Editor's Blog
Warning: Spoiler Alert. Sketchy bits of the story are herein revealed.
I’m still feeling a little dazed and pummeled from last night’s screening of Avatar, for a fairly broad variety of reasons. It’s partly from the eye-ravishing overall visuals; partly from the undeniably cool (but almost needlessly excessive) excursion into the realms of theatrical 3-D; partly from how dizzyingly quickly the damn-near three hour movie seemed to fly by; partly from all the head-wobbling stuff that made little or no sense (but still didn’t seem to stall the works all that much); and partly from James Cameron’s balls continually hitting me in the face. Yes, I will elaborate.
Even when you’ve already got a showoff bandolier of industry shaping blockbusters slung across your directorial chest, it takes some mighty big brass clankers to even talk about your newest cinematic venture the way Cameron talks about Avatar. This is, he reminds us, the movie he would have made in the late 90s…but for the woeful state of film-making tech at the time, which had yet to catch up to the visions of “synthetic” (computer-generated) actors dancing in James Cameron’s head.
That’s big, blustery, important sounding talk all right… the digital hell of it is, Mr. Cameron apparently was, and is, absolutely right: There’s just no way this jaw-droppingly immersive, blue-skinned baby would have flown even four years ago, let alone ten (and now that it’s here, let’s all pause to watch the virtual representation of James Cameron happily driving the first of what will certainly be a finite number of nails into the coffin of our quaint present day notion of real (flesh and blood)"’movie stars." But that’s another article entirely).
Avatar gives us ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), paralyzed from the waist down, a relatively soft-spoken jarhead whose Semper is still so Fi that he resolutely rolls into the next, quasi-military phase of his tumultuous life in a wheelchair (into a soldiered-up base camp on an alien planet four light-years from Earth, no less). He’s been selected by the ‘RDA’—the blandly-ominous Resources Development Agency, a sort of heavily-armed NGO from Hell, except it’s from, y’know, us — for the so-named Avatar program, on an Earth-sized moon orbiting an Alpha Centauri gas giant; the world in question is called Pandora, and among its abundant, exotic (and often dangerous) indigenous flora and fauna are the more or less humanoid Na’vi (a race of sentient, 10-foot-tall, blue-skinned, tribal warrior/hunter tree-hugger types who soon — collectively and quite unsubtly — function as the film’s thematic stand-ins for any third, fourth or fifth world group of people in history who ever had their asses handed to them by a Big Old Mean More-Technologically-Advanced Superpower.)
The titular Avatars are "shell" Na’vi bodies — genetically cooked up from a gumbo of human and Na’vi DNA — suited to Pandora’s environment, and meant to be remotely ‘piloted’ by human Avatar Program candidates (they’re also intended to facilitate clandestine human infiltration of the Na’vi society, although the Na’vi seem largely hip to the ruse from the outset). Seems the extremely nature conscious Na’vi — who worship an all-life-interconnected Gaian deity called Eyra — happen to be sitting on a massive deposit of insanely precious ‘Unobtanium’ (they actually call the unspecified resource by this name throughout the film)… and the greedy, gun-packing humans want the harmonious, blue-skinned savages off their precious land, pronto (Again: James Cameron 1, Subtlety 0).
Although Jake Sully starts his Avatar Program mission among the Na’vi as a disguised infiltrator in a remotely-controlled body, he soon becomes attached to a willful Na’vi female warrior (Zoe Saldana, Star Trek‘s Lt. Uhura)… and shortly thereafter begins to question his mission, and in fact just which world he wants to belong to. Sit tight, moviegoers. At the end of the filmmaking equation, James still knows what gets your blood pumping. Soon you’ll have the rainforest-razing, beeping oversized military bulldozers, the gunship-mounted rocket-pods, the bipedal ‘mechs,’ the bows and arrows, the flying four-eyed dragons and all the tense, epic, lopsided, asymmetrical warfare you can eat.
Any half-aware viewers who see Avatar will instantly be able to pinpoint the One Influential Movie it most strongly echoes… and they’ll all be wrong. Or perhaps the issue is that they’ll all be right. Avatar takes such a gargantuan, multilayered bite out of the entire cinematic multiverse that it’s hard not to find some high profile film that you can closely compare its signature themes and directorial riffs to (and half of the films that most readily come to mind will probably be previous Cameron films). The cocksure, scuffed-hardware, absolutely perfect military deadpanisms nestle comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the most corny, pat lines of dialogue; characters that were templates four movies ago nevertheless seem like comfortable oases between some of the more arid stretches of storytelling. It’s True Titanic Lies of Aliens one minute, and Terminators in the Judgment Day Abyss the next and… I don’t know… maybe Dances With Na’vi both before and after that. Those badass, 22nd-century swivel-rotor gunships look like the coolest parts of Aliens and sound exactly like the nastiest parts of Vietnam; and you bet your ass it’s on purpose.
I’ve left off detailing the much-ado-about-seemingly-everything visuals up to this point mostly as a tribute to Cameron’s power to draw us in. If this isn’t the most thorough, textured, exhaustive onscreen world ever presented, I’ll eat our current one. Pandora’s elaborate natural motifs and chains of wildlife—from the tiny spiral wings of insects that seem lifted from one of Da Vinci’s more fever-induced sketchbooks to the medium sized spirals of retracting flora to the massive-scale twists of a towering baobabesque tree the size of a mountain combine with fluid and utterly convincing stereoscopic animation that’s so good that…. well, that one can quickly stop paying undue attention to it. The same goes, thankfully, for the Na’vi characters. They’re blue, they move smoothly enough, they look kind of like Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver — and now we can get on with enjoying this epic if occasionally-goofy movie, yes?
Even as it clips along, Avatar does throw a lot of goofy stuff in our faces, and is better labeled ‘science fantasy’ than as proper ‘science fiction’: The justification of those majestic, mystical ‘floating mountains’ that hover in Pandora’s sky, like something from the cover of a 70s rock album? Um… it’s something to do with a ‘flux matrix,’ and even though the mountains float, the waterfalls streaming off them still plummet straight down, and rotor gunships still have to battle gravity, and… well, the flux matrix screws up human targeting computers, so that’s handy, innit? The struggle of primitive, bow toting natives against bipedal military "mechs" is dramatic as hell against that soaring score… so you’re going to want to let some of the combat-physics slide… cool? And just why we should feel any dramatic anxiety about our hero tooling around in a remote body that can apparently be shuffled off at will with no harm to the ‘pilot,’ if things start getting dicey on the native front? All I’m saying is… don’t think about any of it too much. Just let James Cameron tell a ripping, gripping, emotional, analogous tale of man’s better angel — spiritual nature — as it battles his base demon — greedy mortal coil. And marvel at just how much of this movie’s staggering world was conjured from thin digital air; and imagine where this kind of increasingly-unfettered dream-conjuring will take us in another year, or five, or ten.
And one other thing: Before it came to mean ‘a digital representation,’ or ‘a virtual presence,’ the term avatar referred to a descent to our earthly plane from the unknown realms above.
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43 Comments
Two words ” Fern Gully”
Yeah, the movie where they ride around on a bat with wires coming out of its head? The movie where a fantastically huge bulldozer threatens the fairies’ world tree? The one where the magically transformed hero and his fairie girlfriend frolic in bioluminescent jungle ponds?
I’m SO glad Cameron updated Fern Gully for my adulthood.
Once upon a time, a guy made this movie. It was the late 70s, and when the movie hit theaters, it was almost universally panned. Today, it is one of the top-grossing films of all time, but back then it was recognized as a space-opera version of Akira Kurosawa’s _The Hidden Fortress_ and dismissed by critics.
Audiences, though, loved it. _Star Wars_ remains to this day one of the 20 top-grossing movies of all time. The name sells it – even the recent travesties of films have a franchise of DVDs, video games, books, and other merchandise making billions for LucasFilm. And yes, _Star Wars_ got the same kinds of reviews _Avatar_ seems to be getting as far as plot and setting.
What made _Star Wars_ such a hit was that it was the first movie to use computers to create the effects. No longer were movies limited to Ray Harrihausen monsters (see _Clash of the Titans_ for an example and try not to laugh too hard). _Star Wars_ revolutionized film by being the granddaddy of CGI.
I thought _Avatar_ was going to be as stupid as Ewoks. But when I think back to those terrible reviews, which seem to be echoed in reviews of _Avatar_, I must confess I am now interested. The plot is stupid, but if a stupid plot brings us a whole new way of making films, well, it’s still a trailblazer.
Cameron has a big ego. He’s made a world class bet that he can spend this much money on a project and get it back – win the bet. It’s the equivalent of James Bond going all in at the roulette table at Monte Carlo. To assure a win he has analyzed big money making movies of the past, isolated elements that made them big money makers, then put all these elements in one movie. Avatar is a dedicated money making machine, not a work of art.
I disagree with Heinlein. The type to whom this joining the noble savage tribe story appeals love themselves and hate the group they belong to. They imagine a fantastic new in-group they can belong to and inevitably picture themselves as being a high caste member of the new in-group. Sometimes it’s an entirely romanticized version of a real society, sometimes it is a wholly fictional one. This kind of thing goes back at least to ancient Rome. I also wonder if there is some root in evolutionary biology. Individual members of primate groups often leave their own tribe/troupe and enter another. A consistent behavior like this is unlikely to be a random thing. I wonder if there is some the-grass-is-greener-in-the-other-group drive in the primate brain.
“The type to whom this joining the noble savage tribe story appeals love themselves and hate the group they belong to. They imagine a fantastic new in-group they can belong to and inevitably picture themselves as being a high caste member of the new in-group.”
It’s not about hating what your group did or even trying to rectify it: it’s all about getting “da minority cred”, because in their minds, the “noble savage” will always be inferior to said “YT”. The thought of being a deity, someone popular or a Messiah among a group of “lower people” turns them on greatly. Don’t pretend man: They are exactly like the group that they claim to “hate”.
“This kind of thing goes back at least to ancient Rome.”
You got that one right. A group of people hell bent on colonization would think like that.
“I also wonder if there is some root in evolutionary biology.”
I also wonder if you might be an upperclass emo trying to blame your idiocy on nature/evolution. You know, “it’s in X’s nature”?
“A consistent behavior like this is unlikely to be a random thing. I wonder if there is some the-grass-is-greener-in-the-other-group drive in the primate brain.”
You’re right, it isn’t random. It’s called the “YT Syndrome”, usually found among bored and stupid upperclass kids who are BAWWWing over the fact that despite having everything, they are still unhappy. Get over yourself, you’re not the “Chosen One”.
Avatar nails the post singularity zeitgeist in having its virtual blue performers being themselves “avatars” of human actors, through exquisite technical ability and great performances by Zoe Saldana and a great cast, these Pandora Humanoids are more human than humans.
It’s what many humans would like to be, in full connection with nature, jacked in, elegant, dynamic and living free.
We cannot see the future past the singularity only imagine it.
Kudos to Mr. Cameron and 21st century film history IMHO.
Let me get this right. There is a fully integrated information exchange and the best these guys can come up with is a stone age society. They don’t even have a wheel. No advanced metalurgy, no advanced traps or weaponry. Just stone aged bows and arrows. So there is no practical interchange of information just impractical and unimportant information.
It is almost human….the full set of physics texts, chemistry texts and mathematics texts can be downloaded in two minutes yet the average human finds downloading an hour worth of “I Love Lucy” as of greater value.
To let the interconnected and robustly functioning natural ecosystems do most
of the work for them, while they sit around and engage in hunting that is way more
fun than video games, rave-like trance-dances, and mind-meld sex.
Who wants to live in a modern concrete jungle commuting in traffic jams compared to that?
“while they sit around and engage in hunting that is way more
fun than video games, rave-like trance-dances, and mind-meld sex”
No.
“Who wants to live in a modern concrete jungle commuting in traffic jams compared to that?”
Uhm… me?
I understand this movie is a technological leap. I also heard that watching this movie at an IMAX theater is close to immersion in the planet itself.
I can see from some of the previous comments that the earth is not saved from global warming, so this movie is a waste of time and money.
Is it worth seeing?
Yes
The movie is worth seeing – particularly in IMAX – because it is gorgeous seeing. It really is a delight to watch and the experience is not likely to be fully captured on the home television or the desktop monitor. Seen that way, all you will probably have is a very medium-grade story and a lot of confusion as to how this film made a billion dollars in less than 3 weeks.
No.
(I’m serious)
Are you folks really discussing the storytelling capability of the guy who wrote Titanic?
I mean, really?
This is a guy whose heroine is so in love with the guy who saves her from getting chopped to bits by a GIGANTIC ship’s propeller that she lets him hang off the edge of her floating door until he turns into a Jackcycle.
This is the guy who frames a current movie in a flashback where “rosebud” becomes a massive blue jewel that is clearly worth major $$$. Then “rosebud” gets dumped overboard by the whackjob old lady who tells the flashback story.
Yes, he’s an awesome filmmaker.
Storyteller? Eh. Not so much.
I loved Avatar, but found it oddly retro-futuristic. The humans, as has been pointed out, have the really amazing ability to create the titular Avatar bodies (pretty impressive bio tech), yet still have a largely contemporary tech level. No apparent A.I., no visible sign of advanced nanotechnology, no great use of robotics aside from power suits, no grand advancements in intelligence augmentation, etc. Pretty much a very near future vision treading water for decades.
If I were a fan fic writer (not), and interested in more contemporary science fiction (am), which includes post-singularity type musings like Ken Macleod’s “Newton’s Wake”, I would try to paint the biosphere of Pandora as the result of a designed terraforming effort. A fully designed environment (which it happens to be in truth), designed as a honey trap for humanity placed as close as possible to Earth to try to teach us some kind of lesson.
The aliens of Pandora lead a primitive lifestyle, yet do not harbor great interest in the comforts of technology because their carefully designed biology grants them many advantages over our own world’s version of primitive. These blue folk are all super model skinny, tough, beautiful, and gifted with a true and measurable afterlife. They don’t seem to have massive problems with internal parasites, visible disease, or other downsides that our technology helps to ameliorate. They are what we would want life to be like if we wanted to live in primitive conditions. All the good, little of the bad – except getting eaten by a Thanator – that gets you laughed at in the afterlife.
So how, in Avatar’s timeline, did humanity miss out on Singularity type technological advances? My musing is that it was a hidden singularity. Most of the humans missed out while the mind children slipped off Earth to play. One of those playthings turns out to be Pandora and its biotech Paradise. A fully simulated / designed biosphere emplaced on that terraformed (Pandoraformed?) moon. Basically showing off. From the Unobtainium,to Ey’wa to the biologic USB ports, the whole of it is a masterwork, like a Faberge Egg, with surprises inside for those who can see them.
all the arguments about technology vs primative seem to be somewhat missing the point, honestly.
the movie seemed to stress to me more that the indigenous people’s culture had a right to be respected and maintained, not simply destroyed. even without the plotline involving the must-have ore and the ensuing destruction of the species’ central cultural epicenter, for lack of better term, the movie’s scientist’s were pretty adamant about responsibly integrating into their lives and culture.
those scientists even set up a school, which indicates to me less a desire for the film to say that advanced tech is bad, but rather that the introduction of new ideas should be gradual and involve true knowledge interchange instead of ramming it down the natives’ collective throats. if that had been maintained by the expedition team they probably would have come to terms with the natives and some sort of mining compromise.
after all, we didn’t see the natives fight back until, culturally speaking, the human expedition pulled an “oh no you didn’t” of epic proportions.
umm the reason why they float is in the rocks like when 2 negitve or 2 possitve sides of a magnit touch they push away?. also if you watch it mess’s with the computers on the ships no radar no locking missiles thats why sully decided to fight there.
why can’t any of you just have a option and not “this is how it is and i’am right jump on my bandwagon so i can feel better about myself pfft grow up.
lol hell my grandmom had a better option ” i didin’t like it to out there for me” lol
i noitce its like the same pepole are commenting the same way on everything thesedays. i mean yah hollywood is lacking in greativeness but holymossepissbatman look at older moives its the samething. and these type of peps are the boring,dry,optionated types. look at your moives and go back and read reviews and comments about them same kind of smack.
lol many blue chicks i whouldin’t mind climeing LMFAO!
We call this movie “Dances with smurfs”.
Why does Hollyweard always paint science and tech with the evil brush.The noble blue savages in the film represent a idealized fantasy view of the so called natural world.
Where do the smurfs go when they get sick or have a genetic defect?Maybe they go pick a magic root or berry that will stand in for glasses when they can’t see.
Let us look into our own more primitive past with the reality lens shall we.
The big animals are not our noble friends they hunt and eat us.We get sick and are plagued by opportunistic parasites.
When one of us is born with a genetic flaw we call it gods will or better still a demonic curse and let the poor wretch die.
We age and die if we are lucky after a short struggle with a hostile natural system that looks at us as a threat or an opportunity to eat.
If you do not agree with me please just forsake all our evil tech and try to live in the amazon naked for just one week.
You could just go and live with earths primitives and see how nice they have it.
If you are still alive after that you may have a change of heart.
The so called good guys in this film are represent everything that is holding us back.Our primitive past was no lost paradise.It was hell.
Oh and just one question?
How is it that they can build a smurf body,fly to the stars and colonize new worlds but they still can’t fix the guys legs or get him something better that a wheel chair?
Cameron lives in a dictators wonderland.He needs to be told the sad truth.This move stinks.
If you like great effects go see a fireworks display you will also get a better story than Avatar.
First (and quickly), Anon is thinking short term and needs his head examined. I’d hazard a guess that Anon is a hater that sits on a barstool (or wherever) and makes everyone else miserable – “let me tell you why that sucks…” whatever… leave your name, take a stand – coward.
Great editorial (or is it a review?) Mr. Hudak has put serious thought into a write-up that covers the film broadly and in fine detail. I enjoyed it more than anything written about the film to date.
What could be added is the strong references to anime. Miyazaki, to name one of the most influential, takes a less violent approach to the belief that we need to balance our technological drive and the obvious (or not?) need to show respect to nature.
The head-slapping notion that we shouldn’t rape our planet is still in debate and I find that confounding.
That we are getting this message from a revolutionary tech heavy ~$300M epic from an AK-47 toting HMFIC director, produced by Rupert Murdoch, makes me laugh hysterically – otherwise, I’d weep. As for the budget – you can’t spend that kind of cash and deliver 2001: A Space Odyssey (or Pi, or Primer, or Moon) – what is needed is a storyline that captures the imagination of the masses, if you ever want to make another film again. If you don’t understand that, you’re probably living in your parent’s basement or your girlfriend is supporting you by whatever means necessary…
The Research Development Agency (RDA) mentioned within Avatar has to be an outgrowth of Cameron’s Bentech Petroleum from The Abyss (and The Company from Alien and Aliens). The real enemy of humanity continues to be the emotionless greed that corporations inspire. That The Corporation has more rights than the populace and continues to drive society in an unbalanced nose-dive appears to be the major hurdle of humanity (outside of governmental control).
As for the films tech – from a production standpoint it is revolutionary. For the audience, the 3D might be noticeably deeper. Cameron has announced that he’s rewritten the rules of 3D screen-plane dimensional depth. For Cameraon, most, if not all of, the projected image(s) reside behind the projection screen – which acts as a framing device rather than a nebulous point in front or behind the primary action. A unique and original way of composing a 3D project.
A few quick notes regarding the write-up – Mr. Hudak mentions that our hero Jake Sully is an ex-Marine. With all due respect, there is no such thing – and is even mentioned in the film. Technically, Marines are all voluntary, they never draft and have a unique code of conduct and standards. Regardless of opinions, technically, once a Marine, always a Marine.
I would also add that the Pandora physics might be deeper than initially believed. Whatever energy nulls out the RDA tracking, targeting, and triangulation systems might have more science based properties than spiritual “woo-woo” BS that is believed from initial viewing. You have to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt. He’s a back-seat engineer who designs real-time, working hardware. It’s hard to believe he created an entire encyclopedia for planet Pandora and threw a hail-mary pass to define the energy field that includes the brazenly named Unobtanium. Who knows, though, maybe Cameron closed his eyes and crossed his fingers. That’ll make his now dreamed-of Avatar sequels a bit more difficult, but… maybe he did settle for science fantasy.
What I wonder about is where the story could go from here and why the endgame from the feature film Aliens wasn’t brought up – “Nuke From Orbit”. Also, Sigourney Weaver’s character mentions that the entire planet of Pandora is wired tighter than a human brain (the most complex system known), if so, then what is Pandora wired to? I hope Cameron is planning to push Pandora OUT as well as IN – giving us as much galactic relevancy as intricacies and inner-workings of the planet. Might Pandora finally heal the dying Earth? You never know. I think (I hope) Cameron is just beginning. Who knows where he’ll take this story line. What is known is that you cannot bet against Cameron’s focus and imagination.
U must b one of those greedy corporate slave.
AVATAR is Pocahontas on SteroidS!!!!!!:)
SO, all the silly critics out there looking for something to say,,go get your old post of Pocahontas’ critiques and pump them-up!! as Arnold would say.
Oh mister Drumb if that is your real name.You are more likely a paid Cameron stooge let loose to defend his latest excretion.
As to your microbial personal attack,my movie review is my stand.
If you feel the need to urinate your credentials to identify pontifications I understand.
I find it telling that you seem to take this film under your vitriolic wing.
In adding to the posted movie review I was endeavoring to save a few adults with some semblance of movie going experience the loss of time this re-hash represents.
I was hoping this site would attract educated adults that would perhaps fathom dissention from orthodoxy.
If your imagination was truly captured by this film and you count yourself as one of the easily amazed masses then good for you.
A pat on the head.See all the pretty lights on the screen and heil the brilliance of the self described S.O.B Cameron.
Oh boy all the possibilities for sequels.Maybe he will release action figures.
Well you did mention anime.
I wonder who realy is living in the basement?
You seem to forget that the revelation in this movie comes from the advancement as a story telling medium… not the story itself. James Cameron spent years developing a brand new 3D style of shooting that mimics the focal lengths of the human eye, and created a camera to do just that.
It is an innovation that will permeate future movies (studio and indie alike) in a way that color and sound once did. It is a marvel of modern technology and ingenuity and doesn’t claim to be anything else. It is not a French New Wave or Italian Neo-Realism film that deals with the absurd nuance of human interactions. It is a technological revolution that is advancing the art form for all of humanity… and in doing so is itself a masterpiece.
I don’t think you realized the incredible innovation it requires to be the first to do that. Don’t be so quick to talk down the masses for the sake of doing so… that just makes you appear an ignorant elitist.
I wouldn’t mind becoming one of Cameron’s “paid stooges”. Mr. Cameron, you know where you can find me.
Anyway, I suggest everyone read the trades. This isn’t just about the movie Avatar, it’s about the future of 3D tech in the industry. Variety is covered in ads from 3D companies and talking about the impact and how it could be applied in future. How can we enhance the experience of watching a film to the point that we are even more integrated into the environment beyond IMAX, hokey “4D” and big action movies that are guaranteed to throw some effects in our faces? How about more subtle applications in suspense and thrillers. Personally, there are a few old Hitchcock films that I would even like to see in 3D, if it was done right.
I found the following an interesting take on this film and others like it:
—————-
The Native faction (for lack of a better term) in all these movies does not innovate, they do not have any systemic advancements or theoretical basis for their work. They have tools, but they are discovered and improved intuitively. If they have a better bow and arrow in 200 years, it will be because someone stumbled upon it, not because they designed it as such. In fact, they view such attempts to gain direct knowledge as sullying.
The Tech faction (again, lack of a better term) however, systemically improves its technology, and best fits with the literal definition of the word. That is, a systemic analysis of crafts (craft in this sense meaning creation of any item, not Popsicle sticks and glue), and eventually the conscious improvement there-of. It is the Francis Bacon approach to nature, this kind of “If we much cut open bodies to learn anatomy, we will do so. Spirits be damned” thinking.
———————-
It always seems like films tend to demonize the tech faction. Perhaps it is because the Native methodology appeals to more to most people. (After all, actually understanding something is much more difficult.)
It is ridiculous to think that the Navie need nothing that the humans couldn’t trade with in this film. It is also ridiculous to think humans would actually destroy the home tree just to get at the richest deposit of Unobtanium. The problem with most science fiction is that the reality of such future worlds does not lead to interesting stories. So they always make ridiculous jumps of logic to create an interesting story. And then have the gall to try and draw some sort of morality lesson from it all.
However, the visuals of this movie are breathtaking!
Let me quote Heinlien, since he said it best:
(There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who “love Nature” while deploring the “artificialities” with which “Man has spoiled ‘Nature.’” The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of “Nature” — but beavers and their dams are.
But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the Naturist reveals his hatred for his own race — i.e., his own self-hatred.
In the case of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women — it strikes me as a fine arrangement — and perfectly “natural”
Believe it or not, there were “Naturists” who opposed the first flight to old Earth’s Moon as being “unnatural” and a “despoiling of Nature.”)
We are humans. We innovate, we create, and we modify the environment to suite our needs… Just like Beavers do.
The Entire Green Movement is not and never has been about “saving the environment”
It’s about preserving the human race.
The planet will be fine no-matter what happens to us. Life itself will adapt and move on. It just may not have humans anymore.
But as Heinlein points out so clearly, within that movement is hidden an enormous amount of self hatred of the human race. Sustainability takes on a completely different meaning when you define it as “Wiping out 80% of the human race and forcing everyone back into a mythical “pastoral golden age” with all technology beyond that of the 1800′s banned forever.” which is the dirty secret at the heart of the AGW panicmongering.
Our only real hope is progress. It has been our only hope since we first picked up a stone to fight against that saber tooth that wanted us for lunch. It’s our only hope still.
But there will always be those who despise humanity, and human ingenuity, who seek to eliminate progress and force us to “return” to the days when we were “Noble Savages.” and were “At one with all the earth”
Every primitive culture that has ever been found has eagerly embraced every single modern advance they could get their hands on. No matter how “At one with Nature” they were.
Anyone who is aware of how technology advances knows that the entire storyline of Avatar is a cliched remake of god knows how many earlier works in which the poor oppressed savages meet the ONE enlightened white man who not only gets them, but gets them so well he becomes their new ruler and fights back against his fellows to “protect” his new kingdom. It’s a guilt trip in 3D.
Cameron made a tour de force of new technology, showcased the progress we have made in film-making…
by making a movie which preaches against progress and glamorizes a life without advancement.
Does anyone else see the contradiction here?
The Optimist View
Did you see that glass half-full or a glass half-empty?
When you get to be in BIG CORPORATIONS and have THE CHANCE to make BIG & IMPORTANT DECISIONS, AMBIGUITY and DOUBLE-SPEAK are always INEVITABLE.
PETROLEUM, PHARMACEUTICAL, MOTOR, FINANCE, MEDIA, UTILITIES, and practically all industries whose markets have become indispensable needs of the modern societies, will always be a province of AMBIVALENCE. People or employees who CANNOT TOLERATE such almost often DO NOT CLIMB UP to the HIERARCHY of its ORGANIZATION, if they will, their stay will be SHORT-LIVED. In fact, many of these corporations run psychological testing to an employee short-listed for managerial positions.
STRIKING A BALANCE amongst all the pressing forces and needs of both humanity and the environment that the latter lives is the key to LONGEVITY of the RACE. From mathematical, social, political, and cultural perspectives, these are GARGANTUAN task with a number of parametric considerations and on a GLOBAL SCALE.
It should NEVER SURPRISE everyone who has posted here why the COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT will end with NO ACCORD to hope for. Those are the WORLD’s LEADERS convening, for crying out loud! The environmental problems we are facing are all products of the collective human activities all throughout civilizations. This would all come down to a gradual process and overnight or two weeks or one-month convention will never result to final resolution. Nonetheless, it should be a SINGLE RIGHT STEP to a JOURNEY of a THOUSAND MILES, albeit TIME is of the essence.
The movie is clearly a FICTION for which its CREATORS and WRITERS have all the poetic justices they should enjoy, and deliver the expectations of their audience, thus the producers as well (when it becomes a hit in the box-office). A PROACTIVE character of an individual who have seen this movie is to find resolution within and stop whining at the “correctness” of the same. “Political and social correctness”, morality, and the likes are often times antithesis of anything Hollywood. Stop whining, kids!!!! Go get a Life and earn some real green bucks! That way, the word COMPROMISE would all get REAL not only in your MIND, but in the BLOOD, SWEAT, and TEARS that you have spent with in order to LIVE a REAL LIFE!
On the whole, I like the movie for its superb visual effects, the message it wanted to engrained into its viewers. However, I am not submitting all the premises and conjectures for which the plot is based upon. Every story line has to work on some presumptions, lest it won’t progress to become a big story. Whether that is correct or not, is for me to vindicate personally and NOT TO POST PUBLICLY, unless it is violative of my tenets, morals, religion, culture, ethnicity, political leaning, and the likes.
And you, sir, are a troll.
The movie was good. Apparently so good that it elicits troll reviews from Ann Coulter wannabees. In my book, any movie that neo-fascists feel the need to troll has to have something good about it.
I am a former Green Party candidate in several state-level elections.
You should not try to guess the motive of “greens”, as I’m sure there are
as many flavors of motive as there are environmentally concerned people.
For my own part, I think we can have progress and also be several orders of
magnitude more wise about how we go about it. I am both a green, and a
sci-fi loving compsci MSc.
My environmentalism is not primarily about protecting people. Humans
are part of an evolved and evolving eco-system, and I think we should help
protect in some way all of it or much of it. We have a responsibility to figure
out how to be unselfish on a global scale, because we are the first to have
developed arbitrary world-modelling, simulating, planning, organizing, and
engineering skills (the first to really know and decide what we are doing or
going to do.)
It is probably also the best strategy for protecting ourselves anyway, since
the natural systems are over 3 billion years old and are very complex and provide
many services to us in ways that we do not recognize and would be fools to
replace with relatively much less robust and sustainable artificial alternatives.
But we ARE now capable of fundamentally disrupting, destabilizing,
and “de-naturing” the most complex aspects of Earth’s eco-systems. We
are well down that path. So the onus is on us to consider how much of that
it is wise to do, whether for ourselves, or in consideration of some greater
interdependent complexity.
Quite frankly, anthropocentric environmentalism, and even the term environmentalism,
are just the most effective ways of “selling” ecological wisdom concepts and
goals to the uneducated and selfish. The “economy” over “environment” crowd.
The “humans uber alles” crowd. Humans mit alles is a wiser strategy. Now if
I could only convince the other 86% of voters of this viewpoint, we’d be golden.
Supreme eye candy. I grew up with posters of Roger Dean’s “Yessongs” in my bedroom and I dreamed of magical worlds like Pandora. This film has perhaps the most highly developed animation I’ve ever seen. The main problem with it is that Cameron was writing this for a 13-year-old version of himself rather than kids nowadays, who are steeped in video and require something much more engaging. Star Wars would not have cut it had it come out nowadays.
But unlike Star Wars the message of the film is not vague generic mythos cr@p. So he broke one of the cardinal rules of space opera, which is “They came here to escape, dammit, not contemplate reality!” I say that’s good, but obviously some others don’t feel that way. Any adult can see the “question authority” tendencies of this one too plainly and so it’s getting flagged by media vigilantes as challenging the powers that be. Hence some of the obvious troll reviews I’ve read here and elsewhere. Such as the movie was a “slap in the face of the US Army” and such crap. If I’m not mistaken the soldiers in this film were clearly stated to be corporate mercenaries and not US or any other country’s soldiers. Or was I wrong about that? It was in one of the narrative monologues toward the beginning. Bit ironic that the troll review I read that remark in (at the Avatar web site no less, weeks before it came out) neglected to mention that distinction.
Not that all negative remarks were entirely unwarranted. The characters and plot were formulaic and thin, and Cameron put all his wager in the graphics and not enough in an engaging plot line. Nowadays, American kids watching film or TV are in their native element; you could say some of them have no other. Boy meets girl/saves world in a fantastic, colorful future paradise planet is just not enough any more. But what do I know. America loved Independence Day apparently, which in my eyes was subliminal Bush-era war propaganda. Nameless, faceless aliens who initiated all hostilities and universally deserved to die, no questions asked, and we sure gave them what for. Sure no “Dances with Wolves in Space” here, buddy, they ate it up.
Had Avatar’s naive environmentalist/anti-imperialist message been delivered in the form of something realistic, or more challenging to the brain and not just the eyes, it would have helped for me. (Problem is, then middle-class parents wouldn’t have taken their kids to see it.) Nonetheless a small segment of its target audience will be affected as Cameron probably wanted.
And besides, the game franchise will do pretty good too. Because this movie had more in common with shooters I’ve played than any movies ever I’ve seen. Anybody else notice the similarities in places to Doom3? I’ll probably get the cheat codes and play the game in God mode real quick just to see the sights, once it drops in price.
To me, the best movie comparable to this one is still “The Dark Crystal.” That’s a good example of how you do it. But if you like good space fantasy you should see Avatar anyway.
I look forward to seeing this one on my telly again in a year or two after the media blitz has calmed down, at which point I can watch it more objectively and contrast it with something like Starship Troopers, have a good old-fashioned TV party.
;—————————————————–
Oh hell, if you like this kind of sci-fi, try Ursula LeGuin’s “Three Hainish Tales” which do it right, and make up for the weaknesses of this movie’s story line. Also, her novel, “The Word for the World is Forest” is in plot vaguely similar to this film’s story, but again has more brains and no graphics, being a book and all.
– Cheers frog
How little you know me.
If you actually bother to read any of my other posts on these pages, you’d know I have no tolerance for tyranny’s of any sort, be they a dominating corporate state or a green movement that wants to force me to live like a savage so that “I can be free!”
Learn to read the messages behind the pretty pictures and the feel good rhetoric. Learn to actually think for yourself instead of parroting a party line. The “message” taught by all “Noble Savage” stories is always the same. White guy meets new culture, has beautiful princess fall for him, and then becomes ruler of it. Doesn’t matter if it’s John Carter of Mars, or Avatar. Do you think our “hero” would have bothered to rebel if he hadn’t gone from being a nobody in his own culture to being the Big Kahuna in another?
Add in the trite “technology is bad, primitive is good” bs and you have a massive film making epic that is intended to do nothing but make you feel guilty for being part of an advanced civilization.
And who the hell is Ann Coulter?
There is a TERRIBLE and ANNOYING typing habit on display HERE that makes text hard to READ and the writer seem like a NIGERIAN SCAM artist or perhaps simply DERANGED. I’ll let the viewer GUESS WHAT it might be.
I think that both of you need to calm down about this. Yes, it was a good movie. Yes, one of you is being a bit naive about this thing and the other a bit cynical and snappy. Just leave the damn thing alone and go back to your every day lives. Arguments over the internet mean nothing.
-Corr
P.S.: Opposing tyranny in all its forms is a bit closed minded of you don’t you think, Valk? In some ways it is the ultimate form of capitalism. There have been a number of ‘good’ tyrants, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus amongst them. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter
P.S. to the P.S. Were I in his position I would side with the natives in any case, as a ruler or indeed as a simple bloody hunter. Then again, I wouldn’t be in his position because I am a P.H.D. and would have spent a few years training for the trip, thus I wouldn’t be so blatently stupid.
You know… I kinda enjoyed being compared to Joseph Mengele by a “kill the humans to save the great apes” Malthusian greenpeacer for daring to say that attempting to enforce ethical bans against technological developments simply meant the unethical would be doing the research more than I liked being compared to someone I would personally throw out of a crashing plane before I would share a chute with her.
Cynical? Of the AGW crowd and their “holier than thou” trite eco morality? You betcha. I’m just as cynical and probably even more disgusted with the rightwing extremists like Coulter.
I’ve been for cleaner tech, environmental friendliness, and an end to pollution since before many of the current “we’re killing the earth and must cease all technological development and embrace a primitive lifestyle” crop of ultragreen liberals crawled out of diapers. Environmentalism does not mean abandoning technology, it means finding BETTER technology than you have now.
But try telling that to either side? You get branded the worst kind of whatever the person you are talking to hates. No one seems to accept that there are middle paths that are far more effective than the extreme fringes.
As for Avatar, if you think I was snippy about this movie, you should have read what I said on IO9 about Twilight and the fact that it glorifies abusive relationships.
(Sorry Correlleon, I don’t really go around battling trolls on the web, honest. I just have a head cold that leaves me mostly too lethargic to do anything useful. I am getting better.)
If you look at Valkyrie_Ice’s post, please observe that the “logic” of:
A) Naturists hate themselves, therefore
B) Naturists hate all mankind, and therefore
C) Naturists want to kill 80% of us and drive us all back to the dark ages …
… is classic political hate speech, equally suited to the Christian Inquisition or Mao Ze Dong’s Cultural Revolution, if you just change a word or two. It is not writing or reasoning of the calibre I expect here at h+, and I think anybody from a free country should be at least a bit repulsed at it.
Heinlein put it best indeed. Granted, he certainly did for 15-year old boys.
Erm, it’s apparent you either didn’t see it or didn’t pay attention while watching it, yet are so terribly negative about it. That makes you look like a sheep, baaaaa’ing Savage or Hannity’s comments.
It’s serious eye-candy, one of those movies you seriously have to see at the theater… not because it’s an important story, but because it’s an amazing technological feat and impressive as hell to witness. If you dig eye-candy at all, do not miss this. If you don’t, then what the hell do you care?
And so what if he makes a story where “the indians beat the cowboys”, it’s a freakin movie for chrissake. Regardless, there were enough blue chicks to last Kirk a lifetime! Hopefully in the director’s cut, we can see some giant blue boobies. Thank god it wasn’t another blue c**k movie.
Its great to see meaningful viewpoints instead of the robotic dribble from the lamestream movie critics.
Where do I find your Twilight post?
“Environmentalism does not mean abandoning technology, it means finding BETTER technology than you have now.”
“No one seems to accept that there are middle paths that are far more effective than the extreme fringes.”
“As for Avatar, if you think I was snippy about this movie, you should have read what I said on IO9 about Twilight and the fact that it glorifies abusive relationships.”
True-blue common sense about the environment, technology *and* about Twilight.
(Most of the Anti-Twilighters usually criticize it for being about “being vain and setting impossible standards for guys”.)
Valkyrie Ice…I think I love you. :3
Shows how little Cameron wanted to incorporate observed historical interactions between two cultures of varying technological achievements.
Let’s not kid ourselves though, human trade of such scale rarely avoids having a nation’s military present. Needless to say the whole movie is a fairy tale of how a technologically primitive society wins against the evil technologically advanced society. Needless to say if we mixed our current level of technology with that of what was suggested humans possess then their is little to no chance of us losing. One way involves true conventional warfare with what modern militaries have at present. Another is pure undiluted biological warfare. And the last is space based kinetic weaponry. Unless Cameron goes down the ridiculous angle of some supernatural power then those blue buggers would be either irrelevant to any future mining operation, or they’d be extinct.
I can enjoy the flick for pure entertainment value. But I’m tired of suspending disbelief in every single modern science fiction film I see. Waiting on Moon from Netflix though, so hopefully it won’t disappoint.
Wow, you certainly do put a lot of words in my mouth.
Political hate speech? No sorry. I actually am for the conservation of the environment, the development of eco-friendly technology and a world in which humanity and nature are completely at peace.
What I am against is any group which tells me that the sole way to “sustainability” is their fantasies of a world that never was, via abandoning all technology and returning to a “natural” way of life.
You see, the part they ALWAYS forget to mention is that in order to abandon technology and return to that “golden” era means we abandon the very means with which to feed all 6.8 billion of us. Which means that 80% of us are simply left to die of starvation so that the 20% that could be fed using the outdated “but oh so much more natural” technologies of our ancestors will have their “Green Utopia”
I could care less about your opinions of me, but as someone who cares very much about the survival of ALL of humanity, not just that section of it that I approve of, I find the entire current “eco” movement to be dangerous, because the vast majority of people who support it HAVE NOT LOGICALLY THOUGHT THE CONSEQUENCES THROUGH. So many of them are quite sincere, well meaning, and totally UNAWARE that they are advocating mass genocide.
So sorry if I had to point out the troubling “logic” behind your beliefs, but since you seemed so worried about my “reasoning” it was necessary. I would think that any RATIONAL person who cares about human life should be repulsed by the current Eco movement.
But of course, I am sure you can find comfort in knowing that somehow, you will be one of those 20% who survives…
But hey, since actual reasoned debate was never your intention, merely an excuse for you to launch ad hominem attacks at someone, it will be interesting to see what illogical and insulting response you make next time.
Good answer, and one I can agree with. But as I pointed out in another post, being eco-friendly is not the same as embracing primitivism as an ideal, which far too many radicals who call themselves “greens” do. That is the crowd that Avatar is made for.
We’ve gotten ourselves in quite a bind, we have to find a balance between keeping 6.8 billion people alive, and doing so in a manner which is also environmentally safe. If we don’t address environmental concerns, that 6.8 billion will die along with the rest of the Earth.
But retreat is not, and never has been an option, and far too few people understand that.
Say we do retreat, per the “Green Utopian” ideal of primitivism. We retreat back to the post industrial “Agrarian Society” of the 1800′s.
Malthus pointed out quite rightly that the methods of food production AT THE TIME, could not sustain our numbers then, let alone now.
So, how do we decide which people make up that 80% of our total population is going to be forced to starve to death so that we can return to an agrarian way of life?
Lotto? You lose you die?
Let the chips fall where they may? In which case money will determine who lives, with the likelihood that the starving masses will not take dying lying down?
Mass Exterminations?
Biological warfare?
Tell me, which way do we propose for 80% of humanity to die?
The SOLE sane option is to charge ahead, try our best to make better solutions, and look for better options. We can’t force everybody to behave in certain ways, we can’t mandate a change in human nature. All we can do is find ways to ensure that human nature doesn’t matter.
And the only way to do that is through technology.
And stuff like this from Hollywood makes the job for sane, reasonable people who understand that just that much harder. By catering to that sincere, well meaning, and yet utterly clueless mindset, it does far more harm than good to the actual hopes of a truly sustainable future.