The Top 10 Nagging Avatar Questions of the Decade
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.
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Questions one and nine made me laugh out loud, for real. For what it's worth, I saw Avatar yesterday and enjoyed it too. There were moments when I was breathless. I'm pretty good at suspending my disbelief, though.
The thing about Question #2 is that the military wouldn't pass up a chance to repair a spine and send a man back into the field, because it would probably still be less hassle than recruiting and training an all new Marine.
As for the whole Na'vi sex thing, you know what they say: Once you go blue, nothing else will do.
11. Didn't it seem a bit distasteful at the end when Princess Na'vi was cradling miniature human JakeSully and they really "saw" eachother? Then, when you contemplated your aversion, didn't you feel a bit racist?
I see you, Na'visanti.
http://twitter.com/bluejakesully
So, where does the wheelchair bound Worthington toy figure fit into the pantheon of life-like plastic sex toys that have sprung up since the opening of Twilight?
This is not a question, but I laughed out loud at the whole Sigourney Weaver "You need to eat your breakfast" part. Good stuff Jim!
As a wheelchair user myself, first thing I wondered upon seeing Avatar is: "They're still using the exact chair I have, 150 years in the future?" As far as having a powered chair, those are for quadriplegics or people not strong enough to propel themselves.
And to Stolidog: People in wheelchairs ARE capable of sex depending on type of injury. Paraplegics aren't necessarily paralyzed EVERYWHERE from the waste down:)
Oops, I think I was misunderstood....I was just observing that many of the action figures from the Twilight franchise probably found themselves in dark places they could never have imagined when being assembled at the toy factory. Now it's Avatar's turn.
I'm just glad that the Amazon kindle obviously failed in the future -- or perhaps Sigourney Weaver's character just demanded her book be printed the old fashioned way.
11. If it's possible to transfer your human body into a naavi body - why doesn't Jake do this earlier.. You know, like before the climactic battle where all Stephen Lang has to do is attack the place where his human body is, while Neytiri conveniently remains stuck under a giant beast until the very last possible second.
*Ugh* Did you see how involved that ceremony was, with all the chanting and the glowing and the thumping? That looks like it probably takes awhile... way too long when you’re going to battle with the SkyPeople because they are going to kill your phosphorescent Deity.
Also, it wasn't really convenient of Neytiri to get stuck under the large land-walking cougar cat-fish. In fact, I would say just the opposite.
Well, Jake's chair is little, folds, and its easy for him to get himself in and out of it quickly. The story also explained that "new legs" would cost a great deal of money which Jake doesn't have.
And unobtainium is real term. Seriously!
Funny stuff. For number 9 however... Aliens came out in 86, which was 23 years ago, not 13...
I forgave the exoskeleton picking up a gun. But an oversized K-Bar was over the top for me.
And I thought "Twilight" fan lingo was creepy> This is going to make for some really silly flame wars...
Which I love.
For #9 I think the big guns served multi-purposes like being used as an extra gun on the ship's exterior. If the suits had guns built on them they would limit the suit's versatility in non-combat moments like when the suits helped load the ships. Might be a little hard loading cargo with a bazooka on your suit's wrist. And if your hands controlled the suits hands, how could you operate a gun on the suit's arm? Would you have to press a button with your nose?
I'll grant that unobtainium is a dumb-sounding name for the stuff, but it *is* a real term used in science to refer to something impossibly difficult to procure.
It was also used as the brand-name for the coating on BMX bike handlebar grips back in the 80s, I think.
I wasn't too bothered by the mechs having separate guns, but when we found out they even had a huge hunting knife... well, that is getting a bit silly.
But for me, on second viewing the thing that stood out the most as being nonsense was the sheer number of species that had six arms, legs, whatever.
The catfish thing that chases Sully at the beginning, the lemur things that swing through the trees just before that, both have two sets of front legs.
And then... so do the dog things that corner him before he is rescued. Oh, and so do the horse things they ride. And several of the little critters that you see on trees and leaves in the background... and there's certainly more that I can't remember right now.
Why, Jim? I think if having 6 legs was an actual advantange then we would see such things in the world today - there's no shortage of mutations born ever year including extra-limed babies, cats, and rabbits to name the few I've seen recently.
So if evolution has rejected the concept thoroughly here on earth, why has it become the predominant leg configuration on Pandora?
It just struck me as really weird.
Matthew,
I'm sure the fingers can operate more than one button. My Nintendo in 1988 had two, if I recall correctly.
I actually use the term "unobtanium" in my line of work (engineering). I also use the term "expensalloy."
Fact is, they were using the term in the same way I would have, and it was totally applicable for the stuff they were mining, so it didn't bother me in any way (and I am the type that IS bothered by junk-tech in movies).
As to why didn't he transfer bodies before the battle? Apparently someone missed the fact that when they tried it with Sigourney Weaver's character, she died. Also, in his last video log, he doesn't even know if it will work. You don't take such risks the night before the big battle.
Evolution on earth hasn't rejected the six-limbed concept; just us vertebrates have. Plenty of bees, ants, mosquitoes, rhinoceros beetles, praying mantises and whatnot get along fine with six legs and haven't seen any need to slim down to four. There's also the whole spider/scorpion clan with eight, and lobsters and crabs with 10, not to mention the starfish and squid clans which don't even need proper heads.
Pandora's wildlife was designed to be internally consistent: chitin plating, color displays, membranous vanes, bonding/sense organs, six legs and bioluminescence are all part of their standard kit, but aren't part of ours. We mammals come with four limbs, two eyes, fur and subcutaneous fat for cold resistance, and a keen sense of smell.
We also have this strange habit of keeping our air intake at the end of a long fragile tube in our necks, unlike the sensible direct intakes of Pandoran beasties and Terran aircraft. Personally I was wondering, since they breathe through the base of their necks, then where is all the heads' roaring and hissing coming from?
I agree about the wheelchair, dumb. and poor name for unobtainium, insulting to us/moviegoers.
Also Marine weapons: In 140ish years they are still using "bullets" and "guns"? They have interplanet travel, cyro/freezing technology but guns???
Also, when JakeSully's Avatar is in it's "womb" it had short hair...then when alive it was waist length!
Then at the end during the battle, JakeSully's friend got shot in the chest (his upper left) and went down. However, at very end when most humans were escorted off planet, he was standing there (wearing same Earth clothes) and no blood nor body damage!
Yeah, Neil, all the life on Pandora was supposed to look and feel alien, but we were still supposed to know instantly what they were (a cougar-life predator, a dragon/pterodatyl beast, a horse, a monkey). With so much going on on that planet, though, maybe having those extra limbs helps out? I mean, Earth mammals don't have them, but think of how many millions of species of crabs, lobsters, scorpions, arachnids, and insects have 3+ pairs. Plus, being relatively closely related (as close as our mammals are, say), it makes sense that the Pandoran mammals would all have the same limb count, too.
But to make double use of this comment box and respond to things in general,
1, 3, 4, and 9 really got me. No literal LOLs, though, as it's rather late now, but I grinned madly.
The separate guns made sense to me. Having hands that can hold or push anything is useful, though maybe some else wrist- or shoulder-mounted additionally would make sense, too. But then, it would also complicate the design, cost more, and supposing they already had the giant bazookas and guns anyway (or easily come by), entirely unnecessary. The giant knife, though, was a bit much. But then maybe they need to cut things out there every now and then. He could've just as well stabbed the giant fish-cougar Neytiri rode with a giant sharpened finger, though, but it wouldn't have looked as B.A.
Yeah, the writer KNOWS that "unobtanium" is a real term. It's one used by writers to describe a non-existant material that CANNOT exist that the plot relies on. Using it in the movie as the name of the mineral is like calling a fictional model of car "automobile" or "drivehicle" (portmanteau of "drive" and "vehicle") it's just plain a STUPID name to use!
I cant believe floating mountains with waterfalls (lacking a water source) were overlooked. That was screaming outrageous to me and everyone I saw it with.
I would add the moronic military strategy used by both sides in the conflict.
Jake leads his horde on a frontal assault on people with superior fire power!
Just about any other strategy would have worked better.
How about taking 1/2 the dudes and attack the main base?
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