The real-world examples in the Wiki article suggest unobtanium has been used for materials which are hard to obtain not necessarily impossible. In any event the Wiki article also mentions a company which has trademarked unobtanium for its products and here is an example. So basically “unobtanium” has been used for real-world materials and products in a number of contexts so there is nothing wrong with its use in the movie.
This is an excellent point. Eyva does select Sully in a sense and the various strands in Sully’s past and his ambiguous position within the three factions point to why he is the ideal person to save the Na’vi. This is what ties Sully’s story with the main conflict in the film.
I think he is basically a pure warrior who relishes war as an end, rather than a means. He views the Na’vi as the ultimate military challenge and that’s why he wants to defeat them.This is another theme which is nicely set up in the early scenes. He is a great character; I love the way he just jumps out into the poisonous air to shoot at the aircraft. And his final scenes are pure badassery; it requires Jake, Neytiri and the beast to beat him.
The more I think about it the more impressed I am with the script. It really is a well-crafted piece of work despite the simplicity of the main story.
Here is a pdf file of the script btw.
http://www.foxscreenings.com/media/pdf/JamesCameronAVATAR.pdf
It’s not the same as the film but close enough. I wonder if the extra scenes were shot and will be available in a director’s cut.
It’s interesting (to me) that the creators of some of the biggest recent movie epics, specifically Jackson, Lucas, Cameron are probably going to be remembered as much for their tech savvy (WETA, ILM, Cameron’s 3D innovations) as their directorial skill, if not more so.
I think the editing is where the craftsmanship really came into play. Even at 2.5 hours, the movie is stripped down to essentials, but it still moves. Even things that seem throwaways end up relevant to the plot.
And redundancies are cut out – I laughed out loud at Jake’s scene with the Last Shadow. In any other movie, that would’ve been played as another climactic scene. Here, though, it was recognized as too similar to the scene with the Banshee just prior, so the editing moved us on to new action.
All the nuance in this film came from the performances and characterization; not really from the plot. And although the characters seemed simple, they had a lot going on if you were watching the performances. I do wish they hadn’t edited out the Norm + Trudy romance subplot, though; those two characters were left a bit too simplified without it.
I love that scene especially Jake’s lines:
I wish they had left a few more of the Grace/Sully scenes. They add some important backstory and dramatize the choice that Sully faces.
In particular they should have left these lines by Grace before she dies:
Captures the essence of the characters and completes the arc of their relationship.
Is there any word of a director’s cut for DVD? I would really love to see the movie with half an hour of extra scenes.
I doubt there will be any talk about Avatar DVDs until it’s stopped stomping over every other movie in history at the boxoffices.
And since there’ll no doubt be multiple DVD releases – initial release, 3D release, Extended Version, Director’s Cut, etc. – I think we should just send Wall Street to go ask James Cameron for their next bailout. Damn.
Was I the only one who thought Jake Sully was a douchebag?
The key line in the movie for me was what he said when he finally managed to connect to the ikran:
“Haha, you’re mine now!” (slight paraphrase)
It was a line that showed the true nature of Sully. He was not one of the Na’vi people. When it came down to things, he was just as materialistic as the other marines, he was just in denial. The teachings about connecting to the forest went over his head, because to him the dragon was a possession.
So you say.
Yes, because ripping the movie apart is turning out to be more entertaining than the movie itself, and I’m determined to get my $8 worth.
Two thoughts, from someone who hasn’t read the entire thread, so apologies if these have been covered to death:
The plot: my problem with the plot is only that, by the end, it was so predictable. I don’t know how closely it was necessary to follow the plot of the original graphic novel, but I wish the screenwriter(s) had tried a little harder to achieve some small amount of unpredictability. Same with the characters - for the most part (scarhead, Sigourney Weaver’s character especially) these aren’t archetypes, they are just stock characters, with stock actions and reactions. Again, no surprises.
Life as a Na’Vi: What was their life like before the humans came? Hunting and gathering, apparently, agriculture would be too disturbing to the environment. No science, perhaps science is unnecessary. Any art, writing, cultural artefacts of any kind? I did not notice any, among all the details. So I have to say, Pandora was a beautiful place to visit, but I don’t think I would like living in a culture where the biggest possible achievement is to be able to ride a big dragon thingie. That’s mostly physical bravery and some natural ability. For the nerdy brain-monkeys like me, that’s not much reason to get out of bed in the morning.
But in spite of all that, I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. Even though it was pretty long, it did not seem long (even in the last hour when I needed to pee). And I would pay money to see just a travelogue (“And as the giant planet and other moons set, we say good-bye to lovely, magical Pandora”).
Roddy
Nope.
I read that more of a declaration of *victory *rather than possession. You know, as in “We have met the enemy and he is ours” or “Your ass is mine” or “I’ve got you now” or “pwned!”.
Of course, YMMV.
To me this represents the biggest missed opportunity of the film. For the sake of presenting the Na’vi as comfortably familiar noble savages, Cameron missed the chance to really play up the Eywa aspect and the sophistication it could have represented. Eywa need not be some kind of Gaia-ish nature goddess, but the name given to the entire ecosystem, of which the Na’vi play some maintenance role like white blood cells. Perhaps on the planet are large parabolic depressions covered in moss with an especially fine-grain cellular structure. Humans have noticed these, thought they were strange, but totally missed that they were a biological form of radio-telescope, an evolved structure that lets Eywa gather information about the surrounding universe. The Na’vi (well, some of them) don’t speak fluent English because of Weaver’s schools - that’s merely a conceit of Weaver’s character - rather, Eywa has been casually receiving radio signals from Earth since the 1960s or so and built up quite an extensive biologically-stored database about Earth, which it didn’t start using in any way until humans showed up.
When the dandelion seeds glom onto Sully, I found it kind of annoying. He was essentially being anointed as the Chosen One, from which followed all his fulfillment of local prophesy and legend and he would be the one to ride the red dragon, etc. etc. I’d prefer to think of it as just Eywa gathering information about this unusual hybrid lifeform, the first of its kind to wander that deeply into the Eywan forest, far from the base that was rather rudely carved into Eywa’s side and which Eywa will do something about sooner or later (though this could be years or even centuries, as Eywa is in no rush).
The Na’vi are the most sophisticated and adaptable of Eywa’s “cells”, but the reason they look different from the animal-like lifeforms (number of eyes, limbs, etc.) is that they were intelligently designed by Eywa and modeled on the decoded television images of humans. Thus, the Na’vi are actually only about ~150 years old as a species. Prior to that, Eywa didn’t really see that need for cells that talked, but was willing to try the concept out for the sake of novelty. Individually, the Na’vi periodically plug into the planetary fiber-optic network to gather information or instructions.
Anyway, that’s sort-of the movie I would have written. I have no illusions that it would beat Titanic though. I’d be lucky to do even half as well as Jackie Brown.
We have two sequels to look forward to (some of us, er, tens of millions of us) and Cameron will no doubt delve much much deeper into the world of Pandora and Eywa. He can do whatever the hell he wants with no regard to box office, he already knows that the biggest pull Avatar has is Pandora itself, and he has nothing to prove or lose, so he’s going to give us what we want, what I’m sure he wanted in the first place.
May I please see a triple feature tomorrow? Please? Damn, I have to wait how many years?
Not merely what I say. Others have pointed out your many errors too.
Except that you are not ripping apart the actual movie, but some other movie you think you saw.
Given that a Na’vi warrior and his/her Ikran bond for life, AND that this bonding is accomplished through the same USB ponytail that the Na’vi also use for sex… that exclamation could had an entirely different, much more intimate, reading.
No, of course not, but he was intended to be a douchebag at the beginning as part of his character arc. He was a much different person, a much better person, at the end. I don’t know that he was a cookie-cutter douchebag though. He was bitter and sarcastic and self-centered, but didn’t he have good reasons to be all of those things? He lost the use of his legs, he was no longer a Marine, his brother was murdered, he’s sent to a strange place where nobody likes or wants him. He’s supposed to be Little Miss Sunshine?
Exactly. He also called Grace and Neytiri’s respect for the forest “tree-hugging crap.” And he went along with Scarhead’s plan. But everything changed as he got to know Neytiri and Pandora. His arc is reflected in what he says, how he acts, and, I noticed much more on my 3rd viewing, looks on his face. I was much more impressed with Sam Worthington as an actor after I noticed it. He says a lot with just very subtle facial expressions (on his real face, not the avatar Jake), and his body movements. One example is his slight hesitation when opening his brother’s locker (I forgot who caught that, sorry, but that was a good catch). One is that look he gives his legs when he wakes up the first time. Another is his expression when he is vlogging that the humans have nothing the Na’vi want, and his reaction to hearing himself say so. There are many many more.
In addition, it sounds vaguely like the “un-” prefix used for unnamed transuranic elements.
I hope that future films would develop in this way, but forgive me if I am cynical enough to think that conflict sells, and the most likely conflict would come from humans coming back with bigger and better weapons - something biological perhaps that would challenge Eywa where she lives. Shame to waste all that research that Dr. Sigourney did.
Roddy
And others are discussing the movie they thought they saw, too, obviously enough.
Well, that’s hardly cynical. Drama without conflict isn’t really drama at all, and while a two-hour exploration of the wonders of Pandora might make for a mildly interesting pseudo-documentary (maybe presented in the style of a National Geographic special), it sure ain’t gonna make a lot of money.
I’m mildly curious what path the sequel(s) will follow, since Cameron seems to have written himself into a corner. If the Na’vi truly are just noble savages, then they’d face the same unbeatable threat noble savages have always faced when confronted with determined colonials. The only possible “conflict” will be among humans who are debating if the Na’vi should be exterminated or not, such extermination posing not all that great a technical challenge. Unless Eywa’s abilities are massively improved to the point where it can destroy spaceships in orbit (like the giant insects in Starship Troopers), the Na’vi aren’t even slightly in control of their ultimate fate - they exist only as long as the humans let them.
One possible shocking twist and a subversion of history: while Earth-bound “noble savage” tribes in the Americas got wiped out by European diseases, in this case the hasty departure of the humans (before they could undergo some lengthy standardized sterilization/quarantine procedure) from Pandora has allowed them to carry some Pandoran superbug back to Earth, where it will devastate the human race. Take that, colonial scum!