Avatar post-release discussion - Page 20

Is it me or did Jake and Grace not even attempt to negogiate the relocation of the Naavi until the assault started? Jake could've at least attempted to buld up to the topic, but instead he choose to galant around with his girl friend. Pretty thoughtless of him.

The avatar team is mostly scientists, and as is perfectly clear in the movie, they're not particularly fond of the military part of the operation (notice that the only ones leaving at the end are the mercenaries, we don't see one single scientist, not that I noticed anyway).

edit: that was in answer to Tati.

They could have explained the current state of the universe better. Was the Na'vi the only other intelligent lifetime ever discovered by humans?

Well, Ribisi's character did give off the vibe that they genuinely thought it might do some good too, and that he wouldn't be entirely opposed to a peaceful resolution if it was possible.*

But that's basically 100% inferring stuff that isn't explicitly there, if I remember correctly. I can't exactly remember the line referencing it being a PR stunt.


ETA: Although, the whole peaceful resolution thing would seemingly only serve to further the PR stunt part of it.

Even still - the tech seems utterly beyond groundbreaking. There should be about a zillion better applications for it. I wish they had even quickly addressed this.

With the suits breathing down his neck on running time? Never gonna happen.

That's no excuse though. That only serves to highlight things that should've been addressed when the script was being hammered out. And that includes the fact that there was never enough time to shove in everything "necessary" to make this a more compelling story.

Norm's in bad trouble it seems- he's dead if he stays, because the Na'vi don't have the technology to make air for him to breathe, or he's dead if he goes back to Earth because they'll surely execute him as a traitor.

Would've been nice if the movie had addressed this.

How is it that this movie is 160 minutes long and yet still leaves so many things hanging? Other movies tell the same story in much less time.

Please. It would make more sense to have Avatars doing mining ops than research. It would make more sense to have the soldiers using Avatar bodies to engage in ground combat. It would have actually been cool, visually and thematically, to have heavily weaponized Avatars battling Na'vi.

I would think a few lines of dialogue dedicated to this conundrum would have done the job in a few seconds.

/sarcasm, dude(s).

*EDIT* The "overthinking" Advocate is spot on for this film. This thing unravels so quickly the more it is even barely given thought.

So why was Weaver's avatar the bustiest na'vi? I wasn't the only one that noticed that...right?

also, with Dre's comment on the last page about the connection to video games, I was waiting for an avatar to die, and then a cut back to the Avatar Coffin with a character coming out saying "game over man, game over"

Speaking of which... did anyone else find it jarring, given the circumstances in the film, to see Jake flying on his new savior-dragon while firing a high-tech machine gun from the eeeeevil military?

The avatars are supposed to be Na'vi/human hybrids, so let's hear it for dominant traits. That, or Grace scored an upgrade.

Has it been discussed that Neyteri outlines that the dragons are mated with for life and here is Jakesully mating with a second dragon?

I think that simply means that from that moment on they'll submit without a struggle. Women, take note, you can learn a lot from a bansheeray.

It's clearly stated that they're polygamists.

Wha!? I will readily admit that by the time she takes him to meet her dragon no less than half the dialogue was already filtering in one ear and out the other but I clearly recall her saying they are mated with for life.

The dragons will only ride with one Na'vi.
Jake can do whatever he wants with others though. At least that's how i understood it. Besides, the big fucker was a different kind of dragon.

Anyone NOT know from the instant she tells him that only 5 times ever that dragon had been ridden that Jake was going to ride one?

Sure why not. Companies make Commercials all the time telling how good they are and in the meantime they just dumped chemicals into your drinking water. Why not a company in the future telling its friendly population that "Hey look at us were trying to be all nice to the natives by trying to understand them".

I bet back on Earth there are probably Na'vi Documentaries running on TV explaining what there doing non stop. Its good for the public image when your main goal is to make money.

She might be exaggerating a bit by "mated with for life" when all mating takes is quickly inserting your usb cord into someone else's usb cord.

EDIT: that is how they mate, right? with their hair cords? Or did cameron have the na'vi wear loincloths to get that pg-13 rating?

The polygamy thing was sort of a joke, btw.


But I took it to mean the mated for life thing is a one way street. The Na'vi can sleep around if they want.

Personally, I think the whole thing was a nasty metaphor aimed at his exes, with the red dragon standing in for Kathryn Bigelow; and people say Cameron can't do subtext. Ha!

After looking over the many replies in this thread it reminds me why I stopped hanging out in forums in the first place. It's like watching a cat chase it's tail for hours. It's never gonna catch that goddamn tail! But at the same time, you can't help but watch. It's almost addictive.

Devin's advocate about talking about movies is understandable. It can be fun, although sometimes I find that it turns into a pissing contest about who's right and who's wrong.

One man's trash could be another man's treasure.

I'm not sure Avatar will have legs to carry it throughout the years. I'm not sure if it's an age thing but there are only a few movies I can return to over and over again. And I think it's strictly about feeling Nostalgic My favorite movie of all time isn't even a great film. Bram Stokers dracula because it was the first novel I read at the age of 12 on the cusp of becoming a teenager, it was one of the last movies I saw with my mom and I love vampires.

Recently I can't get enough of the movie Stardust. I think that film is a perfect fantasy adventure that works on every level.

I loved Children of men, District 9, the new Star Trek, but upon repeat viewings I feel the ADD kick in and my mind wanders. They don't hold my interest like some films do.

Cameron's movies are usually low brow enough to appeal to that wide audience. Never too smart and never too dumb, it's like a middle ground between District 9 and transformers, which is why I think it will resonate with a lot of people.

After considering the paths Cameron could have taken with this movie I felt he missed a lot of opportunities. I wish there was more time spent on Earth, showing how bad it has become. Showing Jake's life and how depressing it is. His daily routine, maybe him and his wife/gf weren't getting along, and when his twin brother died it is revealed that they were having an affair to add insult to injury. Jake considers taking his life when the suits show up.

Also with The character of Grace, maybe it would have been important to have her human body dying of lung cancer due to the cigarettes she keeps sucking back. Her mission there was to find a way to permanently bond with her Avatar thus saving her life.

The whole mystical dance chanting routine of the Navi to upload Grace or Jakes body into the tree could have been completely done away with. At the end of the movie Eywa should have saved Jake after he had been badly hurt, and about to die. Saving him in an Act of god, miracle way.

You saw a bit of this, as Jake's avatar flew his shadow dragon wielding a machine gun and gernades. In slow motion! I found it to be a funny image because I kinda thought, "HYPOCRITE!" in my head. Of course, it was only cool visually.

EDIT: Damnit joey... should've refreshed before I posted...

Figured as much. This movie is making people dumber.

Wasn't the "mating for life" between one Na'vi and another? I don't remember them using the term "mated" in relation to the flying beasts. They just said a beast will only imprint on one Na'vi.

And the braid seems like it was just for communication, not procreation.

There's not a single surprising moment in the movie. I remember piecing together how the movie would play out when they released the last trailer - from the training scenes to the eventual betrayal reveal to how they resolve the avatar/body relationship - and it's almost exactly how I'd imagined it, which made for an awfully boring 2.5 hours.

anyone else find the "handcuffs" kinda funny?

There is nothing even remotely funny in Avatar.

I thought the 'handcuffs' were funny. I thought they were slappers too, Judd.

I thought the same thing as soon as I saw them but didn't want to cuff my jeans to ask anyone else if they did too.

Has anyone compared this to the original 'scriptment/treatment'?

It was a long time ago, but it doesn't SEEM to be altered in very many ways.
I think I remember some initial small skermish with a small group of Na'vi attacking the base for some reason (after Jake started uniting the tribes)...which resulted in Lang's 'fight terror with terror' spiel.

Or maybe I'm just filling in the blanks that didn't 'sit well' during my initial view.

I loved that juxtaposition.

Not so much as it made me think, "Oh, so this has all been an excuse to get a guy riding a dragon, firing a machine gun at helicopters with large amounts of action shit happening!" This was not the first time I thought this during the film.

The military implications of this technology are obvious (as you mentioned, that would have been cool to see) plus the ability to control another body leads to a Surrogate kind of situation and even opens the possibility of eternal life!

Cameron's excuse for those things was that it was "really expensive", but really, if you have this tech I rather see what's going on with Earth in relation to that rather than see it applied to genetically engineered alien-human hybrids.

BTW, again the whole soul transfer ceremony was BS and just a lazy way to get us to that horrible ending. It was shown and explained in the worst way possible.

Come ON, people...channel your inner 14-year old!

Can you imagine a 14 year old that would want to pretend to be somebody as boring as "Jakesully"?

I'm also really curious to see how the Avatar action figures sell, outside of the mechs I don't see kids wanting to play with the stupid looking Na'vi figures.

"Can you imagine a 14 year old that would want to pretend to be somebody as boring as "Jakesully"?"

Why is a 14 year old pretending to be somebody from a movie? When I was 14 I was going through puberty and chasing girls??

As I was walking out of the theater I could hear the 10/12 year old in front of me talking about how it was the greatest movie he's ever seen and how he hopes for a sequel.

I think Cameron has the younger demographic locked in.

So, anytime you're wondering why Cameron used cinematic shorthand to convey the "Don't fuck over indigenous peoples" message, and why subtlety doesn't work when you're trying to sell a fancy film to middle America, keep this bookmarked. Then, maybe, inhale a bottle of whiskey.

Eywa?
Yawe?
Yaweh?

Na'vi?
Native?

Luke Skywalker was a pretty boring character and a generation of kids wanted to be him. He was a whiny character for much of the first film except that he had a cool lightsaber.

Jake Scully had a boring personality while stuck in his wheelchair, but I found that his charisma grew while he was connected to his avatar and his curiosity about his new environment was contagious. Things like him slapping the glowing plants as he walked past or trying to swat away the floating seeds brought a smile to my face.

It was an easy laugh, but I also dug the quick scene of him trying to adjust to his new native outfit that was riding up his ass.

Ugh. STAR WARS comparisons again. Luke was a kid, and that's why kids liked him. They saw themselves in him, a weedy dork stuck in the middle of nowhere. And they saw their fantasy in him: a weedy dork who discovers he's important and powerful. Jake Sully is a video game protagonist. Nobody identifies with them on a character level. Nobody wants to be Master Chief.

Every kid knows what it's like to be in a wheelchair... and to feel purposeless! Right? Don't they?

Wait, maybe that's why the cat people are nine feet tall.

Jake in a wheelchair=kids as they are and Jakesully=kids as adults.

Cameron is a fucking genius.

"Nobody wants to be Master Chief."

Not unless you count all those kids living on the reserve.

Oh wait they want to be master at beer pong!

I can say such an off color joke because I'm Metis!

I don't know if that's entirely true. Jake Sully gets to do some pretty fantastic things. Ride dragons, run around in a 10 foot tall super body and lead a bunch of tribes to save their planet.

I think Jake Sully works on a basic wish fulfillment level. The same sort of thing works for superheroes.

Batman is boring but everyone wants to be him cause he's badass and capable. (Case in point, I didn't want to be Batman till I played Arkham Asylum. Now I want to be Batman)

Poor Tsu-Tey, he had it all, the girl, the adoration of the tribe, then Jake had to show up on his kick-ass dragon.

That's the classic American tale, as shown in great detail in such classics as Footloose.

The dancing is Ren's kick-ass dragon.

I thought Manohla Dargis has a great point about how Avatar, despite the violence, is a much more utopian vision of science fiction that a lot of other fare is. I think that is part of the reason it is connecting with everyone.