bq. just saw AVATAR… long and a bit boring in places but GODDAM AMAZING EFFECTS
says the Elder Pawn on her Facebook profile.
Which is a succinct review, if a little lacking in insight. But she’s right: I took the Pawns to see James Cameron’s latest oeuvre this afternoon, and it is a very long movie (subjectively at least) but made rather special through the clever use of 3-D. We’re not talking about red/green glasses here, either: these are (rather nerdish-looking) specs that I suspect are made of slightly differently polarized lenses, such that each eye sees a slightly different view and the brain interprets this as 3-D.
I spent not a little time taking the glasses on and off and squinting at the screen—the bits that are meant to be given depth are fuzzy when viewed without the glasses, but you can see perfectly normally with them on. Very neat. (And someone said, as we entered the theatre, ‘I wish the cinema itself was in 3-D!”. Um, yeah, we laughed at that.)
Enough technology. And enough of the politics: there are a few points I want to ponder later, but Abigail Nussbaum has already dumped a load of well-informed comment into her excellent blog. Let’s talk about the science (or the biology, anyway) a bit.
So I was reading somewhere else that the complete world that Cameron has built is one that is “intelligently designed” rather than evolved, because of the whole hexa/tetrapod thing they’ve got going on. Now, laying aside the fact that this is a goddammed movie, folks, and once you start talking about consistency of alien species you may as well pick up your Star Trek collection and go home, I’m not convinced by that argument anyway. It seems to me that the land-dwelling beasties could quite happily share a common ancestor; indeed, the sloth-thingies had a joint for the extra pair of legs three-quarters of the way up the front limbs, and it wouldn’t take much of a mutation to give animals an extra set of limbs. Hox genes, anyone?
What is more unbelievable is the presence of bipedal humanoid creatures that (apparently) breathe through their noses; where everything else on the planet breathes through their chests. (A much more sensible arrangement than the Terran, one would have thought). But as we all know this is simply a case of narrative imperative: if the dominant, intelligent aboriginal species was a six-legged herbivore then you’d have no chance of manipulating the sympathy of the audience.
Being able to grow a body and transfer one’s consciousness into it willy-nilly strikes me as a reasonably original concept. This of course isn’t the message of Avatar: that’s the rather naive and insulting one about ecology and nobel savages, which has been pretty much taken apart all over the shop. Even the ability to plug oneself into the brain of another animal has been done (Terry Pratchett, anyone? “I aten’t dead”?), although I did appreciate that this was possibly related to how the ‘avatar’ mechanism was supposed to work in the first place.
What was cool, and what actually flowed naturally from this concept rather than being a stonking great deus ex planeta, was the entire biosphere being some kind of interlinked super-organism. This wasn’t given to the credulous viewer as axiomatic; rather the idea of a mass of communicating nodes giving rise to intelligence—some flavour of deity, in fact—was compared with the fact that billions of synapses make up a functioning and above all conscious brain.
And this is where it was rather neat to see Sigourney Weaver scrabbling around in the lab and saying things like “signal transduction!” in cold blood. That the signals were being transduced between trees rather than neurons is just a matter of scale.
That about wraps it up for science, so I’ll finish with some thoughts about the politics. A braver movie wouldn’t have had the Red Indians Na’vi winning. A thoughtful movie, one that wasn’t simply toeing the party line on ecological messages and being a showpiece for admittedly gorgeous special effects, would not have had a cartoon bad guy talking in clichés; would not have had the industrial-military complex being beaten by guys with sticks: rather we’d have seen the scientists save the day.
The scientists (embodied in the amazingly fit Sigourney Weaver) were treated sympathetically, even if portrayed as a little kooky (and why, 140 years from now on a planet with a hostile atmosphere, would anyone smoke cigarettes?). The scientist, just as in 2012, went up against the baddies (in this case the industrialist rather than the politician). Unfortunately in the movie common sense and compassion didn’t prevail, and Sigourney Weaver karked it at the bottom of a huge, glowing tree (and that had to be a body double, surely?). She did have a brilliant last line, though—Jenny laughed and poked me in the ribs and told me to remember—”We need to take some samples”. That’s biological dedication for you.
And all this is a bit of a shame, really, quite apart from the wasted opportunity to do something interesting with the plot. Because you know what’s going to happen in a dozen years, don’t you?
A private company has managed to build a spaceship; a rather lovely one, actually, that reminded me strongly of the Discovery. They’ve had their mercenaries wiped out and been sent packing, leaving behind vast deposits of some incredibly expensive and above all useful if stupidly-named element (just what do you think was holding those mountains up, hmm?). What’s more, there’s a shedload of technology been left behind in the hands of not-too-bright-but-obviously-quick-learning natives. Natives who are incredibly warlike, too—they only accepted Braveheart Smurf on parole when he said he was a warrior (of the ‘Jarhead’ clan: possibly the best line in the movie). I’d actually be quite jittery if they were my neighbours.
And not just the technology—a scientist and a technician who in all likelihood know how to use it. Can we say ‘accelerated development’? I think we can.
So the company reps get back and go straight to the most powerful government on Earth at the time, and say hey, there’s these guys who just whupped our corporate ass, who’ve got guns as well all sorts of wildlife on their side, and what’s more they’re sitting on these deposits of magical ore. You don’t think they might be a bit sore about this? You don’t think they might be plotting revenge? You don’t think that the traitors might be teaching the natives the secrets of interstellar travel?
Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, we should build another spaceship and nuke the site from orbit?
It’s the only way to be sure.
Smurfs?
Nah: Ewoks with good pecs.
Heh. I must admit that when I saw what was going to happen I thought “Moon of Endor all over again? Don’t these guys ever go to the movies?”
Not smurfs, but Pocahontas. I liked the scientists a little better , but didn’t review it much otherwise. Too many colours and dimensions to look at to be serious about it.
It’s the only way to be sure
Sure of what?. Of the smurfs.
In any case the drawings of the movie Avatar are stunning.
LabLit definitely approved of the scientific characters in this film – we may have to wibble about it in our next podcast. The only problem was that Ms. Weaver didn’t get proper training in how to use a Gilson; in one microscope scene, she appears to be smearing its tipless point in some goo.
(OK, I know it’s 2151 and maybe in the future we smear our Gilsons in goo. Whatever. They looked exactly like Gilsons, and in fact I suspect they probably were.)
Eva, absolutely. It wasn’t a serious film. However, that doesn’t stop the Pocahontas factor being a tad distasteful. It’s certainly a movie to rave about the SFX, but not in terms of its story or its message.
Perhaps it was special signal transduction goo, Jenny? Definitely podcast material.
I had another couple of thoughts last night after writing this. First, it would be poetic justice to drop a great big bomb on the savages—that whole thing about ‘Death from above’? If it’s all right for Braveheart Smurf, why not for everyone else?
And did you note the parallel with Starship Troopers (the film), in which a load of infantry goes up against a ‘primitive’ yet formidable enemy? And did you note the nod to Starship Troopers (the book), in which the infantry has those armoured suits?
Just like Eva the movie reminded me of Pocahontas. Didn’t stop me from watching ít twice over the holidays.
Holywood apparently things Avatar is big cinema. The movie won two Golden Globes for best movie and best director yesterday.
I just saw a link to this on Twitter (in response to my tweeting this post):
So, in conclusion, I don’t really have to see Avatar since I’ve already seen Pocahontas? 🙂
But only if you’ve seen Pocahontas in 3D, with helicopter gunships shooting down dragons.
Hmm, ah, I might have missed that version of Pocahontas. So basically, see Avatar, but see it for the effects and the 3D (and of course, to spot the Gilsons smeared in goo). Will do 🙂
That’s it!
Helicopter gunships could only improve Pocahontas, one feels.
And oh, what I meant to say is that the 3D was done really really well. That is, it wasn’t overblown with lots of things coming out of the screen atcha. Sometimes the fairy puffs seemed to be floating down in front of your face, and it really gave depth to the scenery (although, oddly, I didn’t believe the mountains were floating). Not having arrows or fierce creatures jumping in my face was a good thing.
Being able to grow a body and transfer one’s consciousness into it willy-nilly strikes me as a reasonably original concept.
The Asgard in stargate SG-1 do this.
Haven’t seen the movie yet, will it be possible not to think about Pocahontas?
Ah, do they now? Y’see, I blanked Stargate from my memory, because when I saw it I was under the impression we were going to see a different movie, and it made no sense.
Even when I realized my error, it still made no sense!
“I just saw a link to this on Twitter (in response to my tweeting this post)”
It was also linked from the blog post I linked above and wrote DAYS ago. Sniff. That’s where the Pocahontas thing I said came from. Not my original thought. I don’t have any of those.
ah, sorry about that, Eva. I tend not to follow nested links too far, especially not if I can’t tell what it is from the URL.
Just admit you didn’t read my blog and move on. It’s entirely obvious that I was linking to something that says that the plot is Pocahontas. (“Many reviews online and offline criticized the movie for being unoriginal, and this brilliant observation on FAILblog definitely hits the nail on the head: it’s Pocahontas in space.” How more obvious could it have been…)
What I’m saying is that I didn’t know it would be the (rather brilliant) cartoon. I’ve also seen lots of people saying the same thing, but none so succinctly.
BLOG FIGHT!
My money’s on Eva.
Naw. I won’t fight anyone prettier than me.
Heh. I was actually simultaneously being much nicer to Richard elsewhere. (He proofread something for me.) But I’m a bit touchy about that blog. Feel like I should stop – nobody reading anymore, many of my friends even thinking I don’t have a blog (at all!) anymore, even though I always thought of easternblot being for them and NN more for scientists, and also I haven’t updated a lot lately. So, yeah. Don’t worry about it. Move along. Go see Avatar.
Heh, comments crossed. See, no fighting =)
kiss
hug
Alright you two, off to the mall with you.
What is it with you and malls?
That’s something else the Na’Vi didn’t have. Can you imagine life without Apple stores?
You guys are boring. I’ll have to read ScienceBlogs or something instead.
p.s. Eva, I read both your blogs! I just don’t often comment on your other one. And I haven’t seen Avatar yet, btw, but Hubby is very keen to see it at the IMAX.
Regarding hexapods… did you know that Henry’s book has an ENTIRE CHAPTER about why dragons might or might not have six limbs?
100% true.
P.S. and he mentions homeotic transformation and HOX genes. Go figure.
Do you think Henry was a science advisor for Avatar, Richard?
That might explain his new diamond-encrusted
iStoneiPhone.Nothing can explain anything to do with Henry, Richard. Except possibly Intelligent Design.