Monday, December 21, 2009
Uncategorized Spoiler questions, now that we've seen Avatar
Posted by Curt Holman @Curt_Holman on Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 5:23 PM
Critic and blogger consensus holds that the visual effects of James Cameron’s Avatar are as innovative as its script is derivative. Fortunately Cameron pilots the narrative with momentum and efficiency without leaving huge holes in logic, while still leaving a few unanswered questions.
1. What is “Unobtanium,” anyway? I appreciate the fact that, in the name of avoiding unnecessary sci-fi exposition, Avatar’s script doesn’t dwell on the conditions of contemporary Earth – we can imagine depleted ecological wasteland a la The Lorax. The prized material “Unobtanium” on the moon Pandora has an amusingly vague name (that's an inside joke in scientific circles). I think it's a power source, but it would be nice to know any specifics about it, like whether it has a connection to Pandora's "networked" ecosystem (see below). Otherwise, the plot motivation's a little bit too much like the bumper sticker "What's our oil doing under their land?"
2. When Sully gets lost, why don’t they unplug him? Sam Worthington's Jake Sully operates a cloned body in imitation of Pandora's native inhabitants, the "Na'vi." Almost immediately upon Sully’s first field test of his avatar body in the Pandora rainforest, a giant Thanator chases him off a cliff and separates him from others. Alas, Pandora's so dangerous that humans aren't allowed to stay out at night. Sully's not technically in any permanent danger - even if his avatar gets eaten, his human body's alive and well at home base. One can see why his bosses wouldn't unplug him and leave his unoccupied avatar body as a tasty Thanator snack, after the expense of cloning it. Couldn’t they unplug him, give him some pointers for survival and directions home, then re-plug him, rather than leaving him to own devices?
3. What do Na’vi eat? When Neytiri rescues Sully, she reads him the riot act for endangering himself and unnecessarily killing those hyena-things. (Which seems unfair, given that they seemed awfully menacing even before he lit the torch.) Later we learn that the Na’vi can plug their ponytails into various flora and fauna on Pandora, and whole planet seems to be literally networked. The extent of that network seems pretty vague, but they can share consciousness with their land-based and airborne steeds, as well as commune with ancestors stored in ancient trees (comparable to a computer mainframe, I guess). So do they eat meat? Wouldn't that be harming the one-world ecosystem? But if they're vegetarian, isn't eating plants just as bad as eating animals? Maybe they’re fruitarians. Given their facility with bow and arrows, they seem to be a hunting-based culture.
4. What is the “Flux Vortex?” As Girlfight explains, Pandora has a region that makes instruments go haywire and features floating mountains. One can only assume that it's some kind of funky magnetic field, stable enough so that trees can grow on zero-gravity rock formations. Does that make any kind of sense? By the way, how light is Pandora's gravity? The tall, spindly Na’vi anatomy suggests that it's much lighter than Earth, and their skills at falling and flying winged creatures probably supports that. The rest of movie's gravity seems pretty much Earth-normal. (A piece about Avatar's science applauds everything but the floating mountains.)
5. Is it really so hard taming a "Turok?" When Sully establishes himself as the Na'vi's savior, he tames flying predator called a "Turok" that's one of the most dangerous animals on the planet, and has important connections to the Na'vi heritage. (IFC.com guest critic Alonso Duralde amusingly remarked that Cameron "has no shame about set-ups along the lines of "Only two of our greatest warriors have ever captured the golden French fry," followed by, inevitably, "Gasp! He has captured the golden French fry!") It can't be that easy, else more the Na'vi would have done it, but we don't actually see Sully accomplish it.
6. Is this really a film about white guilt? Pretty much, yeah. Avatar closely emulates the plots of the likes of Dune and Dancers With Wolves, in which an entitled white guy defends oppressed, low-tech natives. Avatar muddies the racial condescension, given that Sully permanently "goes blue" at the end, but this interesting piece doesn't take it off the hook:
Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege.
Tellingly, the name "Na'vi" is practically the same word as "native."
8. What’s that giant Bowie knife on Quaritch's ‘mech-suit?’ The film takes place in 2154, but an abundance of the film's human culture and technology seem almost contemporary, especially it's military weapons and hardware. When evil Col. Quaritch has his final fight with Sully (wearing a mechanical suit not unlike the one from Aliens), he whips out a knife the size of a kayak. Did that have some industrial application, or was it just a really big, scary knife? Incidentally, Stephen Lang has had a good year: you may also remember him as the guy who shot Dillinger in Public Enemies and the guy who ran into the wall in The Men Who Stare At Goats.
9. Can this film support a sequel? Presumably, the next chapter of the story will involve the American Earth forces of the military-industrial complex sending more troops and bigger weapons. Unless Sully et al find a reason to travel to other regions of Pandora (or for that matter, back to Earth), it's hard to imagine a sequel that wouldn't be just the same movie done over again.
Comments (6)
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Another inexplicable oddity is the abundance of waterfalls on those floating planets. Where does the water come from? How does it recycle itself like some home aquarium pump?
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I'm fairly certain they eat meat, when Neytiri teaches him to hunt, they thank the animal and have a whole bit they do respecting its role within the ecosystem. Like they say, the energy they have is only borrowed. I think Neytiri only read him the riot act because if he had been quiet and less of a child, he might not have been put in a position where he would need to be saved by killing the creatures.
I agree with Cind. They definitely eat meat because when Neytiri is training Sully, they do thank the animal and tell him that he will now become part of the people.
They eat meat, or whatever else those animals they hunt are made of. They also show Sully eating some fruit thing. They don't unplug him because it is "bad for them" to get unplugged in the middle of doing something, as they say the first of like 8 times they unplug him in the middle of something. My thought would be that those avatars are super expensive and difficult to make, so they'd rather him go to sleep on his own and come out of the tube after his avatar is safely stowed away instead of just letting it drop whereever it happens to be. Turok is the top-predator and is symbolic of the Earth military in that it fears no others and isn't prepared for an attack - symbolized in Sully's taming of the Turock. The power-suit actually had two knives like that - remember Sully using one he plucked off the machine? I'd thought those would be useful in cutting through dense jungle foliage instead of shooting through it. Also, seemed to come in pretty handy. This film MUST support a couple of sequels. It's $300 million proce-tag was approved primarily because most of what it paid for could be used over and over again in the sequels. Without sequels, this turns into a huge financial flop. There can be a return of even greater Earth forces or the military of some other alien race against earth and the Na'vi - lots of wiggle room here. The story is far from original, even though it is told really well. A friend of mine called it Ferngully for grown-ups. You can call it white-guilt, eco-preaching, anti-war protesting, whatever. It's been done before and it'll be done again.
bob Says: December 21st, 2009 at 12:35 pm "Another inexplicable oddity is the abundance of waterfalls on those floating planets. Where does the water come from?" Evaporation. Just like how water flows from lakes at the top of mountains. The water rises and eventually rains on high elevations. BTW, Unobtanium is what is used for super conduction. Given the right gravitational conditions, it will levitate. Safe to say those floating mountains were loaded with it. Now for the the article's question: "When Sully gets lost, why don’t they unplug him?" If you remember in the film, they explained that the Avatar was expensive. If the unplugged him before knowing were it was, they could have jeopardized the Avatar. They only knew it was safe once it went into "sleep" mode and Sully woke up. Also, his side kick mentioned that it was dangerous to unplug someone in the middle of a link.
1.) Yeah, needlessly vague and even with the precious time to spare in movie already LONG, a couple sentances would've sufficed. Thing is, it's really not that important as it's a symobol of want, but that can be hard to forgive for some. 2.)They wouldn't unplug him supposedly because of the value of his avatar. It'd also stand a better chance with a marine controlling it than lying useless overnight. Like you said, they have nothing to lose leaving him plugged in. 3.) There is a scene specifically addressing that in the movie. They hunt, make a kill, speak with the animal and give thanks. 4.) The Flux Vortex is a mystery to the characters and I think they mention that the first time it's brought up. Seems a cop out at first blush, but it's an as of yet unexplained phenomena. 5.) I wouldn't doubt there was a scene cut because the movie is so long in the first place. As important as it is, Sully has proven to be something special from the get go (the ease at which he adapted to his avatar, how he wasn't indoctrinated into the program so he had a different perspective, etc...). Besides, we already saw that one battle with his first riding beastie. Yes, it's very important but can easily be cut becuse of that redundancy. 6.) Yup, from a specific perspective. It applies to anyone who doesn't live in harmony with their environment though and that's just about everyone on the planet at this point. 7.)?? 8.) Seemed really odd to me, but the more I think about it, the more it makes some sense. That combat unit could build fortifications in a pinch with a tool like that. Hand to hand in mechs is cool, but kinda dumb. Could be useful vs. native fauna too. 9.) It's such a rich world, there could (and should) be many more stories told on it, but I would hope it wouldn't be a sequel to this story.
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