Necrometer wrote:
hahaha, good call on the Aliens similarities
I can't possibly be the only one who's ever noticed that, though. Movies like this get scrutinized to pieces by nerds way worse than what we're doing here.
I am a boss now and I live in constant fear that I am a Gorman...
I've been a department head for a couple of years now and I'd say as long as you keep asking yourself that question, you're fine.
FWIW people were mostly complaining about the white savior stuff and called the movie/plot "recycled" & "simple"
Eh. I don't mind if plots are unoriginal and simple if they're well executed. I guess since the Na'vi are a metaphor for every indigenous populace that's ever been ass-raped by white people, the fact that the white guy's the "chosen one" is a bit troubling, but then again, if you want to look at the movie through the hyper-critical SJW lens, the whole idea of a blue-skinned alien race as a metaphor for "unspecified aboriginals" is racist in and of itself already. In other words, bleh, don't care. I'm totally fine with the movie's obvious environmentalist message, which brings me to:
presentation of an ecosystem as valuable & interconnected
I get that, but purely from a plot standpoint, the "neural network" idea felt incredibly shoe-horned in, and the USB tentacle plug is so central to the story that it really needed at least
some explanation.
dragons are bonded for life, but the humanoids can do whatever
That's your head-canon explanation, though, it's never clearly stated in the movie and what Neytiri says seems to imply otherwise.
there's something thoughtful going on with the creature design in the movie: the "dumb" animals tend to have 6 limbs; the "higher" organisms (na'vi & ikran) have only 4 limbs. they even included a "missing link" organism to bridge the evolutionary strata: a simian thing that has semi-fused forelimbs
Ha, I hadn't noticed that. I was actually thinking it's silly that the Na'vi would have evolved from six-legged animals, but that's a cool touch. Obviously the creatures and the production design in this movie in general are stellar, I'm not about to cast doubt on any of that.
do you feel like anything metaphysical happened in the movie?
If nothing else, then definitely the transfer of consciousness from one body to another. There's other stuff, but that one's kind of a big deal and it's 100% clear.
it's a fun sci-fi conceit that they pray to what is subjectively their deity and objectively a planet-sized organism.
It would be if it was consistent, but it's not.
the two main characters have spent a TON of time together by that point in the movie, so they could've discussed why humans wear breathing apparatus. the avatar drivers were wearing those walkie-talkies consistently, so it's not that crazy tech-wise. all you need to do to use it is slap it on and know that you have to touch it to talk.
Again, head-canon. I'm totally fine with movies using narrative shorthand and not holding viewers' hands through every little detail, but that felt like it appeared out of nowhere, particularly Neytiri's unexplained understanding of the avatar pilot pods and breathing masks. And in general, it's out of sync with how the movie introduces things like this - it generally does take care to set things up (shovelhead skull, the failed attempt to transfer Grace's soul into her avatar), but then this just happens and we're supposed to accept it.
I think if you watched it again most of this stuff would seem less unexplained.
That's possible. There may have been some dialogue that I didn't pay enough attention to.
but if you don't USB, how can you get it on with the locals?
Captain Kirk did it the old-fashioned way, and if it's good enough James Tiberius motherfucking Kirk, it sure is good enough for me.
not something you brought up, but I feel like the unobtanium stuff is REALLY under-explained.
Meh. I was fine with that. It serves its purpose for the environmentalist allegory and that's that. You don't really need to know more than that it's valuable for the story to work.
I hadn't heard that thing about his mom's dream being an inspiration!
Pretty sure I found that on the movie's Wikipedia page, dude...