Our "Versus" question today comes to us from the nice folks at FactPile, but it was so juicy I couldn't pass it up:
In their framing, you have 10,000 Wookiees and 10,000 Na'vi going into battle on a neutral jungle planet. But let's be honest, the Wookiees would crush them if the Na'vi didn't have their magic internet trees or whatever the hell that living planet concept was.
So let's switch it around and posit an invasion of the Na'vi home world by Wookiees, mostly because the idea of parachuting Wookiees makes me laugh like a hyena. Let's say they want some Unobtanium for the rebellion, and they fly there in their ships powered by Doesnotexisteum with their Fansofmyshowareidiotsandihatethem model blasters.
In this scenario, basically you've got a somewhat higher tech level than the humans displayed in "Avatar". But, that same tech level couldn't beat a planet full of the dwarven Wookiee cousins, the Ewoks. So take that for what it's worth. Granted, on Endor the Angry Teddy Bears were up against Storm Troopers, who we all know now were clones of what is apparently the Worst Soldier In the World, judging by their poor aim and general lack of combat effectiveness. I mean, you've got an entire galaxy (granted, it's far far away, but still) from which to choose your warrior template, and the result was the storm troopers.
Apparently good cloning can't compensate for bad judgement.
But I digress. So you've got super tall howling dog-men up against super tall howling blue cat people. Who wins, and why? Lay it on us, Slicks!
I would love to see the Navi wiped out by an army of Wookies. I truly despise all things Avatar and cannot fathom a universe in which the awesomeness that is Wookie beaten by a bad ripoff of Native American culture in one of the least imaginative movies I’ve ever seen. No amount of 3-D can possibly cover for how bad the movie is or how bad the Navi are as a race. Besides, their internet braid would look great hanging from a Wookie’s belt.
Na’Vi don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookies have been known to do that. If I were capable of unbiased opinion, though, I’d have to go with Na’Vi. Only because it’s really, really hard to invade and take over a planet, as any Skrull/stormtrooper/Thanagarian can tell you. Especially when all life on that planet is somehow interconnected via ethernet cable and capable of rising up as one to repulse you. Aw, crap. I just made Avatar sound cool. Sorry.
As much as I would root for the Wookies, I’d have to give it to the Na’Vi. They’ve got the home field advantage, and what an advantage it is! The Wookies are also forest-dwellers, not kill-you-in-a-hundred-different-ways-jungle-dwellers. Most of them would probably die from the plant and animal life long before they had a chance to confront their first Na’Vi village. The Na’Vi are essentially jungle-ninjas. That arm-ripping Wookie strength won’t do you much good when you’re dead before you even know what killed you!
Hm, good point about jungle-vs-forest.
http://s1064.photobucket.com/albums/u378/SamiSuha/?action=view¤t=Wiki-background-1.jpg
hey, this is a pic that i believe would make a very good poll voting competition, plz check….
Nerd rant: you misspelled Wookiees.
I think I’ll give it to the Wookiees, though. I mean, it takes a moon to kill a single Wookiee apparently…or maybe that’s just main character Wookiees and not a typical for the entire race?
But, really, I just can’t vote for Avatar…er…I mean, the Na’Vi.
Have to go with Na’vi. Wookiees might be more technologically advanced, but they still respect the nature, which is Na’vi’s greatest weapon. And when in addition giving the home field to Na’vi… They strike and disappear before any enemy (Wookiee or otherwise) has time to know what hit them.
Holy crap, I had no idea you spelled it “Wookiee”! This has been a good nerd day.
Main post updated with the correct spelling and my sincere thanks for the correction. Learn something new every day!
Well, the wookie would come, and have a hard time due to the navis guerilla tactics.
So they’d lose the first round. The one when you send in scouts.
So, being far from stupid, they’d use the heavy weaponry, and just bombard the navis. This should go to the wookies.
If, by some dumb miracle, the wookies warship have trouble dealing with the birdies from Pandora, it’s not difficult at all, and quite obvisous to them to retreat into space, and enter the next stage: Orbital Bombardment.
Exit the Navis, and Pandora.
Even in the movie, the humans lost because of 2 things:
– They were quite dumb.
– It wasn’t the army, just the security forces of a military consortium. They weren’t numerous, and didn’t have war-scale weapons of mass destruction.
Oh, thanks thanks thanks thanks!!!
It was maddening to hear people talk about Avatar being the best movie of all time just because of some CGI, when in fact it sucked so much I wanted to cry for half of the movie… Especially when the same people didn’t even tried to see a movie like (for instance) District Nine, simply because, despite a far better story, it didn’t get a tenth of the money that was poured into Avatar, that cheap pocahontas rip-of.
So i like both, but my choice goes on the na’vi. Because woody have right with his theory. The world of pandora are very special and danger animals who are much bigger as many pets on the star wars universe. Ok not all, but many on one place.
And dont forget wookies are two meter(metre?), but na’vi are 3 meter big. They have bows and can use it with poison, also they can fly with them banshees/ikram(or what ever). So i think this together and their agility are absolute advantage.
I think Wookiees have strength on their side as well as advanced technology. They have the blasters and crossbows to take down the flying-dinosaur-horse-fiber-optic-linking-thing, and anything else from a distance. Add to that more-or-less equal height and crazy rip-your-arms-off-just-for-winning strength and you’ve got a pretty good idea of why the will win. Aside from the fact that their essentially crazy-advanced Ewoks on steroids and a penchant for going postal in melee combat and this little war is won pretty much from the start.
Let’s face it, spears and psycho flying piranha dinosaurs against bloodlust and energy blasters and deadly-accurate crossbows, it’s pretty clear who the winners are. Wookiees.
A hard one for me, since I hate Star Wars and DETEST Avatar, but since Wookies would gladly eat most of the fauna found on this STUPID STUPID STUPID world, I’ll give it to them.
I haven’t seen Avatar the movie so I cannot weigh in with an informed opinion, but since this is the internet I’ll give you an opinion anyway with a bonus derailment of the topic!
Aang the true Avatar would wipe out both with his awesome bending skillz!!!! Yip yip!!!!!
There’s no way I’m going to look at this one objectively. Wookiees win because I love Star Wars and Avatar is just full of stupid. And I’m not going to even acknowledge prequel bashing as a retort. I know what the faults of the Star Wars prequels is. I think midichlorians are the worst idea to come out of George Lucas’ head. Still, Avatar is full of stupid!
One on one, a Wookiee would win. Invading Pandora, the Wookiees would still win, because the only reason the Na’vi won on Pandora was because a human, who understood both the technology used against the Na’vi and knew military tactics, changed sides and led the Na’vi to victory over the greedy consortium. So, unless a Wookiee goes native, I don’t see the Na’vi being able to repel a technologically superior, and genetically stronger warrior force.
Holy crap, if this was Ewoks vs. Na’vi, I’d vote Ewoks, such is the disgust I feel for all things Avatar.
Blue cat people? Feh!
Preach it, my brother! Preach it!
For those people who argue that the Na’vi have giant animals that the Wookies wouldn’t be able to compete with, the Wookiee’s home world (which i’ve forgotten how to spell (begins with a K)) has a region know as the dark wood where Wookiee braves where sent on their right of passage. This forest was populated with animals VERY similar to what they would be fighting on Pandora.
It’s Kashyyyk, Corran.
Thanks, Dionne.
Oh, and their berserkers also go into battle wielding giant curved blades, so they would close on Na’vi before they had a chance to unload their arrows into them and then best them in CQC.
The name you’re looking for is Kashyyyk. And you are so correct.
they would be tied, except that the Wookiees have blasters.
Speaking of which, are Star Wars blasters the single most inaccurate projectile weapons in the history of weapons (both real and imagined), or is it just that everyone is a horrific shot in that galaxy except for Luke when he’s aiming at an elevator control panel? And what’s in elevator control panels that makes them draw blaster fire, anyway?
Ok I have to give it to the Na’vi because in over all, yes the wookiees have strength on their side they wouldnt move as quick as the Na’vi. In case you dont recall the Na’vi wear hardly any clothing and they move very quickly. Also, the Wookiees wouldn’t blend in well into the jungle of the Na’vi to where the Na’vi have been there since who knows when learning and adapting to their home planet. Don’t forget the Na’vi could retreat to their trees and kill the wookiees as the wookiees are trying helplessly to climb up the trees. So i have to give the win to the Na’vi
Oh, no! You just destroyed the memory blocks that were repressing my memories of the prequels! I have to vote Avatar now. The Abominations of Lucas cannot go unpunished.
Wookies Hands down. Why? Well lets look at the facts
Navi- Tall blue skiny and fast
Wookiees- Human size, Hairy, slow, but strong.
so thats one point for the Navi- 1
While Navi have the size and speed advantage we must also look at weaponry.
Navi- Bows and Arrows
Wookiees- Spears, bows, Arrows, Axes and blasters
So we have one point for the Wookies.- 1
Next lets look up durability
Navi deaths in movie- A lot
Wookiee deaths- Not that i ever heard of
Wookiee- 2 Navi- 1
Most badass sidekick
Wookiee’s- Chewbacka was side kick to Harrison ford
NaVi- Weird…dragon…birds
Wookiee’s-3 NaVi- 1
Intimadation
Wookiee’s- Big hair bigfoot
NaVi-Blue tiger people
Wookiees- 4 NaVi-1
Wookiee’s Win
Maybe the stormtrooper clones got dumbed down with each generation. Kind of like in Family Guy where Stewie’s cloning process made idiot versions (Bitch Stewie).
So Bitch Stormtroopers?
Now I ask you this, am I crazy to want to see the original trilogy remade with many of the fan concerns addressed in an awesome fashion. Like crack shot stormtroopers scaring the crap out of the rebels. I could even see the ewoks working with a change in direction. Imagine super fast and agile ewoks swarming stormtroopers and bringing them down like a pack of wolves.
Plus, a new hot Princess Leia in a metal bikini….
Uh, what were we discussing? Cats vs. Dogs?
When it comes to Star Wars inaccuracy, please check out the following article. It will answer all your questions!
http://www.cracked.com/article_18858_the-biggest-star-wars-plot-hole-explained-by-science.html
Hey, that’s by Cracked.com — the company I work at the Day Job for owns them! I just had a conference call with them earlier today for an app (completely not HeroMachine related at all) we’re building together. Neat coincidence!
Personally I’m much more of a fan of Zoe Saldana outside of the blue CG fur and cat stuff.
I think the Wookiees would win, but sociopolitical stuff would probably result in the Wookiees and Na’Vi becoming friends long before any conflict. The both have the same kind of deep respect for nature and their homeworld, especially the trees, and there’s no reason for them to have any conflict. Wookiees would be more advanced with their tech but they’re predominately a peaceful race, using their weaponry for hunting and for ceremonial purposes or to defend their home from those who would seek to ravage it.
Now I wouldn’t mind seeing her in a metal slave bikini.
Hmmm…what other celebs would make good slave Leias?
well the na’vi only really stood a chance against humans because some humans helped them and they had a giant space dragon of prophecy. without the amazingly convenient shared prophecy amazingly coming true at their moment of need, they never would have banded together.
AND THEN consider that the wookies are more technologically advanced than anyone in avatar. in the prequels they used spears and hilarious gyrocopter things, but i think if the wookies actually had to plan an invasion they would just bring their spaceships and bowcasters and wipe the na’vi out, no matter how much they brain-twitter each other news that theyre being slaughtered and need help. besides, the wookies are pretty damn respectful to nature, so whos to say the planetary ethernet would even pick sides? whoever wins, the ecosystem will still be respected.
so yeah, wookies still win.
I’ll give to the wookies because they have the jedi on there side and technology, don’t forget brute strength
Kashyyyk is a primordial world, a giant swamp. The Wookiees make their home on the 7th Level of the wroshyr trees (which dwarf California Redwoods by miles). As you descend to the forest floor, you encounter greater dangers, larger creatures, and just plain ugliness. Even the mightiest Wookiee is leary to venture down to the 4th Level.
The Kashyyyk forest itself has a consciousness. Enough that the Wookiees are able to “talk” to the plants and maintain benevolent symbiosis.
Wookiees are highly sought after engineers. That growling? That’s Chewbacca talking through the Three Phase Power Equation as he overhauls the Millenium Falcon’s hyperdrive. Did I mention that Wookiees can climb trees?
Even with their massive strength and hyper-rage, Wookies maintain a code of honor. Those claws are meant for climbing not shredding opponents into bantha fodder.
“Wookiee” translates as “People of the Trees.” Wookiees might not even be native to Kashyyyk. According to their own legends, they came to the hot, mucky planet to settle or possibly as refugees. Bottom line, they tamed an entire planet!
Did I mention that “Avatar” just plain sucks?
Is aang a alien Because if He’s Not why bring him Up.
Obviously you don’t understand the nuances of nerd fights.
There is a reason why the phrase “Let the Na’Vi win.” has never entered the hallowed halls of history that is pop culture. Wookies would curb stomp every one of those blue-skin CGI abominations without breaking a sweat.
Mr. Q
With forces as stated, the Na’vi without question. Blasters haven’t demonstrated significantly greater effectiveness than the weapons used by humans in the movie, nor for that matter have bowcasters. The Wookiees seem to rely heavily on unarmored ground soldiers, which, tough as they are, don’t seem to be up to the level of damage of the power armor seen in the Avatar movie. I can’t recall ever seeing a canon representation of a Wookiee assault vehicle or support craft, both of which the humans had and still lost.
Beyond that, stealth warfare would be essentially impossible for Wookiees given the omnipresent Na’vi ethernet jack and in hand to hand combat, while Wookiees are known for their strength, the Na’vi do have a good meter on them in height, which means better reach and the Na’vi may well be stronger, reportedly four times as strong as a human. Sure, the Wookiees could go to orbital bombardment, but I think that rather defeats the point of this discussion. Wookiees, acting like Wookiees would not win in a ground conflict on Pandora.
Also, while Avatar may have been overhyped and overrated to some degree, it certainly was not a bad movie.
In no particular order, other than when they crossed my mind…
1 – Yvonne Strahovski (?) as Sarah from Chuck.
2 – Moon Bloodgood from Terminator: Salvation.
3 – Freema Agyeman from Doctor Who/Torchwood/Law & Order (UK).
4 – Alyssa Milano. Do I really need to explain what she’s been in?
5 – Charisma Carpenter from Buffy/Angel.
6 – Morena Baccarin from Firefly.
7 – Jewel Staite as Kaylee from Firefly would be kinda cool too.
8 – Halle Berry. Again, do I need to explain?
I’ll think of some more soon.
Oh, right. Here’s a few more.
9 – Cobie Smulders from How I Met Your Mother.
10 – Kristen Bell from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
11 – Emma Stone. Again, how do you not know her?
12 – Blake Lively. She was hot as Carol Derris, so shut up.
13 – Adrienne Palicki, the girl that was almost Wonder Woman until we saw the costume.
14 – Anne Hathaway. Okay, you can’t NOT know her.
15 – Paula Patton known for being in the last Mission:Impossible movie and being married to Robin Thicke.
That’s all I got so far. Surprisingly only 4 natural blondes. Not bad…
Because Aang’s show (and manga before it, I believe) was only renamed “Last Airbender” because James Cameron stole the name Avatar in order to confuse us. Also, the one with Aang came WAY before Cameron’s film. Beyond that, dblade being dblade, renders your argument invalid.
Hmmm–some factors: Wookiees would, if escalated, ‘carpet-blast’ or strafe from a safe height for REVENGE. Over losing several rounds, friends-at-arms, relatives, etc. Rather than ally if things went well, I imagine they would develop skeptical trade relations. What I am MORE interested in, is whether the Wookiees experience and knowledge of tactics would lead them to recognize the lifenet and HACK it to get what they want with no more bloodshed at some point. . .and Jeff? Blaster fire is inaccurate because of the traditional Jedi’s willful suspension of AIM.
Interesting list, given that at the very least, your numbers 1 and 10 on your list already have. Yvonne Strahovski dressed in the Princess Leia slave outfit in the season 1 episode of Chuck titled “Chuck vs. the Sandworm” while Kristen Bell dressed up as Slave Princess Leia at the end of the movie “Fanboys.” And, yes, both looked fantastic.
Never said they hadn’t. The question was who would look good. I believe I answered that question pretty accurately and in a relatively short list.
I’m loving all the Avatar bashing. What a piece of garbage.
honestly i like avatar. the story is bollocks, the dialogue is pure shit and the acting is terrible. but, the new 3d worked great with the lifeforms and jungle. the final battle was cool and the villain was awesome. it was to me a really expensive “b” movie. now that being said i loathe LOATHE the star wars prequels. to the point they’ve ruined star wars for me. i still thing the old ones are great but the universe itself, the mythology is just so stupid (it turns out) that i can’t even stand it. that being said: wookiees all the way.
Yes, Kashyyk is a very tough planet to live on…
Yes, Avatar was a terrible movie, whereas the non=prequel Star Wars movies were pretty good…
But:
The Na’vi are considerably larger, denser, and stronger than the Wookies.
Unlike the Wookies, the Na’vi have trained their native life forms to serve them, as opposed to just running in terror from them.
And, most importantly, there’s that home field advantage!
Not only does Wookie camouflage NOT work in an all Aqua environment, but Wookies would all die within minutes of hitting Pandora, unless they’re all in Starfighters, AT-AT Walkers, or similar contrivances…
Pandora’s atmosphere is toxic, remember?
The humans lost because they were arrogant pricks who discounted their enemies. Wookiees don’t have that hang up, and have their own woodcraft and guerrilla war capabilities.
On an only tangentially related note, I never really got the cat comparison. they look much more like rabbits. If you don’t believe me, watch this. Just not at work.
Blue Rabbits ****ing
Just try getting the rabbit comparison out of your head now.
Wow, whats with all the Avatar hate?? it really wasn’t that bad of a movie. And the Effects were the best of the time, and really haven’t been duplicated as well since. If nothing else it was a great technical achievement. A step forward in CGI like Jurassic Park was in it’s time.
However, in the end it’d be a bloody battle, they are pretty evenly matched. One point I remember about the Na’vi was that their bones were as strong as carbon steel – making them pretty darn tough.
But the wookies have a tech advantage, and a better mind for this type of warfare.
It’d be close, but I’d think there would be like 6 wookies limping off the field of battle and reporting to their commanders that a peace talk would be a good thing.
I second this. But I also want to add that many of the people who posted those very same sentiments here are under the age of 30…and that gives me hope. I once thought, erroneously, that the very demographic that allowed Avatar to become the highest grossing movie of all time would spell the end of everything good we who grew up in the 70’s/80’s had come to expect from movies.
Today, those of you between the ages of 18-29 have redeemed your generation. There is hope again…
🙂
To be fair, the bar should be set between 18-23.
Also, how has nobody realized that Avatar was actually made 20 years ago. In ’92 it was called FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104254/
This is all I have to say:
http://i1152.photobucket.com/albums/p495/jeremythurlow/wookie.jpg
Well-played good sir. And may I add: ’nuff said.
Wookiees all the way.
Superior technology, berserker rage, and Wookiees never appeared in a movie that sucked as bad as Avatar.
Oh yeah. I went there.
And before that it was called Dances With Wolves (1990): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/
Funny thing, I saw that episode of Robot Chicken a few days ago. Also, it reminded me if this exchange from The Big Bang Theory:
Yep. Pretty much.
Oh, William. You’ve done it now.
Technically, all we know is the Na’vi are denser and stronger than humans. But Wookiees are also many times stronger (and probably denser) than humans as well, so there’s a good chance the Na’vi and the Wookiees are about equal in strength and endurance (though admittedly the Na’vi have an obvious height advantage).
Really? Because Wookiees have trained themselves to kill their planet’s native life forms. With great skill and efficiency, I might add. In fact the Wookiee coming of age ritual generally involves hunting down and killing one of the deadliest predators in the galaxy, the katarn.
To the Wookiees, a horde of Na’vi wildlife coming at them is hunting practice.
Come on. We all saw Avatar. Pandora’s atmosphere may be toxic but the only thing you need to get around that hurdle is a simple mask and air filter.
And even if the Wookiees somehow didn’t have this very simple piece of technology, I dare say a marauding horde of Wookiees in starfighters, AT-ATs, Juggernauts, and armored airspeeders would make short work of the primitive Na’vi.
Now I have to see Avatar. I feel so left out. 🙁
If you do, as a sci-fi geek it would be akin to watching giant cat-like smurfs acting out a mixture of scenes from the Jungle Book mixed with Disney’s Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves while the aforementioned Smurf things on horseback fight AT-ATs and Halo dropships with the lead actor basically being Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot put into a giant cat smurf costume. That’s basically breaking it down for you. You do NOT want to watch it. The technology used to make it is cool, but that’s really where it ends. Then there’s the ponytail braid future/cyber sex thing a la Demolition Man.
Yeah. That’s about the most accurate synopsis I can give.
Ok, not to rain on all the Avatar hating, but — despite my reaction at the time — in the end it’s a perfectly serviceable summer action movie. The technology is outstanding.
But it’s pretty much just a run of the mill action flick when all is said and done. It won’t burn out your retinas or anything. Average isn’t BAD, necessarily, it’s just … average.
It’s depressing how many people hate Avatar without understanding it in the slightest. Of course it’s replicating the plot of Dances with Wolves and Fern Gully, it’s an implicit criticism of the ‘white savior’ trope.
Somehow people miss that Jake Sully is pathetic. The film hammers home the internet addict comparisons. He hates his regular life, so he gets an avatar and goes into a computer-generated world of anime catgirls. He starts neglecting his bodily needs, because he is so enraptured with this fantasy world. Heck, the big reveal is that Pandora is literally an internet, with all the living creatures connected via fiber-optic cables.
But when it comes time to defend his precious internet life from the corporate interests who want to exploit it (Cameron predicted SOPA/PIPA!) Jake Sully is useless. His big plan is for all the furries to get on their horses and charge straight into the line of machine gun fire. The day is only saved because of the army of beasts (Anonymous/4chan) that rise up to fight off the invaders. And in the end, Jake Sully commits suicide so he can be with his anime waifu forever.
The film is all but outright saying that this white savior trope, where the white man assimilates the mystic teachings of the natives and saves them from his own kind, is as pathetic a fantasy as the poopsocking dude addicted to WoW. The fact that people are deriding it as more generic than Star Wars – Star Wars! The 832nd iteration of the Hero’s Journey! – is baffling to me.
So if we take your analysis as correct, Marquis Samedi, what you’re saying is that you can’t understand why geeks would not like a film that is all about saying what useless pieces of crap geeks are?
Whatever the other faults of George Lucas and the original “Star Wars” films, neither he nor they showed contempt for their audience.
My issue is not that they don’t like it, it’s that they completely fail to recognize it for what it is. No one says, I think Avatar’s criticism of geek culture is unfair! They just keep tossing off references to Fern Gully and Dances with Wolves. They’re not grasping it beyond its surface meaning. In order to respond properly to an insult, you have to recognize it as an insult first.
In addendum to that, I’d like to point out that “geeks” is a very broad and nebulous term. Are furries on Second Life geeks? Are WoW addicts geeks? If someone criticizes them, do they criticize us all? “Geek culture” is not a monolithic concept, it is possible to condemn certain “geeky” behaviors without condemning “geeks” as a whole.
I agree though that Avatar was contemptuous towards its audience, it’s amazing it made so much money.
I referred to those because they are the two that I know Avatar borrowed most heavily from. It is true that almost every film and creative piece of art (really in any form) borrows from something else. I accept that, but this was just a little too on the nose for me.
I would ask, though, that you please not look down your nose at this particular arm of geek culture. I, at least do my best not to be rude or condescending to anybody, much less the entire HeroMachine community. I simply ask that you show the same courtesy.
It’s kind of funny that the argument is “Cameron has contempt for you people, and the fact that you can’t see that fills me with contempt for you people!”
I get what you’re saying, Samedi, and I don’t think you’re being rude or condescending at all. It’s just kind of a humorous way of looking at it all.
Let’s say I grant you your interpretation is correct, and further that the very people who are being held in contempt don’t even recognize it. I would just say that even when you’re not aware you’re being insulted outright, you can still “get” enough of it to not like whatever it is, even if you can’t articulate it.
First. Wookies take the fight. Heck there isn’t even a contest here.
Second, Avatar sucked for an incredibly huge amount of reasons. Did it achieve its first surface objective of letting me escape the real world for a couple of hours? yeah. Did it make me ponder any other complex subtext? heck no. It’s a throwaway movie. The only reason it did so “well” in the box office is the inflated price of 3D movie tickets.
Want to watch better 3D entertainment? Wait for December when Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” Comes out.
Hey, I wasn’t targeting you with that remark, it’s just that in every single discussion of Avatar that I have ever seen, someone inevitably brings up Dances with Wolves and Fern Gully. It’s some sort of cosmic law at this point.
Yeah, I think that’s probably it. It’s still always better though to be able to articulate these things to yourself.
Sorry dude. I’ve just had that kind of day I guess. I apologize for thinking you were. To be fair, it’s kinda tough to know who’s referring to whom or what without talking face to face or at least being able to hear the person.
I do however, stand by the statement as a general rule in Hero Machine that el Jefe (Jeff) has always tried to keep alive. Try to inform or be humorous, even helpful with critiques, but don’t go to the dark side with the being an ass just because they offer cookies.
To be fair, a lot of people did go see it. The extra price of 3D alone can’t account for the billions (over 2) it made worldwide. I don’t think we want to stray into this category since Avatar is one of the most financially successful movies ever made.
A very convincing analysis of “Avatar’s” message that could have been done without the racism. In the sense that “Avatar” is about escapism and internet addiction, I understand that. I also get that is the target audience. I think what Cameron was trying to do was be entertaining yet socially conscious. He wanted people to look at their own internet lives. With all the special effects and bright colors, some people became hooked on “Avatar.” Irony.
My bigger problem is that Avatar is heavily influenced by, if not ripping off, Poul Anderson’s “Call Me Joe” (1957) and Cameron doesn’t give credit. What is really bizarre that even I remember that story from my dad’s sci-fi collection.
All that said, I’m not looking for environmental messages from Wookiees. I expect them to kick a lot of blue tail!
Wait, what? Avatar is about internet addiction?? I have never heard that argument against the movie. Never even heard it brought up. Yeah, sure you could look at it in that light and see something there, but I just don’t see it as any sort of point to the movie. I wouldn’t say he was ‘addicted’ to the other life, hell, he had his legs back. That alone would make any wheelchair bound person stay in their avatar – It’s a stretch to call it addiction.
Like Jeff said, it was an average action flick, and an outstanding leap in technology for movie making. It made tons of money becuase people wanted to see the tech more so than the movie itself. Heck, I was dragged to it by someone that bought my ticket becuase they thought I should see the effects. And he was right, it was worth seeing on the big screen.
But hating it becuase it felt like Fern Gully or Dance’s with wolves…or that it was some ham-fisted attempt at making people see that internet addiction is a problem…..no, that’s just out there in left field.
Wookiees… for the same [correct] reasons as above. 😀
I don’t know if this has been mentioned, but doesn’t Pandora have a toxic atmosphere to anything that breaths good old O2? So wouldn’t the wookees die? trying to breath and all? Not that I’m throwing my vote ether way, just saying.
Wow. No offense, but that is a tremendous reach.
Implicit criticism of the Mighty Whitey trope? Hardly. Avatar embraces Mighty Whitey with gusto. The White Hero arrives among Primitive Natives, befriends them, learns their ways, becomes better at their ways in an unrealistically short period of time (mastering in a few months or years skills that have taken others a lifetime to learn), and ultimately becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative. Avatar even fulfills the Bonus Objective by having Jake fall in love with the Chief’s daughter. It’s the Mighty Whitey trope to a T. In fact it’s the most egregious case of Mighty Whitey syndrome in recent memory.
The rest of your post is what’s known as a “Sharpshooter Fallacy”.
It isn’t “like” Dances With Wolves. It IS Dances With Wolves (only IIIN SPAAAAAACE). At best it’s derivative. At worst it’s a blatant ripoff.
Though personally it’s not the derivative nature of Avatar that bothers me. A derivative movie can still be good. What really grinds my gears about Avatar is it’s yet another incredibly preachy White Guilt movie. There are exactly two kinds of characters in this movie. The Evil Imperialist Humans and the Noble Blue-skinned Natives Who Are At One With Nature And Can Do No Wrong.