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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.
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.
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Date: 2010-01-11 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 01:36 am (UTC)...maybe THAT'S why I started re-reading the Chanur books over break. Reaction to Avatar.
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Date: 2010-01-11 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 05:25 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2010-01-11 03:11 pm (UTC)Although actually, I thought Grace's avatar was just the most adorable uncanny valley thing ever. Maybe they thought so, too.
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Date: 2010-01-11 03:40 pm (UTC)...well, and she's Sigourney Weaver and oh god fancrush.
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Date: 2010-01-11 02:01 am (UTC)Also >.>
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Date: 2010-01-11 02:27 am (UTC)I figured I couldn't be the only one who thought it was a FernGully remake!
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Date: 2010-01-11 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 04:30 am (UTC)But I think that's just me xD
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Date: 2010-01-11 05:07 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2010-01-11 05:21 am (UTC)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
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Date: 2010-01-11 03:43 pm (UTC)Skipping the other issues...
Date: 2010-01-11 07:42 am (UTC)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...
Date: 2010-01-11 10:49 am (UTC)Re: Skipping the other issues...
Date: 2010-01-11 03:08 pm (UTC)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...
Date: 2010-01-11 03:41 pm (UTC)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...
Date: 2010-01-11 08:59 pm (UTC)that was weird to me too.
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Date: 2010-01-11 10:59 am (UTC)My favourite is the tree-internet.
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Date: 2010-01-12 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 11:19 am (UTC)Ok, i haven't seen Avatar yet, i will, but on your documentary comment - have you seen District 9?
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Date: 2010-01-11 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 05:11 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2010-01-11 09:16 pm (UTC)in a galaxy far, far awayon 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:
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Date: 2010-01-12 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-12 08:38 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2010-01-23 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-12 10:45 pm (UTC)Thought you might find that...interesting, maybe? In a disturbing way?