Lord of the Rings (the fantasy epic, and perhaps even the film trilogy) will long be remembered as the pioneering, quintessential fantasy work. Avatar's greatest accomplishments are purely technical.

Set, ngati lu muiä.

Alot of the film was unfortunatly cut out due to the IMAX time limitations... Its all shot and done and so forth, and so should end up in the DVD/blueray version. there you will find alot of cameron's story telling.  so... just like LOTR... expect a extended version.... and expect 2 sequels. The origional script would have made for a 5 hour long movie... and included many new characters and explainations which were unfortunatly left out in the movie. (although some of the things left out made the movie better, and made it seem a bit more special... while other things... Like an avatar operator who managed to get his avatar killed, and now worked in the mess hall. would have given the story more depth)

now... i need to find out how to say my nick-name in na'vi....

Saw it, wasn't impressed. The story is shallow. The reviews which paint it as a colonial feel good movie are spot on. The visuals weren't all that impressive either. I think it's because much of the environment looked too similar to what might be expected from a terrestrial forest.

 

Now, now, as I've explained before (although  not in any thread you have likely read) I nitpick not because I enjoy "finding faults" in material or bashing the author/writer/dev, but because 1)I find it to increase enjoyment of the material as I'm watching it and afterwords, 2) It's a great way to practice and make use of my existing knowledge of science, geography, history, etc. as well as digging up new tidbits I'd never thought of, and having stuff I "know" wrong corrected, as above, and 3) It's just something I can do with my time that not only occupies myself, but a lot of other people as well. There is, after all, a reason people buy so many Phil Farrand books.

Gee... I hope you don't go to see Star Wars... You may be awefully disappointed with all the environments which are a terrestrial forest (or a desert).

Just idly speculating here.....:

• Humans lose brain cells all the time and aren't adversely affected unless they lose A LOT, so I wonder how many "braintrees" could be deforested without harming the "Aiwah" sentience(s?)................ a few hundred? a few thousand? 1%? 10%? 50%?
• Are the braintrees even a sentience, or do they just store data?
• And is the Doc's actual consciousness bouncing around somewhere in there, or just her memories? Did the transfer even take?
• And what about Na'avi that have been dead for a while before getting uploaded? Can the braintrees pull memories or even consciousness from half-decomposed grey matter?
• How do the braintrees exert their influence over the moon's animal life? Do the birds and bears "link" with the "I/O willow" trees like the Na'avi do? Or are they attuned to the trees' electrical communications somehow?
• This "linking" ability....... how limited/powerful is it? Can Na'avi link with other Na'avi? Is it possible to transfer memory, thoughts, or even entire consciounsesses through the link? (I know that it works that way with the braintrees, but what about other species?) And can whatever abilities there are work if one or both "ends" are dead, unwilling, or unconscious? Jake seems to mentally overpower one of the "Banshees", and the big red one later...............
• How many humans were allowed to stay behind? We only see three (counting Jake) but that seems rather low for a colony that apparently has thousands of workers, it's own factories and labs, and such a large defense contingent...........
• What are the remaining humans who either don't have avatars or don't want to swap to them full-time going to do? They could only really live on the base without quickly running out of whatever the masks use as an airscrubber or becoming something's lunch, but I doubt that the Na'avi would be too keen to keep the place up and running.....
• Just how smart are these braintrees? They don't seem to know or care when the humans start bulldozing, and they could have done their whole biosphere-in-revolt thing when the "invasion" first landed. (This suggests that they can lose a lot of their individual parts before becoming affected: would you let the miniature aliens walk around with relative impunity if they were slowly lobotomizing you?)

What exactly are you trying to suggest? I wasn't awe-striken by Avatar. I was, the first time I watched Star Wars. There's not much room for argument.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the difference is that Star Wars did what it did in an era in which no other film could come close (and wouldn't for some time). Half a decade after the prequel trilogy, environmental shots -- even what should be impressive ones -- just aren't all that awe-inspiring. Everything in Avatar has already been done well -- whether by movies or video games -- just not as well.

That said, if Natalie Portman were in Avatar, I'd see it again.

 

Star Wars (the original) has likable and memorable characters. Avatar does not. James Cameron invested his time in developing the technology and the setting, not his characters or his story. Lucas may have ripped off Kurosawa, but the result was both iconic and entertaining. Perhaps Cameron could have picked stronger source material from which to build the non-technical elements of his film.

from the movie "she is real"... they seem... or at least together, seem to be sentient.

not sure, we dont really know... arguments could be made both ways... and it could be sequel material.

My theory is, is that the memories and thoughts and so forth are taken from the na'vi every time they plug in to the trees... so... when they die... i would have to belive they are dead... but thier memories and thier prayers are still in the trees... but once again... sequel material, perhaps.

Cameron likes to think of it as sort of a heightened instinct.

the na'vi have tried plugging into various other creatures with various degrees of sucess. as far as plugging into other navi... there is a very very good chance that it will be shown on the dvd... in an extended scene. 

well, we see three... and we see at least one avatar holding a gun (or at least... i did not count his fingers to be sure... but he was wearing military clothing and holding a gun... so ima preety sure it was a human controled avatar... so that makes 4)... i would not be suprised if most of the avatar drivers get to stay behind... however... it will all be sequel material... for example... there are 12 interstellar vessles... at the time of the movie... assuming equal spacing... one (the venture star) is in orbit around pandora... 1 is in the deccelleration phase/refit/acceleration phase at earth... and 5 are heading to earth... and 5 are heading to pandora, with no way to turn around. (http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star) expect the next to arrive 9-11 months after the end of the first movie.

i dont know if they are going to bother to keep some of the base up and running... but one thing is for sure... they are going to have to be carefull... cause in about 10 months 2 more shuttles are going to try and land on the surface.... and once again... sequel material.

they are prolly smarter than us... and in the origional script (and perhaps in deleted scenes) there is a scene in which the colonel in his giant mech suit is patrolling the perimeter of hell's gate (the complex) and various plants and animals do try and attack him, and the "grounds keeping" robots he is protecting. 

since no human before grace has ever uploaded (to whatever extent) to the trees... perhaps pandora did not know the entire extent of "the human problem" (i mean... only avatars can... and i am preety sure jake sully was the first to do it... i mean it is jake who tells the tree that there is no green on earth and so forth)

I thought so as well. I don't really think that the individual trees are capable of any thought to speak of, just because the human scientists would have taken some apart for study and any significant "nervous system" within one would have been detected. My impression was that each tree is maybe only a single transistor or neuron, and it's only when they connect through the roots that they become aware.

Guess I'm just warped....... when I relaized that the "link" could probably work with other Na'avi, my first thought was not "this would be fun to do with your significant other", but "this would be a really good way to extract juicy information from someone who wasn't inclined to part with it".................

Indeed. And it's possible that the trees didn't even know the humans were there until Grace uploaded.... they likely have no sensory abilities of their own, and if the network is as widely distributed as I think they might not even notice the human deforestation and mining efforts (whould you notice miniature aliens in your skull removing a few cubic micrometers of grey matter?). And consider how long a tiny little human brain can take to process large amounts of confusing input and come to a conclusive descision, then add in the fact that though the braintree netowrk is much larger, its processing and internal communication is still limited by the speed of light (technically electricty, but whatever).

This wiki looks really interesting...... and yes, I smell a sequel.

Hmmm..... I wonder if the "link" could be used to interface with appropriately designed mechanical devices? We already know from the Avatar program that human technology of this period is capable of "parsing" at least some organic thought processes.... the fact that the Na'avi are adapted to communicate with the braintrees and other animals could only make that merger easier for them............

I am sure if we had a second spinal cord... I am sure people would have been trying for all of recorded history to try and do *something* with it... course it would not be till recently, with computers and such that an actual neural interface would be a serious thought... and even then. our current technical knowlege would prolly not be sufficiant to create a mechanical-biological link. (i mean... hell... when we get to that point... it wont be that hard to install a USB connector under the skin...)

I concour.

On a completely different note, I think i've finally figured out how the "dumb" animals communicate with the braintrees: they have a sense similar to that of terrestrial sharks, birds, and whales that allows them to pick up fluctuations in magnetic fields. Since moving electricity makes a magnetic field, and the braintree roots are moving a lot of electricity around, all the appropriately adapted creatures can listen in on their internal (and extrenal?) communications in a given area. OR the braintrees are capable of manipulating the energy movement to control them more subtly, say, "painting" all the human craft with the magnetic signiture of a nice, juicy prey animal. I thought for a while that any sort of reasonable-voltage field would be "drowned out" by Pandora's intense geological magnetism, but then I realized that the light of the sun doesn't prevent eyed species from percieving small changes in brightness: it's just a matter of how the brain and senses are "tuned". Besides, there's a whole moon's worth of trees to serve as (crude) generators, they should be capable of some pretty significant jolts if they apply themselves.

you know... i think our little technical discussion has preety much turned everyone else off this thread... lolz.

Nah, it's the all FX, no story angle that did

From what I've seen, it appears like much any other 'popular propaganda' movie. Just with superior technology.

Their loss..........

Someone sent me this link, and it made me chuckle:

http://twitter.com/andylevy/statuses/7766580307

Couldn't have said it any better. *thumbsup*

The prequels had one memorable character with an even more memorable line though: Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu saying:"This party 's over."

 

What I personally consider to be a bit laughable is that some people don't seem to be able to just sit back and enjoy the ride but overanalyze every aspect ad nauseum instead.

Not to mention the common conservatives/republicans/right wingers/rednecks who just see the oh so anti-american propaganda.

 

I for one loved it. Not nescessarily for the story, the characters or the point it's trying to make, but for the sheer visual sensation and love for detail (like e.g. the spots where people tread lighting up). 

 

See reply #79. But yes, the left made nary a peep about GI Joe, Transformers, etc., and yet the moment some Na'avi whack a few mercs, the Loud 30 get ebven louder.

Well, for me movies like Avatar, Transformers, younameit are primarily entertainment. Guess what.  My biggest prob with it was that the big planet in the system looked merely like a blue colored Jupiter...

No accounting for taste, I suppose.... you don't actually have to read my nitlists...... if you don't care about them, I have no problem with it, but I'll probably never stop doing them and what, after all, is the harm: all that anyone stands to lose is my free time, and I've too much of that as is.

So you're a corporation mining a forest moon, when all of a sudden some uppity natives rally the planet and try to stop your peaceful mining operation.  What's an businessman to do?  Simple.

it wasnt the braintrees only, it was everything on the planet... well... all the planets... so... depending on the effeciency of the 'system' and how much capacity it is using, im guessing 10% would cause an impact... maybe not a massive one, but one nonetheless... unless the remaining trees can somehow compensate for the loss...

if we've learnt anything from movies like Terminator, when you store enough data in an advanced system, eventually it becomes sentient of its own accord. Give something thoughts and it can think. that said, i think your later question about how Aiwah controls animals suggests in itself some sort of sentience.

we dont know if the transfer took, though i think it is implied later when the main character (mental block with his name) tells Aiwah to look inside the docs memories and understand how dangerous the humans are... also... when the doc was dying at the end, she said something like "i can see Aiwah (excuse the paraphrasing)" so its an assumption her consciousness was trasnferred and reformatted to become part of Aiwah...

i doubt it... it would be like putting a bullet through a hard drive and trying to read data off it later...

good question, some of the animals didnt even have the neural connection the na'vi and certain other animals had, as far as we could see... perhaps there was some kind of physical manipulation, like changing magnetic fields to make those hammerhead rhino things stampede in a particular direction, or the animals that did have a neural link sheparded the ones that didnt... however, soem form of 'wireless' connection is the most understandable and lore-friendly explanation, even if there was no evidence of it...

when jake and the na'vi girl do the horizontal monster mash, their pony tails link, so evidently possible... though somesort of tradition would indicate its not to be done unless 2 people are rather intimate... as for overpowering, that was the whole idea, that you use your will to command the animal... but it also has a bit of religious inference there, Aiwah put the na'vi there to be the caretakers and benefactors of the forest, like god did to adam and eve etc. so the logical inference is that the na'vi are 'intelligent' (having made tools) and therefore can overpower the instincts of other animals. at the very least though, you could assume its some sort of symbiotic union where you and the animal share thoughts and so understand each other better and work better as a team...

couldnt tell you, although i think it was only those 3 or so who aided the uprising... they werent allowed to stay on to run the factory etc, they were allowed to stay because they were friends of the na'vi

from memory it took 5 years to grow an avatar... and not everyone was compatible with it, even if your DNA was used to make it... i think that is one of the lose ends you generally get when a movie wraps up... everyone is so happy that the bad guy was defeated that no one thinks about what happens next... anyway, alot of the structures used by the humans seemed to have a rather long life span, as did those air scrubbers... so i assume they would come to some sort of arrangement whereby the facilities could be cycled to aid the humans... idn... like i said, loose end...

it may not be a matter of smart so much as inclination... if you are a complete pacifist, you must let someone kill you without putting up a fight because that requires violence and then you rent a pacifist anymore... Aiwah is sentience, though i doubt she thinks like humans or even Na'vi do...

 

ANYWAY, i really liked the movie, like space age, more sophisticated version of Pocahontas... i also bought the videogame... in and of itself the game isnt great, but its got some nice features and gameplay and the graphics arent bad... its more for the extra story than the game itself, but, if you liked the movie, you might as well get the game just so you can fly a banshee or a scorpion tilt-rotor or even the dragon gunship

I haven't really heard much about the game: read one review that painted it in a less-than-flattering light, but said review was in a local newspaper that routinely runs rollerblading-dog stories on the front page...........

You know, I'mbeginning to wonder if Aiwah/the braintrees even knew that humans were sentient organisms until they(/it/she/he/whatever ) uploaded the Doc: think about it: the only sentient lifeforms (that we know of) on Pandora are the braintrees and the Na'avi... the trees probably wouldn't try too much to analyze themselves, so that leaves the Na'avi and the non-tool-using higher animals.... all of which can link. Then along come the humans, who can't. Seems to me as though the trees would think of lifeforms that can't link as on the level of bacteria, lower animals, and (non-brainy) plants, because that's all there is on Pandora that can't link. They might not even consider the humans to be alive.....

I actually was not paying attention in that scene (because I'm a little more.... prudish than the average 15-year-old), so I didn't notice the link taking place, and wondered about why they didn't do it..... even if the Na'avi didn't think it was appropriate, Jake would have certainly tried it ..... now I guess I can cross that one off the list............. (of nits, mind you).

The three surviving human rebels that we see are Jake (who goes native), Tall-Wikus-Looking-Guy (who has an Avatar and can go native if he wants too), and Short-Beard-Guy, who doesn't and would probably get a little lonely on that base after TWLG leaves........... I smell a sequel..............