James Cameron's AVATAR 2 - now playing in cinema theaters

[MANTIS]

[Necrometer]

Some making-of vids:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

[Necrometer]

cunt hair affected by gravity in ways unforeseen.eywa7

[Ray]

I understand they need something to help the audience to connect and sympathize with, but there's a part of me that wants to see an alien world so utterly bizarre that life itself, wouldn't even be recognizable.

[Deleted Account]

Pandora was awesome to look at, but it was basically like some sort of planetary archipelago of Earth.

[Necrometer]

I, too, would love to see what you describe, but this movie was not even remotely convinced in creating that sort of experience. Ultimately it was a primitivist/escapist fantasy.

Even District 9 aliens were basically human... What's the closest thing delivered so far? The dad at the end of Contact?

[Iron Goldie]

true lies? really? i mean jamie lee curtis dancing is pretty much the ONLY redeeming quality of that movie.....

Best be joking, sucker.

Also, this page is bad and you guys should feel bad. I won't disagree with Cameron thinking in stereotypes though. Hasn't this thread already discussed how the Na'vi are pretty much the "honorable savage" or whatever stereotype?

[MANTIS]

I, too, would love to see what you describe, but this movie was not even remotely convinced in creating that sort of experience. Ultimately it was a primitivist/escapist fantasy.

Even District 9 aliens were basically human... What's the closest thing delivered so far? The dad at the end of Contact?

The extraterrestrial presence in 2001? All that's known is they are intelligent and interested. Anything else is up for grabs.

[Necrometer]

you're right, fuck this page

[Necrometer]

I, too, would love to see what you describe, but this movie was not even remotely convinced in creating that sort of experience. Ultimately it was a primitivist/escapist fantasy.

Even District 9 aliens were basically human... What's the closest thing delivered so far? The dad at the end of Contact?

The extraterrestrial presence in 2001? All that's known is they are intelligent and interested. Anything else is up for grabs.

certainly... the weirder (and closer to what we're likely to stumble across) things get, the less money in the bank

3D cameras and WETA designers don't come cheap!

[MANTIS]

What did you think of Camerona'vi?

[Necrometer]

Handsome! I had seen that some months ago though

I prefer MS's version.

[delmuerte]

I thought it was kinda funny when Cameron said "naevee," in a way that was totally not at all the way it sounded in the movie. Didn't he come up with this shit? Outsourced to India yet again.

[Necrometer]

Some making-of vids:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

These are so ridiculous... in parts 3+4... you watch what they're doing and it's so hard to imagine they could make anyone watchable out of it. But somehow they pulled it together. Soooooo many cameras and cables and suits and foam and crap...

[Deleted Account]

What's the closest thing delivered so far? The dad at the end of Contact?

That's one. I guess The Thing could be considered another, though no one knew what it's true original form ever was, or how or why some solitary being came to Earth in the first place.

[Necrometer]

The Thing is an awesome answer and concept. Even though it sort of retrofits itself to appear humanoid, the xenomorph of the Alien series is really more of a virus than anything... similar ideas in Species and the atrocious VIRUS!

[Iron Goldie]

Eh, dunno if this has been posted already but whatever, I'm posting it anyway.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/524391

[DeadWalrus]

I understand they need something to help the audience to connect and sympathize with, but there's a part of me that wants to see an alien world so utterly bizarre that life itself, wouldn't even be recognizable.

i've been wracking my brain trying to think of an instance of this in any film or book and can't really come up with anything. all aliens seem to come down to a few stereotypes: a monster/animal/demon (alien, predator, the blob), an effect (the thing, invasion of the body snatchers, slither), a metaphor (avatar, district 9, the day the earth stood still), a faction (star wars, star trek, the last starfighter), or a god/deus ex machina (2001, contact, childhoods end)

best thing i can come up with is this short story but even then it was done as a study in ethics:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/

it at least tries to come up with completely alien psychology and physiology. lovecraft shit might count too with like yog-sothoth and azathoth and other gibbering extra-dimensional horrors but eh, not really.

[Necrometer]

a monster/animal/demon (alien)

Good post! But I think you're selling the Alien short... its parasitic and mimicry elements make it more complex than how you pegged it.

I think Star Trek was great at exploring all the different modes of life. Like... there was a whole nebula or something that was alive in one TNG episode - then there were two of them that just wanted to mate or something? Fuck... can't remember.

[John Jr.]

virus was atrocious on screen, but awesome in comic.

[DeadWalrus]

Good post! But I think you're selling the Alien short... its parasitic and mimicry elements make it more complex than how you pegged it.

well, yeah, i was simplifying. lots of aliens are a combination of the archetypes.

I think Star Trek was great at exploring all the different modes of life. Like... there was a whole nebula or something that was alive in one TNG episode - then there were two of them that just wanted to mate or something? Fuck... can't remember.

definitely, for a mainstream series it was pretty inventive sometimes. but as far as coming up with new types of alien organisms, larry niven was pretty great. the grendals, puppeteers, slavemasters, moties, etc were all pretty unique, especially psychologically.

actually, this is a pretty damn comprehensive list of weird ass aliens in all kinds of fiction. the literature section is great.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... fishAliens

[LolaFaun]

a monster/animal/demon (alien)

Good post! But I think you're selling the Alien short... its parasitic and mimicry elements make it more complex than how you pegged it.

I think Star Trek was great at exploring all the different modes of life. Like... there was a whole nebula or something that was alive in one TNG episode - then there were two of them that just wanted to mate or something? Fuck... can't remember.

That TNG episode was one where the people down on the alien planet were holding the alien life form (looked like an enormous jellyfish) captive to use as thier energy source. It also had this sorta magic power to make things appear when wished for. I think Troy was going thru the marketplace and it made a bolt of fabric appear that she wished for. Anyway, the crew get the captive alien released because it's mate comes for it and is threatening the planet, and the aliens join tentacles.

I also remember TNG having 2 other pretty interesting aliens. One were made up of just these bright dots of light/energy and called humans "bags of water", which I thought was funny. And once Picard got stuck on a planet Alien Mine style, with a alien that spoke thru it's own planet's literature/mythology which was unknown to Picard, so he had to try to figure out the story references in order to communicate.

[Necrometer]

Great work, Lola!

I also remember TNG having 2 other pretty interesting aliens. One were made up of just these bright dots of light/energy and called humans "bags of water", which I thought was funny.

I don't think anyone who's seen that episode can ever forget it... and I agree that it was another solid example of the really different life we often hope to see in scifi... The people trying to study them thought they were merely mineral crystals.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

On the lifeless desert planet of Velara III, a small group of scientists are hard at work terraforming the planet. When a routine check-in by the Enterprise leads to a testy dismissal from the head engineer, as well as bad vibes for Counselor Troi, the away team goes to investigate. Apologies are quickly made by the newly conciliatory terraformers, who explain that their manners tend to fade over the decades of isolation required to bring life to a dead world. (So what exactly happened to Star Trek II's Genesis Project?) But during the brief tour, one scientist is killed by an apparently malfunctioning laser, and suspicions are raised again. Data and Geordi investigate, and discover beyond question that an intelligent force in fact controlled the deadly beam. The three remaining scientists are brought up to the ship for questioning; also beamed aboard is a small crystal whose arrhythmic, "musical" light pulsations have intrigued Data. Despite some insistence from the ship's computer that, lacking organic structure, the crystal simply can't be life (why exactly aren't Starfleet medical programs informed of the silicon-based Horta encountered by the old Enterprise crew?), alive is exactly the right word. Alive, growing, and angry at the attempted extermination of its species by the terraformers. Not to mention able to control the Enterprise's computers, thus putting the entire crew at risk. Though the rapidly multiplying creature, eventually dubbed the microbrain, is one of the show's all-time cheapest aliens--basically some glowing penlights placed under a bell jar--the story is a fairly interesting rehash of some classic Trek themes. Plus, any episode that introduces the catchy phrase "ugly bags of mostly water," the microbrain's description of humans, is an instant classic.

[LolaFaun]

I think it's my new job to follow Ross around the board completing his pop culture references.

[Necrometer]

Everyone should be so lucky as me