Yep. When Earth gets word of what these blue terrorist savages have done, the calls to "glass the planet" should be undeniable. Oh, and I did a when it was suggested that there was no more green on Earth...
Despite all that, i'm still going to see it in the theater. CGI fascinates me to no end and it's just a lot better seeing it all on the big screen. No plot? For this, I don't really give a shit.
How much "green" was on the planet in pre roman times? How much 150 years ago? Compare that with what we have now. Now multiply that difference by ...maybe 4 (should be exponential) and it's not that hard to project. Wisdom is seeing a problem and fixing it before it's a problem. Fools only fix problems After they become problems.
Despite that... I saw Avatar being a mix of Alien, Dances With Wolves, Any army-with-walking-tank video game, a little Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy in there. I'm going to see it next with a friend in 3d at the IMAX.
I think you'll find that the ancients and the modern poor use land much less efficiently than we do. We're in no danger of running out of "greenness." And you should also look up the name Thomas Malthus who caused a great panic in his time because he assumed current trends would continue to catastrophe; they won't.
boxofficemojo.com is reporting a domestic weekend gross of $73-million. While that's pretty damn good, it certainly doesn't reach blockbuster levels. Worldwide gross is $232-million so with DVD/Blu-Ray it looks like the film will not be a financial flop.
It's 9th on the all time worldwide opening weekends, it's got plenty of time to go yet. edit: Interestingly, it's worldwide total is already way above what Star Trek took in.
I suspected this movie might suck, but it was actually pretty good. I might see it again. The plot was predictable and straightforward, but I prefer this to being looped with crap that implodes on itself and makes no sense. The screenplay was by far the weakest point. The strongest points are definitely the visuals and the production value, and sci-fi/fantasy geeks will enjoy the "universe elements" that Cameron has created about the natives, which are not overly complex and quite tasteful. As for the political messages, I don't really care. Let Hollywood have their leftist circle-jerk; it doesn't make or break a good movie.
One writer pointed out that there is an innate hypocrisy in saluting such anti-capitalist, nature loving, back to the earth propaganda, when the film itself is the result of private enterprise, technological advancement and disbursed through the established capitalist infrastructure. Oh, and Littleflow has the space horse, and now the smurf action figure, both from her McDonald's Happy Meal.
Box office was undoubtedly affected by the major east coast winter storm that hit this weekend, tho. I bet that knocked a lot of dollars off that total. If you can't get out of your driveway, you can't go to the movies.
Considering that it is over a 5 year trip one way, it would be difficult to stage a full scale invasion. Destroying the planet with nuclear weapons would make it more difficult to mine the mineral.
Be interesting to track. IIRC, Titanic didn't take off like a rocket either. It had legs and built an audience.
I only read page 3 of this thread. But I'll no doubt sound familiar, there's really not much room to differ on this one. It was a lot of fun, despite the paint-by-numbers approach that Rob mentioned. Maybe in a couple of places they used a bit of purple in a space that called for blue, but it was all ground well covered, except for the cool graphics. SP really nailed it with the Dances with Smurfs tag. Right down to bows and arrows and horses (though the flying beasties were fun). And I even saw some Last of the Mohicans in there too (like when he first entered the village as an outsider to all the heckling and catcalls, or when the she-smurf appeared from nowhere to save him from the pack of pursuing native beasts). Still, all that's quibbling, the movie was fun and I agree it shouldn't flop. That is, as long as you can get over the fact that story-wise the plot of the movie was outdone by a mediocre episode of Stargate SG-1 (think Salish indians, Trinium (instead of "unobtainium") a/k/a the key). Although calling it "unobtainium" was a stroke of genius, imo. Soon Gaia may conquer all, we'd better watch ourselves.
It's not even that original because in the rarely seen sci-fi movie The Core, that was the name of the material that allowed the terra-nauts to drill all the way to the Earth's core. I kind of rolled my eyes when I read that. But still, I'm going to see it in theaters and I most likely will pick up the BD.
It predates even The Core, BTW. The earliest use of that term that I know of goes back to the concept cars of the 1950s, when GM, Ford, etc. had their "Cars of the 21st Century" designs, they claimed that the cars would be powered by "unobtainium fuel!"
Um... WTF. The bold does not follow from the underlined. If there's no resemblance between the Taliban and the Nav'i (and there's even less than you've said, because not only do the Nav'i talk to their god, she talks back), you shouldn't have any problem with the Earthlings being the bad guys, even if they are portrayed as Americans. You clearly came into this with a chip on your shoulder. Last I checked, the corporatist-fascist imperialism that appears to be the system of government on Earth in this movie is a Bad Thing™. The Alliance in Firefly are the bad guys, and even though that's half American, half Chinese, you never see an Asian officer on the Dortmunder or any other Alliance cruiser. Please. If blowing up Alderran to coerce the location of a rebel base isn't so over-the-top evil as to break suspension of disbelief, then this guy certainly isn't. Were we watching the same movie? The protagonist was on the main base for a few days, tops, before being moved out to the mountain facility, at which all of his friends were and they were on his side in the battle. They can literally feel and communicate with just about any life form on the planet, and you're surprised they're any different from people on Earth? Hello? They're ALIENS! They only hit you over the head with the theme of "this place looks like paradise on Earth but it's really fucking different in every way that matters." about a hundred times throughout the course of the movie. They start at moment one with the poisonous atmosphere. Then the bioluminescence in EVERYTHING. The FLYING MOUNTAINS. It was implied that he was injured after being in the military. If you're a fascist government, what's the best way to ensure obedience than to ration health care? They kinda hit you over the head with this too. Now, that's not to say that the story basically wasn't "Fern Gully 2: Fairies... in... SPACE!", but a lack of originality in the story isn't what you're decrying. And I've never seen a not-terribly original story look SOOO good. ***1/2 / ****
Well, Paladin's review explains a lot. About him, not the movie. Why did you even bother especially when you heard how I talked about it? Movie soldiers do not equal troops in Afghanistan. Join the Peace Corps and goto any third world nation for a while. Go Dance with the Smurfs for a while.
This movie is a commentary on current events. The audience is intended to think the situation shown in the film is representative of the here and now. But Cameron is so ham-handed as a storyteller, he has to turn the antagonists into cartoons in order to fit his vision. Which should tell you that his vision is just wrong. To respond to O2C's points: 1. The only thing I saw that was representative of Earth were caricatures of American-style capitalists and an American-style military. The Alliance in Firefly does not, beyond its size and tendency to meddle, share much in common with the U.S. government; the Alliance is not a satire of or a commentary on contemporary U.S. governance. 2. Re: Alderaan, etc. I would never accuse Star Wars of being intellectually or artistically deep. But leave it to Cameron to create a film where the CGI-things look real and the human actors play cartoons. 3. You're right about him moving out after a time, but it's not really specified how long. It's largely immaterial: he decides to kill members of his own species pretty readily. 4. The Nav'i are über-idealized in order to contrast them to those imperialist Americans. They take all the "noble savage" idealisms of anti-westerners and amplify them: they're harmonious with nature, they want nothing to do with technology, they're peaceful, etc. None of this is true with real primitive tribes. 5. I wonder what sort of evolutionary mechanism would enable all of these creatures on this planet to "link up." It's the collectivist ideal: one mind for the entire world... 6. I don't buy the "can't afford to fix his spine" nonsense. It's 2154. I should think there will be a few advancements between now and then. Sorry, just couldn't believe this as a plot point. And if they intended a fascist government, they should've SHOWN me a fascist government instead of elements that seem familiar to my own... 7. I maintain this movie has a political point to make and it's in that spirit that I'm addressing it. As a westerner, an American, a capitalist, and someone who supports our military, I was offended by quite a lot of this film. I'd still recommend it for the technical artistry, but I'd advise caution about buying into its premises...
You should see it in the theaters in 3D. It's pretty amazing there. These aren't "American soldiers" per se, certainly not in their ideals or mindset as we would consider them for the past 100 years or so. These are people fighting an aggressive war to move people off their land to strip that land of their resources. They do not recognize any rights of those people. These soldiers are perfectly willing -- eager, even -- to murder women and children to get what they want and who sneer at diplomacy and hope to sear a defeat into the "racial memory" of the Nav'i. I have no problem separating them from what American soldiers are actually doing these days. There's even less than you would have here. The Nav'i are clearly on their own land and did not launch attacks on the "Americans." (At least, not that I saw, having missed the very beginning of the movie.) All they want is to be left alone. One cannot say that of the Taliban. The Nav'i seem to have a fairly egalitarian culture. One cannot say that of the Taliban. The Taliban live in a desert. The Nav'i live in a techno-jungle. As the movie makes clear, the God of the Nav'i has an objective, scientific basis of some sort. All the indigneous life forms of Pandora are connected, and there's somehow a neural network linking every one. If anything, one could make the argument that the Earth military is closer to an analogy to the Taliban than the Nav'i. The Earth military strikes without warning and with a disregard to international norms. It attacks a main population center of the Nav'i, inflicting terror, depression and anger among them. It sends in people who look like us and pretend to want to learn from us but really want to infiltrate us and weaken us for a strike. YMMV, but I don't think that it's impossible to conceive of a military leader who is contemptuous of aliens and doesn't care about collateral damage to them. At least, it's no more impossible than all the rest of the stuff we're expected to buy into: space ships, neural links between Nav'i and beasts, avatars, etc. 1. As you pointed out, the movie made a big point of his conversion to one of the Nav'i. As such, I don't think that fighting "former friends" would be a big deal. He left his old life behind for his new one. 2. Even if he hadn't, being relatively unconflicted about killing those military people makes sense. Put yourself in the main character's place. You've spent three months learning about this other culture. You are hoping for a peaceful solution to the potential conflict between their people and yours. Without warning, though, your people send in machines and an army and essentially destroy the homeland of the group that you've been with. They intend to destroy more indiscriminately. They aren't even offering terms of surrender. Would you be broken up about fighting to defend those people, even if it meant going up against some people you knew? Would you call people who sanction the mass slaughter of innocents "friends"? 3. From the movie, it's clear that Sully spends about 3 months on Pandora (the time it would take to bring in the bulldozers). Most of that time seems to be in avatar form and even while he was human, a good portion of that was in the separate science hideaway rather than on the military base. So very few of his "friends" would be on the base. Moreover, almost all the people he was close to were fighting by his side. The one dude who wasn't was being an inside man in HQ and not fighting. 1. They're not on the top of the food chain. Clearly that big-ass flying beast is above them, as are the mastodon-things. 2. I don't get where you say they "don't seem to have evolved much sense of aggressiveness." First of all, they have hunters and warriors. The one warrior talks about how he could kick Sully's ass easily. Second, as you just pointed out, they spend the last part of the movie giving the Earth soldiers all the aggression they can handle. We didn't really see enough of how these tribes operated to know how free they are of these defects. There did seem to be some sort of honor/shame system involved in the Nav'i (for instance, when Jake was told he could not speak). There clearly was xenophobia, which is a defect that plagues real-world tribal systems. And if you were to ask the military or the corporation in charge of the Earth effort, they would consider the Nav'i backward and savage. I suppose by the same token depending on how you looked at any given actual tribal system, you might not see these aspects you call defects as such. If you're going to equate murderous forces who are going to ignore the Nav'i's property rights and take their land with western culture, then you might have a point. I personally think western culture is more than that. And I wouldn't say that the navi are superior to real western culture in all ways. Their non-democratic structure and their xenophobia would be two areas I see as weaknesses. In the movie I saw, the primitives got some licks in but were about to get their asses kicked. Jake Sully seemed to be the only one holding his own, with the assistance of the baddest flier on the planet. The only reason the Nav'i won was the indigneous beasts also came to aid in the fight. The best they choose to afford for him is a wheelchair. Clearly they can afford to grow him actual legs. Presumably they could get him better prosthetics that work like the battlesuits they have. 1. Who's to say what the cost is of a more effective solution will be a hundred and 50 years from now? 2. Who's to say that they should or would be willing to pay that cost? Even now, employers don't pay for every reasonable cost for their employees. Neither do many militaries, from what I gather, forcing individual soldiers to pay for their own body armor and equipment. The complicated hardware has a purpose, is an unavoidable expense, and would have paid for itself many times over. Repairing this particular soldier doesn't have a specific purpose. There are many others like him. And he is still useful without full mobility. Almost anything he does in the movie (at least the bulk of it that I saw) can be done equally well with or without functioning legs. There's always room for Avatar 2 if this does well. I assume there would be a technobabble way out of nuking the planet from orbit. "It would make the unobtainium useless." That's not the question Speck raised. The question was whether the planet was more "green" in Roman times, and 150 years ago, than it is now. Despite our increased efficiency, I think the only honest answer was that yes, the planet was more "green" back then because we've introduced an increasing amount of pollutants since then and we've used a fair amount of resources. It seems ironic that you would cite Malthus and his failed predictions within a few sentences of your certainty that we're in no danger of running out of "greenness." We don't know what the world is going to be like 150 years from now, or even 20 years from now. We don't know what the fictional world of "Avatar" did in those 150 years. It doesn't take much to believe that it wold have used up much of its resources. Even accepting that he has to turn the antagonist into cartoons, that says nothing about his vision. It says everything about his ability as a storyteller. People turn their antagonists into cartoons in support of all sorts of visions, particularly in sci-fi. "Star Trek" has tons of antagonists who are cartoons, but that doesn't mean that we should be prejudiced or consider humans irrational and fundamentally evil creatures because Gene Roddenberry and co. used cartoonish characters to support the notion of equality and human potential for growth, does it? There was also the academics who wanted to learn from and about the Nav'i, and Jake Sully, who was willing to be an ambassador of sorts to them until the military made it clear it didn't care about diplomacy whatsoever. I don't understand how you can have these two sentences next to one another and hold them to both be true at the same time. Is there anything to the Alliance beyond its size and tendency to meddle? Again, the Nav'i somehow have evolved or had installed some sort of global neural net. So much for having nothing to do with technology. Again, the Nav'i have warriors and hunters among them, and as shown in the movie will fight if provoked. Being peaceful isn't anti-Western. It's not a collectivist ideal because the one mind doesn't do the thinking for the entire world, and each individual mind retains its own identity, at least after all is said and done. Indeed, if anything, the Nav'i have anti-collectivist roots. Each person has one mate for life. Each person has one space horse that he bonds with by subduing and that he chooses and the space horse chooses back. Each person has one space raptor that he chooses by subduing it and it chooses back. The land they live on belongs to them, and is not for anyone else to take. The murder of countless innocents seems familiar to your own?
For Paladin. http://www.avclub.com/articles/going-navi-why-avatars-politics-are-more-revolutio,36604/ The comments go on to defend his point as well.
You do know he wrote the script 15 years ago. It is as relevant as titanic was too the war in afghanistan. Sometimes a scifi eco film is just a what it looks like.
Seen it. Bit heavy-handed in the contemporary references in places, but it was excellent, including the story and the environmental/anti-war theme. On that I agree with Paladin on what it was aiming for, but am diametrically opposed in my opinion of it.
You know, it occurs to me that having the Navi sell the company a floating mountain full of unobtanium, for no less than a handful of beads and maybe an iPhone, would've been just as appropriate a historical allegory.
