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Fan Forums => The RPGPundit's Own Forum => Topic started by: Jaeger on March 19, 2013, 10:25:23 PM

Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Jaeger on March 19, 2013, 10:25:23 PM
I foolishly got involved in a thread over on TBP...

Anyway I though I would float it here to see if I am off base in my opinion

It is this thread:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?679556-Battle-of-The-Blues-Genetic-Infantry-send-quot-stablize-quot-Pandora/page7

The previous six pages aren't really needed because evidently I've pulled the thread off on a bit of a tangent...

My posts start towrds the bottom of page 7 (post # 67) and my position is basically that:

If you are trying to deliver a message don't make your allegory so ham handed, self-righteous, and annoying, that it can make some people actually root for the bad guys.

Why am I giving such a fuck?

.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 19, 2013, 10:33:29 PM
Allegory is giving Avatar a bit too much credit. Its basically Ferngully's plot rehashed for live action.

I've heard Dances with wolves comparisons as well, but Ferngully is WAY close to the mark.

But then, its Cameron. He's basically made a career of doing very good films with very cliched plots. Titanic was basically the plot of a billion romance novels, Aliens was starship Troopers, I believe he was successfully sued by Harlan Ellison for taking Terminator's plot wholecloth from an old Twilight Zone episode.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Sacrosanct on March 19, 2013, 10:49:27 PM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638533
Allegory is giving Avatar a bit too much credit. Its basically Ferngully's plot rehashed for live action.

I've heard Dances with wolves comparisons as well, but Ferngully is WAY close to the mark.
.


I totally agree.  Most people don't know about Ferngully though, but you're right.  It's an exact copy, down to the "stop the bulldozer".
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: The Butcher on March 19, 2013, 11:11:08 PM
Wow, seriously?

Looking forward to your review of Thor in a couple of years.

:D
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Ratman_tf on March 20, 2013, 12:20:52 AM
I call him Shames Cameron. His stuff wasn't too bad, but around about T2 and Abyss his preachiness started to get out of hand.
Avatar, jesus christ. Dude should have just called it Captain Planet: The Movie.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: thedungeondelver on March 20, 2013, 01:12:11 AM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638533
I believe he was successfully sued by Harlan Ellison for taking Terminator's plot wholecloth from an old Twilight Zone episode.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyyJ3D3g1E

Two The Outer Limits episodes ("Soldier", "Demon With A Glass Hand") and I think you could make the argument "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" influenced it as well.  Skynet == AM.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: gattsuru on March 20, 2013, 01:21:22 AM
There is a massive cultural inertia toward treating every occurrence of imperialism as King Leopold II's personal fiefdom, except significantly worse.  RPGnet posters are probably going to imply that Avatar doesn't paint the humans as mono-maniacally evil enough if the conversation follows that thread much longer.

You've got a point, in that Avatar-as-presented is very, very shallow.  Even without the expanded material or deleted scenes, you've got your greedy babykillers on one side, and on the other the enlightened perfect beings, and anyone who is even remotely in between these two points will always be persuaded to one and only one side.  It's very, very telling for storytelling when people aren't able to pick between the right side and the wrong side, but still make the wrong choice.

It'd be trivial to muddy the waters.  In the real world, sometimes the bad guys do good things, or do bad things with good intent or by accident, while sometimes good people have bad habits.  Spread of technology tends to be a very standard thing with empires, even if they don't want that to happen, and quality of life and even expected lifespans tend to increase in connection.  There's a lot of xenophobia to play with when bizarre aliens start pretending to be (dumb, sightless) imitations of you.

  However, that doesn't necessarily make for a better work -- if you've come to see Ferngully 3D, the preachy aesop might well be a feature, not a bug.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Piestrio on March 20, 2013, 01:51:12 AM
Avatar, and most James Cameron films, are simple stories told well.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He takes very old plots, characters, and settings and plays them straight.

This upsets people for some reason.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Warboss Squee on March 20, 2013, 03:42:19 AM
Quote from: Piestrio;638565
Avatar, and most James Cameron films, are simple stories told well.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He takes very old plots, characters, and settings and plays them straight.

This upsets people for some reason.


I think if Avatar had been better written, there wouldn't be so much hate for it.  And it's really the only one of his I didn't like.

It was just lazy writing.  'Unobtainium' my ass you lazy fuck.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Spike on March 20, 2013, 03:43:19 AM
Quote from: gattsuru;638562
 In the real world, sometimes the bad guys do good things, or do bad things with good intent or by accident, while sometimes good people have bad habits.  


In the real world 'the bad guys' are usually not. It is exceptionally rare for anyone to be universally loathed for their evil ways.

On the other hand, you've got an hour and a half (or three hours) to tell a story. Try to get some tits in it and an explosion or two.  Moral Complexity and well meaning people doing bad things for good reasons? Great, maybe if you've got a few sequels to work with and don't mind loosing half the audience along the way.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: James Gillen on March 20, 2013, 04:02:51 AM
Quote from: Piestrio;638565
Avatar, and most James Cameron films, are simple stories told well.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He takes very old plots, characters, and settings and plays them straight.

This upsets people for some reason.


Yeah, with all the problems in Avatar and even Titanic I still liked them.

JG
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: gattsuru on March 20, 2013, 10:35:20 AM
Quote from: Spike;638579
In the real world 'the bad guys' are usually not. It is exceptionally rare for anyone to be universally loathed for their evil ways.
Not really.  History has more than its fair share worth of monsters -- if they aren't universally loathed, this represents a failing of the observer, not a lack of evil.

King Leopold II existed.  He was directly responsible for a regime that may have killed half of the population of a country, and maimed a sizable portion of the survivors, all for natural resources and all with a self-proclaimed humanitarian face, along with a vast array of serious sins.  That he ended up on commemorative coins doesn't make the man less obviously "the bad guy": it says that certain Belgians need to do some serious soul-searching.  You could not put him, or a pastiche of him, in a setting without basically having Guy Worse Than Hitler as the stage directions.  You have Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Mao, dozens more.  Even where you can point to monsters that had good intentions, like Qin Shihuangdi, they are still very clearly villains when they start burning books and crushing scholars under giant rocks.   Where they only have a couple of small alcoves full of human skulls instead of the typical mountains, you still have people that might as well stroke a mustache every scene.  Pancheco and Bordaberry weren't even terribly bad, as economic and social dictators go for the southern hemisphere (damning with faint praise as that and a thousand+ death toll can be) and still make Palpatine look a nuanced master planner by comparison.

And those are just the obvious, relevant, simple examples.  There are countless -- literally countless -- modern-day or historical smaller mass-murderers, and the best thing you could say about them is they're 'just' fulfilling demand for hired guns or drug kingpin, and never quite accumulated the power to kill more.  There's no amount of dog petting or tipping of waiters that make up for this stuff.

The problem is that these aren't the only sort of imperialist villains in history, or even the majority of them.  And when every Imperialist Villain is King Leopold, you either forget about or trivialize all the ones that were Queen Victoria.
Quote
On the other hand, you've got an hour and a half (or three hours) to tell a story... Moral Complexity and well meaning people doing bad things for good reasons? Great, maybe if you've got a few sequels to work with and don't mind loosing half the audience along the way.
Meh.  This isn't hard stuff.  Change three scenes and you'd make the folk a lot more complicated.  Princess Mononoke isn't exactly a new story.  Whether people want complicated is a different question.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: The Traveller on March 20, 2013, 10:59:11 AM
Anything with Michelle Rodriguez in it gets my attention.

Also, what is this, 2009?
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on March 20, 2013, 12:21:10 PM
Quote from: gattsuru;638618


Meh.  This isn't hard stuff.  Change three scenes and you'd make the folk a lot more complicated.  Princess Mononoke isn't exactly a new story.  Whether people want complicated is a different question.


I think there is plenty of room for both approaches. I can enjoy a film with moral complexity, but I can also have a blast with a movie with a ridiculously evil villain. I enjoyed Gone Baby Gone, but I also got a kick out of the Fifth Element or Enter the Dragon.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jhkim on March 20, 2013, 12:27:34 PM
I didn't care for Titanic or Avatar much.  Still, with results as phenomenal as their box office numbers, it's hard to argue that Cameron didn't know what he was doing or was just lazy.  I think he has apparently successfully figured out what brings in the bucks, even if it happens to be a ham-fisted style I don't care for.  

I still like T2 and The Abyss.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Sacrosanct on March 20, 2013, 01:43:22 PM
Quote from: jhkim;638651
I didn't care for Titanic or Avatar much.  Still, with results as phenomenal as their box office numbers, it's hard to argue that Cameron didn't know what he was doing or was just lazy.  I think he has apparently successfully figured out what brings in the bucks, even if it happens to be a ham-fisted style I don't care for.  

I still like T2 and The Abyss.



Didn't like Titanic or Avatar, but I really liked The Abyss
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 20, 2013, 02:24:15 PM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638533
Aliens was starship Troopers


Not only no, but fuck no.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Benoist on March 20, 2013, 02:28:55 PM
I started reading Eclipse Phase once I received it and found that I like it very much from a background's standpoint (I haven't reached the rules yet, we'll see). I can see where all the rage about the leftist take on the near future comes from, but I honestly think the game can be interpreted in a number of ways, including turning the leftist premise around on its head.

This to me is kinda linked to this topic because I consider Cameron much the same way. Yes, he's preachy in his later movies and all that, but it doesn't really stop me from enjoying his shows (Avatar still annoys me with its "Good Savage" stereotype, but then again, I can ignore it and just enjoy the other bits I found decent in the movie).
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 20, 2013, 07:42:17 PM
Quote from: jeff37923;638694
Not only no, but fuck no.


Upon hearing that they were making a Starship Troopers film in the 90s, Cameron responded: "Oh, I already did that."
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Ratman_tf on March 20, 2013, 09:40:53 PM
Quote from: Piestrio;638565
Avatar, and most James Cameron films, are simple stories told well.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He takes very old plots, characters, and settings and plays them straight.

This upsets people for some reason.


I wouldn't call it upset. More like disappointed.
Ok, some nerballs on the internets will get upset, just like they get upset about 40k prices or whether Kirk is a beter captain than Picard.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 20, 2013, 10:19:29 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf;638797
I wouldn't call it upset. More like disappointed.


I wasn't disappointed. It was a very pretty film. And I liked Ferngully. Missed the singing ooze though.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Novastar on March 20, 2013, 10:36:18 PM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638776
Upon hearing that they were making a Starship Troopers film in the 90s, Cameron responded: "Oh, I already did that."

Then Cameron, much like Verhoeven, never read the damn book.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 20, 2013, 10:57:58 PM
Quote from: Novastar;638812
Then Cameron, much like Verhoeven, never read the damn book.



(shrug) okay. I don't have very strong feelings on such things. comparing books to films based on books is like comparing boats and cars. A car can be a really good car without being a boat, no matter how much I like the boat. But make them  too close and you end up with one of those awful 70s amphibious cars.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Novastar on March 20, 2013, 11:44:58 PM
I can believe David Lynch read Dune before he directed the '84 film, even though the book and the movie are far from each other. He made creative choices I disagree with, but can understand.

Aliens doesn't even touch on the book, beyond "Armed forces in space". The book is far more political and social commentary, than "blowing shit up".

...and I say that as a fan of both "Aliens" and "Starship Troopers", as movies!
But neither holds a candle to the Heinlein book.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Spike on March 21, 2013, 02:55:18 AM
Quote from: gattsuru;638618
Not really.  History has more than its fair share worth of monsters -- if they aren't universally loathed, this represents a failing of the observer, not a lack of evil.

.



Which is why I said 'usually' and not 'always'.

Of course, if you look back at all ten thousand odd years of recorded history you can find monsters. Sure. Hitler means never having to say you're sorry about having an unapologetic monster for your big bad in a film ever again.


No, wait. That's actually sloppy, lazy writing. There is a reason why the Expanded Universe for Star Wars irritates me so much: Every other big bad in teh universe has destroyed a planet. that's how you know they are the bad guys, after all.

I mean: It worked for Tarkin, right?



But mostly? I think you're less right than you think. We can talk all day long about how Gengis Khan's mongol armies slaughtered millions of people, when millions was an awful lot, rather than just 'the population of a mid sized city'. On the other hand, its pretty well established by scholars that the mongols were actually a civilizing, stabilizing force that had much more enlightened laws than most of the people they were slaughtering.

So: Monster or civilizing force with one hell of a body count?

Or does the presence of any significant body count offend your delicate sensibilities?

More to the point: out of the billions of people alive today, and including all throughout human history what fractional percentage justifies almost every movie or TV show having every bad guy be a purely evil monster instead of a more nuanced take of someone with an opposed goal and a greater willingness to allow collateral damage?

Ironically: In Avatar the human commander was meant to be purely a monster, yet oddly enough I've seen a case made on ye olde interwebz that points out that he was actually the good guy in an objective view (the story, of course, is biased against that reading).  He actually is someone pursuing a goal that is understandable and relatable (that is: Protecting the humans mining unobtanium against murderous alien savages).  His determination to pursue that goal is at odds with the Hero of the story (who really just wants to enjoy walking and to bang the blue chick with pony-tail sex...), and the sympathetic view we are given of the aliens.   His 'monsterousness' in the film is spoon fed to the audience by his callous disregard for the alien's mother tree, drinking his coffee while he slaughters...  

But again, the film is slanted. We only ever seen blue people getting wounded, getting hurt, getting their livelihood destroyed. The miners are never seen with four foot arrows stuck in their guts, or choking to death or whatever else. We only hear, but never see, how bad off Earth is, or how Unobtanium is supposed to fix that.  

Which is fine, in so far as every story needs a point of view.  Avatar is a bit more ham-handed and preachy than most, and I have the distinct feeling that Cameron did not intend to allow a sympathetic take on the Colonel's actions in the film, but then again Hollywood has a long history of making accidental heros of the people they most wish to lampoon (Archie Bunker is the archetype of this, I believe.  Ron Swanson is a more current example, as is Alex Baldwin's executive on 30 Rock, or so I hear...), though I wouldn't go nearly that far in this case.

I'm willing to bet that most figures you could hold up as examples of monsters in history could be shown to be quite a bit more complex than a facile recitation of their crimes alone allows for.  There are at least two sides to every story (and usually twice as many points of view...)
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: James Gillen on March 21, 2013, 03:09:01 AM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638776
Upon hearing that they were making a Starship Troopers film in the 90s, Cameron responded: "Oh, I already did that."


"Medic!!!"
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 21, 2013, 06:07:32 AM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638776
Upon hearing that they were making a Starship Troopers film in the 90s, Cameron responded: "Oh, I already did that."


Besides being science fiction soldiers fighting alien monsters, the similarity between the movies is not there. Neither film resembles the book by Heinlein.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: gattsuru on March 21, 2013, 12:57:10 PM
Quote from: Spike;638854
I think you're less right than you think. We can talk all day long about how Gengis Khan's mongol armies slaughtered millions of people, when millions was an awful lot, rather than just 'the population of a mid sized city'. On the other hand, its pretty well established by scholars that the mongols were actually a civilizing, stabilizing force that had much more enlightened laws than most of the people they were slaughtering.

So: Monster or civilizing force with one hell of a body count?

Monster.  And rather easily and obviously so -- Genghis Khan's 'civilizing, stabilizing' aspects are rather clear apologia by any objective standard.  Religious tolerance is a really small fig leaf for "killed entire civilian populations, counting in the millions".  This is a very big pile of skulls.

I'm not talking just about my personal morality.  If you made a screenplay and trying to offset the Mongol's killing of every man, woman, and child in a city with a scene of Temujin's iron rule of terror not caring about religion and being somewhat merocratic... that's not going to make for a very complex villain.

There are certainly historical interesting villains.  But you can't pretend every or even many of the biggest ones are that complicated by modern standards, not without looking like the worst sort of apologist.
Quote
Or does the presence of any significant body count offend your delicate sensibilities?

More to the point: out of the billions of people alive today, and including all throughout human history what fractional percentage justifies almost every movie or TV show having every bad guy be a purely evil monster instead of a more nuanced take of someone with an opposed goal and a greater willingness to allow collateral damage?

You seem to be confusing me for someone significantly further to the left of the political spectrum.  Or someone that hasn't posted -- say, today -- in the Watchmen thread.
Quote
Ironically: In Avatar the human commander was meant to be purely a monster, yet oddly enough I've seen a case made on ye olde interwebz that points out that he was actually the good guy in an objective view (the story, of course, is biased against that reading).  He actually is someone pursuing a goal that is understandable and relatable (that is: Protecting the humans mining unobtanium against murderous alien savages).

Oh, yes.  There's a lot that could have been very interesting here -- you only need a fairly small improvement from taking the unobtanium to end up making a huge significant difference in lives saved when there's such a large population disparity, there's a large narrative bias to defensive wars, the average society without substantial governments and technological bases tend to be incredibly nasty by modern standards, so on.  As I said, you could make a much, much more complicated story with changes to three scenes.  I agree that it's not a terribly realistic story for the modern day.

But that's different from there not being a sizable contingent of assholes just like him in history.
Quote
I'm willing to bet that most figures you could hold up as examples of monsters in history could be shown to be quite a bit more complex than a facile recitation of their crimes alone allows for.  There are at least two sides to every story (and usually twice as many points of view...)

There are always different versions.  When an undisputed reality holds that systemic murder and rape were quite common agents of aggressive expansion, holding up examples of aggressive expansion is going to be a hard sell..
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: beejazz on March 21, 2013, 01:34:41 PM
Quote from: jhkim;638651
I didn't care for Titanic or Avatar much.  Still, with results as phenomenal as their box office numbers, it's hard to argue that Cameron didn't know what he was doing or was just lazy.  I think he has apparently successfully figured out what brings in the bucks, even if it happens to be a ham-fisted style I don't care for.  

I still like T2 and The Abyss.


Being a winter blockbuster might have as much to do with it as the writing, in the case of Titanic and Avatar. It's possible that people come for something besides the writing, and the writing just isn't off-putting enough to matter. A financial success doesn't mean that every aspect of the film is "right" or even "right for the audience" necessarily.

I was disappointed by the writing, disappointed by most aspects of the design, and pleasantly surprised by the interesting use of negative space with the 3D (as opposed to the usual "shit jumping out at the audience").

Simple stories told well include Star Wars and Jaws. There's usually more going on even in the simplest stories I remember fondly than there was in this particular story.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 21, 2013, 02:08:20 PM
I wrote about this when the movie came out, but Avatar lost me not with its ham-fisted written ecological morality but with its piss-poor biological science. No matter how hard I try, I cannot think of any sound evolutionary reason why any life form would have a naturally occurring neural interface in its hair or other head covering. Allowing for some cool scenes in the movie isn't good enough.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 21, 2013, 05:30:26 PM
Quote from: jeff37923;638994
Allowing for some cool scenes in the movie isn't good enough.


Its enough for me. That's the point of fantasy...to show a world more awesome than reality. Dragons aren't possible either, or dudes who come back from the dead and perform mass transmutations . But it sure would be a much more boring world without those fantasies.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Ratman_tf on March 21, 2013, 05:42:37 PM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638808
I wasn't disappointed. It was a very pretty film. And I liked Ferngully. Missed the singing ooze though.


I thought it looked really fake, like a world full of giant plastic aquarium plants.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 22, 2013, 03:55:53 AM
Quote from: TristramEvans;639083
Its enough for me. That's the point of fantasy...to show a world more awesome than reality. Dragons aren't possible either, or dudes who come back from the dead and perform mass transmutations . But it sure would be a much more boring world without those fantasies.


Sorry, I expect better science in my multimill8ion dollar science fiction. If it was promoted as a morality tale or science fantasy or space opera, I could have given it much more leeway. Is it was, Avatar was just pretty to look at and that was all.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Justin Alexander on March 22, 2013, 04:47:19 AM
Quote from: jeff37923;639277
Sorry, I expect better science in my multimill8ion dollar science fiction.


Really? How did you develop that completely unrealistic expectation?
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 22, 2013, 11:20:20 AM
Quote from: Justin Alexander;639288
Really? How did you develop that completely unrealistic expectation?


2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, Deep Impact, Gattaca, The Andromeda Strain, Strange Days, Space Cowboys, Brainstorm, Jurassic Park.

It can be done, and done well.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Elfdart on March 24, 2013, 11:01:26 PM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638533
Allegory is giving Avatar a bit too much credit. Its basically Ferngully's plot rehashed for live action.

I've heard Dances with wolves comparisons as well, but Ferngully is WAY close to the mark.

But then, its Cameron. He's basically made a career of doing very good films with very cliched plots. Titanic was basically the plot of a billion romance novels, Aliens was starship Troopers, I believe he was successfully sued by Harlan Ellison for taking Terminator's plot wholecloth from an old Twilight Zone episode.


Harlan Ellison is a putz.  (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26/the-story)

He reminds me of the washed-up version of Howard Stern you hear on Sirius nowadays. According to him, he invented everything that turned out to be successful ("You tell 'em Fred!") from The Osbournes to MTV Unplugged, (http://youtu.be/nmuPJ3Cp9Uk) and everyone is ripping him off.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Elfdart on March 24, 2013, 11:29:10 PM
Quote from: jeff37923;639277
Sorry, I expect better science in my multimill8ion dollar science fiction. If it was promoted as a morality tale or science fantasy or space opera, I could have given it much more leeway. Is it was, Avatar was just pretty to look at and that was all.


Why do you bother going to the movies?

Quote from: jeff37923;639354
2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, Deep Impact, Gattaca, The Andromeda Strain, Strange Days, Space Cowboys, Brainstorm, Jurassic Park.

It can be done, and done well.


Jurassic Park and Deep Impact had "better science" in their science fiction? :rotfl:

You must also think Hogan's Heroes was a realistic depiction of life in a POW camp.

Quote from: jeff37923;638994
I wrote about this when the movie came out, but Avatar lost me not with its ham-fisted written ecological morality but with its piss-poor biological science. No matter how hard I try, I cannot think of any sound evolutionary reason why any life form would have a naturally occurring neural interface in its hair or other head covering. Allowing for some cool scenes in the movie isn't good enough.


You must be baffled by cats -creatures with neural appendages they use to communicate and gather information: whiskers.

The real problem you have is that like too many know-it-alls, you don't have the tiniest clue of what the fuck you're talking about.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 24, 2013, 11:44:11 PM
Quote from: Elfdart;639986
Why do you bother going to the movies?


I don't anymore.


Quote from: Elfdart;639986

Jurassic Park and Deep Impact had "better science" in their science fiction? :rotfl:

You must also think Hogan's Heroes was a realistic depiction of life in a POW camp.


If you believe that Avatar had a good grounding in science, than you wouldn't know science if it jumped up and bit you in the ass.



Quote from: Elfdart;639986

You must be baffled by cats -creatures with neural appendages they use to communicate and gather information: whiskers.


I have never heard of cats connecting their whiskers and dominating one another through a direct nervous system link like what happened in Avatar. So go fuck your poorly misunderstood biology already because you just proved that you wouldn't know science if it jumped up and bit you in the ass.

Quote from: Elfdart;639986

The real problem you have is that like too many know-it-alls, you don't have the tiniest clue of what the fuck you're talking about.


:rotfl:
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: flyerfan1991 on March 25, 2013, 12:08:37 AM
Quote from: Elfdart;639980
Harlan Ellison is a putz.  (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26/the-story)

He reminds me of the washed-up version of Howard Stern you hear on Sirius nowadays. According to him, he invented everything that turned out to be successful ("You tell 'em Fred!") from The Osbournes to MTV Unplugged, (http://youtu.be/nmuPJ3Cp9Uk) and everyone is ripping him off.


And that's one of the less offensive things he's done.

From what I heard tell from some SFF people I know, Harlan's anti-social and totally asinine behavior is defended voraciously by his posse, although they had a harder time of saying "that's Harlan being Harlan" when he pulled his grope stunt at the Hugo Awards back in 2006.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 25, 2013, 10:45:47 PM
Quote from: Elfdart;639980
Harlan Ellison is a putz.  (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/09/26/the-story)

Never met him and know nothing about him personally, to be honest. Liked what I read of his stories though.

And I REALLY wish the I. Robot film had used his script.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Elfdart on March 26, 2013, 06:44:09 PM
Quote from: jeff37923;639993

If you believe that Avatar had a good grounding in science, than you wouldn't know science if it jumped up and bit you in the ass.


Did I ever claim it did? No, so take your strawman and shove it up your ass.


Quote
I have never heard of cats connecting their whiskers and dominating one another through a direct nervous system link like what happened in Avatar.


Since you're clearly too stupid to catch on, I'll explain: All Cameron did was take a real-world adaptation (whiskers) and turn it up to 11 -just like he does with all his movies. If that sticks in your craw, stay the fuck home!

Quote
So go fuck your poorly misunderstood biology already because you just proved that you wouldn't know science if it jumped up and bit you in the ass.


Huh?
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 27, 2013, 03:22:11 AM
Quote from: Elfdart;640497
Did I ever claim it did? No, so take your strawman and shove it up your ass.

If that is not what you implied, than why did you write it and then delay for a day to respond to me?


 
Quote from: Elfdart;640497
Since you're clearly too stupid to catch on, I'll explain: All Cameron did was take a real-world adaptation (whiskers) and turn it up to 11 -just like he does with all his movies. If that sticks in your craw, stay the fuck home!


Then why didn't you say that initially?

Jeez, I can see why you had to take an extra day to come up with something in order to save face. Next time take two days.

Quote from: Elfdart;640497
Huh?


You tried to compare the biological improbability of the direct neural interface in Avatar to a cat using its whiskers as sensory organs and you fucking failed, thus making yourself look like an idiot.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: James Gillen on March 27, 2013, 04:36:22 AM
Quote from: Elfdart;640497
Did I ever claim it did? No, so take your strawman and shove it up your ass.


Now that would stretch scientific credibility.

JG
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: danbuter on March 27, 2013, 12:49:12 PM
Quote from: TristramEvans;638776
Upon hearing that they were making a Starship Troopers film in the 90s, Cameron responded: "Oh, I already did that."


You have obviously never read Starship Troopers, which is still one of the best sf books ever written, if you actually believe that.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: TristramEvans on March 27, 2013, 08:16:53 PM
Quote from: danbuter;640678
You have obviously never read Starship Troopers, which is still one of the best sf books ever written, if you actually believe that.


I believe he said it, yes. That belief doesn't require my reading the novel. I personally don't care for sci-fi of that type.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on March 28, 2013, 09:22:00 AM
Quote from: TristramEvans;640800
I believe he said it, yes. That belief doesn't require my reading the novel. I personally don't care for sci-fi of that type.


The point is the book is so different from aliens, I think would be much more accurate to say it inspired cameron rather than it was an actual basis for the film. It was a good book with some interesting ideas and arguments, though I found the underlying message unconvincing (and morally questionable). But then I never read Heinlein to reinforce my own beliefs.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: flyerfan1991 on March 28, 2013, 09:30:40 AM
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;640906
The point is the book is so different from aliens, I think would be much more accurate to say it inspired cameron rather than it was an actual basis for the film. It was a good book with some interesting ideas and arguments, though I found the underlying message unconvincing (and morally questionable). But then I never read Heinlein to reinforce my own beliefs.


I've never seen Avatar, but I've seen Aliens and read Starship Troopers.  The only thing the two have in common are that they have aliens in them and they have space military involved.  That's about it.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: estar on March 28, 2013, 09:39:25 AM
Quote from: jeff37923;639354
Space Cowboys


While enjoyable the was a lot of baloney space operations in that movie especially at the end. But then again writing a switch accurate simulation of the Mercury Space Capsule (http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/) pretty much ruined the technical aspect of 95% of space movies set in modern times for me.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: estar on March 28, 2013, 09:45:08 AM
Quote from: Elfdart;639986
Deep Impact had "better science" in their science fiction?


Deep Impact was pretty good as far as it science goes. It was it's knock off movie Armageddon that was crap in that regard.

Generally I am pretty laid back when it comes to watching movies and willing to go on whatever ride the director is taking me. But when Buscemi went crazy and fired the machine guns on the mobile thing they had on the comet/asteroid I thought "You got to be fucking kidding me."
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: danbuter on March 28, 2013, 10:38:31 AM
Next you'll say that the movie The Core didn't accurately reflect geology or any other science.  :p
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on March 28, 2013, 10:54:27 AM
Quote from: estar;640910


Generally I am pretty laid back when it comes to watching movies and willing to go on whatever ride the director is taking me. But when Buscemi went crazy and fired the machine guns on the mobile thing they had on the comet/asteroid I thought "You got to be fucking kidding me."


I remember that scene really jarring me a bit as well when I saw it. But I guess if you are going to have a guy freak like that, Buscemi is the one to go with.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: estar on March 28, 2013, 12:14:27 PM
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;640927
I remember that scene really jarring me a bit as well when I saw it. But I guess if you are going to have a guy freak like that, Buscemi is the one to go with.


Agreed about Buscemi, however what got me wasn't the freak out but the machine guns. It was obvious that they were put there for no other reason than for Buscemi to use when he freaked out. And very lazy too as like a site full of mining equipment isn't full of dangerous items for a person to use on a freak out.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 28, 2013, 12:15:30 PM
Quote from: estar;640909
While enjoyable the was a lot of baloney space operations in that movie especially at the end. But then again writing a switch accurate simulation of the Mercury Space Capsule (http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/) pretty much ruined the technical aspect of 95% of space movies set in modern times for me.


I won't deny that the trope of "we've got to go manual" has been really overused like it was in Space Cowboys. I liked the idea that they brought up the old idea of FROBS* as the main plot surprise there though.

*(FRactional Orbit Bombardment System - a nuclear missile launcher in orbit. Think that is dumb? The US Air Force wanted a group of Minuteman missile silos and a permanent base to support them on the moon back in the day.)

Armageddon has got to be the most mockworthy one for me, though. Steve Buscemi's moment of "space madness" is just one of many stupid moments in that movie.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on March 28, 2013, 01:12:49 PM
Quote from: estar;640950
Agreed about Buscemi, however what got me wasn't the freak out but the machine guns. It was obvious that they were put there for no other reason than for Buscemi to use when he freaked out. And very lazy too as like a site full of mining equipment isn't full of dangerous items for a person to use on a freak out.


The machine gun was a bit odd. I guess they figured it isnt a proper bruce willis movie without some gunfire. Good point about the mining equipment. There really were lots of other possibilities.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: estar on March 28, 2013, 04:30:45 PM
Quote from: jeff37923;640951
I won't deny that the trope of "we've got to go manual" has been really overused like it was in Space Cowboys.


When working on my various add-on I learned that there plans to let the pilots of the X-20 Dyna-Soar actually try to steer the rocket into orbit. Provided you have a nice set of stabilized control it is possible although not a whole not a lot of margin for error as the rockets had barely enough fuel as it was.

The computer onboard the Gemini Capsule acted as a ascent backup to the Titan's electronics. I will have to check the operations manual but I believed it could be switched into a manual mode. Although this was never serious considered to needed.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: James Gillen on March 29, 2013, 03:15:16 AM
Quote from: flyerfan1991;640907
I've never seen Avatar, but I've seen Aliens and read Starship Troopers.  The only thing the two have in common are that they have aliens in them and they have space military involved.  That's about it.


Much like Starship Troopers the movie vs. Starship Troopers the book.

JG
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: jeff37923 on March 29, 2013, 04:53:15 AM
Quote from: estar;641008
When working on my various add-on I learned that there plans to let the pilots of the X-20 Dyna-Soar actually try to steer the rocket into orbit. Provided you have a nice set of stabilized control it is possible although not a whole not a lot of margin for error as the rockets had barely enough fuel as it was.

The computer onboard the Gemini Capsule acted as a ascent backup to the Titan's electronics. I will have to check the operations manual but I believed it could be switched into a manual mode. Although this was never serious considered to needed.


IIRC, the last time that an astronaut had to actually take over from the guidence computer for a landing was on Apollo 11 when Armstrong had to ignore the lunar module computer that was feeding him wrong course data.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Justin Alexander on March 29, 2013, 06:17:35 AM
Quote from: flyerfan1991;640907
I've never seen Avatar, but I've seen Aliens and read Starship Troopers.  The only thing the two have in common are that they have aliens in them and they have space military involved.  That's about it.


However, Aliens and the Starship Troopers movie had a lot more in common with each other.

But since I can't find any actual source for James Cameron actually saying this, I suspect we're all arguing over nothing.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: flyerfan1991 on March 29, 2013, 07:26:43 AM
Quote from: jeff37923;641118
IIRC, the last time that an astronaut had to actually take over from the guidence computer for a landing was on Apollo 11 when Armstrong had to ignore the lunar module computer that was feeding him wrong course data.


Ironically enough, the two times I know that an astronaut had to take over from the computer involved Neil Armstrong:  Gemini 8 and Apollo 11.  I suppose you could count Apollo 13, too, but that was a special situation; considering everything was shut down, the astronauts couldn't actively navigate at all.
Title: James Camerons Avatar = Badly written Allegory
Post by: Bedrockbrendan on March 29, 2013, 08:53:33 AM
Quote from: James Gillen;641109
Much like Starship Troopers the movie vs. Starship Troopers the book.

JG


I love that these a so different. I saw the movie first. Growing up my dad was a big Heinlein fan but all I had read was stranger in a strange land. I picked up the book because my roomate had a copy and I needed something to read. Was basically expecting it to be a lot ike the film. That its message was polar opposite made it that much more interesting. I actually like them both quite a bit.