James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)
- Thread starter chrisspringob
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Exactly!
The Blackwater employees had all charges against them dropped by a US District Judge, who found that the prosecution against them was politically motivated and that Justice Department prosecutors had illegally tampered with and withheld key evidence, specifically about who had fired and the Iraqi witnesses who said the convoy (which was protecting diplomats) was ambushed and the Blackwater employees were returning fire.
Except that most of the corporation didn't make it back from Pandora.
In the Blackwater case, the judge slammed the State Department and the Justice Department. For example, they were at a loss to even try to provide a reason why the Blackwater people would've stopped at some random intersection in Baghdad to shoot up a bunch of civlians. Combine that with the suppression of evidence that backed up Blackwater's version of events and you have prosecutorial misconduct, not a massacre of innocent civilians for fun and profit.
In any event, the 70-minute Star Wars Review Guy has reviewed Avatar. link
Part II
It only takes 18 minutes.
Yeah, it's kind of tough to get much out of the movie characterizations if you don't actually, you know, watch and listen to what the people say. Little tip, there.
Yeah, Lang was great. Hell, there's nobody in the movie who's not good, and most of them - Weaver, Lang, Ribisi, Saldana, Worthington(eh...) are pretty great.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Yeah, I'm not thinking because I actualy got the message from 40-years of Trek.
From an evolutionary stance we're restricted to this planet. Evolution has no sense of technology effecting or changing its course. Hell, the vast distances between star systems, the narrow likelyhood of stumbling upon a planet with life in it, and the sheer difficulty involved in simply getting there in anything less than an epoch all suggests that evolution -on a universal scale- out-right prohibits the lifeforms on other planets from interfering with one another.
Kinda ignores the spore diaspora notion EDIT ADDON, MEANT pan-sporia (might have that spelled incorrectly, talkin' bout the 78 BODY SNATCHERS approach), so that seems as narrow a view of evolution as is evinced in creationism or not-so-intelligent-design.
Lifespans, nature of lifeform and most especially INCLINATION would probably all be factors in the possibility for non-FTL travel and interference outsystem, but if your perception is limited to just a single worldview when you're talking something significantly greater in scope, the speculation and conclusion you make seems pretty narrowminded.
As much as I like TOS and DS9, I do think that the notion of the prime directive to be among the most potentially damaging ones ever coming out of a tv series. It is simplistic in a TV way (which is fine for a tv show, I doubt Gene Coon was expecting to generate much debate), but now over time it seems to have become an accepted go-to for ethical behavior by devoted viewers when it is anything but.
It's almost like the way Asimov's laws of robotics are EXPECTED by some to be implemented, when in fact such a stringent series of directives would probably limit commerce, and therefore be among the last things you'd want to lock in on.
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'Far-out'?
Avatar is every bit as much of a fantasy film as Star Wars, and I don't think being a cyborg with magic powers is sufficent basis to dismiss Vader as an analogy.
Something Grace is stated to have done at one point. Quaritch doesn't go for violence until all other alternatives have been exhausted; he just prepared for it beforehand and he really likes it.
This isn't even about controlling the native population, it's about stealing from the native population. The aim is commerical, not political: They don't want to rule Pandora, just take the unobtainum. Since the natives refuse to give the Hometree land at any price, they must be removed from there, and if they pose any further resistance, they must be broken. It's perfectly logical if completely unethical.
Yes. But enough about Vader.
Seriously though, Vader's not that high up on the food chain. Tarkin is apparently his superior officer and there's no hint in the movie he's got friends in higher places (Tarkin offhandedly observes Vader is 'the last of his religion', which suggests that no, the Emperor isn't a Sith). He's just another Imperial, albeit one with a cool suit and a wicked backstory that involves lightswords.
No, it easily gave us that because the Stargate universe is cheap. It has an in-built explanation for numerous amounts of human populations all over the universe and the ability for people to travel through them while living in the modern day.
Avatar doesn't have this ability because it's prohibitively expensive. I don't think we should confuse series viability for universe depth.
No idea. But Cameron has one, we'll see how that pans out. That said:
The entire Star Wars trilogy was quite content to have the Empire as the bad guys in each film; the Lord of the Rings trilogy did the same deal with Mordor and the Orcs. I don't see this a bad thing, though they could always add another alien race if they were so inclined.
Who the fuck cares if it doesn't? One movie as brilliant as Avatar is more worthy and will make more difference to the film industry going forward than entire series of lame franchises like Stargate. Jeez, people act like there's some intrinsic value to franchises other than money for the shareholders and the slaking of fanboi OCD.
I have to address this as a Star Wars fan, Vader was obeying Empire protocol only aboard the 1st Death Star, Grand Moff Tarkin was not above Vader beyond the Death Star. In the Star Wars universe nobody outranks a Sith Lord but his master. By The Empire Strikes Back Vader is at his peak, and it is clear to all he answers only to the Emperor. Second in command in the entire Empire is pretty high up.
As for the comparison of the evil character's Vader is infinitely more complex than Avatars leading bad guy.
This guy is like a Blackwater Colonel, an officer in a private army. He is being paid to do a job, I see him as being pragmatic, along the lines of the pilots who dropped the A-bomb on Japan. Since when do officers question the morality of what they are doing, if they did they would be conscientious objectors. But officers choose to make a career of it, all of them have selective morality, and that is a slippery slope.
If Avatar is so brilliant, how come everyone runs and hides at the mention of its plot? Avatar won't spawn anything lasting because it can't. It was written as a one-off piece that doesn't stand up to reflection.
The pilots and crews who dropped the A-bombs weren't pragmatic, they were ending a war. The death toll from not dropping the A-bombs was fantastically higher. Even the projected death toll amongst Allied POWs was higher than that of Japanese residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had we proceeded with a conventional invasion. The Japansese were under order to kill ALL allied POWs the moment the first allied soldier stepped foot on the Japanese mainland. Those POWs outnumbered the dead due to the atomic bombings. The Japanese dead from a conventiolal invasion was project in the high millions.
In Sully's case, he's just condemned tens of thousands of Na'vi to die pointless deaths because he and his cohorts failed to apply basic morality to what the company was doing. You can't get any heroes out of this story because the story is a total fuck-up, appealing for rebelious tots but pretty empty for adults.
Oh God, I agree with gturner. Somebody euthanize me.
Your definition of 'spawning anything' seems to mean spin-off material, like the reams and reams of stuff that Stargate had. I think it can be safely said Avatar will have a sequel - this has been confirmed - and it may have other spin-off stuff. Like a third movie. Which would be enough. We'll see how viable the Avatar brand is, but frankly it's reached a success that Stargate in its almost two decades of existence could only dream of.
Which is why I said 'apparently.' My discussion of Vader was deliberately limited to how he's depicted in the first Star Wars movie. It's not at all clear in this movie that there even is another force user besides Vader and Obi-Wan; Tarkin is of the opinion that he is 'the last of his religion' (which would imply that his devotion is unusual and not shared by the Emperor.)
I love those Lucas cartoons!
Is it possible that the 18-minute review (from the 70-minute Phantom Menace review guy) is dead on in his depiction of Lucas AND Cameron? Perhaps Cameron wanted to out-Lucas Lucas in presenting a wreck of a movie plot with brilliant special effects?
Jersey Shore has generated far more buzz than Rome but people are tuning in for the spectacle of it. Does that mean a spray-on tan and a semi-retarded attitude outweighs good writing?