|
pospysyl posted:There's a reluctance to show too much of the sea people's economy, perhaps for fear that this would ethically implicate them in some way. It's a notable departure from the first Avatar, which in my recollection spent a great deal of time developing how the forest people society worked. Instead, the sea people are treated as almost childlike, without a care or want in the world other than to hang out with whales. Right; Avatar 1 showed enough detail that you could notice elderly Navis are rare because they implicitly don't make it to old age. There are unavoidable downsides to the Navi society that are studiously avoided, and it's why the "folk healer" scene in this one is such a jarring disruption of the fantasy. They don't have medicine, and are ruled by a king! You could easily die of a broken leg or something! CameronisGod posted:Realistically few of those movies have come out recently or since the rise of the Marvel Juggernaut. Realistically there is a major breach between pre-2016 cinema and post-2016 cinema. That's not realistic at all. What are you talking about?
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 14:02 |
|
|
pospysyl posted:Something this post made me realize: so much more time is spent describing the whalers' mode of production than the Na'vi's. You would think that the premise of the middle section of the movie - Jake Sully's family learns the Way of Water so to speak - would involve them learning how to fish, harvest seaweed, or do whatever this ocean village needs to do to survive, but that doesn't really happen. We get a single shot of a Na'vi fisher casting a net (it's a good thing those fish don't have the ability to compose songs) and the kids instead learn how to dive and befriend animal companions. Despite the king's warning to not be useless, nobody learns a single practical skill. In contrast, you get this really meticulous breakdown of every step in the whaling process, and there's so much love and attention to designing the various mechs and techniques those whalers use. Dumbing down the social dyanmic between the Metkayina and the tulkun as "befriending animal companions" is a pretty disingenuous way to make your point. Especially when you're trying to prop up how the film spends maybe like a few minuntes or less detailing the whaler operation. It's not portrayed as lovingly meticulous in any way; there's even a character -- a marine biologist -- among the whalers who is explicitly there to tell you how morally wrong it is to be hunting the tulkun, not understanding how they're a sentient species and just how intelligent they really are.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:36
|
|
|
Kiri can both have frontal lobe epilepsy and have messianic visions. As Nate points out they're practically the same thing. The only difference is that Kiri has a God who is willing and able to speak to her.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:40
|
|
|
I think the evil humans are evil and want to destroy whales to live forever and are abandoning earth only to kill pandora
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:40
|
|
|
teagone posted:Dumbing down the social dyanmic between the Metkayina and the tulkun as "befriending animal companions" is a pretty disingenuous way to make your point. Especially when you're trying to prop up how the film spends maybe like a few minuntes or less detailing the whaler operation. It's not portrayed as lovingly meticulous in any way; there's even a character -- a marine biologist -- among the whalers who is explicitly there to tell you how morally wrong it is to be hunting the tulkun, not understanding how they're a sentient species and just how intelligent they really are. Don't bother. pospysyl does not know the Way of Water.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:40
|
|
|
Can't believe SMG hasn't posted an essay about how Kiri is the Blue Christ Child. It's a Christmas miracle!
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
Deadly Ham Sandwich posted:Don't bother. pospysyl does not know the Way of Water. They do not see. Sky people can never learn to see. It's true. teagone fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Dec 19, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:42
|
|
|
Did you guys not stay for the post credits scene of Tonowari poring over the clan ledger? Some fans 
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2022 23:56
|
|
|
Somebody awhile back said Quaritch is most likely to go rogue in the next one similar to Agent Smith in The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. In Avatar 3, his son still rejects him while at the same time he suffers racism and demotions from his human masters. So, he hates sully, his human masters, and his son continues to reject him — so he steals an avatar cloning machine and proceeds to make infinite copies of himself in order to genocide both the humans and the na’vi. Go hog wild and make this happen, Cameron. Do it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
MLSM posted:Somebody awhile back said Quaritch is most likely to go rogue in the next one similar to Agent Smith in The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. In Avatar 3, his son still rejects him while at the same time he suffers racism and demotions from his human masters. So, he hates sully, his human masters, and his son continues to reject him — so he steals an avatar cloning machine and proceeds to make infinite copies of himself in order to genocide both the humans and the na’vi. I could have sworn that Jimmy C had said that Quaritch is the villain of Avatar 1-5 - which, I hope is not the case. If he's not out of the picture as an antagonist by mid-way through the next film, it's just going to get goofy. "I'll get you next time, Jake Sully! You and your meddling kids!!!!!"
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 00:46
|
|
|
Next film he’s putting his consciousness in a whale. Each film he’ll assume the form of the previous film’s intelligent being. Avatar 4 he’s gonna become an angry blue bee.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 00:54
|
|
|
Quaritch 2 hasn't physically committed the atrocities his human origin did, and Jake has said "one life ends, another begins" several times to describe leaving behind his human body forever. You can make the argument of explicitly living separate lives through rebirth/reincarnation giving way for a Quaritch 2 charactar arc that seeks redemption for the sins of his previous life. The film interestingly also goes out of its way to ensure that Quaritch 2 isn't the one who is directly responsible for Neteyam's death; he wasn't the one who pulled the trigger. So who knows what might happen with the character. There definitely were small moments of Quaritch 2 enjoying "going native" -- the challenge of bonding with an ikran, and the brief language lesson with his son in particular.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 01:03
|
|
|
This is Big Jim we're talking about, Quaritch 2 will absolutely have a redemption arc ala T2.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 01:06
|
|
|
Tom Guycot posted:Well I think they showed all they needed, we know from seeing them that they fish, and forage for clams and things in the tide pools. There really isn't anything we need to know beyond that, as they don't have an economy, they don't have money and debt, they're explicitly (like the forest clans) a stone age hunter/gatherer culture. We know from the forest clans as well they're absolutely fine with hunting game and being part of the food chain, they just have no reason to do it to excess, they don't have 'quotas'. First of all, they obviously do have an economy, in that they collaborate in producing commodities like houses, tools, medicine, and art from raw materials. It's a small, communal economy, but an economy all the same. I personally would have preferred a movie that devoted as much attention to developing this economy and society as they did to the whalers, developing both small societies in tandem until their inevitable clash, but I do understand that's not the movie James Cameron wanted to make, which is perhaps for the best. More than the civilizational conflict that defined the first movie, what Cameron is interested in here in the sequel is the singular experience of existing in the ocean, underwater with the wondrous creatures of the world. The criticism leveled against the whalers isn't that they're capitalists or that they're colonists, but that they are disrupting the innately good experience of existing in harmony with whales. It's to Cameron's credit as a storyteller that this idea comes off as plausible. teagone posted:Dumbing down the social dyanmic between the Metkayina and the tulkun as "befriending animal companions" is a pretty disingenuous way to make your point. Especially when you're trying to prop up how the film spends maybe like a few minuntes or less detailing the whaler operation. It's not portrayed as lovingly meticulous in any way; there's even a character -- a marine biologist -- among the whalers who is explicitly there to tell you how morally wrong it is to be hunting the tulkun, not understanding how they're a sentient species and just how intelligent they really are. Spider and Quaritch have a parallel experience to Jake Sully and his family on the whaling ship. Just like the Sully clan, they are introduced to the vessel as strangers and need to be brought up to speed on how the vessel operates to successfully coexist. Unlike the Na'vi, the whalers give the outsiders the full tour. Here are the harpoons, here are the subs, here are the depth charges, here's what we do with the whales. Even though it's pretty brief, it's also thorough. What's also thorough is the design work devoted to the mechs, which is just as elaborate as the design work done for the Pandoran creatures. The storytelling is just as effective on the visual level as on the script level. The Na'vi side of the story benefits from the visual design, but less so from the script work. What I'm saying is that Cameron isn't pro-whaling, he's pro-mech.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 01:07
|
|
|
pospysyl posted:Spider and Quaritch have a parallel experience to Jake Sully and his family on the whaling ship. Just like the Sully clan, they are introduced to the vessel as strangers and need to be brought up to speed on how the vessel operates to successfully coexist. Unlike the Na'vi, the whalers give the outsiders the full tour. Here are the harpoons, here are the subs, here are the depth charges, here's what we do with the whales. Even though it's pretty brief, it's also thorough. What's also thorough is the design work devoted to the mechs, which is just as elaborate as the design work done for the Pandoran creatures. The storytelling is just as effective on the visual level as on the script level. The Na'vi side of the story benefits from the visual design, but less so from the script work. What I'm saying is that Cameron isn't pro-whaling, he's pro-mech. Why are you hand-waving/dismissing the Metkayina scenes as not being thorough? The Sully clan learning to bond with the ilu (the dolphin/sealion-like creatures) and Jake learning to ride the skimwing, the scene of the Sully kids learning to control their breathing, the scene where Tsireya is just straight up monolguing the Metkayina's "way of water" philosophy while we see the Sully clan integrate their lives with the Metkayina, and also all the scenes leading up to Lo'ak eventually becoming a soul brother to Payakan. Much more time is spent on those particular instances over the whaling operation detail, lol. There's a parallel to be made between Quaritch 2's journey to becoming a na'vi and Jake integrating with the ocean clan, but it's not nearly as narratively lopsided towards favoring the whaling operation/detailing of the human's oceanic mech techonlogy as you're making it out to be. [edit] Gorman Thomas posted:This is Big Jim we're talking about, Quaritch 2 will absolutely have a redemption arc ala T2. I hope it happens, tbh. At the very least, have Quaritch 2 die in the process of saving one of the Sully kids, or saving Spider, one or the other. teagone fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Dec 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 01:29
|
|
|
pospysyl posted:First of all, they obviously do have an economy, in that they collaborate in producing commodities like houses, tools, medicine, and art from raw materials. It's a small, communal economy, but an economy all the same. I don't think I agree, has there been anything in the films to suggest that the commodity form exists in Na'vi society? The existence of commodities requires exchange/trade, which then implies a surplus of goods. The Na'vi cultural practices of conservation would eschew the creation of such a surplus.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 01:44
|
|
|
teagone posted:Why are you handwaiving/dismissing the Metkayiana scenes as not being thorough? The Sully clan learning to bond with the ilu (the dolphin/sealion-like creatures) and Jake learning to ride the skimwing, the scene of the Sully kids learning to control their breathing, the scene where Tsireya is just straight up monolguing the Metkayain's "way of water" philosophy while we see the Sully clan integrate their lives with Metkayina, and also all the scenes leading up to Lo'ak eventually becoming a soul brother to Payakan. Much more time is spent on those particular instances over the whaling operation detail, lol. There's a parallel to be made between Quaritch 2's journey to becoming a na'vi and Jake integrating with the ocean clan, but it's not nearly as narratively lopsided towards favoring the whaling operation/detailing of the human oceanic's mech techonlogy as you're making it out to be. Pospy's not referring to sheer runtime but to the political side of things, where what you're referring to are almost-entirely leisure activities. The life of a fisherman is completely elided. The Sully family drama is overwhelmingly sports-movie stuff about kids moving to a new town and fitting in by becoming amateur free-divers. Basic question: do the women weave the houses, or is it a unisex activity? We see that healing (however dubious) is considered women's work, but we don't know if that extends to the other stuff.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 01:55
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:Pospy's not referring to sheer runtime but to the political side of things, where what you're referring to are almost-entirely leisure activities, while the life of a fisherman is completely elided. Pospysyl is arguing the thoroughness on display and I'm arguing there's more than enough to parallel the human side of things from the na'vi/Sully clan perspective in the film. What you are arguing is something entirely different. And referring how we see the Sully clan integrating with the Metkayina through simply "leisure activities" does much to project your politics. You simply do not see, SMG.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 02:05
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:Pospy's not referring to sheer runtime but to the political side of things, where what you're referring to are almost-entirely leisure activities. The life of a fisherman is completely elided. The Sully family drama is overwhelmingly sports-movie stuff about kids moving to a new town and fitting in by becoming amateur free-divers. There's a spiritual aspect to the kids' activities too in their worship of the spirit tree and the whales. Maybe it's more accurate to say that the Metakayina story simply focuses on different aspects of their society than the whaler story. After all, we don't see how the whalers spend their time after hours or their religious experience. It might be fair to say that this is just as significant an absence as the labor is from the Metakayina picture, and that to see recreation and spiritualism as less substantive than labor and economics is up to personal taste. To argue that the Metakayina are objectively insufficiently developed just because the movie focuses on different parts of their society would be wrong, but according to my subjective taste, it is. However, this does undercut an anti-capitalist reading. Read this way, the movie becomes less about capitalism vs. its alternatives than about materialism vs. transcendentalism, which isn't the same thing. Gorman Thomas posted:I don't think I agree, has there been anything in the films to suggest that the commodity form exists in Na'vi society? The existence of commodities requires exchange/trade, which then implies a surplus of goods. The Na'vi cultural practices of conservation would eschew the creation of such a surplus. Well that's just it, we simply don't know. The Metakayina are certainly not capitalistic, but surely they do at least cooperate on tasks, ie exchange labor. We see in the movie that riding animals and a house are procured for Jake Sully and family as gifts, which is certainly a kind of exchange, if not a remunerative one. Maybe I'm not up on my Marxism, but I don't think you actually need to create surplus value to do commodity exchange. The creation of surplus value is what distinguishes the capitalist mode of production from its alternatives, but all societies must produce something.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 02:31
|
|
|
Hmmm Mr. Cameron I can't help but notice the natives who are in perfect harmony with their environment don't engage in any kind of development or commercial fishing. Seems a little unrealistic to me 
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 02:41
|
|
|
pospysyl posted:There's a spiritual aspect to the kids' activities too in their worship of the spirit tree and the whales. Maybe it's more accurate to say that the Metakayina story simply focuses on different aspects of their society than the whaler story. After all, we don't see how the whalers spend their time after hours or their religious experience. It might be fair to say that this is just as significant an absence as the labor is from the Metakayina picture, and that to see recreation and spiritualism as less substantive than labor and economics is up to personal taste. To argue that the Metakayina are objectively insufficiently developed just because the movie focuses on different parts of their society would be wrong, but according to my subjective taste, it is. The difference here is that you are arguing for something that bears no relevance to the plot. Why would we need to see the specifcs of how a Metkayina fisherman fishes? Briefly detailing how the whalers operate is necessary to showcase their cold and cruel techniques used to hunt the tulkun, what we the audience learn to be a fairly complex society of highly intellgient, sentient species of whale-like creatures. This eventually gives rise to one of the more important narrative developments in the film. The contrast to that is given to us through the Sully clan where we're meant to grow to love and see the majesty of Pandoran nature through their integration with the Metkayina as they learn their ways, adapting to the sea village life through the various sequences I detailed in my other post. TWOW's script is pretty efficient. Maybe to a fault for some I guess? But not for me. quote:However, this does undercut an anti-capitalist reading. Read this way, the movie becomes less about capitalism vs. its alternatives than about materialism vs. transcendentalism, which isn't the same thing. Maybe not exactly the same thing, but they're certainly related imo. teagone fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Dec 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:02
|
|
|
There's a very simple explanation you all are overlooking. Why does the film show so little time spent on subsistence and textile production and so much time spent on leisure and prestige activities?
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:15
|
|
|
We can answer all these questions if we can determine whether or not befriending a whale is labor
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:24
|
|
|
I'm sure I would have to work at least 60 hours in a week to befriend a whale
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:27
|
|
|
Tea Party Crasher posted:I'm sure I would have to work at least 60 hours in a week to befriend a whale You'd have to work way more than that to become spirit bonded to the whale though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:28
|
|
|
Maybe the extended version when it comes out will have a scene of a fisherman losing his net as a bigger fish swims away with it and he tells his wife who says she'll start weaving a replacement net. Or a metkayina coming back empty handed and sharing fish for dinner from the rest of the clan that caught some that day around a fire. They could even have someone who loses their knife on the ocean floor during a hunt and they're unable to find it so they get one from their friend who had another knife they weren't using, and he gives him some honeyfish sap he had as thanks. Maybe an hour long scene of a circle of villagers weaving baskets and talking about the daily gossip? I seriously don't understand what more we were supposed to get about the structure of their "production".
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:35
|
|
|
I can’t imagine there will be an extended edition What did they cut out .
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:39
|
|
|
euphronius posted:I can’t imagine there will be an extended edition quote:Director James Cameron's current cut of Avatar 3 is nine hours long, if a new rumor is to be believed. lol if true
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:46
|
|
|
power move
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:48
|
|
|
Haha that can’t possibly be true
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:49
|
|
|
The most expensive storyboarding process of all time
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:51
|
|
|
Tom Guycot posted:lol if true Ok he's loving nuts but I'm completely on board with it
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:52
|
|
|
euphronius posted:I can’t imagine there will be an extended edition In the Directors on Directors Variety episode featuring Cameron and Robert Rodriguez that came out a few days ago, RR mentioned the cut Cameron showed him was 3h30m long, so at the very least 30mins of footage were cut at some point.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:56
|
|
|
There are going to be hundreds of children who won't recognize their animator parents because they crunched for months to create the 6 hours worth of footage that Jim will cut from the film
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:57
|
|
|
it's called Avatar 3 because it's a trilogy
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 03:59
|
|
|
Tom Guycot posted:I seriously don't understand what more we were supposed to get about the structure of their "production". Nothing. The souless and mechanical processes by which the whalers operate their hunts for profit in the open ocean are in direct contrast to the way the Metkayina are in tune with the Pandoran waters in the most spiritual and natural ways possible. It doesn't need to be anymore complex than that, from a storytelling perspective. If you want to learn how the Metkayina fish or who among the Metkayina builds their houses, I'm sure things like that will show up on a wiki fan page somewhere eventually.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 04:06
|
|
|
He’s not going to be demanding finished final renders, but he probably does want polished animatic quality versions of each shot.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 04:09
|
|
|
You see here's where he's probably regretting not just making the avatar a smurfs movie. Even at 9 hrs, with smurfs being like easily 100X smaller tall blue aliens, and therefore obviously a hundred times quicker to animate and render, he could of easily got all the CGI done in like a couple of days. A week at most. How sad must Jim be when ever he thinks about this. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 04:20
|
|
|
Kinda wanna see Gargamel reincarnated as a Smurf and waging a war against Papa and the Gang.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 04:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 14:02 |
|
|
I just want to note that both this film and Zack Snyder's Justice League having a neurodivergent-coded character be the one who saves the day during the emotional climax is pretty cool 
teagone fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Dec 20, 2022 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2022 04:35
|
|