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James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)

Grade "Avatar"

  • Excellent

    Votes: 166 50.0%

  • Above Average

    Votes: 85 25.6%

  • Average

    Votes: 51 15.4%

  • Below Average

    Votes: 11 3.3%

  • Terrible

    Votes: 19 5.7%
  • Total voters
    332
Tom Servo,
Yes, those scenes are very likely to show up in DVD/Blu-ray deleted scenes or extended cuts. All of those scenes are apparently in the 2007 shooting script as well. (I have only read parts of it myself)

Here is the download link for the 2007 shooting script. Everything that might show up in an extended cut is in there.
 
The Squire of Gothos said:
It seems one way to be really sure. And what was the female pilot's reason for rebelling as she did?
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'I didn't sign up for this', as she puts it. Clearly, committing atrocities is not her cup of tea.

If Earth is dying and that wasn't just an idle taunt, why don't the corporations come back and nuke or gas the planet from orbit?
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We don't know if there's a correlation. All we know is unobtainium makes the corporation money, not that it's saving the planet.

The thrust of the film seems to be the reverse: The practices of corporations like RDA is what is killing Earth, and threatens to do the same to Pandora.
 
T'Baio said:
Hyperspace05 said:
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXX_yaDVLk8
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Those are excellent, thank you.

The third one I feel is really important. Mainly because how much the performances captured in the film are truly the actors themselves and not CGI recreations of their performances. If you watch the split screen segment, where you see the on set performances matched with the final product, it is plain to see that what you get in the film is by and large exactly how they were played out by the actors...facial expressions and all.

The actors in that film deserve a fuckload of credit.
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Zoe was the best actor/actress by far and that seems to be the consensus from averybody who has seen the movie.
The videos of the side by side shot shows just how good of a job she did. As was said, this method of filming is going to help enhance CGI acting, and do away with the actor being in the makeup chair for hours.

I would really like to see Yoda and Gollum done this way.
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
Kegg said:
The practices of corporations like RDA is what is killing Earth, and threatens to do the same to Pandora.
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That doesn't mean Earth deserves to die.
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Deserving has nothing to do with it. Does the leaf deserve to hit the ground after it separates from the tree? Doesn't matter, it will, and continuing what got it into that situation would hardly improve its condition. Actions have consequences.

Think about, say, Independence Day. Those aliens were round-about the same as the human contingent in Avatar. Would you say that they were justified in taking the Earth from the indigenous population after using up their own world?
 
^ If the aliens in ID4 were just here to take a mineral and then leave, then perhaps. But they were out to completely destroy Earth. I'd say that makes them different. Even the humans in Avatar didn't go that far. They weren't out to level Pandora altogether.
 
Except until the end, when they were. At best the Colonel intended to subdue and subjugate the population with a campaign of terrorism, and at worst, he would've exterminated the whole Na'vi society. Even he wouldn't have done so systematically, the strip-mining of Pandora probably wouldn't have left the world in a livable state.

Remember, they went straight for Hometree not because it was the only supply of Unobtanium, but because it was the biggest. They were not exactly taking into account their environmental impact studies. RDA would've cut every corner they could to get as much mineral as fast as possible, and would've gotten the hell out of dodge as soon as they picked up the last rock, even if they'd devastated the planet's ecology in their wake.
 
^
So what? It's still fairly reprehensible. To hell or to Connaught, indeed.

Mr. Laser Beam said:
Kegg said:
The practices of corporations like RDA is what is killing Earth, and threatens to do the same to Pandora.
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If the unobtanium *was* saving the planet, would it make any difference?
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It'd add a moral shade of grey into the proceedings, yes, in that the corporation may be using the wrong methods and may be there for rather underhanded motives, but there is a crisis that needs to be addressed on Earth and that's presumably the only solution.

That nobody ever mentions this would lead me to believe unobtainium doesn't posess this property. I personally think it's just used for buildings, as it's some sort of rock.
 
The supplemental material says it's a room-temperature superconductor, so it's good for energy generation (really good, considering it's astronomical price). It's also a necessary part of the drive system of the current generation of interstellar ships.

Mr. Laser Beam said:
^ The entire planet? I rather doubt that.
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Why? The Almighty Rock was their only concern. The supplementary material mentions anyone with an injury or illness that couldn't be treated on Pandora but could be back home, and who wasn't due to be rotated back to Earth anyway, would be euthanized, because their life was literally not worth the 200-odd pounds of rock they'd displace on the return trip.

These are people who would execute their own employees to ensure they stay in the black, and you think they'd hesitate for a second to run down every last blue kitty on the planet to get a new vein of ore? And they don't even have to live on Pandora. They'd already screwed up Earth, and that's their own home. Imagine what they'd be willing to do if they didn't have to put up with their own mess.
 
David cgc said:
The supplemental material says it's a room-temperature superconductor, so it's good for energy generation (really good, considering it's astronomical price). It's also a necessary part of the drive system of the current generation of interstellar ships.
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"The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness. The spice is vital to space travel."

Er, which was also an analogy to oil, now that I bring it up. This makes sense to me - it's not something saving the planet, it's something for which the greed we're extracting it with is a way of killing it.
 
Did you forget the company guys comment about shareholders most important concern. Shareholders mostly care about getting the maximum return for there buck, and little else.
It's that type of greed that has driven our world for a long time.
This short sighted "what's my profit this quarter", has driven people out of work, and outsourced jobs all across the board. And the environment, that's another whole topic.
 
Dang - this thread's already 59 pages? :lol: I saw it tonight, and thought it was pretty good. My only major complaint is how the colonel's character devolved into a cardboard villain in the second half of the movie. It's also strange that
Chacon was able to rescue the others so easily, and seemed to be piloting her personal ship as Rogue 1 (her name is on the door, implying she flew back to base after rebelling).
 
David cgc said:
The supplemental material says it's a room-temperature superconductor, so it's good for energy generation (really good, considering it's astronomical price). It's also a necessary part of the drive system of the current generation of interstellar ships.

Mr. Laser Beam said:
^ The entire planet? I rather doubt that.
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Why? The Almighty Rock was their only concern. The supplementary material mentions anyone with an injury or illness that couldn't be treated on Pandora but could be back home, and who wasn't due to be rotated back to Earth anyway, would be euthanized, because their life was literally not worth the 200-odd pounds of rock they'd displace on the return trip.

These are people who would execute their own employees to ensure they stay in the black, and you think they'd hesitate for a second to run down every last blue kitty on the planet to get a new vein of ore? And they don't even have to live on Pandora. They'd already screwed up Earth, and that's their own home. Imagine what they'd be willing to do if they didn't have to put up with their own mess.
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Wait, that doesn't make sense. They're not storing the rock in the cryo-sleep chambers are they?
 
Trekker4747 said:
Wait, that doesn't make sense. They're not storing the rock in the cryo-sleep chambers are they?
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It's not a question of volume, it is mass. The starship can only carry ~350 tons of cargo. Every Kg counts. And who says they keep all cryo-chambers if they aren't bringing back folks at the end of their tour? I'm sure they'd dump all the cryo-chambers they do not need for the return trip. But you can read all about it here.
 
Well finally got to see it last night. Highly entertaining. The storyline was so predictable you could just ignore it and enjoy the fireworks.

Edit: I'm amazed at 59 pages of discussion about it, though. There was virtually no substance and 100% style. Nothing to get your brains so profusely verbose.
 
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