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Forums - General Discussion - Avatar is possibly the most beautiful CGI movie ever!

donathos on 29 December 2009
Khuutra said:
TheRealMafoo said:
Khuutra said:

World's changed and we're more educated, eh?

Can you tell me the last time we had some good, old-fashiond colonialism in its first stages?

(here is a hint: it wasn't 600 years ago)

When and what are you referring too?

I'm not really sure! I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of colonial history, because there's so much of it. Even if we ignore things like the second Sino-Japanese War or the Algerian War, there's still the Anglo-Zulu war which took place in the 1890's.

Colonialism is dying, but it's not dead. It's not going to be dead for a long time, and its current fall from its former position is a result of a concerted international effort to decolonialize on the part of all major nations in the wake of World War II. Remember Hong Kong? Wasn't released from British rule until 1997.

The thing about colonialism in a modern context is that there's international pressures, including human rights organizations and the more humanely minded major world powers, that keep colonial efforts in check - in theory, anyway. The world has become hostile to colonialism on a large scale (we don't tend to look at southeast Asia much anymore, though some of us are still pissed off about Tibet) because it results in the death of cultures and the suppression of human rights.

That's not going to be the case for a place like Pandora, which exists under no international treaties except those which govern all of space, has no standing under human rights charters, and is invisible to the majority of the public because we can't afford to bring more than a few thousand humans there ever (according to Cameron, the cost of taking something to Pandora is ~$1 million per pound). The setup created in this sci-fi universe is exactly like that which lead to exploitative colonization by the British Empire in Africe i the 19th and 20th centuries.

My point being here is that we're making a concerted effort to lessen colonization in the world today, but those efforts exist under current circumstances and may change in the future, and would not extend beyond the power base of the constituent nations who push for decolonization.

I guess I'm trying to say

I don't see a return to colonization as unrealistic

I completely agree.  It's not unrealistic.  And to speak to Reasonable's latest post, I don't think it's even a bad thing to present a colonialism analogy.

If we're looking at Avatar alone, in a vacuum, I think I have no problems.  It's just that it seems to me that this is *almost always* how it's presented.  Maybe I'm wrong?  Maybe I'm remembering selectively?  But it feels like "the guy in the suit" is always the villain; that business tactics in the movies always amount to foreclosing on an elderly widow.

And, because Avatar *is* so... metaphorical, and widely applicable, it seems to be saying not just that this one business is operating this way, but that Business Operates This Way--by uprooting people's Hometrees to get at unobtainium.

Do some businessmen operate this way, even today?  Absolutely.  And it has a place in art, and maybe Avatar is that place.  It's just a theme that seems highly familiar to me by this point, and I don't see much science fiction stepping up to the plate to show how business *ought* to operate in these kinds of scenarios.  No heroes who show how unobtainium might be obtained w/o horrific consequences, just the moral that unobtainium is best left unobtained, and to want to do otherwise is to be the villain.

But again, maybe I'm overstating the case?  Maybe the fiction examples I'm looking for exist, and I'm just blocking them from memory?  I dunno.



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madman25 on 29 December 2009

On it's second Monday in the marketplace Avatar took $19.4m, up from last Monday's $16.3m. Seems to be outperforming even the most optimistic forecasts at the moment.



Playing: Borderlands(great co-op,HUGE amount of content),Too Human(better late than never lol),Saints Row 3(Penetrator ftw),Minecraft 360,Harry Potter Lego. 

Patiently waiting for:  Tomb Raider, Borderlands 2

heruamon on 29 December 2009

Well...I disagree that Cameron simplified the situation on Pandora to sterotypes...here's the lay of land for the movie:
- Pandora is 5-7 years travel from Earth (can't remember)
- It's very costly to get there, and the populace on Earth has only a hazing understanding of the situation on the ground.
- The Free Press (If there is one) has NO presence on the Planet, so ALL media is directed thru the corporation and Government entities
- There is the most valuable resource in the known galaxy on the planet in massive quantities, so much so that the ROI is $20 million/LB.
- The indigenous species is alien to us, and while exotic, are still alien.
And with these factors, you'll think it's implausible for the events to transpire in the movie as they did? Are you guys serious....? I think it's extremely plausible, given the historical context...even today, we have large corporation doing seedy things in the developing world, and other areas that there is no/little attention being paid. The Nigerian Oil Delta region/ Monsanto's unscrupulous tactics of bio-engineered seeds to create a dependency by local farmers and last but far from least, the Wall Street debacle that nearly collapse the financial structure on a global scale. There is ample examples of how given enough incentive, greed can grow out of control, and a VERY distant planet with an ridiculous valuable mineral sounds like realistic scenario.

The monday number is scary...I think this movie is going to top Titanic...do you guys realize how riddiculous it is for a movie to JUMP on it's second Monday, rather than drop 30-40% over the past week?



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

TheRealMafoo on 29 December 2009
heruamon said:

Well...I disagree that Cameron simplified the situation on Pandora to sterotypes...here's the lay of land for the movie:
- Pandora is 5-7 years travel from Earth (can't remember)
- It's very costly to get there, and the populace on Earth has only a hazing understanding of the situation on the ground.
- The Free Press (If there is one) has NO presence on the Planet, so ALL media is directed thru the corporation and Government entities
- There is the most valuable resource in the known galaxy on the planet in massive quantities, so much so that the ROI is $20 million/LB.
- The indigenous species is alien to us, and while exotic, are still alien.
And with these factors, you'll think it's implausible for the events to transpire in the movie as they did? Are you guys serious....? I think it's extremely plausible, given the historical context...even today, we have large corporation doing seedy things in the developing world, and other areas that there is no/little attention being paid. The Nigerian Oil Delta region/ Monsanto's unscrupulous tactics of bio-engineered seeds to create a dependency by local farmers and last but far from least, the Wall Street debacle that nearly collapse the financial structure on a global scale. There is ample examples of how given enough incentive, greed can grow out of control, and a VERY distant planet with an ridiculous valuable mineral sounds like realistic scenario.

The monday number is scary...I think this movie is going to top Titanic...do you guys realize how riddiculous it is for a movie to JUMP on it's second Monday, rather than drop 30-40% over the past week?

I am not saying it could not happen, I am just saying I am tired it hollywood always portraying that it's how it will happen.

There are currently three major areas of power in the world. Government, Religion, and Corporations. When you look at the major world events againt human rights in the last 50 years, between those three entities, Corporations take a distant third. Why are they the bad guys in movies?

To be honest, it would have been far more plausible that the 'corporation' in this movie be played by government. Every atrocity created on this scale to humanity has been done by government.



tarheel91 on 29 December 2009
donathos said:
Khuutra said:
TheRealMafoo said:
Khuutra said:

World's changed and we're more educated, eh?

Can you tell me the last time we had some good, old-fashiond colonialism in its first stages?

(here is a hint: it wasn't 600 years ago)

When and what are you referring too?

I'm not really sure! I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of colonial history, because there's so much of it. Even if we ignore things like the second Sino-Japanese War or the Algerian War, there's still the Anglo-Zulu war which took place in the 1890's.

Colonialism is dying, but it's not dead. It's not going to be dead for a long time, and its current fall from its former position is a result of a concerted international effort to decolonialize on the part of all major nations in the wake of World War II. Remember Hong Kong? Wasn't released from British rule until 1997.

The thing about colonialism in a modern context is that there's international pressures, including human rights organizations and the more humanely minded major world powers, that keep colonial efforts in check - in theory, anyway. The world has become hostile to colonialism on a large scale (we don't tend to look at southeast Asia much anymore, though some of us are still pissed off about Tibet) because it results in the death of cultures and the suppression of human rights.

That's not going to be the case for a place like Pandora, which exists under no international treaties except those which govern all of space, has no standing under human rights charters, and is invisible to the majority of the public because we can't afford to bring more than a few thousand humans there ever (according to Cameron, the cost of taking something to Pandora is ~$1 million per pound). The setup created in this sci-fi universe is exactly like that which lead to exploitative colonization by the British Empire in Africe i the 19th and 20th centuries.

My point being here is that we're making a concerted effort to lessen colonization in the world today, but those efforts exist under current circumstances and may change in the future, and would not extend beyond the power base of the constituent nations who push for decolonization.

I guess I'm trying to say

I don't see a return to colonization as unrealistic

I completely agree.  It's not unrealistic.  And to speak to Reasonable's latest post, I don't think it's even a bad thing to present a colonialism analogy.

If we're looking at Avatar alone, in a vacuum, I think I have no problems.  It's just that it seems to me that this is *almost always* how it's presented.  Maybe I'm wrong?  Maybe I'm remembering selectively?  But it feels like "the guy in the suit" is always the villain; that business tactics in the movies always amount to foreclosing on an elderly widow.

And, because Avatar *is* so... metaphorical, and widely applicable, it seems to be saying not just that this one business is operating this way, but that Business Operates This Way--by uprooting people's Hometrees to get at unobtainium.

Do some businessmen operate this way, even today?  Absolutely.  And it has a place in art, and maybe Avatar is that place.  It's just a theme that seems highly familiar to me by this point, and I don't see much science fiction stepping up to the plate to show how business *ought* to operate in these kinds of scenarios.  No heroes who show how unobtainium might be obtained w/o horrific consequences, just the moral that unobtainium is best left unobtained, and to want to do otherwise is to be the villain.

But again, maybe I'm overstating the case?  Maybe the fiction examples I'm looking for exist, and I'm just blocking them from memory?  I dunno.

You're ignoring the setting of Avatar.  This is a colonial setting.  Businesses historically DO operate like that in a colonial setting.  They abuse the native people and the land for profit.  This isn't humans and Na'vi living peacefully together and all of a sudden the big bad corporation comes in a ruins everything (if it was, I'd agree with you).  This is emperialism motivated by greed and led by corporations as it has always been throughout history.


About unobtanium.  Yes, the message really is it's better left alone.  Whether you think that's right or not is up to you, but there's certainly something to be said against uprooting an entire clan of people who've lived in a single spot for centuries, possibly even millenia for profit.  This isn't the sort of thing where unobtanium saves the universe and this is a moral dilema.  This is the sort of thing where unobtanium = unimaginable profit and it's greed vs. conscience.

 

Note: TheRealMafoo should check out my first paragraph too.  Again, this movie isn't about corporations in general.  This movie is about imperialism and the corporations that motivate it (which is only a portion of corporations, not all of them).



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heruamon on 30 December 2009
TheRealMafoo said:
heruamon said:

Well...I disagree that Cameron simplified the situation on Pandora to sterotypes...here's the lay of land for the movie:
- Pandora is 5-7 years travel from Earth (can't remember)
- It's very costly to get there, and the populace on Earth has only a hazing understanding of the situation on the ground.
- The Free Press (If there is one) has NO presence on the Planet, so ALL media is directed thru the corporation and Government entities
- There is the most valuable resource in the known galaxy on the planet in massive quantities, so much so that the ROI is $20 million/LB.
- The indigenous species is alien to us, and while exotic, are still alien.
And with these factors, you'll think it's implausible for the events to transpire in the movie as they did? Are you guys serious....? I think it's extremely plausible, given the historical context...even today, we have large corporation doing seedy things in the developing world, and other areas that there is no/little attention being paid. The Nigerian Oil Delta region/ Monsanto's unscrupulous tactics of bio-engineered seeds to create a dependency by local farmers and last but far from least, the Wall Street debacle that nearly collapse the financial structure on a global scale. There is ample examples of how given enough incentive, greed can grow out of control, and a VERY distant planet with an ridiculous valuable mineral sounds like realistic scenario.

The monday number is scary...I think this movie is going to top Titanic...do you guys realize how riddiculous it is for a movie to JUMP on it's second Monday, rather than drop 30-40% over the past week?

I am not saying it could not happen, I am just saying I am tired it hollywood always portraying that it's how it will happen.

There are currently three major areas of power in the world. Government, Religion, and Corporations. When you look at the major world events againt human rights in the last 50 years, between those three entities, Corporations take a distant third. Why are they the bad guys in movies?

To be honest, it would have been far more plausible that the 'corporation' in this movie be played by government. Every atrocity created on this scale to humanity has been done by government.

As Tarheel points out...this is the setting for the movie...btw...it's Corporations and Government in the crosshair in Avatar, not just corporations on trail.  You are correct in point out that Religion is totally out of the loop, but then again, how do you spread the word of Jesus Christ to the Na'vi? 



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

stof on 30 December 2009

holly crap. some people are really determined to make this movie political. Does it make statements about the environment and corporations? sure. Is it political to observe how the world works? no.


And why are you all glossing over the far more important aspect of how hot those Na'Vi are?



I'm a mod, come to me if there's mod'n to do. 

Chrizum is the best thing to happen to the internet, Period.

Serves me right for challenging his sales predictions!

Bet with dsisister44: Red Steel 2 will sell 1 million within it's first 365 days of sales.

heruamon on 30 December 2009
stof said:
holly crap. some people are really determined to make this movie political. Does it make statements about the environment and corporations? sure. Is it political to observe how the world works? no.


And why are you all glossing over the far more important aspect of how hot those Na'Vi are?

LOL...



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

Khuutra on 30 December 2009
stof said:
holly crap. some people are really determined to make this movie political. Does it make statements about the environment and corporations? sure. Is it political to observe how the world works? no.


And why are you all glossing over the far more important aspect of how hot those Na'Vi are?

If it's blue, it ain't for you!



stof on 30 December 2009

This is for everybody. Look at that tail!



I'm a mod, come to me if there's mod'n to do. 

Chrizum is the best thing to happen to the internet, Period.

Serves me right for challenging his sales predictions!

Bet with dsisister44: Red Steel 2 will sell 1 million within it's first 365 days of sales.