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I liked the movie, though it was somewhat on the sappy side. Having never seen Fern Gully and happily forgotten Pocahontas, I was forced to draw parallels with Solaris, so the movie didn't seem like much of a cliche at all.
As far as 3d goes, I thought it worked quite well, but it was really irritating when I was looking at one part of the enormous screen and the camera was focused on another. I think my eyesight was mildly unhinged by the constant attempts at focusing an inherently blurry image.
As far as 3d goes, I thought it worked quite well, but it was really irritating when I was looking at one part of the enormous screen and the camera was focused on another. I think my eyesight was mildly unhinged by the constant attempts at focusing an inherently blurry image.
I don't really see any parallels between Solaris and Avatar, to be honest. What do you mean?
You may be thinking of the George Clooney Solaris, but in the one I've seen and read one of the the main points is that the whole planet is a giant brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28novel%29 (I haven't got the book ready right now; have read it, though - and watched both movies.)
/me signals agreement with genka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28novel%29 (I haven't got the book ready right now; have read it, though - and watched both movies.)
/me signals agreement with genka
There's a George Clooney Solaris? I assumed you meant the Соларис by Андреи Тарковски.
Anyway, I haven't read the book, but in the film the fact that the entire planet is a giant brain is kind of a minor point. It isn't really a significant plot element in Avatar either; it's simply another facet of the over-engineered backstory for the film that was haphazardly jammed into the 2-bit political statement Cameron called a plot. Though I have no doubts that Cameron "borrowed" the idea from Tarkovsky, it isn't important enough in his composition to merit a real comparison between it and Solaris on that front.
This all besides the fact that Tarkovksy is liable to auto-exhume and run a film reel through your chest if you compare one of his better pieces of psychological fiction to this pile of painstakingly rendered high-resolution three-dimensional blue manure. ; )
Edit: After reading the wikipedia article on the book, it seems that some case could be made for at least a topical comparison between the book Solaris and the written backstory and environment for Avatar. I'm loathe to give Avatar much credit for the backstory though, considering that the actual movie was about 18 hours long and still managed to leave out anything remotely intellectually stimulating.
Anyway, I haven't read the book, but in the film the fact that the entire planet is a giant brain is kind of a minor point. It isn't really a significant plot element in Avatar either; it's simply another facet of the over-engineered backstory for the film that was haphazardly jammed into the 2-bit political statement Cameron called a plot. Though I have no doubts that Cameron "borrowed" the idea from Tarkovsky, it isn't important enough in his composition to merit a real comparison between it and Solaris on that front.
This all besides the fact that Tarkovksy is liable to auto-exhume and run a film reel through your chest if you compare one of his better pieces of psychological fiction to this pile of painstakingly rendered high-resolution three-dimensional blue manure. ; )
Edit: After reading the wikipedia article on the book, it seems that some case could be made for at least a topical comparison between the book Solaris and the written backstory and environment for Avatar. I'm loathe to give Avatar much credit for the backstory though, considering that the actual movie was about 18 hours long and still managed to leave out anything remotely intellectually stimulating.
Here's an interesting review of the science in Avatar. These guys have a lot of good physics reviews, and by far the funnest one to read is The Core.
Fun to read as rants, yes. And while they point out quite a few loopholes, good science they are not. In the Avatar review, they screw up on science, namely physiology and electromagnetic field theory (on a first read-through), by ranting about bad application of said fields of science. And they have spelling and grammatical errors I cannot forgive.
The spelling and grammar errors aren't so bad... explain to me where they went wrong on the electromagnetic field and physiology thing, I'm curious. (To be fair, they are definitely nitpicks, because the movie was more entertaining than they give it credit for, but I found every one of their points to be quite valid.)
Well, off the top of my head; electromagnetic radiation should not bother you when inside a Faraday cage, and it would be stark raving madness not to make a flying ship a Faraday cage, since lightning is to be expected. Of course, the designers failed when not making the glass arrow-proof. Only, arrows can have quite high kinetic energy, so that is not too far-fetched.
My problem with their approach to physiology stems from their not allowing for pupil contraction; clearly the Navi were inspired in part at least by cats, who have quite good adaptive capabilities in that respect. They also demand direct, obvious evolutionary links between radically different species without having all the facts (something they rail against in The Core, and rightly so - it's only ironic when you fall prey to your own rantings). Selective perception is another of the pitfalls they fail to avoid in this regard, because there were enough creatures without six legs, and we only saw about... 30 different species? Hardly anything to go on w/r/t an entire planet's biosphere.
As for the common neurological link (however ridiculous its appearance), given that there seems to be a 'guided' evolution going on (I think the Gaia theory is inherently creationist in nature, but that is my personal opinion), it makes sense.
Furthermore, I think they fail to understand tradition and the ideal concept of 'the noble savage'; in fiction, that is, not in reality.
In short, they have valid points, but not everything checks out, and detracts from their overall credibility. I do not mean to discount everything they say, and as said, it makes for a fun read. But it's not what I would invest my spare time on. Maybe they should consult multiple experts instead of thinking physics is the only science out there, I don't know.
Concerning the grammatical and spelling errors, they're ok for nowadays web publishing standards, I guess. Mine are just higher (it seems), and I know yours to be so, too, PC; so I do not understand how you fail to perceive them to be as jarring as I do. But of course, selective perception might be at work here, too (in that I do not like their articles, which makes me more apt to point out flaws).
My problem with their approach to physiology stems from their not allowing for pupil contraction; clearly the Navi were inspired in part at least by cats, who have quite good adaptive capabilities in that respect. They also demand direct, obvious evolutionary links between radically different species without having all the facts (something they rail against in The Core, and rightly so - it's only ironic when you fall prey to your own rantings). Selective perception is another of the pitfalls they fail to avoid in this regard, because there were enough creatures without six legs, and we only saw about... 30 different species? Hardly anything to go on w/r/t an entire planet's biosphere.
As for the common neurological link (however ridiculous its appearance), given that there seems to be a 'guided' evolution going on (I think the Gaia theory is inherently creationist in nature, but that is my personal opinion), it makes sense.
Furthermore, I think they fail to understand tradition and the ideal concept of 'the noble savage'; in fiction, that is, not in reality.
In short, they have valid points, but not everything checks out, and detracts from their overall credibility. I do not mean to discount everything they say, and as said, it makes for a fun read. But it's not what I would invest my spare time on. Maybe they should consult multiple experts instead of thinking physics is the only science out there, I don't know.
Concerning the grammatical and spelling errors, they're ok for nowadays web publishing standards, I guess. Mine are just higher (it seems), and I know yours to be so, too, PC; so I do not understand how you fail to perceive them to be as jarring as I do. But of course, selective perception might be at work here, too (in that I do not like their articles, which makes me more apt to point out flaws).
Oh, yeah, there's surely some selective perception at work there, but mostly it's just that overall it seems to me to be a lack of editing (still irritating) rather than your typical inability or lack of effort at spelling properly. It's tolerable, and the content makes up for it. On the other hand, no matter how interesting the content, if a site like National Geographic had half so many typos, I'd be very distracted. And of course, I hold myself to a higher standard in that regard, as you pointed out.
I'm no Faraday expert, but I don't think a Faraday cage helps against a magnetic field, just an electric field. A compass will still point north in a Faraday cage, so a magnetic field strong enough to lift a mountain would still generate currents on the passengers of the aircraft. That's not electric field penetrating the cage, but rather being generated inside it by the magnetic field that passes through the cage. Maybe with some free time I'll read up on it more.
You're right that the eye argument against the Na'Vi plausibility was their weakest one. Their argument against hexapods was valid, though. There's a reason we don't see hexapods on Earth (with the exception of insects, which operate on a different scale where different rules apply). It's because the extra pair of legs serves no purpose but to get in the way and waste energy. Their justification for the Na'Vi height being allowed by lower gravity does make me wonder why the humans seemed to be under Earth gravity all the time. We probably saw more than 30 species, though not that many received special attention. The extra pair of eyes on the red flying thing didn't serve a purpose, either, and they have a good point about the chest nostrils being vulnerable to rain runoff (there's a reason on Earth nostrils tend to point down).
You have a good point about the neural link. Whether the evolution was guided or not, once a mechanism such as the vast neural network evolves in a system, the ability to connect to it has obvious evolutionary advantage, so that makes sense. By "noble savage", are you referring to their complaint about the presence of warriors? I agree they're over analyzing here, but if there was any hint the natives had ever fought amongst themselves in the movie they wouldn't have thought to over analyze.
You didn't point out the biggest problem with their economic assessment of space travel: No matter how valid their math is, it doesn't matter, because it's science fiction and you've got to get the people to another planet somehow, and their attempt is much better than 90% of sci-fi stories. I liked the ship, how it looked like a space ship, not a space airplane, with the exception of the shuttle, which has to be aerodynamic. They make great points about the mechanized suits, though; those troubled me with how nimble they were. The bandwidth/network issues for controlling the avatars is a big one as well, but again can be forgiven for story's sake (just like I can forgive the ridiculous time-travel plot holes in Terminator 2 because the story is so great).
What about their military analysis? My particular specialization in geology is paleo-military theory, so I think I'm far more qualified to... oh, hold on, never mind. They made good points, but this natives vs. tech battle kicks the Battle for Endor's ass. Take notes, George Lucas, you hack!
I think the article makes more valid points than you are allowing, but since they are physicists they're lending more weight to the physics than should be given. For me, it's when the story is so bare that there's nothing left that attacking the physics mercilessly is warranted, otherwise it's nit-picking. For example, the article on The Core is hilarious because that movie deserves it, while for Avatar it's borderline nit-picking because while the story was very derivative, it was also very well executed in my opinion. A better attempt than I expected. And yeah... I posted them just for their interest to a very intellectual, science-minded community like we have here (in other words, a bunch of nerds, haha, me included), so yeah.
Their review of Star Trek has an interesting discussion on the sky-diving onto the drilling platform, as well as (especially for someone who's worked on a drilling rig) posing the excellent question of why they designed such a silly drill when they didn't even need a drill. Again, they start to get nit-picky, but as long as you remember they're mostly discussing physics and the story is excellent even though Star Trek science never did add up as well as Trekkies like to think.
I'm no Faraday expert, but I don't think a Faraday cage helps against a magnetic field, just an electric field. A compass will still point north in a Faraday cage, so a magnetic field strong enough to lift a mountain would still generate currents on the passengers of the aircraft. That's not electric field penetrating the cage, but rather being generated inside it by the magnetic field that passes through the cage. Maybe with some free time I'll read up on it more.
You're right that the eye argument against the Na'Vi plausibility was their weakest one. Their argument against hexapods was valid, though. There's a reason we don't see hexapods on Earth (with the exception of insects, which operate on a different scale where different rules apply). It's because the extra pair of legs serves no purpose but to get in the way and waste energy. Their justification for the Na'Vi height being allowed by lower gravity does make me wonder why the humans seemed to be under Earth gravity all the time. We probably saw more than 30 species, though not that many received special attention. The extra pair of eyes on the red flying thing didn't serve a purpose, either, and they have a good point about the chest nostrils being vulnerable to rain runoff (there's a reason on Earth nostrils tend to point down).
You have a good point about the neural link. Whether the evolution was guided or not, once a mechanism such as the vast neural network evolves in a system, the ability to connect to it has obvious evolutionary advantage, so that makes sense. By "noble savage", are you referring to their complaint about the presence of warriors? I agree they're over analyzing here, but if there was any hint the natives had ever fought amongst themselves in the movie they wouldn't have thought to over analyze.
You didn't point out the biggest problem with their economic assessment of space travel: No matter how valid their math is, it doesn't matter, because it's science fiction and you've got to get the people to another planet somehow, and their attempt is much better than 90% of sci-fi stories. I liked the ship, how it looked like a space ship, not a space airplane, with the exception of the shuttle, which has to be aerodynamic. They make great points about the mechanized suits, though; those troubled me with how nimble they were. The bandwidth/network issues for controlling the avatars is a big one as well, but again can be forgiven for story's sake (just like I can forgive the ridiculous time-travel plot holes in Terminator 2 because the story is so great).
What about their military analysis? My particular specialization in geology is paleo-military theory, so I think I'm far more qualified to... oh, hold on, never mind. They made good points, but this natives vs. tech battle kicks the Battle for Endor's ass. Take notes, George Lucas, you hack!
I think the article makes more valid points than you are allowing, but since they are physicists they're lending more weight to the physics than should be given. For me, it's when the story is so bare that there's nothing left that attacking the physics mercilessly is warranted, otherwise it's nit-picking. For example, the article on The Core is hilarious because that movie deserves it, while for Avatar it's borderline nit-picking because while the story was very derivative, it was also very well executed in my opinion. A better attempt than I expected. And yeah... I posted them just for their interest to a very intellectual, science-minded community like we have here (in other words, a bunch of nerds, haha, me included), so yeah.
Their review of Star Trek has an interesting discussion on the sky-diving onto the drilling platform, as well as (especially for someone who's worked on a drilling rig) posing the excellent question of why they designed such a silly drill when they didn't even need a drill. Again, they start to get nit-picky, but as long as you remember they're mostly discussing physics and the story is excellent even though Star Trek science never did add up as well as Trekkies like to think.
Certainly, they make many valid points, especially about the big battle and military. I just got fed up with the other stuff ;)
As for the magnetic field, slowly changing magnetic fields cannot be kept out by a faraday cage, and this is, I'm going out on a limb here, because the induced currents affecting the magnetic field are too weak. However, if you have a wildly altering field, or if you move the object through a static field in an erratic and expeditious manner, you should get enough shielding to defeat their magnetism argument.
As for the hexapods: Yes, they make no sense, from a evolutionary point of view. However, it is possible (though unlikely) that those species are on the brink of extinction (their whole demeanor screams sawtooth tiger to me). In any case, my beef with their argument is that they want to see a direct link between the Na'vi and the other animals on the planet. Clearly, the Na'vi (like the homo sapiens) are the dominant species, and they have quite good adaptation to the world. The flying lizards are another thing that is weird (and also six-legged), although in their case it makes more sense, since it would be advantageous to have quadrupedal locomotion on trees and rock, and wings for flying... although I think soaring would be more advisable, judging from their build.
And you're right, of course, about the height thing. I haven't done any calculation, but I'm guessing that the difference in gravity (compared to Earth) for the Na'vi to grow as big as they are, compared to humans, is big enough that humans could jump around more. It would also make the Exoskeletons (which they falsely attribute to The Matrix... I mean, come on ;) a bit more feasible (but only a bit).
A small parenthesis: The most realistic use of oversized combat mecha I have seen so far is the HAVWC in the Japanese animated series FLAG (sic). If you like that kind of thing, I recommend checking it out. It's also interesting as a work of art.
I think we're largely of the same opinion concerning this movie, so I apologize for flaring up and propose to put this ad acta :)
As for the magnetic field, slowly changing magnetic fields cannot be kept out by a faraday cage, and this is, I'm going out on a limb here, because the induced currents affecting the magnetic field are too weak. However, if you have a wildly altering field, or if you move the object through a static field in an erratic and expeditious manner, you should get enough shielding to defeat their magnetism argument.
As for the hexapods: Yes, they make no sense, from a evolutionary point of view. However, it is possible (though unlikely) that those species are on the brink of extinction (their whole demeanor screams sawtooth tiger to me). In any case, my beef with their argument is that they want to see a direct link between the Na'vi and the other animals on the planet. Clearly, the Na'vi (like the homo sapiens) are the dominant species, and they have quite good adaptation to the world. The flying lizards are another thing that is weird (and also six-legged), although in their case it makes more sense, since it would be advantageous to have quadrupedal locomotion on trees and rock, and wings for flying... although I think soaring would be more advisable, judging from their build.
And you're right, of course, about the height thing. I haven't done any calculation, but I'm guessing that the difference in gravity (compared to Earth) for the Na'vi to grow as big as they are, compared to humans, is big enough that humans could jump around more. It would also make the Exoskeletons (which they falsely attribute to The Matrix... I mean, come on ;) a bit more feasible (but only a bit).
A small parenthesis: The most realistic use of oversized combat mecha I have seen so far is the HAVWC in the Japanese animated series FLAG (sic). If you like that kind of thing, I recommend checking it out. It's also interesting as a work of art.
I think we're largely of the same opinion concerning this movie, so I apologize for flaring up and propose to put this ad acta :)
Haha, I'm afraid maybe me being so tired it sounded like I took your critique of their review personally... and to be honest, I read a few more of them a bit ago, and their quality varies significantly. For example, their review of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is scientifically valid, but completely misses the point of the movie and in particular judges Keanu Reeves' performance unfairly. The tone is very different... I suspect the writing on these isn't always done by the same guy.
If the movement makes that difference Faraday cage wise, then that's a significant oversight on the reviewer's part. Interesting.
Did you mean to say it would be advantageous to have hexapedal locomotion on trees and rock? I so want one of those flying creatures, hahaha.
I did find the attribution of exoskeletal battle suits to The Matrix odd... I always associate them with another James Cameron movie starring Sigourney Weaver that predates The Matrix's crappy sequels by quite a lot. Oddly enough, those older exoskeletons make much more sense, are cooler, and more plausible, especially considering that their purpose was work-related, just as this review says they should be. Interesting that they missed that.
I may look up FLAG out of curiosity.
And toshiro... here's where any argument you will ever make in your whole life completely falls apart: Here in America, everyone knows they're "saber-toothed tigers", not "sawtooth tigers". Geez!
If the movement makes that difference Faraday cage wise, then that's a significant oversight on the reviewer's part. Interesting.
Did you mean to say it would be advantageous to have hexapedal locomotion on trees and rock? I so want one of those flying creatures, hahaha.
I did find the attribution of exoskeletal battle suits to The Matrix odd... I always associate them with another James Cameron movie starring Sigourney Weaver that predates The Matrix's crappy sequels by quite a lot. Oddly enough, those older exoskeletons make much more sense, are cooler, and more plausible, especially considering that their purpose was work-related, just as this review says they should be. Interesting that they missed that.
I may look up FLAG out of curiosity.
And toshiro... here's where any argument you will ever make in your whole life completely falls apart: Here in America, everyone knows they're "saber-toothed tigers", not "sawtooth tigers". Geez!
How'd I make that mistake? Saber-toothed tigers it is, of course.
And well, I meant hexapedal because they have three pair of extremities: 2 pairs of legs, one pair of wings. Of course, I slipped up on that one, too... but I wouldn't know what to call a creature with that setup (in one adjective).
And well, I meant hexapedal because they have three pair of extremities: 2 pairs of legs, one pair of wings. Of course, I slipped up on that one, too... but I wouldn't know what to call a creature with that setup (in one adjective).
Oh, I understand what you mean. Yeah, a flying creature with four legs is actually a cool idea, I think. Those flying things were easily the coolest thing about the entire movie, and I want one very badly. (I hope you caught the sarcasm about the saber-toothed thing... do they call them sawtoothed elsewhere, or was that actually a slip-up?)
Not to worry, I caught the sarcasm :) No, that was a slip-up. I was probably thinking too much about sound design at that time.
ok now that i just saw this movie last night I can finally weigh in on this.
Im sorry to dissapoint toshiro but 3d is going to be the future of cinema at least mainstream cinema. Clearly art house is always going to be about character development and advances in editing style camera style and story telling. Oh and by future I don't mean every movie will be 3d but my far a lot will be probably around half. With advancements being made in the field of 3d technology eventually we wont have to wear the glasses anymore. My biggest gripe with the glasses at the moment is that the polarization requires you to hold your head straight to the screen the entire time which can be tiring after a three hour movie.
about the fauna of the planet Cameron wanted the animals to look like race cars http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/trivia
oh also proffe chaos its film of course Cameron is going to make some sort of statement that is the point of art, even art that costs a quarter of a billion dollars to make, and people uses up all of earths natural resources isn't an outdated political statement its actually extremely valid in the point of non-renewable resources regardless of political affiliation. Oh also the movie is 40 percent live action 60 percent animated.
Im sorry to dissapoint toshiro but 3d is going to be the future of cinema at least mainstream cinema. Clearly art house is always going to be about character development and advances in editing style camera style and story telling. Oh and by future I don't mean every movie will be 3d but my far a lot will be probably around half. With advancements being made in the field of 3d technology eventually we wont have to wear the glasses anymore. My biggest gripe with the glasses at the moment is that the polarization requires you to hold your head straight to the screen the entire time which can be tiring after a three hour movie.
about the fauna of the planet Cameron wanted the animals to look like race cars http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/trivia
oh also proffe chaos its film of course Cameron is going to make some sort of statement that is the point of art, even art that costs a quarter of a billion dollars to make, and people uses up all of earths natural resources isn't an outdated political statement its actually extremely valid in the point of non-renewable resources regardless of political affiliation. Oh also the movie is 40 percent live action 60 percent animated.
So, peytros... my question to Cameron, then, is "How many resources were used up in the making of this film?" (And that includes the 20+ years spent pushing the tech that let him make the 3D...)
Heh. Consequentially, one would have to mark up the entire Hollywood movie business as well, since without that, movies would not have the same importance they have today. And by that logic, you could... but I'll stop here. :P
You are exactly right, toshiro. I also shake my head at the thought of Algore flying his jet all over the world to spread the message of reducing carbon emissions.
that's a joke right chaos? you are trying to link the entire development of 3d tech (which was mostly done in peoples garages, at least the new forms of 3d cameras that are now used) to Camerons movie just because it is shot in 3d? My guess is not a lot by the way, probably considerably less then most block busters seeing as 60 percent of it was made on a computer and that's where most of the money went.
Anyways back to Avatar, It was never specified why the planet was inhospitable or why it didn't have a "green leaf left" Cameron loves to make use of nuclear war in his films so that is an equally possible reason for earth being in its current state.
Anyways back to Avatar, It was never specified why the planet was inhospitable or why it didn't have a "green leaf left" Cameron loves to make use of nuclear war in his films so that is an equally possible reason for earth being in its current state.