Saw the movie. Was awesome. No, the plot wasn't the best ever made, not sure why people expect that, but the visuals were one of the best ever made. And that's a movies strong suit. If you want an amazing plot, read a book. But with all the negative talk about the plot, I figured it'd be horrendous holes, turns out that wasn't true at all. Either people didn't pick up on certain things or they aren't used to scifis or something. I'll try to explain.
Some **spoilers** ahead. Not going to white them out since its been awhile, so just don't read it unless you've seen the movie.
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Originally Posted by Stare At The Sun
Pandora is supposed to have low gravity, and its supposed to weaken the strength of people. As noted by the constantly working out Colonel, and the withering frame of Jake. Yet the Na'vi were atleast 10 foot tall and clearly stronger than humans. Seems odd that they had "carbon fiber" bones as well. As that is, as far as I know, not naturally occuring.
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Correction: It has *lower* gravity than Earth. Nowhere did it say it has the gravity is as low as our moon or some such. For all we know the gravity is only 5% less. Jake withers a bit because he's a cripple that's in the driver tube 98% of the time...the Colonel is a freak, that's his character quirk. Nowhere else does it show anyone else needing to work out extra to keep fit. The Na'vi also are clearly run through trees and climb mountains most of the day. That right there would keep them quite strong.
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Originally Posted by Stare At The Sun
Really, I can actually suspend my disbelief of other things, like the islands that floated yet had water constantly flowing off of them. If this was caused by the metal they were mining, which is what I imagine most people would say, why were these not mined? As they obviously had a very high concentration.
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Welcome to scifi/fantasy. They don't need to give reasons for this. Our universe is fantastic enough frankly. And no, I don't think much metal was in those islands. But they mentioned that the metal was throughout the planet, they needed high concentration areas, and the na'vi tree was on the biggest one. I'm guessing refining the metal was very costly.
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Originally Posted by Stare At The Sun
The absolute biggest problem I had with the movie, is the idea that the natives, who's most advance weapons were bows and arrows could have stood a change against an absurdly more advanced society that can clearly travel faster than the speed of light.
Lets just be realistic here, helicopters do not move slower than birds.
Where were the jets? Simple question. And don't say they couldn't fly without radar. That's bullshit. They did it at the end of WW2 and Korea.
Where were the tanks? I absolutely loathe this. It's just like in the third matrix, WHY WHY WHY would you design a military vehicle that exposes the pilot, or only protects him by glass, which the magical super powerful bows of death can penetrate? Perhaps you'd put some..I don't know...metal? Over it, and then toss a few webcams on the hull? It's just insanity.
Second, the "bombing mission" to destroy the holy site of the Na'vi was not accomplished by bombers, like it would of been done in world war 2, vietnam, korea, iraq, etc. NO NO! We're instead going to get pallets of TNT, attach detonaters to them, and wheel them out of a freaking cargo hulk that moves at roughly 13 MPH. And the defensive abilities of this giant cargo hulk? A bunch of dudes, in totally exposed machine gun pillboxes. You think they'd have turrets with steel mesh covering..or just armor with video feeds? And why would they have the 'bomb bay' door open before they were even remotely close to the drop zone? Simple answer, they wouldn't.
Lack of cruise missiles, nukes, or any tech more advanced than we have today. Again, in reality, if they wanted to destroy this holy site, they would have launched 15 cruise missiles at it, and called it a day. No need to even leave the base.
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All of that can be answered by logistics. Space travel is expensive. Launching things into and out of the Earth's gravitational pull is insanely expensive. None of their weapons, helicopters or machines would be made out of the toughest stuff available because of weight and cost issues. Nor would it be the fastest or best. It is very likely in that kind of situation that they would be made of some cheap light material like aluminum.
Still think the natives can't deal with 85% aluminum helicopters with minimal equipment? Bombs are also very heavy. Nor did they did expect to have to fight the natives. I think the trip took 6 years or so one way? They can't exactly order a nuke. They also aren't military. They were mercenaries. Ex military. Big difference. They don't have the authority to order weapons of mass destruction. They had to improvise with what they had. i.e. mining charges. Hence the big bundles of explosives they had to drop out of a cargo helicopter. This was not a military operation to take over a planet. They were not even military.
As far as jets go, exactly. They're dealing with "savages" on the ground. Why take jets? They have no room for "just in case the natives have a fleet of terradactyl things they end up using against us."
Who says those mechs were military vehicles? I'm guessing all the vehicles they had were for civilian use converted to mercenary use. I'm guessing those mechs were originally for clearing trees or rescue operations or some such. Hence the lack of permanent guns on them and why they had to hold them with their hands. Hence the lack of bullet proof glass and such (also weight issues again).
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Originally Posted by Stare At The Sun
The movie *should* have ended half-way through, and it would have in any realistic sense, when the Colonel said you've got a ticket home tomorrow, and your legs, I'm fairly sure he would have just gone home.
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He had plenty of reasons to stay by then. He was busy falling in love and having tons of fun with his awesome avatar body. I'd want to stay too.
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Originally Posted by Stare At The Sun
The ending was just insane. Does anyone actually think they wouldn't go back? 20,000,000 dollars a KILO. Whatever that shit does, it's obviously worth all the investment. There is no way they would just abandon it.
I, for one am looking forward to "Avatar II: Return of the Sky-People".
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They might go back indeed. But that's not really a plot hole. But anyways, reasons why they wouldn't: it's a company that just lost megatons of money. It takes years to get there and they already fended them off once. It now has an even higher risk, why would the company, they are a company, not *military* don't know how you missed that, risk even more when they already failed? Companies don't do that. Individuals do, but individuals don't have the resources to mine a planet/go into deep space.
No offense if I came off a bit harsh.
To the evolution comment someone mentioned: LOL and you think we're any different? I guess humanity is a plot hole! There aren't any other humanoid bipeds on Earth, I guess we must be in some bad story. Or maybe since they only showed about ~20 species their might be more types...
---------- Post added at 01:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:47 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Daniel_
Is is rational (in corporate situations) for your most expensive and valuable project to be being run by a young angry man, who seemingly can be over-ruled by his chief of security? Where was the local board of directors? Even if the film wanted to not fanny about with the weight they'd place on the plot, at least explain in a brief exchange that "it's a pain running the place on my own, but all the bosses died when they ate the salmon mouse", or something.
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Seemed rational to me. "Young"...he could easily be 50 or 60 in the future. Or he could be the son of the CEO. Its dangerous, he might have been the only one willing to go. Or he might be the third one after the other two had died. There are so many reasons he might be in charge I really don't need them to tell me one in a movie (a book would be a different story but movies have limited time and I wouldn't want them wasting it on such a silly detail). The board of directors probably wouldn't want to go to a "hellhole" for years and years...