• Welcome to The Cave of Dragonflies forums, where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons.

    Guests are not able to post messages or even read certain areas of the forums. Now, that's boring, don't you think? Registration, on the other hand, is simple, completely free of charge, and does not require you to give out any personal information at all. As soon as you register, you can take part in some of the happy fun things at the forums such as posting messages, voting in polls, sending private messages to people and being told that this is where we drink tea and eat cod.

    Of course I'm not forcing you to do anything if you don't want to, but seriously, what have you got to lose? Five seconds of your life?

Avatar

The whole point of
Jake taming the toruk was because so few of the Na'vi had done it before. It was big, showy, impressive, and it helped to earn back a lot of the respect that he'd lost when he was made an outcast.

Anywho, I saw the movie this afternoon. I loved how the jungle plants were bioluminescent. Some of them reminded me of Nausicaa. :3

I actually shed a few tears during the scene where the Hometree was felled. I know it was supposed to be touching and tragic in its own right, but having lived in places where the native populations were oppressed and still are added an extra dimension of sympathy for me. And I am rarely moved by movies.

So yeah. It's probably going to end up being one of my favourite movies.
 
Also, what happened to the Unobtainium? They destroyed the home of the Na'vis and instead of taking as much Unobtainium rocks as they could, they decided "hey screw the rocks lets BLOW SHIT UP YAAAAY :D". I understand that the humans found out that they were going to be attacked, but they could have at least grabbed what they originally came for, rather than going into a full-on war and losing all their fighter, ships and the commander.
Click to expand...

Um, the idea was to mine the ore. Obviously it was never a "blow things up, take priceless mineral, leave" operation. Mining takes time! In fact "blow large hole into ground" was probably step one.
 
What I wonder is why they couldn't have tried drilling underneath home tree, starting, maybe, half a mile away? Sure, it would have cost more, but if they got the Na'vi on board, then the Na'vi could be cheap labour (basically, convince them to do the digging by saying, "Well, you know what roots to avoid. If WE dig, we are likely to accidentally shred one of your sacred trees roots to the point where the tree may as well be fire wood"). Not only that, but hey, free publicity

There is no reason why they couldn't have done that. Well, other than the movie would be boring, that is :3
 
I found this bit of the article funniest of all:

Fans of the movie may find actor Stephen Lang, who plays the villainous Col. Miles Quaritch in the film, an enemy of the Na'vi people and their sacred ground, an unlikely sympathizer. But Lang says he can understand the connection people are feeling with the movie.
Click to expand...

They really don't have high expectations of people being able to defferentiate between the film and reality, do they?
 
Just saw it two days ago, and I have to say I am very pleased at the Na'vi language. Ya see, I'm very fascinated with all topics pertaining to linguistics, so I love it when fiction creators go out of their way to make a language instead of resorting to meaningless gibberish. Languages are so beautiful. They are deeper than any other fiction because you can express thinking and world view, change someone's perspective, with difference of a few phonemes.
Anywho, I loved the effects, the plot, and well... everything, really. It was awesome!
 
I really liked this film. Yes, the plot was a bit clichéd and trope-filled, but it seemed to work really well nonetheless, almost because it was so over-the-top. The effects were, needless to say, spectacular, and I came away marvelling at the scale and beauty of the whole thing.
 
I saw it a while ago... it was pretty good. Not exactly revolutionary, unless you count the graphics, I suppose, but it was good enough. And I liked how the Na'vi sometimes seemed more than just attractive, cool humanoids -- like when they mourned.

The ending... I dunno. I'm not so sure about it. I don't see why Jake would just decide to stay on Pandora rather than, I don't know, going back to Earth and actually trying to change public opinion? Seemed an easy route out and everything was solved pretty simply once Evil Extremist Guy died.

Plus, I didn't like the 'mating' very much at all. Also didn't like how Neytiri just decided to leave her omg soul mate partner because of something that could well be a misunderstanding. And also how Jake suddenly became one of the 'best' members of the Na'vi tribe. Mighty Whitey, anyone?

...uh, but yeah, other than that, I liked it... XD

Also, the 'Avatar blues'... I can understand why they're sad after watching the film. But whining about how life on Earth isn't as beautiful as Pandora and basically how our planet sucks? Have they ever actually tried to help the planet? Go green, people! You live in a 'dying world'? Go out and see the world. If there are so many people thinking the same as them, that they're 'all alone' and lost without the fantasy of Pandora and all that being real, then surely they should realise that no, not ALL of the human race are bastards?
 
I don't see why Jake would just decide to stay on Pandora rather than, I don't know, going back to Earth and actually trying to change public opinion?
Click to expand...

That would have been the most contrived plotline ever.
 
Why not? :/ Instead of just going 'oh, to hell with the human race, it doesn't matter that the whole film has been about how greedy and aggressive humans are because I'm one of the tribe now!', he could have gone back and been like how Grace was. A teacher, a translator, a middle man. Instead it was pretty much implied that he decided to abandon humanity because he liked Pandora and being a Na'vi better. It seemed a bit of... I dunno, a cop-out?

I guess it wouldn't matter so much if the humans went back to Earth and never bothered the Na'vi again (still seems like everything was resolved alarmingly quickly), but it seemed like the ending was a bit underwhelming, even though as a kid I would have adored it.
 
Cirrus said:
Why not? :/ Instead of just going 'oh, to hell with the human race, it doesn't matter that the whole film has been about how greedy and aggressive humans are because I'm one of the tribe now!', he could have gone back and been like how Grace was. A teacher, a translator, a middle man. Instead it was pretty much implied that he decided to abandon humanity because he liked Pandora and being a Na'vi better. It seemed a bit of... I dunno, a cop-out?
Click to expand...
But the whole movie was setting up how much Jake was coming to hate being his crippled human self and how much more he identified with the Na'vi. It would have been grossly out of character for him to choose to go back to Earth. And what's more of a cop-out than taking an established character and making him suddenly act against everything he is in order to make the movie possibly more uplifting for a human audience? Not that it would really have been uplifting; I would have found it depressing as hell to watch this movie and then have to go away with the message that, "Well, you can never be one with another culture, ever, no matter how much more you identify with them than the one you come from and how much you despise your former life."
 
Butterfree said:
But the whole movie was setting up how much Jake was coming to hate being his crippled human self and how much more he identified with the Na'vi. It would have been grossly out of character for him to choose to go back to Earth. And what's more of a cop-out than taking an established character and making him suddenly act against everything he is in order to make the movie possibly more uplifting for a human audience? Not that it would really have been uplifting; I would have found it depressing as hell to watch this movie and then have to go away with the message that, "Well, you can never be one with another culture, ever, no matter how much more you identify with them than the one you come from and how much you despise your former life."
Click to expand...

I suppose that makes sense now that I remember he was crippled, but I thought the point was that he was just an average human guy who got to experience Na'vi culture, rather than someone who felt so out of place with his own race that he'd choose to permanently leave it. If anything, Grace was the one who felt displaced; I found her a much better character than Jake.

I didn't think that it was uplifting at all that he decided to abandon his race because it was so crap. How is that uplifting for a human audience? I think it was that message, whether intentional or not. "You can't choose to connect and improve relations between two drastically different races, because they're always going to be so wildly different that you have to switch. And also, you personally will never be able to do something like that."

He didn't try to improve relations between the two cultures and help them understand eachother. He just decided his own was so crap that he shouldn't even bother. It seemed to me that the whole point of the story was him switching culture completely just because it was better (even though it was a pretty stereotypical Noble Warrior race, and the Na'vi weren't exactly that different from humans) rather than two cultures trying to understand eachother.
 
Last edited:
Why not? :/ Instead of just going 'oh, to hell with the human race, it doesn't matter that the whole film has been about how greedy and aggressive humans are because I'm one of the tribe now!', he could have gone back and been like how Grace was. A teacher, a translator, a middle man. Instead it was pretty much implied that he decided to abandon humanity because he liked Pandora and being a Na'vi better. It seemed a bit of... I dunno, a cop-out?
Click to expand...

That was the single thing that sets this film apart from others that use a similar plot structure. The whole point was that Earth was abandoned to stew in its own mess. It's a very blatant message: not about "let's all understand each other and be happy and live harmoniously", but about "the human race is fucked and we are bloody well not going back to Earth". This film isn't just environmentalist, it is one of the most anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, and anti-American films ever.

...not really, no.
Click to expand...

I agree. The film is a commentary on the state of the world: it says, "if things keep going this way we're going to implode, there will be nothing worth saving on Earth". If he had gone back, it would have ruined that. It would have said, "don't worry, we can sit back and do nothing while the charismatic heroes of our society save the day!" That simply isn't true.

eta: I agree also with Butterfree's points on the characterisation, but I think here the characterisation serves the message rather than vice versa.
 
it's a pity that apart from the overly "ecofuckenhippie" plot (and I agree the world is in a right state but I hate proselytism like this) the 3D effects were silly mediocre and that it is really highly overrated as all hell. i wouldn't pay to see it again, a lot of generic bleat on how we should all be ecolovin' fuckin hippies and screw the deep ecology shit like Naess proposed and all his buddies.

fuckit bad plot and choice for style over substances give me a reason to score this below par
 
Wow, everyone seems to of really liked it. I saw it, and it was... OK. Pretty good, but nothing special. People will probably forget it by next year. The special effects were really, really good, but other then that I just didn't quite "click" with the characters. I think it was dumb how partially everyone dies in the end, even the nice people. I hate it when that happens.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom