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[bloodyrosemccoy]

First off, I want to thank James Cameron for complicating my life, since I am also re-watching the entire series of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is a mouthful to specify.

The movie was … well, for the Highest-Budget Highest-Grossing Movie Ever, with elements Relevant To My Interests,* there is no getting around that the story was basically a giant, special-effects-laden, two-hour-and-forty-two-minute rehash of FernGully: The Last Rainforest. You want race relations with aliens,** check out CJ Cherryh or Poul Anderson or someone of that ilk.

I’ll give it one thing, though—the worldbuilding was magnificent. I get as big a charge out of seeing a constructed world onscreen as I get out of hearing people converse in constructed languages. The worldbuilder in me who is satisfied with deliciously extrapolated ecosystems and what-ifs was all over this movie. Even the culture gets some bonus points—I have this image of James Cameron waving a stack of cash at a team of anthropologist consultants demanding “Make me a race of noble savage blue people!” and the consultants valiantly trying to give some verisimilitude to the Na’vi anyway.

Basically, if I had my way with the movie, it’d be a documentary. No plot except maybe Sigourney Weaver doing field anthropology or something.

I know, I know, it’s as much wishful thinking as wishing the Prime Directive were something that people would actually follow, but I can dream, can’t I?


*Special effects, worldbuilding, and blue people, for a start. Also my well-aged fancrush on Sigourney Weaver, and my burgeoning one on Zoë Saldaña. But “DOES IT HAVE ALIENS IN IT?” is the trump card.

**This actually really drives me nuts, that writers and readers of sci-fi so often equate race with species, to the point where they use the words interchangeably. There are indeed parallels, but there’s also, quite literally, a world of difference between humans and alien species. You don’t get a different evolutionary psychology (the real kind, not the pseudoscientific Stephen Jay Gould’s Strawman kind) or a different-shaped brain when you’re talking about two groups of humans. With aliens, well, we come back around to the GOOD sci-fi writers.

Comments

[spotweld.livejournal.com]

So, how long before the Na'vi cosplay =P

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Beats me, but we've already got Na'vi Otherkin!

[spotweld.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

See metaquotes for a particularly hilarious exchange.

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

The Na'vi started showing up in the City of Heroes/Villains MMORPG about a day after the movie opened.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

There's a thriving community of them in Second life..which is kinda meta if you think about it.

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

I'd watch that documentary.

[beccastareyes]

So would I. Problem would be convincing the folks with money that people other than geeks would, no matter how pretty the movie would be.

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely. With the money that Avatar is making right now, though, i'm not sure I'd entirely rule it out. Mostly rule it out, sure.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

It'd be like that one I showed you, only with better effects and IMAX!

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

I know! I was just thinking that. Hell, I'd invest in the boxed set.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Likewise...and hey, they did walking with dinosaurs right?

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I spent most of the movie not caring about the current plot. I wanted to see Grace studying the world, her original team of Avatars setting up schools and teaching, so on. I wanted to see the geeky sidekick guy when he was originally studying to be an Avatar driver.

...maybe THAT'S why I started re-reading the Chanur books over break. Reaction to Avatar.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I'd be more interested in Grace GETTING schooled in all things Pandora--but she's a biologist, not an anthropologist, so I s'pose she'd have a different focus.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

Yes, that too.

Actually, I think the main thought in my head at the end of the movie was "DEAR GOD the Avatars must be all KINDS of Uncanny Valley to the Na'vi. An extra finger? EYEBROWS?"

I mean, imagine a human with eyes just a bit too wide set, and hands only built to have three fingers, and no eyebrows, coming up to you and saying "We are here to study your people and assimilate you into our culture."

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly! "Hey, Neytiri! I see you!" "GAH! I will NEVER get used to that!"

Although actually, I thought Grace's avatar was just the most adorable uncanny valley thing ever. Maybe they thought so, too.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

Clearly they did, since they dragged her Avatar body along when they left Jakesully behind.

...well, and she's Sigourney Weaver and oh god fancrush.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I have heard this called Dances with Na'vi, Smurfahontas, and the Last Blue Samurai.

Also >.>

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I also liked "Cowboys and Aliens" myself, although to be fair I first came across that phrase in a Far Side cartoon.

I figured I couldn't be the only one who thought it was a FernGully remake!

[evilcresyluna.livejournal.com]

Nope, the roommate and I walked out saying "huh, ferngully / Pocahontas" although I'd forgotten just HOW MUCH it resembled FernGully.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

So, Sigourney Weaver as the Jane Goodal of Blue People? I'd see it.

[igntethestars.livejournal.com]

Adult Fern Gully is how I've heard EVERY person describe it thus far. That really doesn't make me want to see it. I love me some Zoe Saldana, and I know he effects are amazing. . . but if I'm going to see a three hour movie, I want it to have a PLOT. One that isn't a rip off from Fern Gully and Pocahontas.

But I think that's just me xD

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, I must admit this was the movie that made me realize how tired I am of blockbusters. But I'm more in the other direction--I seem to want either GOOD PLOT or NO PLOT.

But then, I'm the dork who buys pretend documentaries like The Future Is Wild, so once again I realize I'm in the minority.

[igntethestars.livejournal.com]

Blockbusters, for the most part, are failures to me. They try too hard, I think. They want the visuals to be AMAZING, and the CGI to be AMAZING, and you have to have ALL THE BEST ACTORS! and somewhere along in there, they lose plot.

But I'm also in the league of people who thinks that most modern actors can't act. They just play themselves in various roles.

I watch/buy pretend documentaries too <3

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

I think that's why I prefer District 9 to Avatar.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

I see it as Dances With Wolves. IN SPACE!

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I was going to see it today, but all shows for the day were sold out. It's been in theaters for how long now, and it's still selling out? WTF?

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen any official estimates, but it looks like it's on track to take out Titanic as the #1 grossing movie in 'contemporary' dollars, if you know what I mean. IIRC, Gone With the Wind is still the #1 movie in terms of adjusted box office, and still way ahead of the pack.

Skipping the other issues...

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time forgetting that all the life on Pandora seems to be hexapedal except for the Na'vi. There's some limbs missin' there.

All the flora/fauna that were ripped out of the ocean and plopped right onto Pandora's surface. "Spot the reef creature" was a game I got to play almost as much as "spot the movie this is ripped off of."

Re: Skipping the other issues...

[chairman-wow.livejournal.com]

Yess, the missing limbs bothered me a lot, too. What is up with that?

Re: Skipping the other issues...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That bugged me, too--in fact, it kept throwing me off, because there's an old Poul Anderson story where the fact that the one-with-nature blue people who are getting encroached upon by humans are the only non-hexapods on their world is a PLOT POINT.

They have some explanation for it in a book I checked out--remember th lemur things with the fused upper arms? Apparently they're evolutionary precursors to the Na'vi, who have fused entirely. Which brings up SO MANY QUESTIONS.

I was okay with the use of reef life as the local flora and fauna, myself. At least it wasn't all just a bunch of mashup mammals.

Re: Skipping the other issues...

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

I found the reef life to be sort of a cheat, "we're going all out with some things, but let's Cliff Notes this part, who'll be able to tell?"

I forgot about the lemurs till you mentioned it. Still, bugged me and continues to bug me.

I will say though, that the CGI was very impressive, the Na'vi didn't hit the uncanny valley like so many other CGI people have, at least for me. I found the kids in Polar Express kind of creepy.

With Cameron remaking Fern Gully/Dances with Wolves with the first movie in this trilogy, I wonder what's next? Seven Samurai?

Re: Skipping the other issues...

[redkite7.livejournal.com]

Hi! Here from metaquotes. The ikrans / banshees only had 4 limbs also, but toruk had 6, so...

that was weird to me too.

[chairman-wow.livejournal.com]

I would like to see this documentary, also.

My favourite is the tree-internet.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Dammit, now you've got me picturing the climax as the entirety of nature showing up outside the humans' compound, wearing Guy Fawkes masks and carrying Biting Pear and Long Cat signs as the Na'vi yell "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" in their language.

[chairman-wow.livejournal.com]

Someone left a computer terminal with a few saved 4chan threads lying around, and one of those plant tendrils just snuck in…

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Metaquoted!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Huh. For some reason I expected more snark on this one!

[daiq.livejournal.com]

Basically, if I had my way with the movie, it’d be a documentary. No plot except maybe Sigourney Weaver doing field anthropology or something.

Ok, i haven't seen Avatar yet, i will, but on your documentary comment - have you seen District 9?

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

I think the other Avatar movie is being released as "The Last Airbender". Maybe they could use some CGI and get everyone's race a tad closer to the show, and make Aang's tattoos look less like smudges and more like, you know, tattoos.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Fuck that. It's a perfectly good TV show, and if they're not gonna bother to make everyone the right race, well, then, I'm not gonna bother to see it. Telling them I disapprove and then giving them my money anyway isn't much of a message.

Yeah, it's called The Last Airbender--fair enough, but the past few weeks of "Wanna watch Avatar?" have been a bit confusing around here.

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

One thing that bugged me was that Neytiri and Jakesully were so on the same page when it came to making out. Kissing isn't done in the same way everywhere on Earth, so why would a different species in a galaxy far, far away on a different planet do it the same way humans do?

Also, the connector thingies at the end of the Na'vi's braids? Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense for that to be at the end of their tails? Or do a portion their hair grow into a braid all by itself? I do not understand! D:

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Would a haircut be the equivalent of a lobotomy? There's a reason brains are encased in skulls and eyes have bony sockets. Hangin' the major sense organ out where it could be snagged on any random bit of forest doesn't make a lot of sense.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've wondered that, myself. I kinda figured the braid was to protect the nerve bundle, but that had better be some badass hair.

Maybe it's more like a very small tail and the hair just grows around it? Or gets braided around it? Or ... hell, I dunno, this has been bugging me for days.

Either way, when they're not using it, I'd expect it to be able to at least curl up or something.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

Yup! Both of those things got to me, too. Along with a number of gripes about the worldbuilding, I admit. Granted, kickass animation has its limits, but I spent most of my time thinking that there was a massive shortage of species on Pandora, particularly insect life, and also what's with the flying rocks and how do vines end up spanning massive chasms like that... and so on. But it was beautiful all the same.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

He didn't link to the Sauce, but howlin_wolf_66 posted a rather scary article about people getting all depressed and suicidal after watching Avatar. (http://howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com/61305.html)

Thought you might find that...interesting, maybe? In a disturbing way?