Earth, the ability to record ideas was what led to all our technological progress. The Na’vi should actually be more advanced than humans.
* For all the claims about the imagination shown in the movie, the animals are all just variations of Earth creatures. An alien version of an elephant, an alien version of a panther, an alien version of a frog, an alien version of a pterodactyl, an alien version of a horse…
To add onto the last one…even ‘Star Wars” had more imaginative creatures than “Avatar.”
Monkey I’m trying to remember. Did we mention already the issue with Ms Weaver asking the boys when they arrive “how much link time have you logged”?
Also, something you reminded me: if the link to the avatars works across distance and geography… why don’t the scientists just work on the space ship and link into their avatars from there? Might be a little… you know… safer!
Why do the primitive people have the ability to perma transfer a person’s mind into their avatar but the people who invented it don’t?
Oh, and did we ask yet what happened to the humans who were allowed to stay behind but didn’t have avatars? What happens when their air runs out?
All good ones. I especially like the point about the remote access to the Avatars. Why bother even going to the planet – why not just activate the Avatars from Earth, since apparently the ability works long-distance. The part about the link time is good – Norm needed 500 hours to work his Avatar, Jake could do it in five minutes. Some more…
* Jake is attacked by a giant Thanator (a.k.a. giant panther-type monster) that chased him around the forest, crashed through trees, and tore down hills, until Jake finally had to jump off a cliff to get away from it. Even then, the creature looked like it’s still trying to get at him. This is what’s known as the “Hollywood super-predator syndrome.” In real-life, predators don’t fixate on a target and chase after it, ignoring its environment and its own safety. When it comes to attacking prey, predators have to balance energy gain vs. energy cost. It takes a lot of energy to chase down a running animal. The average lion sleeps twenty hours a day. If it takes more energy to chase down and catch its prey than it would gain from the meal, then the prey isn’t worth it. Most predators like lions and sharks that are well-fed won’t attack prey at all. Even if the Thanator was ravenously hungry, at a certain point it would realize that Jake was using up too much of its energy and back off. Certainly when it got a faceful of bullets, it would run away. I’ll give “Avatar” a slight pass on this, though, because this sort of unrealistic predator behavior
is common in movies (see “Jurassic Park”).
* Low gravity also would equal less water vapor and condensation, which means no lush rain forests.
* “Avatar” recycles a classic trope of a white guy being assimilated and ultimately leading a group of minorities to victory over his own race. It’s been done in “Dances With Wolves,” of course, but also “The Last Samurai” and dozens of others. The whole reason this cliched plot is popular with white people is that it eases their guilt about what they’ve done to minorities by giving whitey just desserts. But ultimately the plot ends up justifying their superiority, since the white traitor becomes the leader of the minorities. Why? Because he’s white.
* Jake Sully is a horrible character. He’s a blank slate who walks around being bitter and sarcastic. He’s ignorant and kind of stupid, especially compared to Norm, who’s intelligent and knows the Na’vi intimately. Really, Norm would have made a better hero. Even Dr. Augustine. Yet would have been a better hero than Jake.
* In a related problem, why would any Na’vi follow Jake Sully anywhere to do anything? His only credential is that he managed to tame a mythical creature, and Eywa seems to like him. Why either of these is the case is never explained in the movie. Other than that, Jake’s just a human controlling an alien clone. He knows nothing about Pandora that he wasn’t taught by the Na’vi, so he probably knows even less than the average Na’vi child. He was just a private in the army before going to Pandora, so he has no real leadership or tactical abilities. Yet somehow he manages to persuade every available Na’vi to join his fight. Why? Because the plot needed it. Here’s a tip for James Cameron; if you want your hero to be special, you need to give him
some some exceptional trait or ability. For example, take a look at Luke
Skywalker. Darth Vader’s line “The force is strong in this one” was all Lucas needed to establish why Skywalker was the hero.
* Neytiri gets angry at Jake, because she says the Viperwolves that attacked him didn’t need to die. I assume that she means that if Jake hadn’t wandered into the viperwolf pack, then they wouldn’t have attacked, so she wouldn’t have had to kill them. So why did she kill them? This situation must have come up in the past, where viperwolves attacked the Na’vi (since they had no problem attacking Jake and Neytiri). If the Na’vi are so dead-set against killing the viperwolves, then they would have developed a non-lethal way of dealing with viperwolf attacks. For example, Neytiri could have wrestled them to the ground, hooked up her USB braid to them and ordered them to leave.
* The Na’vi worship the interconnected network of their planet that they call Eywa. Realistically, the Na’vi should be more inclined to worship the gas giant Pandora orbits around, Polyphemus. Polyphemus is an enormous planet that’s hanging in the sky at all times. Every culture on Earth has worshipped major features like a mountain (Mount Tai in China) or river (Egyptians worshipped the River Nile) or the Moon. At the very least, Polyphemus would be equal to if not superior to the mysterious and shapeless god, Eywa.
I actually started a series on our blog GeekTwins on the flawed science of Avatar, expanding on some of these points. But let’s continue.
* At one point, a gecko-like thing pops out a helicopter blade from its back when Jake touches it. Not a good escape mechanism. It hovers in the air for a few seconds before it floats away. If the purpose is to escape from a predator quickly, it fails miserably. Jake could have just reached out and grabbed it.
* The Na’vi apologize to the animals that they kill, which is all very humane and civilized and compassionate. Except I didn’t see them apologizing to the dozens of soldiers they ruthlessly slaughtered.
* At the climactic battle, animals come rushing in to attack the RDA Corporation, and Neytiri says that Eywa sent them. Apparently, that means the animals happen to plug themselves into a tree just before the attack to get their instructions. Either that or Eywa connects to the animals by wi-fi as opposed to the Na’vi’s USB connection.
* There’s also a lack of imagination with the Na’vi. The Na’vi aren’t a truly developed alien society. Their appearance and customs are a pastiche of minorities on Earth (dreadlocks from Africa, war-paint from Native Americans).
* The first thing Neytiri does when she sees Jake is draw an arrow, presumably to try to kill him. This despite the fact that he was clearly an Avatar, which she should have been familiar with, since she knew Grace and the other scientists. For all she knew, Jake might have been sent to tell her people that the war was over, that they were leaving the planet, that they were offering themselves up as sacrifices to Eywa, any number of things that might not have been bad. But apparently the Na’vi have a kill-on-sight policy towards the Avatars, which makes me wonder what Grace did to piss them off so much. It also doesn’t speak well to the peace-loving nature of the Na’vi.
* Jake and all his other crew members were put in suspended animation for the five-year journey to Pandora. Why? It’s only five years. I can’t imagine that the equipment needed to put someone into suspended animation would be cheaper than some beds, food, and TV. There have to be risks involved in putting dozens of human beings into a death-like state and then reviving them. Even putting someone under anesthesia for a few hours is risky today. It’s not really worth risking some of them not coming out of suspension for five years. At the very least, it would probably be a good idea to spend at least six months giving these guys some education on the planet Pandora instead of dumping them on it with apparently no training whatsoever.
* The Direhorse is shown drinking pollen from a pitcher plant. The idea that an enormous animal like the direhorse could sustain itself by eating pollen like a honeybee is insane. There’s a reason that the only birds and insects that live on pollen are small. Pollen isn’t exactly packed with energy. It’s also ridiculous that any plant would produce pollen in enough quantities to sustain an animal as large as the Direhorse. In the movie, the Direhorse is shown lapping up gallons of goop. That’s not pollen – that’s more like sap.
* The RDA decides that the best way to eradicate the Na’vi is to send in helicopter gunships and mechs to bomb and destroy HomeTree. Instead of sending helicopters, war mechs, and bombing ships into the jungle to fight the Na’vi, the RDA Corporation could have taken a tip from Vietnam and used defoliation chemicals. Heck, they could have just sprayed down HomeTree all by itself and let it die. That would’ve been a lot easier and less prone to disaster than facing off an army of alien warriors.
Can I join in on the beat-down?
“Realistically, the Na’vi should be more inclined to worship the gas giant Pandora orbits around, Polyphemus. Every culture on Earth has worshipped major features like a mountain (Mount Tai in China) or river (Egyptians worshipped the River Nile) or the Moon.”
Well, to be fair not every culture has worshiped major features. There are also major cultures who worshipped/worship metaphysical ideas and human unity and leaders and….Barry Manilow. Cameron was probably trying to go for a more pantheistic vibe (the Creator Deity is one with it’s Creation as opposed to a separate entity outside of space/time) . Unfortunately, he manages to botch the hell out of this by turning into something closer to new-age claptrap. Yeah, Voltaire would have not been amused.
On another note, what is the lifespan of these Avatar bodies? They’re clones using human and Navi DNA for infiltration and subterfuge in a short time-frame. What happens when time runs out? Is Jake going to die in five years? Will his molecules become unstable and cause him to melt into a puddle of protoplasmic goo? Will he mutate into a monster from Resident Evil?
Ooh! I hope it’s option 3! Nothing like a zombie apocalypse to spice up the sequel.
…and yes, that is the only thing that would make me pay money to see more of that tripe.
Yeah, you’re right, ftidus. The part about worshiping Polyphemus is dubious. But I guess my point was to challenge the Na’vi’s religious beliefs. Exactly why do they worship Eywa at all? Especially if part of their belief system is that Eywa is indifferent to their actions, like they told Jake. So there’s this powerful being controlling the entire planet that no one can see, but controls everything, and may or may not help you if you get into trouble…yeah, I’ll get right on that. Every religious belief on Earth has some variation of “worship her/him/it, and he/she/it will reward you.” But not Eywa.
the religen of the Na’vi is based on real Abrigenal colturs so read up on them and you will get why James chose them to be monotheistic and worship Eywa.
P.S. F.Y.I. Eywa = earth mother.
Real Aboriginal Cultures rarely worshiped a single entity (even those who did worshiped a “supreme guiding force” gave equal honor and worship to “lesser spirits/gods”) as such they were polytheists.
Now if you want to argue, “well, they’re aliens and very different from humans, so maybe they would be monotheistic. ” , I would grant that.
But you cannot say that they were based on “real cultures” or indigenous practices resembling anything close to what happened on Earth. Sorry, I have read on Aboriginal Cultures. I recommend you do the same.
Shhh! ftidus – you’ll scare the trolls off. They’re good for hits, man. 😉
Oops, sorry, Nate. Didn’t mean to duplicate your point about the animals being called by Eywa. Gotta go back and re-read your original rant
Bah, some of this stuff is so bad, it deserves to be mentioned twice!
(oh, and I’m going to add a link to your post now as well)
* The line between the military and mercenaries is intentionally obscured. It’s made clear that the soldiers are mercenaries, not active soldiers, but almost immediately they’re portrayed as if they were acting soldiers. The RDA have military rankings, operate with military precision, and have military equipment and uniforms. Cameron obviously wanted to attack the military, but didn’t want to be accused of being un-American. So he called them “mercenaries,” and then moved on with the attack.
* Quaritch says, “We must fight terror with terror.” How exactly are the Na’vi terrifying the RDA? I didn’t see the RDA shivering in terror at the sight of the Na’vi coming at them. The Na’vi weren’t using terroristic tactics on the RDA. This was just a heavy-handed attempt to put a political message into the movie, and a bad one at that.
* Going back to the wheelchair…even if we accept that Jake can’t afford to fix his legs, why is he using an old-school non-motorized wheelchair? Motorized wheelchairs are affordable in this day and age. The movie is set a hundred and fifty years in the future. You can’t tell me that a motorized wheelchair would be *more* expensive than it is now.
* There’s no reason why they would assign the chief’s daughter to teach Jake their ways. They could’ve had anyone train Jake. This would be like some random Australian soldier landing on the shores of the US, and the President walks up to him and says, “We need to teach you our ways. Here, take my daughter.”
* The message of the movie is riddled with contradictions. Cameron created a movie about the evils of advanced technology using advanced technology. The story criticizes the brutality and violence of humans, but resolves the conflict with the brutality and violence of the Na’vi.
@Monkey Migraine
Ah, you see? This is what I’ve come to call “Under the Dome Syndrome” (yes, named after the Stephen King book). It occurs when a usually competent filmmaker or author is in such a hurry to bludgeon the audience to death with their political views that they forgo the basics of good story telling and/or end up creating plot holes so big that you could fly a Mon Calamari cruiser through them.
Just face it…your a right wing Republican. Find something more constructive to disagree with…sheeesh….
I’m about as lefty as you can get and even I thought this movie was a load of dross and bullshit.
1. dude you real didn’t get the mesege did you? go and read up on Real indigenous culturs then rewatch the movie.
2. are you the kind of moron that thought the human G.I. Jose were the good guys?
3. It only sucked to you because you can not see.
4. the animles they were not riding drangons. they were riding a typ of taradactle and they don’t put there feet into the breathin holes the put a special satle on them so they don’t.
5. read number 1
6. look it wasn’t a cure for canser i was just a bunch of rocks. how would you like it if you and your family lived some where for thousands of years and someone came along and took it just because they think there better than you and they can take what ever they want.
7. the tiers would not be flat unles the same things the arows are made of are sharpened.
8. the reson we can’t breath the air on pandora is because it is nonpaluded air and the are on earth in the movie is all paluded and humans have evalved to breath paluded air.
9. it is not just a “world mind” is is Eywa witch is their god.
10. ins not their bones its there bows that are mad of a carbon fiber.
1. I got the message. The message was that James Cameron ripped off “Dances with Wolves”, stripped out any pretense towards reality or accurate characterization in favor of boring stereotypes and inaccurate generalizations, hiding it all behind graphics and pretty music.
2. GI Jose? Real Mexican Hero? I love those guys! My favorite is Sargento Slaughter, who is just like Sgt. Slaughter, except that every time he kicks a terrorist, someone on the Argentinian Soccer Team explodes! It’s awesome!
3. I’m pretty sure everyone’s vision is fine. Except for Daredevil, of course.
4. Taradactyle? Must be a new D&D monster (right next to the “Drangons”, which I guess are Dragons that spew Drano as opposed to flame). Never heard of a Taradactyle. I have however, heard of Pterodactyls, which I assure these things are not.
5. Ok. *reads* Now what?
6. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Star Trek already answered that question.
7. Yeah, but those are tier 2, I need at least a tier 4 epic load out (all runed, of course) before going into the Stygian Abyss!
8. Wait, we evolved the ability to breathe Carbon Monoxide and other toxic fumes? Damn, the future humans are awesome! We’ve become like better looking versions of the Ghouls from Fallout. Suck it, Al Gore!
9. Wait, she’s a Witch? Oh crap, turn off your lights guys. We’ve already lost Francis, and we are only a few minutes away from the safe room, I DO NOT need to startle another one.
10. Wow, even their bows are pissed off. You know a race has anger issues when even their weapons are visibly upset.
GI Jose was always my favorite. I remember when El Cobra Capitan fought Chica J. Epic battle.
Its a movie. Since when was a science fiction EVER supposed to be ‘right’. If people put so mcuh effort into arguing petty things like this it’s no wonder the world is as messed up as it is. Seriously, go do something productive.
No, Riley. I daresay the world is “messed up as it is” because of humorless bores like you who can’t smile and enjoy some fun at Cameron’s expense and then decry others for not being “productive” (as if making whiny comments is somehow a “productive” measure).
Given that Nate is an entertaining writer, I’d say he’s been very productive. How about you?