Maybe it’s because I read a lot of SF, but it seemed pretty obvious to me why unobtanium might be important. The chunk in Selfridge’s office floats over what appears to be a magnetic plate of some kind, without any other equipment. This implies to me that it’s maybe a room temperature superconductor. This would have huge implications for many types of technology.
Also, the Hallelujah Mountains float. I’d guess that they contain large amounts of the “unobtainium”, and maybe the mountains float because there are large magnetic fields in the area, or whatever it is that causes the unobtainium to float.
From other information in the movie, it seems like the unobtainium is very important as a source of energy back on earth, and is likely useful in a lot of technology. Although most of the air transports the humans use on Pandora are helicopter-based, the shuttle that they rig up as a bomber doesn’t appear to have helicopter blades or jets, and it can move fairly slowly while staying aloft, so maybe it uses some kind of anti-grav technology based on the unobtainium.
Edited to add: Some people might complain that not much of the above is explicitly stated in the movie, so it’s just a fanwank or something. Personally, I prefer if movies don’t have too many exposition info-dumps, and I’m fine with having to infer some details myself. It like it when the moviemaker trusts that the audience is smart enough not to need spoon-feeding.
You need a definition of science fiction. Ray Bradbury, while often called a science fiction author, didn’t consider himself to be one because, as he put it, “Science fiction is a depiction of the real.” Bradbury was a fantasy writer who used science fiction tropes but very little science.
A lot of movies and TV shows get called science fiction because they have a fantastic element or a futuristic setting. It’s not strictly so. It’s like calling every show that depicts a kiss a romantic comedy or every movie that depicts a crime a mystery. Men In Black’s central idea was “everything in the tabloids is true”, if I recall. There’s no real there. Just like there’s no realistic basis for positing a bunch of robots built by aliens that for some reason turn into Chevys.
Now if your definition of science fiction is “anything with a robot, alien, or spaceship”, sure, there’s been heaps of action science fiction movies. But from the point of view of anybody with a more restrictive definition, you’re way off.
I know Star Trek fans consider the franchise to be very much science fiction. IMO, any show that violates an elementary rule of physics in the freaking opening credits like the original series did is not science fiction. I must admit, I haven’t watched all that much Star Trek. It could be that some episode or other explains sound travelling in a vacuum, humans interbreeding with aliens, or why every planet they visit (that I can remember, anyway) has a breathable atmosphere. I haven’t seen them, if they exist.
Addendum: Bradbury isn’t dead, despite my use of the past tense.
The existence of precogs does not make Minority Report not science fiction. The idea of exploring what the existence of clairvoyance would do to society is well within the bounds of what people like you refer to as science fiction. No, if anything would invalidate Minority Report, is not that precogs exist, or that society mirrors this lack of regard for self-determination and privacy, it’s that these are relegated to the role of adversaries for the protagonist to overcome.
I think you need one lol. You spend a lot of time saying what isn’t science fiction, which seems to be any film which contains anything fictional or speculative. Gattaca is just as speculative as some of the other films you mention. Not all of the technologies in that film currently exist. Which leaves us I guess with dramas about past or contemporary scientists not doing anything speculative. Avatar definitely would lie far far outside your category. That would seem to be a sub genre with so few occupants as to be pointless in making a distinction.
Gattaca is definitely a science fiction movie, but not an action movie.
Minority Report is a science fiction movie and an action movie, I was being flip, although I do think precognition is a stretch. Terminator I, if you accept time travel as possible. Blade Runner definitely. So yeah, I overlooked some action movies that qualify by a narrow definition of science fiction. Possibly Avatar is the first action/adventure science fiction movie that happens off Earth, but now I’m splitting hairs and I’m probably overlooking a bunch of movies anyway.
Sadly, the movie of Starship Troopers wasn’t really science fiction, and when I think about it, the book wasn’t either. No explanation was given for faster than light travel worked or for how insects could be so enormous.
Aliens was an action/adventure science fiction movie that happens off earth. Then again, that was also James Cameron. From what I can tell, Aliens was much harder science fiction than Avatar.
I don’t care about spoilers, and I enjoy following conversations about hugely popular pop culture touchstones while they’re big instead of waiting a year when I see them on cable. I even enjoy reading about major pop culture events I have no desire to participate in, like Twilight or Harry Potter. This enables me to participate in RL conversations more thoughtfully than spending a year saying “haven’t seen it, don’t tell me anything SPOILER! LALALALA I can’t hear you!” Know what I mean?
As for the second part, I haven’t seen the movie so I don’t really have thoughtful positions about most of what is discussed in this thread. If you think about it for a minute, the only thing I can comment on is minor stuff that doesn’t require viewing the movie, so doesn’t it make perfect sense that this minor point would be the only thing I could comment on?
My thought boils down to this: Any way you slice it, a giant mecha (which is stupid in and of itself) holding a giant knife is supremely idiotic, especially if the given reason is to help cut through brush. There is absolutely nothing that knife could help deal with that the “bare” hands of a mecha coudln’t deal with just as easily. If the knife-less mecha can’t handle something, the knife won’t help. If it can handle something, it didn’t need the knife in the first place.
Nope. As said before, we’re not talking about ordinary jungle - we’re talking about a jungle ecosystem that’s scaled 4-10 times bigger than anything we know, filled with organic life that’s reinforced with carbon fiber. The mechas in Avatar just scale a human up to be on par with that jungle - it doesn’t scale them above and beyond to “just stomp on the trees” level. If a human goes into an Earth jungle, they need a knife. If a mecha goes into a Pandora jungle, they need a knife (especially if it’s filled with extremely violent and dangerous animal life that’s probably too fast to track with a big unwieldy gun in a forest so thick you can’t see more than 20 feet away…).
While I like Alien and Aliens a lot, I have problems explaining the xenomorphs. What’s the deal with acid blood? It works great in the movie because it makes the damn things even more dangerous at close range. If you blast one, you’re screwed. But how would acid blood work? What kind of skin do they have? If they have a base to neutralize the acid, why aren’t they squishy looking?
Also, they parasitize humans, which they couldn’t have evolved to do. It’s like a wasp being able to successfully parasitize fish that live a couple miles deep, should the opportunity arise. Except the fish have concentrations of arsenic and gallium (or whatever) in their tissue because they’re all from other planets.
I read somewhere that possibly the aliens were designed as weapons, maybe even wiping out their creators. Any weapon designer dumb enough to come up with that double mouth (what’s that for?) gimmick deserves it. Anyway, AFAIK, there’s no hint that the designer had ever seen a human.
My understanding is that the later movies get even more fantastic, like a Ripley clone becoming a hybrid with acid blood. I haven’t seen them.
Well, if you’re picturing a giant mecha like the ones in games, it’s not. It’s like the walking loader machine Ripley fights the queen with in Aliens. You remember… “get away from her, you bitch!” I’m pretty sure that the only mech you see with a knife is one character’s. You never see it used other than to fight, and IMO it fits the character. He was the kind of guy who’d always have a back up weapon or three. And he’d always have a knife in his boot.
I don’t think there has been official word, but there is a widespread belief that it will be available in 3D Blu-ray early next year. Of course to watch this you need a 3D capable TV and Blu-Ray player, which are just entering the market now and are pretty damn expensive at this point. You won’t see a 3D version for a standard screen/DVD player.
It’d probably be more accurate to call them exoskeletons than mechas. “Mechas” gives a much bigger impression of their size than what they actually were.
And thus ends my defense of a movie I thought was really bad.
I posted a photo of the knife-wielding robot earlier. It’s not exoskeleton you wear, it’s a robot you sit in. If it’s only as powerful as a 15’ tall person, that’d be really pathetic, even by modern day standards. Even as an exoskeleton, would you think that Ripley’s loader from Aliens couldn’t tear through some vines without a knife because it’s only a couple feet taller than she is?
Which is kind of the point. It should be able to simply tear through vines and branches that a 15’ bare-handed human couldn’t. It’s not going to carve its way through an oak tree with a hunting knife no matter how strong it is.
Agreed on your thoughts regarding the Alien. My biggest hurdle toward suspension of disbelief is how they automagically increase their mass in a ridicuolously short time. The facehuggers fall off after a day or so, the chest-bursters come out a few hours later, then the cucumber-sized critter balloons up to a nine foot tall monster in a half a day. Even worse, it did this in the first movie without any food. Just nuts. heh.
Understood, but a tiny alien in a human-sized mecha could easily power through an earth jungle without need of a knife. Machines are far stronger and tougher than muscle and flesh, is the main point. Think Ripley in her mecha from Aliens; would she really need a knife to get through a jungle?
It seems entirely possible that Avatar will break the billion dollar mark for domestic boxoffice this year. It will certainly break 3 billion worldwide.
How much mass does a butterfly have compared to a caterpillar? If I had to guess, I’d say a butterfly has less mass, not more. And the cocoon stage lasts weeks, not a few hours.
Remember that we’re talking about growing from a couple pounds to several hundred pounds in a matter of hours. Which we shouldn’t be anway, since this is a massive tangent.