Of course it was “un-green” - in the movie, Earth of 2154 is probably as un-green as you can get. Earth probably doesn’t have a lot of trees and having a wood coffin would probably be really expensive, especially if you’re just using it for a short time before you cremate it.
Besides, lots of people use cardboard “coffins” to be cremated in even today (cite).
Well, I finally saw this movie this last Friday. We saw it at the local theater in 2D. (My wife and I actually went to see it around New Year’s, only to find out that the every showing that evening was sold out, and that the Imax 3D was sold out through the following weekend!)
Anyway, I absolutely loved it. I thought it was one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Yes, as a longtime science fiction reader, I was familiar with all of the themes and tropes that were trotted out. When they had the scene in which Jake bonded with the Ikran/Banshee (in which the creature bonded with its master for life), I was immediately reminded of the Dragonriders of Pern. And yes, the basic plot was reminiscent of Dances with Wolves.
Nevertheless, the plot worked. I’m as big a nitpicker as anyone, and was never jarred out of the movie as I almost always am when watching science fiction movies. The visuals were stunning, but they were also realistic. The size of the rotors and the wings for the aerial vehicles and creatures (respectively) seemed a bit small, but this was addressed in the film by the lower gravity. There was no real explanation that I recall for the floating mountains, but at least Cameron didn’t insult my intelligence with the typical unscientific bullshit most films would proffer. (If, as other posters have alluded to, there is superconducting material in the mountains, this could actually be a semi-plausible explanation, as magnetic fields repel superconductors.)
What also worked for me was all of the visuals and effects, from the completely realistic technical hardware to the Pandoran landscape. What also worked for me was the emotional impact.
I liked the movie so much that I was able to talk my wife into seeing again today, this time in 3D (RealD 3D). Now, I tend to dislike 3D movies. They have always seemed dark, blurry, and the colors have been washed out. This was different. While Avatar in 2D was one of the best films I’ve seen in a long while, there is no question that it is the best 3D film I’ve ever seen. This is the first 3D film I’ve ever seen in which the 3D aspect only added to the film, instead of being a tradeoff of sacrificing clarity and brightness for a novelty. After seeing this film, I can, for the first time, actually see 3D becoming mainstream instead of a passing fad.
Lastly, I’ve actually plowed through all of the 942 posts preceding mine in this thread, and had a few responses to some of the comments that have been made. Sorry if some of these have already been addressed.
This was addressed in the film. At the time that we viewers first see Grace at Hometree, Jake states that he has talked the clan chief into allowing Grace back. Grace greets several of the children and remarks on how they have grown.
Jake only asks this after showing up riding the Toruk, an act which has elevated his stature in the tribe considerably. Also, I don’t think the Na’vi shaman (Mo’at) had any particular animosity towards Grace–she just thought Grace was “insane” like all of the other Avatars before Jake. Grace wasn’t banned from the tribe because of anything she did personally; instead, it was a consequence of the machine gun incident referred to in the film.
I disagree. I saw it twice this weekend, and would be willing to see it again.
The same place that perpetual waterfalls come from on Earth: Water vapor condenses on the mountains or simply falls as rain, which collects into streams and rivers, and fall off the sides as waterfalls. What’s to understand?
Flying vehicles, especially helicopters, are not particularly stable. If the 1.2 ton critter had done as little as to just grab onto and hang on to the helicopter, I wouldn’t be surprised if it spun out of control.
The dogs (actually “viperwolves”) weren’t hunting companions of the Na’vi. Neytiri felt bad about killing them because the Na’vi revere life, and the viperwolves were needlessly killed because Jake was stupidly stumbling around in the forest. Here’s an imperfect analogy: picture a human jumping into the tiger enclosure at the zoo, resulting some of the tigers being shot and killed during his subsequent rescue, which of course was only necessary because of the person’s idiotic behavior in the first place.
The date was not always given as month 11. The first month shown was month 5 (May), followed by month 6 (June), and month 8 (August) at the end. Jake was given three months before the dozers showed up, just as the Colonel promised.
I liked your post robby.
Wow, I think it’s a perfect analogy, and wish I’d thought of it.
The Na’vi kill animals, but only to eat (and in self-defense I’m sure, though we didn’t see that). The animals they kill for food are killed swiftly and humanely, and they’re thanked for providing. Neytiri had to kill so many Viperwolves to save the “moron.” She may never have had to kill a Viperwolf before then, we don’t know. The scene later on when Neytiri shows Jake the baby Viperwolves (vuppies?) shows that she was enchanted by the strange creatures.
Any one else think Avatar was a Sci Fi version of The Last Samurai??
I hope this is meant to be a joke post, but if not, yes Avatar is a retread of a very old and well-worn plot. So is Last Samurai, and Pocahontas, and Ferngully, and any other movie Avatar might remind someone of.
Dances with Viperwolves
Yeah, yeah. And *Titanic *is just another disaster movie, *Aliens *is just another Vietnam War movie and the *Terminator *films are just another retelling of the story of Christ. That’s what Cameron does.
I beat you to that one about 300 posts ago. 
Oh.
Well, I just saw the movie last night and I couldn’t bring myself to slog through 18 pages. I’ll be sure to footnote you in the future.
While we’re at it, Shakespeare never wrote an original story in his life, either. For all the criticisms one can lay against a story, I don’t think “unoriginal” is ever a valid one.
Not reading the whole thread, sorry.
I thought of it as Dances With Wolves + FernGully. Seriously, they could have shot it as a white-man-gains-acceptance-from-Native-Americans picture and still used more than 60% of the same script.
This may also be of interest - two Avatar-related books with lots of background info: Need an "Avatar" fix? Check out these two books - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
What I get to page twenty finally, and there is only three posts ??
Anyways, finally seen it tonight and am caught between the wonder of the spectacle of the world of the Navi and underwhelmed by the story.
I would have to say thats the first and last time I plan on seeing that movie, seeing on a smaller screen and in 2d just will not do it for me.
Some thoughts
Earth will be back as others have mentioned, except I doubt that they are gonna nuke em from orbit, that should have been done the first time around. Seriously not amused at the lack of starside support fire.
Yep , I have read several posts that Earth does not want genocide and that the private company that runs the place has obligations. So where was Earthrep, a planet full of some rare ore and along with a bronze age dig culture and yet not even an OSHA rep is on site. That just screams the prime suggestion for protection of primitive cultures.
Two hundred years in the future and Earth is dying , okay, tell me a little more backstory on that so the rare ore angle looks better than terraforming. You know I could believe in it a bit more if RDA was contracted to extract ore from Pandora , using modern up to date tech and enviromentally sound practices and then out and out strip mining the place in contravention of that policy just to increase share holder value, but I never got that vibe.
We only see one ship in orbit, but there had to be more, at least one more cause the colonel offers jake a ride home , just before jake goes through the adult ceremony. Could have been the same ship , but Im thinking it was the previous ship that was finished fueling, while jakes ship was in the process of beginning to refuel.
But anyways, those athabasca dumptrucks and dozers are really big and heavy and probably landed in one piece, so strip mining was on the agenda from the get go and some one gapped that maybe the pandas might not like the practice, even if they were a straight forward primitives as opposed the gaia types that we see on film.
I think I might have liked this film if they went with the Babylon 5 school of politics, Pandas do their version of the boxer rebellion or the indian revolt, they die from an orbital shake and bake.
Declan
The Pandora wiki mentions they were manufactured onsite using local materials.
Y’know, the more I think about it, Avatar actually has a nigh-perfect story, once you realize what kind of movie it is. Most movies have the story as the main focus, with the visuals being a tool to support the story. If you try to judge it that way, Avatar fails horribly. But there’s another kind of movies: Some movies, including this one, exist for the visuals, with the story being there to support the visuals. Then, you have to ask how well the story did what it was supposed to do, and I think the answer here is “very well indeed”. The story gave everything that was needed to justify and to follow the visuals, and it did so without any extraneous matter or loose ends. It supplied all of the exposition, without it ever seeming like a clunky info-dump. In short, it was extremely efficient in its job of supporting the visuals.
By analogy, nobody ever goes to New York to see the steel framework Eiffel designed; they go to see the bronze statue supported by that framework. But that doesn’t mean that the framework of the Statue of Liberty is lacking in some way; it does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and does it very well.
That’s what I was trying to say earlier - this isn’t a movie about a story, it’s a movie that’s about an experience, and the story is just there to tie it together. And it does that well. If you weren’t thinking about how the movie wasn’t all deep with plot twists, but instead just sat back and let it take you to Pandora it works extremely well.
It’s one of those rare movies that can just completely take you in to the experience, and holding it to the standards of some nuanced gritty character story with a complex plot is missing the point.
Now that the movie is a hit, and sequels can build on the already-spent money invested in visual effects, it’s a certainty the Terrans will be back.
According to the canonical material released on the web, unobtainium is the only known high-temperature superconductor (and the stuff must literally be a one-by-one arrangment of atoms if two hundred years from now it can’t be synthesized). Only with unobtainium is it possible to efficiently create antimatter; the antimatter in turn is the only economical way to generate fusion power. Fusion power is the only thing keeping civilization going at that point.
I could well believe there is only one starship: it might have cost trillions of credits to build, and given that it takes years to make each leg of the trip, laying over a year or so for refueling and repair is plausible. There’s a historical analog- the Manila Galleons, which sailed infrequently across the vast expanse of the Pacific.
There are references in the movie to hopes that the Na’vi could eventually be recruited as miners, given that the planet’s atmosphere isn’t breathable to humans. Otherwise Earth would have begun colonizing the planet proper rather than just having a mining outpost. What’s only briefly touched upon (and it’s part of what must be decades of backstory on Pandora) is how hostile the native life is, to the point that the humans have to set up their base/mining camp as a heavily fortified redoubt protected by a paramilitary force. Earth must have been really, really hoping they could sell lite beer and blue jeans to the Na’vi for ore. 
When the Na’vi chick shows Jake how to jump and bounce off those giant leafs-didn’t Cameron steal that routine from the Three Sooges?
It was a nice light touch!
There are, IIRC, 12 starships - 10 like the one we saw, and a couple earlier models built before the use of unobtainium. They run like trains or buses, AFAIK.
I’m really late to the Avatar party (sorry for digging up the fossil thread!) but my son and I just got back from watching it in the 3-D version and I have to say that I was floored by the experience. The movie is the most visually stunning thing I think I have ever seen hit the silver screen. Absolutely breathtaking.
Yeah, the story, whatever. The fact that it was as simple as it was didn’t bother me in the slightest, and it spurred an interesting discussion with my 8 year old boy about how the Native Americans were treated when white Europeans came to this country.
It was awesome, absolutely engrossing and stunning and wonderful. The movie, that is. Not the way the Native Americans were treated!