[project1dev] Re: Avatar
- From: eric drewes <figarus@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2010 14:59:14 -0500
greg easterbrook writes:
*Outer-Space Cartoon Says Americans Are the Bad Guys:* "Millions for
defense, not a sixpence for tribute," Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, once a
delegate to the Constitutional Convention, said in 1796. "Millions for
special effects, not a Starbucks gift card for writing," might be the motto
of modern Hollywood, at least if "Avatar" is the exemplar. "Avatar" should
have been marketed as a cartoon and best animated feature of 2009. The
special effects were great -- though yours truly increasingly finds
computer-drawn special effects boring, since they are so obviously fake. The
script was as dull and predictable as the special effects were flashy. Maybe
the dialogue sounded better in Na'vi.
Hardly anything was explained -- so let's start with why the whole plot was
set in motion in the first place. Sinister humans are bent on removing
peace-loving blue aliens from a point on Pandora above some minerals the
sinister humans want to strip-mine; the peace-loving natives won't move
because the place is sacred ground. Reader Bryan Law of Independence, Ohio,
notes: "Even today, horizontal drilling means you don't have to destroy the
surface above a resource to obtain it. So why wasn't the problem on Pandora
solved by horizontal drilling? Don't tell me that 150 years from now,
humanity has become capable of interstellar travel, yet forgotten a basic
mining technique."
The mineral is an anti-gravity substance that floats. Midway through the
movie, we learn there are entire mountains of it floating above Pandora. So
why not mine the floating mountains, where no Pandorans live, rather than go
to war with the natives? The clichéd super-heartless corporation that wants
the mineral is depicted as obsessed by profit. War is a lot more expensive
than mining! If profit is what motivates the corporation, war is the last
thing it would want.
[+] Enlarge[image: Charles
Pinckney]<http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/100105&sportCat=nfl&POLL462=2000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000#>
MPI/Getty ImagesCharles Cotesworth Pinckney had more clever lines than the
entire "Avatar" script.
Because hardly anything in the movie is explained, we never find out what
nation or organization has built a huge base on Pandora, then brought along
an armada of combat aircraft. The Earth characters all look, act and talk
like Americans -- in fact, slang hasn't changed in 150 years! But does this
project have some kind of government approval, or is it an interplanetary
criminal enterprise? It's hard to believe that 150 years from now,
humanity's first interaction with another sentient species would be
conducted without any public officials present, but that's what is depicted.
And who are the gun-toting fatigue-clad personnel commanded by the
ultra-evil Colonel Quaritch -- are they regular military, mercenaries,
private security contractors? Audiences never find out. They're just a bunch
of trigger-happy killers who want to slaughter intelligent beings, and all
of them but one do exactly what Colonel Quaritch says, even once it's clear
Quaritch is insane. The colonel must work for somebody -- for the Pentagon,
some government agency, for the corporation. So why isn't he subject to
supervision? No organization would entrust a project costing trillions of
dollars -- a town-sized facility has been built five light-years away -- to
a single individual with unchecked power. You'd worry that the single
individual would commit some huge blunder that wiped out your
trillion-dollar investment, which ends up being exactly what happens. I
found the colonel with absolute authority a lot more unrealistic than the
floating mountains.
Then there's director James Cameron's view of military personnel. If I were
a military man or woman, I would find "Avatar" insulting. With one
exception, the helicopter pilot played by Michelle Rodriguez -- her
character is twice referred to as a Marine, suggesting the military
personnel are regular military, not mercenaries -- all the people in
fatigues are brainless sadists. They want to kill, kill, kill the innocent.
They can't wait to begin the next atrocity. It's true that the U.S. military
has conducted atrocities, in Vietnam and during the Plains Indians wars. But
slaughter of the innocent is rare in U.S. military annals. In "Avatar," it's
the norm. The bloodthirsty military personnel readily comply with the
colonel's orders to gun down natives. No one questions him -- though in
martial law, a soldier not only may but *must* refuse an illegal order. Plus
the military personnel are depicted as such utter morons -- not a brain in
any of their heads -- that none notice the TOTALLY OBVIOUS detail that
Pandora's unusual biology will be worth more than its minerals. Yes, movies
traffic in absurd super-simplifications. But we're supposed to accept that
of the deployment of several hundred, every soldier save one is a low-IQ
cold-blooded murderer.
[+]
Enlarge<http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/100105&sportCat=nfl&POLL462=2000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000#>
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.A mysterious organization spends a trillion
dollars to build a base in another star system -- then puts an obvious
lunatic in complete command.
What does "Avatar" build up to? Watching the invading soldiers -- most of
whom happen to be former American military personnel -- die is the big
cathartic ending of the flick. Extended sequences show Americans being
graphically slaughtered in the natives' counterattack. The deaths of aliens
are depicted as heartbreaking tragedies, while the deaths of American
security forces are depicted as a whooping good time. In Cameron's "Aliens,"
"The Abyss" and his television show "Dark Angel," U.S. military personnel
are either the bad guys or complete idiots, often shown graphically
slaughtered. Cameron is hardly the only commercial-film director to present
watching evil U.S. soldiers slaughtered as popcorn-chomping suburban
shopping mall fun: in the second "X-Men" flick, U.S. soldiers are the bad
guys and graphically killed off. Films that criticize the military for its
faults are one thing: When did watching depictions of U.S. soldiers dying
become a form of fun?
On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 7:40 AM, eric <figarus@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I also think the story closely resembles ferngully, but I haven't seen it
> in 15 years
>
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
> ------------------------------
> *From: * Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>
> *Date: *Tue, 5 Jan 2010 21:51:37 -0800
> *To: *<project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> *Subject: *[project1dev] Re: Avatar
>
> oh my god i was thinking the same thing!
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Elizabeth Patrician
> <potatoart@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>> Avatar is basically Dances with Wolves with aliens.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 5:53 PM, eric drewes <figarus@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> no, although stumble rules!
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Ken and Karen McByrd-Bell <
>>> kenandkaren777@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> lol i just shared that with alan ha ha! did you find that via
>>>> stumbleupon too?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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