Even More Avatar

By Wade

This is a fairly long, extensive article detailing the differences between a scriptment Cameron wrote right after Titanic and the Avatar that we've seen on the big screen. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, the bullet points at the beginning cover most of it, but here's a few sections I felt would have given the movie a different perspective(in the original script Jake was named Josh):

...an Earth where the people aren't just urban, they've completely and utterly lost touch with anything green. Keep this in mind, because this is one of the guiding elements of what makes Josh fall in love with Pandora.

Josh's cramped apartment has a huge TV screen that takes up an entire wall. It's on this TV that we learn about the state of the environment in the wake of a news report about the death of the last lion outside of captivity. Then Josh watches a report on a massive fire on the Boston subway that asphyxiated one hundred commuters; soon we'll learn one of those commuters was his twin brother.

This sort of contrast would've made the amazing environment of Pandora all the more startling.

They want the Na'vi to work in Pandoran refineries - it's cheaper to refine the metals they mine on site, making them weigh less, before shipping them back home.

In Project 880 the billions spent on Avatars means saving trillions on workers.

I don't know if this is any less stereotypical evil corporation, but it does add an outsourcing element to the exploitation of the indigenous.

...first he discovers how deadly Pandora is - as he is disembarking from the shuttle there's a shriek from the jungle and giant sentry guns spray fire into the darkness. Immediately we see that Hell's Gate is a place that is under constant siege.

I like this a lot, giving the planet a feeling more akin to a creeping vine constantly searching for a way in to strangle the foreign body.

What these guys tell Josh that's really interesting (and answers a huge number of questions from Avatar) is that RDA is chartered by the ICA - Interplanetary Commerce Administration - the future Earth trade regulating body. This charter allows RDA to exploit any moon, planet, etc they want, but they must follow strict rules, chief among which is they are allowed a limited military presence and no weapons of mass destruction.

RDA games the system in Project 880, as opposed to being just monolithically evil in Avatar. This is how it happens in the real world, too.

Josh Sully tells the Earth that Pandora will give any humans that return a disease that will wipe out humanity.

And this answers some of my biggest questions: namely, why wouldn't the big evil corporation just come back with more firepower and obliterate all life on the planet to get their shiny rocks?

If you have the time and the inclination, the whole thing is worth reading. As I've said before, I'm a sucker for "what ifs".

Conservatives Love/Hate Avatar

By Wade

Was reading this article from the LA Times, and could barely contain my eye rolls when I read the following excerpts from conservative bloggers:

...conservative commentator John Podhoretz called the movie's clash between heavily armed humans and an indigenous tribe of aliens as "anti-American, anti-human."

...A headline on a piece by John Nolte, editor of Andrew Breitbart's conservative Big Hollywood site, declared the movie wasn't for Heartland America: "'Avatar' Is a Big, Dull, America-Hating, PC Revenge Fantasy."

...On the Drudge Report, the headlines made clear the film was viewed as a misguided stealth missile of liberal rhetoric, not a popcorn entertainment.

This last comment infuriates me the most. The idea that mainstream cinema ought just be mindless and banal, entertaining enough to get the most buttcheeks in the most chairs chomping the most popcorn is so perfectly in line with some conservative viewpoints that I have to wonder whether or not they're just screwing with us. It reminds me of a conversation a friend of mine told me about, where he was at a party where there happened to be several older conservatives involved with public education. One of them imparted the wisdom that "students need to just pick something and get through college, there's no room for that finding yourself bullshit, we have to keep up with China and India." A wonderful sentiment that seems to span across industries. Don't bother with individuality or what you really think, screw all that stuff, just do whatever makes the biggest numbers pop up in your bank account. Remind me who hates freedom again.

It seems even with the conservative high council making a stink over Avatar, their constituents don't care. Over a billion dollars and still going, and I know I'm going to see it again. Of course, Podhoretz of the Weekly Standard has to justify just how out of touch he is by insulting the intelligence of, well, Joe Six-pack.

One reason for the disconnect between the bloggers and the box office may be the simple fact that the movie about big blue aliens didn't feel all that connected to modern-day politics once the spears and dragons started flying. "A lot of people see 'Avatar' as a 22nd-century story and they don't analogize it," Podhoretz said in an interview. "They see that the guy turns into a 10-foot-tall blue guy. Whatever political message in it sails over their heads...If [average] people come out and say this is really vile and disgusting and defames our military and defames our country, that would have a different effect. But no one's really saying that."

Get over it, dude. Avatar's a great movie. It may have cliche archetypal characters, it may be predictable, and it may be ham-fisted with its politics, but goddamn is it pretty. I really think that a lot of what these conservatives are pissed about is that Cameron does point out some significant issues that we're facing today. I find it laughable that Podhoretz believes there are people who would be able to miss the message when it's three stories high and three-dimensional. What a twerp.

Need to Beef up your Nerd Cred?

By Dave

How about learning Na'vi? It's easier than French, cooler than Spanish, and sexier than Klingon. It's a sure-fire thing to impress the ladies....who really like Avatar....a lot...