Rate Avatar (James Cameron)

[Klaus]

Where do these orbital nukes come from? You did see that they planned to use a bundle of commercial explosives that they used for mining to blow up the Na'vi? Why do you assume that a civilian corporation owns nukes?

Yeah, one common misconception about this movie is that the Earthlings are a military force, when they're actually a mercenary outfit for a private corporation. So low profits, bad press and budget are as much on their minds as winning.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Visually stunning, and all 'round not as bad a movie as I was expecting it to be.

7/10 from me. And i tend to be pretty harsh when judging movies, mostly.

 

[Thanee]

All Time Worldwide Box Office Grosses

Bye
Thanee

 

[Krug]

And now it's the biggest in Domestic box-office gross as well..

 

[Kobold Avenger]

You know the biggest thing I hate about that movie, is that stupid theme song. I hate Celine Dion with a passion, and and what's worse is it's from someone who sounds just like her.

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah, one common misconception about this movie is that the Earthlings are a military force, when they're actually a mercenary outfit for a private corporation. So low profits, bad press and budget are as much on their minds as winning.

It's a common misconception because Cameron skates over that aspect of the movie so fast it's very easy to miss. Furthermore, all available evidence on-screen indicates that the corporation has fairly free access to Earth military resources--we see marines and battlemechs and gunships everywhere--and that their concern with PR is fairly limited; the evil executive dude says (IIRC) that the one thing shareholders like even less than genocide is a poor quarterly report, which suggests that the corporation is both willing and able to commit genocide if it comes down to it.

So, it's not at all unreasonable to ask why the corporation isn't going to just come back and bomb hell out of the place. 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.

The special effects were indeed stunning, though, and IMO could have carried the movie across the finish line by themselves if they hadn't had quite so far to carry it. Memo to Cameron: When you have two hours' worth of sheer technological "wow," do not make your movie three hours long.

(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.)

 

[Klaus]

"Rape"? It's much more like a "mind-meld", isn't it?

 

[Krug]

Or rather forceful usb drive shoving.. hmm..

 

[Dausuul]

"Rape"? It's much more like a "mind-meld", isn't it?

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.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.

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 can't even begin to imagine the (sexual?) confusion humanity would go through if it met real aliens, not merely speculating about fictional creatures created for a movie.