Rate Avatar (James Cameron)

[Dausuul]

But that doesn't make it rape.
I can store porno movies on an USB sticks. That doesn't give storing a Bible as PDF on the USB a sexual or pornographic meaning.

I was about to post a counter-analogy, but I think Eric's grandma is already suffering from severe hypertension at this whole discussion and would have a massive coronary if it got any more graphic, so I'll just put it this way: The physical act of mindlinking appears to be the same as the physical act of sex. Mindlinking appears to be an emotionally charged and intimate connection... also like sex. The process of bonding with your winged mount involves forcing this connection on the mount in question. If that ain't rape, it sure looks like it.

By itself it would have been just a moment of "Uh... did he just do what it looked like he just did?" But add it to the whole "choose a mate" thing, and the implications are... unsettling. At least I found them so.

(I admit that I'm reading it in terms of social commentary rather than science fiction. By that point, my inner science fiction fan was sitting in a corner with his fingers in his ears chanting, "Just pretend it's fantasy and this is all magic, and everything will be okay.")

 

[Klaus]

My impression (partly due to Grace's "Don't play with that, you'll go blind" joke) was that the tentacly thing is both USB port and sexual organ. I might be wrong though.

Grace knew less than she'd like about the Na'vi.

And, based on the script page for the love scene between Jake and Ney'tiri, the USB port and the sweetlovemaking port are different things.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It's a common misconception because Cameron skates over that aspect of the movie so fast it's very easy to miss.

I was surprised that anyone missed it, it all seemed a pretty upfront and straightforward explanation from the start (and at no point was there any indication of a government involvement, so it just said 'mercenaries' all the way through to me).

I gather James Cameron posted a whole huge reference online explaining the backstory in detail... to which I can only respond that if your movie needs an online reference to fill in all the plot holes, you need to work on your script some more.

I couldn't disagree more. It is common practice nowadays (film & TV) for there to be a 'script bible' as it were which gives more backstory than would find its way onto the screen just to ensure that there is a consistent reference. Would that more use was made of those techniques.

(Also, was anyone else EXTREMELY creeped out by the sexual subtext of this movie? Apparently, among the Na'vi, men get to choose the women who will mate with them and the women get to shut up and take it... and the process of bonding with your mystical winged steed is more-or-less-literal rape. Gaah.)

I've got no idea where you got this idea from. There was no concept like this in the film at all.

Cheers

 

[Dausuul]

I couldn't disagree more. It is common practice nowadays (film & TV) for there to be a 'script bible' as it were which gives more backstory than would find its way onto the screen just to ensure that there is a consistent reference. Would that more use was made of those techniques.

I've got nothing against having a script bible and posting it online. But the purpose of the online reference should be to flesh out the background for anyone who's curious--not to make sense of key plot elements.

I've got no idea where you got this idea from. There was no concept like this in the film at all.

Cheers

The scene where Neytiri tells Jake he now gets to choose a mate. At first, I figured what she meant was akin to proposing marriage and the chosen mate would say yes or no. But then Jake says he's chosen his mate, but this one has to choose him back, implying that the others wouldn't have to. And immediately before he says that, Neytiri is listing off his options and noting their assets, as though all he has to do is pick one and that's it.

Perhaps it's just badly written dialogue--the movie had no shortage of that--but as written, it sure sounds like it's all up to the male and the female has little or no voice in the decision.

 

[Mallus]

I was surprised that anyone missed it, it all seemed a pretty upfront and straightforward explanation from the start (and at no point was there any indication of a government involvement, so it just said 'mercenaries' all the way through to me).

I thought it was very clear that they were all ex-military personnel working for Space Blackwater (a division of Weyland-Utani) on Pandora. I also liked how that fact added a little island of of plausibility to the story: the Na'vi weren't facing the full might of a star-faring military; they faced experienced troops equipped with what was most likely out-of-date army surplus, who were, in fact, clearly underequipped for certain kinds of missions --the humans had to cobble together the Big Bomb out of mining explosives, presumably after blowing their wad of HE ordnance on the Tree of Life.

As for the film, finally saw, kinda loved it. It was amazingly transporting, and that's something I've wanted out of SF/F since I was a kid.

 

[Merkuri]

The scene where Neytiri tells Jake he now gets to choose a mate. At first, I figured what she meant was akin to proposing marriage and the chosen mate would say yes or no. But then Jake says he's chosen his mate, but this one has to choose him back, implying that the others wouldn't have to. And immediately before he says that, Neytiri is listing off his options and noting their assets, as though all he has to do is pick one and that's it.

The man getting to choose his bride (and her having nothing to say about it) is not that uncommon in human history. I don't know why it would be interpreted as a creepy sexual subtext. It's not a culture I'd like to live in, but I found it entirely plausible and non-creepy that in this culture the man gets to choose his mate for life. It would be creepier if the mating wasn't for life and the man had the right to go around and mate with whoever suited his fancy at that moment.

Heck, there are some modern day cultures that still do arranged marriages, where neither member of the couple gets to choose. I actually know somebody at work who had an arranged marriage and is very happy with it. The idea of marriage being a choice between the two married people is not a universal truth.

But also remember that we only saw one instance of this mate-choosing happen. It's possible you misinterpreted the "this one has to choose me back" comment and that's actually the way things are done normally in their culture. Neytiri certainly didn't slap him around with a "that's not the way we do it" comment like she had been doing the rest of the movie. For all we know the custom is for a man to choose a woman and then the woman has to accept him ("choose him back") before the mating happens. Maybe the man's role is just to initiate the whole thing.

And whatshisname - the guy everyone thought she was going to be mated to in the beginning - seemed pretty upset at Neytiri that she had mated with Jake as if she had a choice in the matter. I'd think he would have had more sympathy for her (or at least less ire) if she was just a possession chosen by another man or something like that.

 

[Krug]

Domestic box office of US$706 million just before the next big 3-D film Alice in Wonderland hits, and just short of US$2.5 billion...

 

[Rachel]

3. Terrible.

ROTTEN TOMATOES: Rachel F.'s Review of Avatar

 

[Plane Sailing]

3. Terrible.

ROTTEN TOMATOES: Rachel F.'s Review of Avatar

Hi Rachel,

I notice in your review you say:

...Finally, having a chance to see this much hyped blockbuster (albeit on the small screen)...

< snip >

...The visuals are okay, despite everyone hailing them as amazing.

I don't think it is unreasonable for me to point out that visuals which are hailed as amazing on a huge cinema screen in 3D are likely to be less impressive when viewed on a TV.

Also, I can't help mentioning that you haven't yet used 'malarky' in a sentence...

Regards,

 

[Orius]

I give it a 7.

The visuals were pretty good (I didn't get the benefit of full 3d but whatever). But they weren't so good that I'm going to go all Pandora syndrome anyway. I've seen all sorts of impressive landscapes in games and my own imagination. Plus the biome we're shown seems to be tropical rain forest, and that's not a biome I'm interested in experiencing really; hot, humid, poisonous fauna everywhere (and a good bit of flora as well), the only worse biome is a swamp.

Story, ugh where to start? It's no surprise the TVTropes page is so damn long:

So there's the whole Unobtainium stuff they're after. No mention of why it's so important other than it costs a load of money. And really, that's its own purpose as the story's MacGuffin, this is an anvil loaded environmentalist story so it's all about the evil corporation wreaking the planet (well moon) to get rich. Not exactly the sort of escapism I'm looking for right now, if you catch my meaning.

I found the bio-USBs to be something that strained my suspension of disbelief. On one hand, I find it remarkable that an entire ecosystem could evolve to be so interconnected, but OTOH, there's nothing that says it can't since there's only one limited example of evolution we're actually familiar with. It still bothers me because it's central to the whole Gaia hypothesis setup of the plot, and tree-hugging stuff like this irritates me.

The entire story was predictable:

-I knew Jake would get adopted into the tribe and everything. I've seen this sort of thing dozens of times already.
-When Natyri mentioned that the most badass Na'vi warriors flew on those Chekov's flying reptiles, I knew Jake would end up jumping on one of them.
-When they tried to transfer Grace's mind into the avatar, I knew this would happen to Jake at the end.

The characters are flat as a board. The colonel got hurt and just wants to kill every damn thing on the planet. The corporate executive only cares about making a ton of money (and I'm honestly surprised he survived). The scientists are the good guys here by being peaceful hippie types (otherwise they'd be the evil god-players destroying all that is good for science). All the soldiers are heartless killers except the ones required to be good for the purposes of plot. Yawn.

The Na'vi themselves weren't really that interesting, they're typical aboriginal people with typical customs and typical animistic beliefs. And of course naturally, their home is sitting on the biggest damn deposit of Unobtainium for hundreds of kilometers around. How convenient for the plot.

I also don't see it as being that much of a happy ending; is the Unobtainium is so important, than this company isn't going to give up, they'll just send more forces. Seriously, if they really wanted they could just have the whole moon orbitally bombarded with incendiaries, destroy the biosphere, and just strip mine a dead rock if they wanted to. Okay, so they don't want bad press, but if the cmpany is that much of an evil capitalist strawman, they wouldn't give a damn, and they'd be controlling all the media anyway (this movie IS 20th Century Fox, after all, you think they'd know about THAT... ).

So that and some of the other points that others have brought up really stuck out like a sore thumb to me. Not so much Mighty Whitey, probably because the green anvils were annoying me too much to really notice.

Entertaining, but it's more style than substance. Doesn't live up to the hype.