Before we lock ourselves into a coffin-like pod and emerge, moments later, in the 10-foot-tall body of a blue-skinned contrarian ready to swat away a swarm of bioluminescent helicopter bugs because their incessant roto-fluttering is just too damn magical, let's get this out of the way: We enjoyed Avatar. Greatly. It restored the childlike wonder of the moviegoing experience, we smelled colors and tasted music for hours afterward, etc yada. But this is not to say that upon emerging from our three-hour, $17 ride in our AvaTours host-body we were left two-hundred percent satisfied with everything we'd just experienced. We had questions. Questions that nagged at us a little, even as we spent the rest of that dizzying afternoon trying to plug the business end of our new genitalbraid into an outstretched branch on the Grove Christmas tree, yearning for soul-melding union with whispering, holiday-season moviegoers from eons past. After the jump, we explore some of the issues that will gnaw at our brains until our next viewing of The Titanic Game-Changer That Changed The Game Forever. [WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND.]
1. Why hasn't future wheelchair technology advanced at all from our present-day wheelchair capabilities?
Our hero, paraplegic Marine Jake Sully, spends all his non-Na'vi-romping time rolling around in a wheelchair no more sophisticated than one you could pick up at your local Sav-On pharmacy today. No heavy-duty tank treads, mag-lev hovering, not even a simple electric motor. Is Sully just too macho to avail himself of a less self-powered conveyance? Is the future military too cheap (see below) to provide him with something motorized? The most advanced thing about Sully's chair is its fashion-forward yellow paint job.
Similarly unadvanced aspects of the Avatar future: Persistence of meathead tribal tattoos, cliched Wizard of Oz references, clunky wheels used to scroll hologram maps that otherwise seem to be manipulated through in-the-air gestures.
2. Future military benefits are so bad that a soldier paralyzed in the line of duty can't afford an operation that could potentially put him back on the battlefield?
We're reminded of that perfect line from Thank You For Smoking, where Rob Lowe's superagent character explains how the power of exposition can effortlessly erase any plausibility problem: "It's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'" In Avatar, the Whatever Device is the military's baffling unwillingness to pay for spinal restoration surgery, which conveniently allows Quaritch to hold hostage the possibility of walking again (with his human legs) unless Jake plays ball in the Na'vi's potential destruction. In the future, your co-payment is genocide.
3. So, um, isn't the way they "tame" those technicolor dragons before riding them a little rapey?
The dragon-selection process, as presented in Avatar: The swaggering newcomer struts through a mountainside full of potential flight-mates, trying to select a partner. Once meaningful eye-contact is made with The One, the Na'vi suitor must then wrestle his bucking prey to the ground, force his braid-tentacles to merge with the dragon's own forcibly exposed synapses, and then coerce it into flight, all while his gang of friends hoots its approval. Disconcerting!
4. Hey, as long as we're talking about Na'vi se'x stuff, what's up with the genital situation? And how do they get it on?
Unclear. For much of the movie, the insatiable Na'vi are inserting their sexbraids willy-nilly into every bucking dragon, flower-headed dinosaur and quivering Hometree knothole they encounter. But when it comes time for Jakesully and Neytiri to finally "choose" each other, and we expect to finally see some hot, braid-in-braid action, they...cuddle. Perhaps we're supposed to infer that some acrobatic braid-entangling occurred somewhere between the pre-coital fade-out and post-coital fade-in underneath those mood-setting, incandescent boughs. But the Na'vi also wear shame-obscuring loincloths covering the areas where humanoid genitals would traditionally be found, leaving open the possibility that the braids are only for communing with Nature, and they have separate getting-it-on equipment for recreative/procreative activities.
5. It's not weird to have sexual feelings about the Na'vi, is it?
Obviously, Jim Cameron means to stir up all kinds of uncomfortable interspecies desires with his Sully/Neytiri love story. It seems near-impossible to exit the theater without fantasizing about finding one's own gigantic, azure-hued supermodel in skimpy nativewear to spoon with underneath a sensually pulsating Mating Tree.
6. Did Cameron, after shoveling untold millions into the furnace of immersive visual effects, decide it was more cost- effective to license The Lion King score than to commission his own?
Come on, all that was missing was the Na'vi elders thrusting a squirming blue baby into the air as the din of the excited throng below is eventually drowned out by the pounding of drums and tribal chanting on the soundtrack.
7. Why does Neytiri look so much like Amanda Seyfried, instead of the performance-captured Zoe Saldana?
Definitely got more of a Seyfried than Saldana vibe. Probably the eyes.
(A friend also suggested "young Joan Allen.")
8. Is "unobtanium" the most groan-inducing name possible for the precious element found on Pandora?
We also would have accepted "onthenoseium," "macguffinite," or "plotadvancium" as substitutes.
[Sidenote: We were amused by Giovanni Ribisi's unobtanium desk toy, which seemed to utilize The Sharper Image's patented "floating pen" technology.]
9. Doesn't it seem a little impractical that the American military robo-suits (like the one Quaritch climbed into himself in the climactic battle) need to carry around actual guns, instead of having some kind of weaponry built into its arms?
Even the ostensibly less-futuristic engineers of District 9 grasped this obvious design concept. But in the 23 years since Ripley donned this crude get-up, Cameron's advanced his exoskeletal vision, probably by stomping around his office in various operable prototypes and terrorizing his employees with mechanically enhanced, bone-crushing bear hugs.
10. Aren't you exhausted after all this unnecessary, obsessive nit-picking about the Greatest Cinematic Achievement™ of the past quarter-century?
Yeah, a little. OK, back to Photoshopping this Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue we just scanned into the computer so that all the impossibly slim-wasted, nearly flawless human specimens featured therein can be color-altered to Na'viesque physical perfection! Happy Avataring, everyone!