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sebster wrote:While the native drew inspiration from American Indian cultures as well as others, the political message wasn't about the Indians, it was a pretty direct attack on the occupation of Iraq. The main character lost the use of legs fighting in Venezuala. He originally said he was fighting for freedom in that engagement, and later recognises that if someone is living on a valuable resource then 'they' will make those people your enemy. The Colonel even referred to 'shock and awe'.

Respectfully I think the Iraq connection you therorize about is way off. To me, it was an obvious indictment of imperialism, more specifically american imperialism related to the treatment of the American Natives. Destroying the big tree was more akin to the american expulsion of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes out of the Apalachian mountains, leading to the "trail of tears".

Sadam Hussein wasn't made an enemy to take Iraqs oil, he was allready an enemy dating back to Desert storm.

GG

The motivation for Desert Storm was largely based on concern with respect to control of Kuwaiti oil. Prior to that Saddam was a US ally.

dogma wrote:The motivation for Desert Storm was largely based on concern with respect to control of Kuwaiti oil. Prior to that Saddam was a US ally.

And your point is?

I mean..... of course evryone knows that Sadam was our ally because he fought the Iranians and purchased our weapons.

If your trying to draw a parralell between Desert storm and Avatar I think it breaks down, since the Navi were not invading other planets/civilizations, like Sadam was in, invading Kuwait. There is no doubt that the economics of oil were in play during Desert storm, however Iraq was the agressor there. Unlike the Navi.

This is why I disagree with sebster, as I think it has more to do with Americas behavior towards the native americans than Iraq.

GG

I saw it 2 days in a row
with the same person i saw it the day before.
paying twice as much cause it was after 6(or 5)
it was nice still.

The way I feel about this movie is summed up in this picture.

All of those bits of shiny, are bronze. Want to know why? Ahtman knows why, and Frazzled from the sound of it as well.

This movie was a waste of my time, I enjoyed it almost solely because of the hype surrounding it. I went in thinking, "Wow, this movie, it is going to blow my mind and stuff." Well guess what, it didn't; it failed in that department. My brain makes shinier images than that on a bad day. Shinier and Grim Darkier (tm) images, that I enjoy thinking about. I don't want to make it sound terrible, after all, it did get a solid C (70%) rating from me.

If you like to be eyefecked into the next decade, then watch this film. If you care at all about story, and continuity, and generally understandable cinema; this film will sorely disappoint you.

As with the Last samurai, this movie went for the epic high shot (which marketing solely balanced to an acceptable profitability, LOOK AT THIS, NAOW, READ THIS. OR I WILL JAB YOU IN THE BRAIN WITH MORE ASKING OF YOU OF READING OF THIS... marketing...) and failed. Over the next decade, you will see exactly why this movie is nothing more than a spectacle for the unprepared. Your brain will melt ten years from now if this CGI really astounded you that much.

Moar shiny stuff in the future, news at 11.

Spoiler... I has it.

generalgrog wrote:
And your point is?

I mean..... of course evryone knows that Sadam was our ally because he fought the Iranians and purchased our weapons.

If your trying to draw a parralell between Desert storm and Avatar I think it breaks down, since the Navi were not invading other planets/civilizations, like Sadam was in, invading Kuwait. There is no doubt that the economics of oil were in play during Desert storm, however Iraq was the agressor there. Unlike the Navi.

That Saddam Husein was made an enemy as a result of the impact his actions would have on the price, and control of oil.

generalgrog wrote:
This is why I disagree with sebster, as I think it has more to do with Americas behavior towards the native americans than Iraq.

GG

Honestly, as is often the case with respect to 'white guilt' films, it seems to be primarily an indictment of imperialism in general. Though I doubt it was ever conceived in that light.

I just got back from it myself. It was pretty much what I expected.

The 3d was more of a distraction than an asset; I didn't really expect that, but I haven't seen a 3d movie since I was young. There are some still scenes that make the 3d look good, but too often things became blurry while moving fast, and too often the people who are supposed to be in the foreground look like cardboard cutouts in front of the background.

I don't know that I was ever that visually stunned by the movie. Maybe I just don't react strongly to special effects, but at no moment in the movie did I think of it as being some sort of quantum leap in visual capability. It seemed pretty much like any other modern CGI based movie.

The action scenes were done well, which is something Cameron could be counted on for. By the time they came near the end it was a welcome relief. The movie really sags in the middle, probably thanks to the movie's overall length.

The characters were weak. The only two decent characters in the movie were the colonel (as has been said a lot) and the business guy. Both of which are the "villains", of course. I found the protagonist to be less than sympathetic in the beginning, and getting more annoying as time went on. He starts out the dull "average American" who is rightly hated by both the human intellectuals and the blue master race.

Then there's some fairly entertaining running around the jungle until chief's daughter (yep) randomly finds him and decides not to kill him because he has a strong heart or some stupid gak. She saves him from space jackals and then magic dandelions land on him and he becomes The Chosen One. The Pocahontas Na'vi is really pretty boring. From secretly loving the protagonist while acting like an exasperated mother towards him for not being able to paint with all the colors of the wind (yawn) to being arranged to marry the leading brave (despite her independent tomboyish spirit), she's not really any different from the "indian princess" stereotype she was modeled after.

The other Na'vi aren't any less one dimensional. We have the dour faced chief, who has a lot of feathers, and is grim but stoic. Then we have his wife, the chief priestess of The Earth Mother, who spares the protagonist's life because the plot demands it. The token "bad not as good" Na'vi is the headstrong warrior guy, who doesn't accept "the outsider" who "doesn't belong" (which really makes sense, considering that he's getting them killed). Does this brave then begrudgingly come to accept the protagonist as one of his people after doing something courageous? Yep. The Na'vi as a whole are sort of grating. They're all watered down noble savage without any of the actual eccentricities that would have made a historical indian tribe seem like a real group of people. They fall flat on their ass as "aliens", since most real cultures are more exotic. You know the "white liberal" caricature who desperately tries to act "multicultural" by ripping a hodgepodge of traits from primitive societies that wouldn't see themselves as being particularly related at all? That's the Na'vi.

The other humans are pretty straightforward. There's the "strong female scientist with a heart of gold" who is really the most insufferable character in the whole movie (because it's all "strong female scientist with a heart of gold" all the time. It's cloying. Yes, we get it, you're excited about science). There's the nerd friend, who's just sort of "there". There's the helicopter pilot who betrays her own side for no reason and deus ex machinas the main characters to safety. (She's fairly amusing, but wasn't she already in Aliens?) The business guy is supposed to be the incompetent executive type, but he's actually one of the few characters who seems like a real person. The colonel is over-the-top, but a lot of fun.

The plotline is pretty much Pocahontas. White people arrive in a new world on a ship, searching for a precious mineral. One of the white people gets lost. The daughter of the chief finds him, and they fall in love. The white guy learns to value nature instead of wealth, and learns the ways of the natives. Then there is an incident in which the white people and natives fight, and the white guy is almost executed. He is saved at the last minute. A war is about to start between the white people and the natives, that the white guy wants to stop. The natives have animal friends. People talk to a magic willow tree (I really didn't expect this to be in both movies, but it is).

The ending is different, of course. In Avatar the protagonist "unites all the tribes" by flying around and giving speeches like in Braveheart or something. Then when the villain decides to "fight terror with terror" (which made no sense at all in the context of the movie, but scored political points maybe?) by blowing up Grandmother Willow, the natives kill them with armor piercing arrows and giant panthers. There is a pretty silly fight scene at the end, where a giant armored walker actually pulls out a knife to fight a giant panther. It can't just, ya know, bash it with it's giant metal hands, or shoot it with some sort of built in gun, it uses a combat knife (and gets into a knife fight with the hero).

The movie isn't "like nothing you've ever seen before", it's a story that I've seen so many times it gets on my nerves. The CGI is good but nothing worth seeing the movie for alone. The directing of the action scenes and the actual design of some of the aliens is where I would say the movie grabbed my interest, because the action scenes came together very nicely and some of the aliens looked pretty cool (as did some of the equipment used by the humans; not so much the goofy armored suits though). The plotline is dull. Very, very dull. It wasn't full of holes, and it did actually go somewhere (*cough* Attack of the Clones) but that's really just a base requirement. The characters are as dull as the plotline, especially the one-dimensional stereotypes of the Na'vi. The acting seemed to be done decently, especially as the faces were CGI, but there's nothing worth expressing. If you do see it I would recommend it in 2d.

6.5/10

Orkeo wrote:The ending is different, of course. In Avatar the protagonist "unites all the tribes" by flying around and giving speeches like in Braveheart or something.

The movie began to lose me here (a little bit earlier actually).

Then when the villain decides to "fight terror with terror" (which made no sense at all in the context of the movie, but scored political points maybe?) by blowing up Grandmother Willow, the natives kill them with armor piercing arrows and giant panthers.

This is when I started having one worded conversations in my head about the movie, such as "Yeah... what?", and "Okay... what?".

There is a pretty silly fight scene at the end, where a giant armored walker actually pulls out a knife to fight a giant panther. It can't just, ya know, bash it with it's giant metal hands, or shoot it with some sort of built in gun, it uses a combat knife (and gets into a knife fight with the hero).

The knife will never stop bugging me, ever. After the mechs are highlighted as a shiny special effects prop that they spent a lot of time on, they gave one a knife, stuck the (one of the two) best character/s in it; and just said feth this and end the movie already. Abrupt, strange, and completely lacking in substantive awesome. The controls of the mech are strange as well. I can understand why you would have direct controls for some functions (you punch, the mech punches, makes sense), but what sense does it make to require you to actually pretend to hold a gun. It. Makes. No. Sense.

There is one scene that shows this in detail, and it reminded me of an arcade shooter... with a pretend gun. Kind of like trying to play the guitar at a live gig, when you forgot your guitar. The birth of the air guitar was cooler than using an imaginary gun, to fire a real gun...

I thought it was strange that for all the over-armed vehicles (transport gunship had quad-linked vulcan cannons ffs) the mechs just had the rifle. Where are the shoulder mounted missles or the mech sized flame-thrower, perfect for a jungle environment.

Well, advanced military and skilled professional operators deployed in a timely and relevant fashion would succeed in putting down the tribal insurrection...

We wouldn't want to ruin our do-good underdog protagonists' heartwarming and seemingly improbable victory, would we?



...ah, screw it. Send in the Sentinels.

Frazzled wrote:1. Hai guyz, I iz yer pilot! ^_^
2. Oh noez, we shot a tree with minimal casualties
3. Nowz I kill all the people I haz been working and living wif for the last [unknown period of time because I am not really developed].
4. Oh noez, nowz I iz dead. /sadface
****Exactly.

It's bizarre that you saw the events of the movie and thought you were seeing 'we shot a tree with minimal casualties'. The film was showing armed men force native people from their homes so they can profit from the resources there, something which some people oppose, including the helicopter pilot.

At this point it's obvious you're being obtuse for the sake of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

generalgrog wrote:Respectfully I think the Iraq connection you therorize about is way off. To me, it was an obvious indictment of imperialism, more specifically american imperialism related to the treatment of the American Natives. Destroying the big tree was more akin to the american expulsion of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes out of the Apalachian mountains, leading to the "trail of tears".

Yeah, at first I thought it was shaping up as a fairly straightforward 'generic imperialism is generically bad' but a few direct references were made. He lost his legs fighting in Venezuala - they didn't have to mention where, and they certainly didn't have to mention a major oil producing nation. The 'shock and awe' comment. The comment about making people you enemy to take their stuff.

There were pointed and not very subtle references to recent political events.

Sadam Hussein wasn't made an enemy to take Iraqs oil, he was allready an enemy dating back to Desert storm.

GG

Nor was either attack on Iraq, in my opinion, based on oil. But we aren't talking about my point of view or yours here, we're talking about the intended message of the movie and its creators.

I thought it was dump of here to paint here heli(or whateva) and fly over shooting the gun ship.
she could have just flew infront of the cockpit and shoot a missle into the cockpit. problem solved battle over.
on a side note they believe a sequal will be releashed late 2011.

sebster wrote:

Frazzled wrote:1. Hai guyz, I iz yer pilot! ^_^
2. Oh noez, we shot a tree with minimal casualties
3. Nowz I kill all the people I haz been working and living wif for the last [unknown period of time because I am not really developed].
4. Oh noez, nowz I iz dead. /sadface
****Exactly.

It's bizarre that you saw the events of the movie and thought you were seeing 'we shot a tree with minimal casualties'. The film was showing armed men force native people from their homes so they can profit from the resources there, something which some people oppose, including the helicopter pilot.

It is reasonable that this incident might have made Trudy question what was going on, but one incident of blowing up a tree is rarely enough by itself to make someone a traitor. If they had targeted the Navi and just started blowing them away it would have been more believable. It is also the only inciting point for her to turn her back on everything. We don't even get to see her agonize over it or even think about it. It just happens. She also just took off in the middle of an operation with apparently no consequences. Last I checked, even in a mercenary force (especially a stand in for the USMC) wouldn't take that to kindly. If there were consequences we never see it or here anything about it.

sebster wrote:At this point it's obvious you're being obtuse for the sake of it.

Sebster going ad hominem because someone feels differently about a movie on my Dakka? It's more likely than you think.

Saw this film yesterday, and regardless of whatever else has been said in this thread, I thought it was pretty much the most awesome film ever.
I spent about ten minutes straight looking exactly like this:


The rest of it was pretty sweet too

Ahtman wrote:It is reasonable that this incident might have made Trudy question what was going on, but one incident of blowing up a tree is rarely enough by itself to make someone a traitor. If they had targeted the Navi and just started blowing them away it would have been more believable. It is also the only inciting point for her to turn her back on everything. We don't even get to see her agonize over it or even think about it. It just happens. She also just took off in the middle of an operation with apparently no consequences. Last I checked, even in a mercenary force (especially a stand in for the USMC) wouldn't take that to kindly. If there were consequences we never see it or here anything about it.

Keeping her freedom after ignoring orders to fire on the tree and flying off was a plot hole, I agree with you there.

But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree. The Na'vi stored the memories of their ancestors in trees like that one. Having worked with the Avatar team during that period the pilot understood that... or maybe she was the only person unwilling to force people from their homes.

We don't see her agonise over the issue, but she's a minor character in a big movie. Stopping the flow of the narrative for the sake of some angst from a peripheral character with a simple character story is the kind of thing bad directors do... good ones like Cameron know how to fit the stories of minor characters into the overall narrative.

Sebster going ad hominem because someone feels differently about a movie on my Dakka? It's more likely than you think.

Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem? Meanwhile, describing the assault on the home of a people to which they had a direct, physical connection as attacking a tree with minimal casualties... is taking such a wrong headed approach to the events that it couldn't possibly be a genuine misinterpretation.

Ahtman wrote:It is reasonable that this incident might have made Trudy question what was going on, but one incident of blowing up a tree is rarely enough by itself to make someone a traitor.

Exactly. It wouldn't have been terribly difficult to work this out either. All they would've needed was an early scene with Trudy expressing distaste at being assigned to a military operation. It isn't too difficult to believe that RDA would shuffle flight qualified personnel as the situation might require, even if they lacked military experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem?

Yeah. Anytime you make a statement which can be phrased as "X makes you sound like Y" you're making an ad hominem argument. That doesn't mean your point is invalid, it just means that X isn't necessarily related to Y. Though the two might be reasonably related.

sebster wrote:But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree.

I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

sebster wrote:Having worked with the Avatar team during that period the pilot understood that... or maybe she was the only person unwilling to force people from their homes.

That is an assumption. No where in the film are we given this idea or information. For all we know she only sees them when she picks them up and drops them off. How hard would it have been to put in a scene of her and Jake talking for just a minute where he is relating to her what he has seen and learned?

sebster wrote:We don't see her agonise over the issue, but she's a minor character in a big movie.

So she is minor enough that it doesn't matter, but important enough to imagine justification for her poor character transition. She is so minor we as an audience are supposed to care when she dies. Hell, she is the only human that can't turn into a 10 foot alien that fights back.

sebster wrote:Stopping the flow of the narrative for the sake of some angst from a peripheral character with a simple character story is the kind of thing bad directors do... good ones like Cameron know how to fit the stories of minor characters into the overall narrative.

That is just a load of dog feces. Aliens was able to create believable minor characters with little moments w/o 'disrupting the flow of the film. Cameron screwed the pooch on this one. Just as a general rule, fleshing out characters is the sign of a good screenplay and director, not of bad ones.

Sebster wrote:Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem? Meanwhile, describing the assault on the home of a people to which they had a direct, physical connection as attacking a tree with minimal casualties... is taking such a wrong headed approach to the events that it couldn't possibly be a genuine misinterpretation.

It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it. I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place.

I am amazed at the contortions and rationalizations you are willing to manufacture to try and gloss over such obvious deficiencies. As I said before I did enjoy the movie, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to all the faults of it, of which there are many.

Ahtman wrote:

sebster wrote:But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree.

I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

sebster wrote:Having worked with the Avatar team during that period the pilot understood that... or maybe she was the only person unwilling to force people from their homes.

That is an assumption. No where in the film are we given this idea or information. For all we know she only sees them when she picks them up and drops them off. How hard would it have been to put in a scene of her and Jake talking for just a minute where he is relating to her what he has seen and learned?

sebster wrote:We don't see her agonise over the issue, but she's a minor character in a big movie.

So she is minor enough that it doesn't matter, but important enough to imagine justification for her poor character transition. She is so minor we as an audience are supposed to care when she dies. Hell, she is the only human that can't turn into a 10 foot alien that fights back.

sebster wrote:Stopping the flow of the narrative for the sake of some angst from a peripheral character with a simple character story is the kind of thing bad directors do... good ones like Cameron know how to fit the stories of minor characters into the overall narrative.

That is just a load of dog feces. Aliens was able to create believable minor characters with little moments w/o 'disrupting the flow of the film. Cameron screwed the pooch on this one. Just as a general rule, fleshing out characters is the sign of a good screenplay and director, not of bad ones.

Sebster wrote:Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem? Meanwhile, describing the assault on the home of a people to which they had a direct, physical connection as attacking a tree with minimal casualties... is taking such a wrong headed approach to the events that it couldn't possibly be a genuine misinterpretation.

It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it. I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place.

I am amazed at the contortions and rationalizations you are willing to manufacture to try and gloss over such obvious deficiencies. As I said before I did enjoy the movie, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to all the faults of it, of which there are many.

Given the length of the movie, it could be a clearer explanation will emerge in the directors cut? It could be that Cameron decided it didn't impact too much if he removed it from the general release version. I for one tend to accept that there must be a reason for a characters actions, but don't dwell too much on it if it's not clear as I know you can bog the movie down other wise.

I for one tend to accept that there must be a reason for a characters actions

But they still have to be believable. She goes from 0-60 (97 for kph) in 4 seconds with little explanation. The real explanation is that it is automatically assumed the audience won't notice because she is siding against the bad guys and because they needed a deus ex machina to be able to hide the base away. They couldn't haul the trailers into the floating mountains w/o a pilot so *KABOOM* instant traitor. Just add water.

It's bizarre that you saw the events of the movie and thought you were seeing 'we shot a tree with minimal casualties'. The film was showing armed men force ALIENS OUT so they can profit from the resources there, something which some people oppose, including the helicopter pilot.

At this point it's obvious you're being obtuse for the sake of it.

No you're being a fool if you think anyone in their right mind would turn like that. they are marine pilots. They've probably seen their own people die to these aliens. The 40K mantra "PURGE THE ALIEN" is really appropriate here. After all, clean the place up a bit and its a new colony for humans, for you know, the pilot's own species.

On the positive I corrected your typo.

What I loved the most about the movie was that the character played by Sam Worthington at first seemed just like another dumb smuck (jeez, he should post here on OT) then by the end of the movie you finally figure out that he is a very humble totally bad arse alien Messiah! That rawked by gnads!!!

G

Ahtman wrote:

sebster wrote:But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree.

I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

Ah , but she was in the Avatar program if you think about it . She was their pilot , so she must have known at least something about the tree etc...

gretar wrote:Ah , but she was in the Avatar program if you think about it . She was their pilot , so she must have known at least something about the tree etc...

That does not follow in the least. That's like suggesting that a truck driver for intel must know the inner workings of their chips because he hauls the crap around.

Frazzled wrote:
No you're being a fool if you think anyone in their right mind would turn like that. they are marine pilots. They've probably seen their own people die to these aliens.

Well, ex-marine pilots anyway. The easy fix would've been an "I didn't sign up for this" scene regarding Trudy. Of course, it wasn't there, so the criticism applies in the form of a deus ex machina, or a plot hole.

Frazzled wrote:
After all, clean the place up a bit and its a new colony for humans, for you know, the pilot's own species.

Of course, humans can't breath on Pandora, and the aliens are sufficiently anthropomorphic to be sympathetic. Many people squirm at the notion of killing bunnies without just cause, there's no reason to believe that said squeamishness wouldn't be even more pronounced with respect to a big, blue, intelligent kitty.

the one thing that bothered me about the movie, ununpentiom an unstable gaseous element that can't exsist for more then a tenth of a second

Could you repeat that last part in a way that makes sense?

dogma wrote:Yeah. Anytime you make a statement which can be phrased as "X makes you sound like Y" you're making an ad hominem argument. That doesn't mean your point is invalid, it just means that X isn't necessarily related to Y. Though the two might be reasonably related.

It's the difference between 'your opinion is faulty' and 'you're faulty'. I would think my comment that fraz was being obtuse would refer to his argument, not to him, but I can see how mileage can vary.

Ahtman wrote:I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

I didn't know her name until just then, cheers for that (as an aside... Trudy? Who names a character Trudy?)

The importance of the tree to the na'vi was a fairly basic piece of knowledge, it's very unlikely she wouldn't have picked up on that given her time working with the science team.

That is an assumption. No where in the film are we given this idea or information. For all we know she only sees them when she picks them up and drops them off. How hard would it have been to put in a scene of her and Jake talking for just a minute where he is relating to her what he has seen and learned?

No, we aren't given that information. Do we really need it, and every other detail spelled out? This is a fairly universal story, one that's been told many, many times now. Personally, I just assumed she was going to turn and fight with the Na'vi from the moment we saw her taking the scientists out to the hanging rock place, and I think most people could assume the same. Wasting screen time explaining a very simple thing (soldier doesn't agree with army and joins scientists) would be bad story telling.

So she is minor enough that it doesn't matter, but important enough to imagine justification for her poor character transition. She is so minor we as an audience are supposed to care when she dies. Hell, she is the only human that can't turn into a 10 foot alien that fights back.

To the extent that people on-line are complaining about it, is the extent to which I've thought about why she might have turned. Personally it made sense given the narrative, and didn't really need any more explanation... "pilot sees a thing happen that we all know is bad and decides not to be a part of it. She changes side and dies heroically.'

That is just a load of dog feces. Aliens was able to create believable minor characters with little moments w/o 'disrupting the flow of the film. Cameron screwed the pooch on this one. Just as a general rule, fleshing out characters is the sign of a good screenplay and director, not of bad ones.

Sbuh? The characters in Aliens were given just as much explanation for their basic drives. And no, 'fleshing out' is not a sign of good or bad direction, because you can have far more complex characters in bad movies, and far simpler characters in great movies. Knowing exactly how much detail is needed given the story you are telling is the mark of a talented director.

Did you see the Matrix sequels? Or Transformers II? Where they spent so much time explaining the complexities of whatever it was they kept talking about? And then you compare it to a film like Die Hard... where by then end we knew little about villain other than his sociopathy and greed. The latter is a great movie, the former are terrible movies, because the latter knew when to drop unecessary detail to maintain the pace.

It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it.

It's a completely obtuse, and entirely wrongheaded approach to the event. The Indians were moved from the Black Hills with minimal casualties, but it'd be the stuff of dark comedy to spend any time talking about how the operation was performed with minimal casualties. The point is when resources were found the native people were moved on, and that's wrong, and everything else is detail.

I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place

I'm doing what now? Maybe I've lost track of something in the conversation, but where did I say you were trying to justify their actions. And I think you're making a big assumption in thinking Trudy (Trudy?!) had no idea that the tree was more than just a home. Or that it needed to be more than home for some people to consider it wrong to force them away from it.

I am amazed at the contortions and rationalizations you are willing to manufacture to try and gloss over such obvious deficiencies. As I said before I did enjoy the movie, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to all the faults of it, of which there are many.

I'm amazed at people's ability to nitpick over the trivial. I could point out that the zero-g mineral they were mining was apparently measured in weight, which makes exactly zero sense but affects the quality of the movie about as much as the parsec line affected the quality of Star Wars. You have to look at what a movie is focussed on, and understand that worrying about things outside of will likely interupt the pacing or confuse the premise. Spending time showing the personal journey of a peripheral character as she came to make a decision that fit nicely within the narrative would be bad storytelling.


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Frazzled wrote:No you're being a fool if you think anyone in their right mind would turn like that. they are marine pilots. They've probably seen their own people die to these aliens. The 40K mantra "PURGE THE ALIEN" is really appropriate here. After all, clean the place up a bit and its a new colony for humans, for you know, the pilot's own species.

On the positive I corrected your typo.

Umm, they're aliens when they're on our planet. When they're on their planet they're natives, and we're aliens.

And if you walk into the movie thinking that we're humans so damn right we should be able to force aliens off their land to build ourselves a new home... then I can see how you might not enjoy the movie all that much.


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Tyyr wrote:That does not follow in the least. That's like suggesting that a truck driver for intel must know the inner workings of their chips because he hauls the crap around.

Nah, because chips don't talk but people do. So it'd be more like taxiing an intel research team around. And the inner workings of the chip are high level science, whereas 'the tree contains the memories of their ancestors' is a pretty basic thing to understand.

So it's about as plausible as a research team's driver knowing that his research team is developing a chip that isn't faster, but just consumes less power as that'd be useful in a laptop. Which a very plausible thing.


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dogma wrote:Well, ex-marine pilots anyway. The easy fix would've been an "I didn't sign up for this" scene regarding Trudy. Of course, it wasn't there, so the criticism applies in the form of a deus ex machina, or a plot hole.

I don't understand what you mean here. She said 'I didn't sign up for this' during the attack on the tree, and in her next scene she was helping the Avatar team escape.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

I didn't know her name until just then, cheers for that (as an aside... Trudy? Who names a character Trudy?)

The importance of the tree to the na'vi was a fairly basic piece of knowledge, it's very unlikely she wouldn't have picked up on that given her time working with the science team.

So was the Black Hills being sacred but guess what happened there? Knowing a species holds something sacred doesn't mean you think they are right, especially if you look at history.

sebster wrote:This is a fairly universal story, one that's been told many, many times now.

Actually it isn't that universal considering the extreme parallels to US history. And as with many stories that are told and retold, it is in the telling that makes it special, not the just the fact that it has been retold. This didn't tell it very well. It brought nothing new other than technology used in filming it to the table.

sebster wrote:Personally, I just assumed she was going to turn and fight with the Na'vi from the moment we saw her taking the scientists out to the hanging rock place, and I think most people could assume the same. Wasting screen time explaining a very simple thing (soldier doesn't agree with army and joins scientists) would be bad story telling.

No, it is bad storytelling no matter how much you wish it were otherwise. It wasn't even really foreshadowed. As you said, you just assumed it. The characters are so paper thin you could see exactly where everyone was going as soon as the credits were finished.

sebster wrote:To the extent that people on-line are complaining about it, is the extent to which I've thought about why she might have turned. Personally it made sense given the narrative, and didn't really need any more explanation... "pilot sees a thing happen that we all know is bad and decides not to be a part of it. She changes side and dies heroically.'

Again, you are making excuses that don't hold water. Your summary isn't any more obtuse than the one you were rallying against. People are also complaining in real life as well. I'm not sure why it would matter unless it is somehow supposed to be a way of minimizing the arguments just becuase they are online. Of course that would minimize a defense as well. Either way it is an unnecessary distraction from the discussion.

sebster wrote:The characters in Aliens were given just as much explanation for their basic drives. And no, 'fleshing out' is not a sign of good or bad direction, because you can have far more complex characters in bad movies, and far simpler characters in great movies. Knowing exactly how much detail is needed given the story you are telling is the mark of a talented director.

It isn't a question of complexity and never has been. You are adding goal posts. Now we are on a True Scottsman argument. You can have character develpment without it being overly complex. There is a distinct difference between simple character development and a complete lack of it. As for Aliens, did anyone do anything that just didn't make sense? No, within the diegisis of the film everyone's actions fit what we knew and were shown of them. That is different than this in the we are really shown nothing and told nothing, we are just supposed to accept it.

sebster wrote:Did you see the Matrix sequels? Or Transformers II? Where they spent so much time explaining the complexities of whatever it was they kept talking about? And then you compare it to a film like Die Hard... where by then end we knew little about villain other than his sociopathy and greed. The latter is a great movie, the former are terrible movies, because the latter knew when to drop unecessary detail to maintain the pace.

Apples and oranges. Those movies were bad (worse really) but for different reasons. There is also a difference between explaining the complexities of a plot and creating a believable character development. Transformers had no character development whatsoever: everyone was the same at the end as they were at the beginning. It didn't suck becuase they made Sam to complicated. If you want to talk about plot development that is fine, but that isn't what we have been discussing here at all. Again, you are changing what the discussion is about. As for Hans Gruber, we actually do get some information on him so it isn't as if he is just a parer suit, which is one of the reasons he is remembered. There is another key difference: he didn't have a radical change at any point in the film. If had just suddenly turned and decided to not go through with it for no reason it would have been bad. He starts as a bad guy and ends as a bad guy.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it.

It's a completely obtuse, and entirely wrongheaded approach to the event.

Besides getting dangerously close to ad hominem again, you are just flat out wrong. You are proffering your personal opinion as absolute fact. You, and this suprises me, are only able to view this from one very myopic perspective. You seem more intent on seeing at as you would see it in real life and not through the eyes of the characters in the film. And again you want to make it about the morality of the incident, which no one is arguing. You keep pretending that people are supporting the action when no one is. And again this discussing has never been about the assualt on the tree, you keep attacking those critical of the film for something we aren't even arguing.

sebster wrote:The Indians were moved from the Black Hills with minimal casualties, but it'd be the stuff of dark comedy to spend any time talking about how the operation was performed with minimal casualties.

And how many soldiers involved with that left the military and turned traitor to their country because of it?

sebster wrote:The point is when resources were found the native people were moved on, and that's wrong, and everything else is detail.

Well having studied Native American history for four years in college I really didn't know that. Thanks for taking something that was actually more complicated and making it into a bumper sticker.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place

And I think you're making a big assumption in thinking Trudy (Trudy?!) had no idea that the tree was more than just a home.

You just said a few sentences ago you were the one making the assumptions. My problem is that you have to guess in the first place.

sebster wrote:I'm amazed at people's ability to nitpick over the trivial.

If it were actually trivial you wouldn't be putting so much energy into poorly defending it. But setting that aside, if we go by this reasoning we should shut down every book club, film club, literature course, film course, art course, ect ect. The details matter. Personally choosing to ignore them doesn't change that fact. You don't have to be a Professor of English or Film Studies to care about these things. It isn't trivial becuase it is systemic of the failings of the film as a film.

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Tyyr wrote:That does not follow in the least. That's like suggesting that a truck driver for intel must know the inner workings of their chips because he hauls the crap around.

Nah, because chips don't talk but people do. So it'd be more like taxiing an intel research team around. And the inner workings of the chip are high level science, whereas 'the tree contains the memories of their ancestors' is a pretty basic thing to understand.

So it's about as plausible as a research team's driver knowing that his research team is developing a chip that isn't faster, but just consumes less power as that'd be useful in a laptop. Which a very plausible thing.

I'm going to guess you haven't spent a lot of time around pilots, especially military. It isn't that familiar. You get to know faces and names but you aren't buddy buddy. Especially considering the way Sigourney Weavers character feels and acts about the Mercs. Oh that is right, she doesn't like them except this one for no real good reason we are given, but we should just accept it because we need it to happen. Again, fantastic storytelling. Of course, we don't need storytelling when you have a special message that makes us feel better about ourselves because we know they are bad bad people, but not us.

sebster wrote:Nah, because chips don't talk but people do. So it'd be more like taxiing an intel research team around. And the inner workings of the chip are high level science, whereas 'the tree contains the memories of their ancestors' is a pretty basic thing to understand.

So it's about as plausible as a research team's driver knowing that his research team is developing a chip that isn't faster, but just consumes less power as that'd be useful in a laptop. Which a very plausible thing.

No, it's not. I will admit that my intial analogy was flawed. However lets go with taxing around the intel research team. Do you ever get into detailed business conversations with your taxi driver? The pilot hauls the people around, it doesn't mean they are going to include her in their conversations or she's going to care what they're talking about. Yes, they're in proximity but why would either of them push for a dialogue?