Avatar (2009)

[J-WO]

Quaritch has seen a lot of nasty stuff back home on earth. Its possible he thinks that by doing 'what has to be done' on Pandora, Earth will have the resources to become a better place.

[Dave]

It is clearly Imperialism. European Imperialism was given justification which today we find uncomfortable, but which at the time was seen as logical, plausible and not at all controversial. Quaritch is defending Earth. Pandora is an 'empty land', which is not being used efficiently or productively.

[Vertigo]

Saw this film a couple of nights ago on DVD (no 3D) and have to say I was both massively impressed and blown away and also massively disappointed.

The special effects were quite astonishing and I was blown away by them; they really are getting steadily closer to reality with them.

The story was incredibly disppointing and yet could have been so much better. The basic idea and plot were very good and very promising. But the detail let it down massively. I felt that large elements of the story had been manufactured simply to show off the clever and remarkable special effects. This is surely the wrong way around.

My biggest problem with the film though was the complete lack of believability. Now I know that one should suspend disbelief for these kind of things and maybe I'm being picky but I really felt that they pushed this too far.

Pandora is a low gravity world so, yes, people and animals would be able to grow bigger. But they would be much, much more fragile and weaker than anything coming from a higher gravity. The film even admitted as much in the scene where the colonel was exercising. And yet the natives were far tougher as well as bigger than the humans (witness them tossing humans out of the shuttle with such ease).

The kind of weaponry that the humans would have had would have given them a much greater advantage over the natives than was shown.

The floating mountains were never given any real explanation, how come they seem to defy gravity but everything on them doesn't and the rock with the big waterfall that they showed so often simply wasn't big enough to accumulate that much water.

If the natives could do that transfer of conciousness thing then they should have been effectively immortal (barring accident and war).

The happily everafter ending doesn't allow for the fact that when the humans get back to Earth they will simply return and nuke the natives who had "savagely massacred their peacefull first contact forces". There is no way the few humans that remained could lift the native technology quickly enough to survive a concerted and sensibly lead attack from space.

And finally who on Earth (literally) thought "Unobtainium" was a good name for the stuff they were mining. A name like that might have been suitable for a spoof like Galaxy Quest, but a relatively serious film like this I'm sorry but it is ridiculous.

There were many more small details that failed for me but those are a few that spring to mind.

It was a visually spectacular film but that is really all I can say in its support.

[Rodders]

See, the thing about this sort of movie is that it's entertainment and as I really enjoyed it, it definately did it's job. I'll be looking forward to seeing the sequels and this time, i'll be seeing them at the cinema and in 3D just as Cameron envisaged them. (I just hope that they're not as bad as the Matrix sequels.)

[Rothgar]

On that note, I read that they are actually talking about making more Matrix movies soon. How or why I don't know.

[Rodders]

Yeah, there's another thread on these forums. Personally, i'm really looking forward to these. OK, the sequels weren't as good as we wanted them to be but i think that a prequel would be excellent.

[Thadlerian]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

And finally who on Earth (literally) thought "Unobtainium" was a good name for the stuff they were mining.

Probably the same kind of people who made up "quark". Not to mention "strange quark" and "charm quark", i.e. scientists.

[Hilarious Joke]

Bloody scientists!

[clovis-man]

Originally Posted by Thadlerian

Probably the same kind of people who made up "quark". Not to mention "strange quark" and "charm quark", i.e. scientists.

Yeah. Not to mention those pesky joules and ergs.

[shaun45]

amazing film well worth the money it cost to make it i hope the make another like it

[brownwhite]

Great Movie. I m bigfan of avatar and the last airbender........

[Thadlerian]

Originally Posted by brownwhite

Great Movie. I m bigfan of avatar and the last airbender........

We might not be referring to the same pop-cultural entity here. This thread is about the movie Avatar by James Cameron. You might be talking about the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, an equally brilliant show by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. As far as I'm aware, no thread exists for the latter, but that is easily remedied.

[Starbeast]

I thought the movie was ok, seemed like another "cowboys vs indians" to me, and I kept thinking of current countries being attacked with high technology while the native people fight back with rocks and faith in God. I probably won't watch it again.

[Rodders]

Personally, i loved Avatar and watched it several times. (I'm even considering getting a Blu Ray player so that i can see it in high definition.)

I didn't see it in 3D, which is a shame.

[TedKeller]

I also enjoyed Avatar immensely, and yes, shoddy plot taped together by rule of cool spit and gum, but so what? Sure the Earthlings could have just done an orbital bombing without going all 'Nam on the Naavi. Sure it's a mishmash of apparently dozens of ripped off concepts from the gold age of sci-fi and beyond. But watching it gave such a rush. And I bet that just like Star Wars it gave a temporary boost to everyone pitching 'sci-fi' projects to the bigwigs.