Thought I’d throw this one your way for a gander…
I wrote a review of the new James Cameron blockbuster Avatar for Military.com the other day and was generally impressed with the effects and cinematography, but I bristled at the depiction of the military/contractors in the film and found it hard to cheer for the aliens.
From a defense technology standpoint, there’s a lot to chew over here. First, viewers will see a lot of similarity between the weapons and vehicles of Aliens and Avatar. That makes some sense since Aliens takes place in 2179 and Avatar takes place in 2154. There are manbots, huge troop carrying gunships and Osprey-like light helicopters — and most of the weapons are kinetic rather than energy blasting arms. Seems to me, though, if you are at the point of perfecting interplanetary travel on the kind of scale as Avatar, you’d have a little more advanced weaponry. Looks like Cameron just dusted off the Aliens script and had some of his artists spruce up existing weapons with a more “ergonomic” look (where’s the XM-8?)…
Spend a gazillion dollars on computer animators; concoct an entirely new language, throw the whole thing on another planet with ten-foot-tall aliens that ride dragons and plug into their extraterrestrial horses with biological data cables and add some jet-hovering, super-fortress gunships, belt-fed blasters, and latter day V-22s and you’ve got yourself a pretty good action movie formula, right?
Now make it all 3-D.
That’s exactly what writer/director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic) tried to do with what is reportedly the most expensive film ever produced. His latest movie Avatar — which opens in U.S. theaters today — certainly lives up to its billing as a visceral assault on the senses. Think of the most gut-wrenching roller coaster ride of your life — and stretch it two and a half hours.
Not bad for the $10 admission price. But, as with most big-budget movies coming out of today’s Hollywood, all that glitters may not be gold.
While Avatar’s visuals and the 3-D effect on the big screen could herald a whole new genre of movie making (Cameron reportedly has plans to remake some of his most famous films in 3-D), it’s tough to ignore your sore bum after sitting through 150 minutes of a storyline that could have been scripted by a group of high school drama students.
And to make matters even worse, the script takes an unintended but vicious swipe at the military that will be hard for Military.com readers to stomach.
The story revolves around Jake Sully, a former Marine who’s given a second chance at life by transferring his consciousness through scientific wizardry into an alien body known as a Na’vi. You see — and this is where it gets pretty clichéd — the Resources Development Corporation has a mining operation on the Na’vi home planet Pandora extracting a mineral called “unobtanium” (try not to laugh) that they can sell for about a million dollars an ounce.
Read the rest of the review HERE.
At the end of the day, I would go ahead and plop down the ten-spot and see the film in a theater. For the simple spectacle of it all, it’s well worth the price of a few eye-rolls and yawns at the pitiful storyline.
– Christian
{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
This is what happens in a nation that shuns Strategy and worships Entertainment – for which most technology and Tactics are designed. By the way, in defense of the U.K. (which seems to have been penetrated by spies at least via laptops according to a simultaneous story here), the U.K. does value Strategy and has a way better educational system than the USA and way better and more inventive physics and math research. So does Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, even India and Brazil!
Osher Doctorow
idiot
If only it were true. The education system here is fairly poor. Whilst my understanding of the mainstream US education is that it's not great, it's no worse or better than that here. Couldn't comment on the others mind.
the interplanetary travel they had was based on cryosleep. you see this in the begginging of the movie they were in cryo sleep for 5 years. so they havent perfected faster than light speed travel.
ohh ya osher Doctorow the US has the best university system in the world. thats why millions of non americans come here to pay high tutitions to study at our universities.
On a lighter note this movie is like a beautiful virgin…great to look at but in the end totally unsatisfying.
lol, @Solomon wins the thread.
We're going to spend a grand total of $1.07 to watch this movie…via Redbox in four months. This crap is barely worth that much.
British troops to get new all-terrain camouflage kit:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/21/new_camou...
Going with Multicam
I didn't think it was very well written, but I think you guys are overlooking a possibility of the intention behind how the military contractors (yes, every grunt and officer in that film is clearly described as a contractor if you pay attention to the dialogue) are portrayed. To me, much like in district 9, it was more of a "hey guys, let's think about how greedy global society is becoming.. and here's what could become of us" type of thing. I know in reality contractors, for the most part, are not like this. However, there have been many "incidents" in the news and elsewhere reported that lead me to think that some people definitely lean in this direction.
Excellent blog, btw.. been reading it for a few years now.
Thanks Lurker for reading the blog…
District 9 was awesome mainly because it had a subtle and creative script and story, unlike Avatar. It delivered its message with grace where Avatar did it like a 2 y/o's story book.
The problem with the "contractors" was that they were wearing rank insignia, uniforms and even the commander was named "Col. Quatritch" and maintained the military bearing and all throughout…not a convincing separation of military to private in mind mind…
Lurker_S is right. The main character Sully says in his dialog that all the troops there are former marines fighting for a cause, now contractors fighting for money,. or some such BS.
"not a convincing separation of military to private in mind mind… "
That's because to the people who make these movies, there IS NO difference between the two….
District 9 was pretty good.
I've noticed that I kind of tune out the anti-military-business-tradition-conservative-etc BS that seems to find its way into most TV shows and movies anymore.
I agree. The special effects look awesome and I love the gunship designs, but this is a really cliched shot at U.S. policy overseas. I was hoping that Avatar's plot would end up as a shade of grey instead of blatantly black and white, but hey.
Also, the walker designs are idiotic. Arms on a walker are stupid enough, but individual fingers? Glad I'm not the maintenance detail for the APU corps, then.
I can see the arms on the walkers and even the fingers but did military tech degrade over the years? Apparently in the world of avitar it did.
It's possible they retained their rank structure upon leaving the military. Though I believe the Salvation Army, a most definitely non-military organization has a rank system.
http://www.salvationarmysouth.org/about.htm
Judging by the screen shots I have seen for the movie, the equipment doesn't look so much like the old Aliens gear. Rather it looks like it was the equipment for GDI in Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun. Those Gunships look like Orcas for sure. Maybe someone from the old westwood was one of the 3-d model designers.
Decent movie but hated those alien smurfs with a passion. Not to worry that we lost, though. The next human invasion would probably involve heavier hardware and nukes.Will those hammer-head rhinos beat a military version of that armored bulldozer? YEAH RIGHT
Not even that, XWQQ….Orbital Bombardment would be enough to wipe out the natives….but only after a raid to seize any race-traitor humans that sided with them.
Yeah, put Sully in front of a firing squad….still in his damn wheelchair.
And oh yeah that gun Avata Sully is carrying….nothing more than a stylized M-60.
You can see the details: top feed cover, bipod legs with line of holes, etc…..LAME.
According to the wiki for the movie, it IS supposed to be an M60. Considering everything I've read about the GPMG's excellent reliability, I'm not surprised.
Are you kidding? US forces dumped the M60 years ago. It's not that good of an MG.
Heard the same but no first hand experience with the M-60. Will leave it to those with first-hand experience to clarify.
When I saw the FIRST commercial for this movie I though it was going to be AWESOME! Then i saw the lame green and blue aliens….
Just from the commercials alone it made what I thought were Marines at the time look like blood thristy people. Tipical liberal hollywood line, make anything military appear corrupt and inhumane…. I know alot of times Hollywood does right by the military, but every now and then there are those pieces that make anyone associated with the military look like a bloody thirsty savage… I hate that!
Thanks for saving me the $16 it would have cost for my wife and I to see this. From the trailer I could tell the story was totally unnuanced, typical of the neo-anti-military tripe that replaces actual military with those eeeeeevvvil PMCs and proceeds to ridicule them in a way that is now socially unacceptable to apply to actual military.
I thought that perhaps the game franchise spawned by this movie would be worthwhile but it appears that, too, is an epic fail.
Well at least in the game you can play as a marine and retaliate kicking some alien ass
Yeah, couldn't help but notice the "They're planning some kind of shock and awe campaign…" in the movie.
Must be a prerequisite in movie and TV show scripts to have some kind of Bush slam.
Movie was so-so. I liked this new 3D better than the old stuff.
Would be nice if they came up with something original for once.
Dances With Wolves + The Smurfs + Aliens = Avatar.
Movie fail. Next
"Dances With Wolves + The Smurfs + Aliens = Avatar"
Roflmao!
Dances with Wolves – Lost in Space
its dances with wolves + Ferngully + (aliens – the awesome)
At least its the security contractors that are evil while all the former Marines are the ones who develop consciences and are the good guys. Still too much black and white though.
Classic Hollywood Issue I also Sat down and Watch Avatar in my case in 3D and although quite the visual special with unique vision for this other world I found that Cameron was falling back too the same concepts that he used in Alien, that of painting Soldiers and Marines as Idiots with guns who simply wish too kill, the Works is highly flawed in this perspective, Painting the Scientists as the enlightened people that no one listens too, the only good military shown are either retired in the form of the lead or a lone exception who though talking too and working with the scientist as become enlightened. all I can think of is the little girl Newt who with out training out lasted every one but Ripply who saves the whole day and even picks up a pet Marine. it's Aliens, it's Predator it's the old insult that Hollywood keeps playing that men who fight are not men who think.. And it's so boorish that it took some thing away from the movie for me.
Avishtar
Okey,now deftech are movie critics.
You guys need to learn to unwind and enjoy the visuals. The mere fact that people feel the need to respond to that pathetic excuse for a story is laughable. For a story you read a book or listen to grandpa. For great visuals you pay ten bucks and go watch a Cameron flick. Lighten up.
osher i grew up in the uk and ive lived in the usa for 20 years.the uk school system that you so adour in my opinion is crap.pupils are not taught to be all they can be and suceed in life .the uk is full of drunks with nothing better to do than cause fights and vandalise peoples property.the major difference in this country and the uk is that people support there country here and imigrants coming here become americans and enjoy the freedom they have .in the uk imigrants are treated like 2nd class citizens and end up angry at the system .also lets point out that half your government is not even voted in (house of lords).so they need no lectures on anything thank you .enjoy the cold and rain mate
What is so bloody hard to grasp about the concept that maybe we're not always necessarily the good guys. Thinking we must be the good guys because we're us is a symptom of a tribal mentality. At the end of the day we're just humans, perfectly capable of doing the most evil things and Hollywood often does a worse job than reminding us once in a while of that. Loyalty does not trump everything, how much of a virtue it may be.
I wish I could live in this time to see what life is really going to be like. Maybe I can have my dying grandkids come to heaven and tell me what it was like.
NJ Wedding Planner
NY Wedding Planner
Weapons in sci-fi movies & TV are designed to look right, not to be accurate predictions of what they really might be like in the far future.
This is just the level of content i have come to expect from this site. Whats up C, dont want to do a post about B Murphey dying? Seems like you could get 200 words out of that… hard to keep coming up with posts?
I think the point all the "experts" are missing is – they were not marines or Spec Ops. They were employees being paid to provide security for the corporation.
They may have been military at one time but ….
They problem was an ex-marine want to be officer that over extended his contract.
"de oppresso liber" – does not mean kill the bush babies it means"to free the oppressed" – the character Jake Sully reflected that.
I served with Nungs in Viet Nam and experienced the love that the coastal folks showed, flying back to their base.
Hearts and Minds, people.
It frightens me to think that in an era where less than 1% of our population currently serves in the US military, and therefore has no direct exposure to how the military actually operates, that this is the popular conception of our Armed Forces. It's an amazingly ignorant portrayal and one that is bound to do more harm than good.
You are exactly right, Melanie.
Cameron knows better, but takes the low road in his treatment of the military.
Yeah, I thought it looked fantastic and was royally disappointed, it's a shame such a fantastic effort was wasted on such a lousy script. When you compare the character development in this movie with Terminator 2 there is absolutely no comparison. Terminator 2 made you fall in love with Schwarzaneggar's character, who was a machine. This movie had no character I gave a damn about, Lieutenant Ripley was just some idiot doctor with one funny punch line in the movie ("We need to take samples…"). I agree the big blue Aliens seemed like a bunch of idiots, ironically intolerant, and we were supposed to feel sorry for them? Don't know what Cameron was thinking investing so much money in this lousy script. I didn't really FEEL anything watching this movie.
Interestingly enough, I thought the game Modern Warfare 2 delivered a much more satisfying and emotional entertainment experience, for $60. Interesting comparison, I know, but wouldn't you have to agree, the ending of MW2 just left me feeling real good and also sad that it had ended.
Getting back to the defense tech of the movie as described (would not go see this drivel if you paid me 10 bucks). It is not likely that wtihin 150 years the infantry will switch to energy weapons. Everything is possible; but I just have my doubts about the weight/capacity of energy sources and the amount of energy needed to duplicate a .223 bullet impact at 1 kilometer. Just think of all the dust and moisture that will diffuse the small beam over distances. Now platform based weapons are possible, since engines of any kind generate massive amounts of energy that is on tap as long as fuel is available. And given the current developments the future is probably going to be full of hydrogen cell power plants. Basically water for fuel, i.e. nearly endless fuel. I however think that within 50-75 years the cybernetics will move so far ahead that we will have the world of Terminator rather than Aliens. Or if you would, Aliens world where only artificial cyborgs fight on the battle lines.
Of course, taking from Terminator, it’s entirely possible that nobody else is left to fight. The future will see predominance of smart or even sentient weapons, self-guided munitions, decision-making artificial intelligence system. They can be armed with AK-47’s but they will be far different from anything that we have today. An intermediate step would be blending of natural or artificially bred man and machine. But I doubt that would happen without some sort of cataclysm. But smart or near-sentient weapons will result just from current trends. Future wars will be fought by remote and by delegation of authority to robots. And we will see a whole lot more stand-off weapons, may be even interstellar missiles and robot bombers. It’s also likely to be utterly devastating employing new terrifying kinds of WMD.
got to admit i would have come up with a better tactical plan for the final battle stone drunk. massed cav charge into the automatic weapons was moronic. far better to have stashed your troops up high in the trees and then dropped down onto the advancing line.
seems pretty dubious also that even at close range a na'vi arrow is going to punch through the windscreen on one of the helo's.
still it was a beautifully shot movie.
Context, people… This was not even close to "Homesteaders Attacked By the Evil Injuns" western flick, this was an alien invasion flick — where we are the alien invaders. Further, it's not the military — as is made quite clear — but mercenaries that are more like the ArmorGroup clowns that were running security for the Kabul embassy (and if you have any sympathy for them, you need a serious gut check).
dances with wolves gone alien futuristic! way too many similarities between the american indian and the aliens!
The corporate official in charge of the whole operation must feel like a moron. Sure, the Na'vi were sitting on a huge ore site, but he just lost the whole operation. The military tech the corporation had was nice, but they had a noticeable absence of any high speed bombers. They didn't seem to have any drones either, everything was manned.
Did anyone fail to notice while they were overanalyzing the movie that it was simply just a fun movie to watch. I mean really, it was entertaining……
That's just an excuse. Look at the technology portrayal in Ghost in the Shell and other outstanding Japanese sci-fi mecha animation. You can be entertaining and futuristic and create a credible world. Not to say that Cameron failed in that regard, but some of us just think that he did. And of top of that you can be very entertaining and not slam the military and humanity. The future technology will be unmanned, remote controlled and automatic. Let's just hope that there's room for people there.
If I get so see dozens of eco-friendly blue aliens get slotted by impressively rendered technology it will be worth the price of the cinema ticket.
Good grief, it's just a good popcorn movie. I'm sure all the younger kids will love it, some of you older folks must analyze everything to death. Who really cares about the small stuff? It's only a movie..
I heard Honda recently demo'd something like this – a robot displaying visual feedback and controlled by human thought? Think this could work?