DARKSIDE72
Sr Member
They used line of sight... :confused Old fashioned line up the target with the sight and pull the trigger...
Avatar reviews - Attention : spoilers
- Thread starter ghostryder
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They used line of sight... :confused Old fashioned line up the target with the sight and pull the trigger...
Roger Dean. Even the arcs of stone around the Eywa tree are direct Roger Dean lifts.
Phase - here's a nice rundown of the scriptment which demonstrates that your theory is bang on the money:
http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html
- there was a lot more explanatory material and many character and story points were much more nicely dealt with. The Tree originally wasn't on an unobtainium seam at all - it had to go to make a point to the Na'vi, that's all. Oh - confirmation of the "unobtainium content/superconductor/magnetic field from the gas giant" idea for the flying mountains, too. And the vortex did originally bugger up the avatar mind link, so the mountain away-station was originally a booster/repeater station for that signal.
Where changes have been made, they're mostly simplifications. Cameron took a long look at his audience and didn't like what he saw, is my guess.
Kerr: agreed. If Earth needs Pandora to survive, they're just going to accept defeat and try to become more environmentally conscious? Hardly, they'll be back, with nukes, mass drivers, whatever.
The scriptment had a threat to ward that off - if humans returned, Pandora/Eywa would tailor a virus that would wipe out humanity. Shoulda kept it, but that idea was too complex for the likes of us, apparently.
Kerr Avon
Master Member
Even then, still doesn't solve the problem of humanity needing the material to survive. The human race isn't going to accept defeat unless the forces of Pandora go to Earth and kick the human race's *** on their own planet. They'd just mine the material in hazmat suits if a virus was released after mass driving the planet's life into extinction.
Yep, and that required them to waltz right up to the enemy and get their asses kicked. :lol
Using ballistic missiles, they could have sat back and taken down the tree and the Na'vi couldn't have done anything about it.
Oh wait, Cameron could have written a more complex story where, by for instance leaving Sigourney Weaver's character alive awhile longer, different teams of Na'vi and scientists, work together along multiple plot threads, to achieve the defeat of Col. Quidditch and his freelance mercenaries. :sleep
k
Fairy tales don't hold up too well to analyzation nor should they.
Again, there's missing backstory. RDA is under the oversight of an interstellar trade regulating body which allows them a limited private military but doesn't permit them to have weapons of mass destruction. There was originally even a supervising bioethics officer - a corrupt one, but at least he existed.
Like I say, all too complex for the likes o' us. Pity.
Kerr, the virus doesn't really exist, it's only a threat; but yes. Never mind hazmat suits - there's really nothing to stop them driving those remote-control bulldozers from an orbital base, is there?
Like I say, all too complex for the likes o' us. Pity.
Kerr, the virus doesn't really exist, it's only a threat; but yes. Never mind hazmat suits - there's really nothing to stop them driving those remote-control bulldozers from an orbital base, is there?
Carson Dyle
Sr Member
Maybe, maybe not.
My take on the scenario is that a weak and greedy corporate executive "pulled the trigger" on an ill-conceived para-military operation that failed spectacularly. When corporations make blunders of that magnitude (i.e billions lost in the course of needless genocide) world leaders tend to distance themselves from the responsible parties. Certainly public opinion would be mixed, to say the least (unless we've all become Nazis).
There's a lot we don't know about the Earth of Avatar. Clearly the planet has squandered its resources, but it remains unclear how much interstellar bloodshed Cameron's futuristic public would tolerate in the quest for Unobtanium. Even the East India Company, the most powerful "corporation" in human history, ceased to exist for political reasons having little to do with its might.
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ghostryder
Legendary Member
Well here's a "Making-Of" video you don't see everyday:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/28/avatar-the-making-of-the-bootleg/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/28/avatar-the-making-of-the-bootleg/
Rotwang
Sr Member
Quaritch assumed the Na'vi were just a bunch of savages and got his butt kicked by Sully.
If you look back Eywa seems to have been aware of Jake since he set wheel on the planet or he would have ended with a small poison-tipped tree in his back.
Grace then explains that the connection on the planet is incredibly complex so there is a chance that Eywa and all the lifeforms on the planet may have some yet unknown abilities that could make nukes and mass-drivers look like Nigerian firecrackers. And who says the connection is natural ? It might be the result of highly advanced biotechnology and the Na'vi are just happy to live simple lives, but keep the planetbusters hidden in their racial memory just in case ... Or they might be able to fix the problems on earth and save the human race from themselves ...
Plenty of possibilities ...
Watched the movie again today and I found the effects even better than the first time.
If you look back Eywa seems to have been aware of Jake since he set wheel on the planet or he would have ended with a small poison-tipped tree in his back.
Grace then explains that the connection on the planet is incredibly complex so there is a chance that Eywa and all the lifeforms on the planet may have some yet unknown abilities that could make nukes and mass-drivers look like Nigerian firecrackers. And who says the connection is natural ? It might be the result of highly advanced biotechnology and the Na'vi are just happy to live simple lives, but keep the planetbusters hidden in their racial memory just in case ... Or they might be able to fix the problems on earth and save the human race from themselves ...
Plenty of possibilities ...
Watched the movie again today and I found the effects even better than the first time.
12Rogues
Sr Member
I saw Avatar this weekend. I went in skeptical. I only saw one trailer and didn't read any of the hype driven reviews, previews or rumors.
I knew the animation was said to be groundbreaking, but I didn't have as much faith in the story. I tried to watch the film for story content and put the effects on the side burner.
After the film was over, I was blown away by the animation, but the story bugged me.
First it seemed rushed. Almost like Cameron tried to fit a trilogy into a single film. I wanted to know more about the first contact between humans and the aliens. I wanted to know more about the reason this Unobtainium was so important and how we came to discover it. I wanted to know more about the state of our world that made this substance so valuable.
I thought the tribe accepted him way too quickly decided to train him way way too eagerly.
Throughout the film I kept getting bugged by the fact that it seemed like a rushed version of Dances with Wolves in space. At the ending I thought they were going to burst out in Hakuna Matata around the tree of life.
My conclusion was that it is original in it's animation and visual style. The story itself is a abridged mish mash of several better films.
Aliens with, well Ripley and the power loader. The Matrix battle mechs.
Dances with Wolves....99% of the story.
A little of the Abyss here and there.
Lion King with the Hakuna Matata ending & circle of life.
It's too bad that the outstanding effects that try to distract you from what would otherwise be a pretty mediocre film. If he focused on making the story as original as it is pretty, I would have liked it so much more.
I knew the animation was said to be groundbreaking, but I didn't have as much faith in the story. I tried to watch the film for story content and put the effects on the side burner.
After the film was over, I was blown away by the animation, but the story bugged me.
First it seemed rushed. Almost like Cameron tried to fit a trilogy into a single film. I wanted to know more about the first contact between humans and the aliens. I wanted to know more about the reason this Unobtainium was so important and how we came to discover it. I wanted to know more about the state of our world that made this substance so valuable.
I thought the tribe accepted him way too quickly decided to train him way way too eagerly.
Throughout the film I kept getting bugged by the fact that it seemed like a rushed version of Dances with Wolves in space. At the ending I thought they were going to burst out in Hakuna Matata around the tree of life.
My conclusion was that it is original in it's animation and visual style. The story itself is a abridged mish mash of several better films.
Aliens with, well Ripley and the power loader. The Matrix battle mechs.
Dances with Wolves....99% of the story.
A little of the Abyss here and there.
Lion King with the Hakuna Matata ending & circle of life.
It's too bad that the outstanding effects that try to distract you from what would otherwise be a pretty mediocre film. If he focused on making the story as original as it is pretty, I would have liked it so much more.
Soundwave
Sr Member
Exactly. I mean...didn't they say it takes 6 years to get to Pandora? For the time it takes them to get back to earth, mount up another force, anything could happen back on Pandora in that time. It seems a lot of time, effort and resources, to potentially come back empty handed again.
There really is no use speculating all there what if scenarios, as the possibilites are endless.
Soundwave
Sr Member
In what way was it similar to Aliens, apart from the fact it had Sigourney Weaver in?
You know you could say the same about any film, that it's 'borrowed' parts from other films. Like your comments about the mechs...as I can assure you that the Matrix Revoloution did not come up with that idea.
It's like drawing comparisons to High School Musical and Citizen Kane because the actors in both films had eyes.
12Rogues
Sr Member
Well "borrowed" would be a light term for the similarities with Dances with Wolves.
Besides just the loader from Aliens there was the fact they were mining for a big money hungry corporation and needed military intervention to control an Alien species on a distant world part of the story line. Not something as little as just the loader. I'm sorry I didn't expand on my comparison enough for you.
And yes they all had eyes in this film just like Citizen Kane.
Besides just the loader from Aliens there was the fact they were mining for a big money hungry corporation and needed military intervention to control an Alien species on a distant world part of the story line. Not something as little as just the loader. I'm sorry I didn't expand on my comparison enough for you.
And yes they all had eyes in this film just like Citizen Kane.
Carson Dyle
Sr Member
I for one appreciate the fact that Cameron allowed the audience to use its imagination in this regard. Unobtanium is a McGuffin; the less exposition involved the better.
I mean, do you really think North By Northwest would be a better film if we knew what was on the microfilm?
Carson Dyle
Sr Member
Well, Dances with Wolves is basically the Pocahontas story if you want to split hairs -- a story that had probably been told countless times before Pocahontas was born.
It doesn't matter what a storyteller borrows; the only thing that matters is what he does with what he borrows (Star Wars, again, being the obvious example of what can happen when a filmmaker mixes familiar elements in a new and exciting way).
12Rogues
Sr Member
I guess I'm just wishing that Hollywood would come up with more original content.
No film is perfect. I feel sad that they wrap the same old item in some spectacular shiny package and it sells based solely on the shine. Sometimes I would like to find something just as spectacular inside the packaging.
No film is perfect. I feel sad that they wrap the same old item in some spectacular shiny package and it sells based solely on the shine. Sometimes I would like to find something just as spectacular inside the packaging.
Solo4114
Master Member
That's been my big fear about this film. Glitzy, amazing-looking visuals but otherwise a ho-hum story. Basically I worry it'll be the same experience I had with Crouching Tiger, which was nice and all, but not the be-all/end-all people made it out to be.
I still hold out hope that you can make a movie with AMAZING visuals and a truly compelling story with good quality, believable acting. Although frankly, I'll sacrifice the visuals any day of the week if the acting and story are better for it.
I still hold out hope that you can make a movie with AMAZING visuals and a truly compelling story with good quality, believable acting. Although frankly, I'll sacrifice the visuals any day of the week if the acting and story are better for it.
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nightrider
Sr Member
I seem to remember a line from somewhere that goes something like "there is nothing new under the sun". There are no new stories, only versions and combinations of stories others have already told. Some are more familiar than others, but in the end all that matters to me, and most people I imagine, is that it works and is done well. In this regard I think Avatar excelled.
As for explaining everything, I think some movies have suffered from trying to do too much of this and the story is all the worse for it. This IMO was just one of the numerous flaws with the prequels. I didn't want to know about midiclorians and I'm glad I didn't have to hear an equally dissapointing explanation for unobtanium. Is it a perfect film? Well...no. Few are really, even some of the greats.
As for explaining everything, I think some movies have suffered from trying to do too much of this and the story is all the worse for it. This IMO was just one of the numerous flaws with the prequels. I didn't want to know about midiclorians and I'm glad I didn't have to hear an equally dissapointing explanation for unobtanium. Is it a perfect film? Well...no. Few are really, even some of the greats.
Carson Dyle
Sr Member
You've just described The Wizard of Oz, 2001, and Star Wars.
The films mentioned are not classics because they have anything "new" to say about the human condition (it's called "A Space Odyssey" for a reason). They're classics because they recycle familiar elements in new and interesting ways.
It probably doesn't hurt that they convey themes which tend to resonate from one generation to the next.
Avatar is pure cinema. Sacrificing the visuals in favor of a good story is not an option; in this case they're joined at the hip.
Like it, don't like it, whatever. Just don't fault it for not being something it's not trying to be.
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