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Something is not wasteful merely because it is expensive. It is wasteful if it does not properly use all its expenses. The film was expensive but the expenses were necessary to create the desired effect.

Um, are you implying that I lack that level of awareness?

OK, I know people can be that way. But if you watched the movie Terra, which is a similar theme, you saw a more balanced view. The bad guys had to roll over the peace makers first. In Avatar, there weren't any peace makers at the top. I realize that with the bunker mentality the outfit had that peacemakers weren't exactly being encouraged. My nine year old daughter went with us to this movie and I'm trying to explain to her why all the other humans followed along ... that they were scared, that they had been led to believe these were the enemy, and so on, and so on ... seeing more of their thought processes would have been interesting and might have me feel better her viewing this (I really do feel like I called that one wrong, but she doesn't - she liked it).

I see a lot of good people in real life. Greedy ones, too, but most people are just trying to get along and get by. How do they get swept up and sucked into what is going on around them, when that is negative? It's interesting for a movie to address that sort of question, don't you think? But he didn't.

And it helped keep quite a few people I know employed doing work they love. That is a good thing, is it not?

There seem to be a lot of different interpretations. The most obvious one that jumped out to me in the theater was that this was Europeans hunting for gold and killing off North American Indians. It also had the whole pantheist angle to it. The plotline may have been a bit simplistic, but it was a very well-done movie at least in terms of execution, especially in the special effects

The Na'vi actually had to be redesigned to make the love story between Jake and Neytiri believable. The crude metric used was to ask the male artists working on the project "Would you wanna do it?" and when the answer was "not really, no," they got rid of the gills and made her more cat-like.

To me, the best part of Avatar is that it was made on Ubuntu.

Hmm... even the people who work on these films consider them wasteful. My friend's husband is the cinematographer on Cameron's new production Sanctum so he is one of those people employed to do what they love and has said it's one of the most resource heavy artforms. I love a good blockbuster, but you're talking about a cost of $2 million for 1 minute of screentime. Avatar made money, but for every Avatar there is a Waterworld. We're talking the GDP of small countries here.

There really is no limit to the amount a piece of art should cost. Comparisons with practical matters are totally irrelevant. There evidently was a good deal of pioneering work in film technique and this is always expensive. One might as well complain that the initial moon landing produced nothing inherently useful. But without that much of information technology and the satellite systems would not have been developed. Although I enjoyed the film I found the story line trite and unimaginative and there was nothing inherently fascinating about any of the character development. It was a freight train for the special effects which were basically copies of Earth's undersea life transferred to dry land. Truly alien life would probably not only be incomprehensible to viewers, it is likely not even to be recognized as alive. One could no more sympathize with the facial expressions of an alien (assuming it had a face) than with the gestures of a comb jellyfish.Human communication to a mass audience must take place in more or less human terms and this eliminates truly adventurous explorations into what aliens might really be like.

There is when you're asking other people for the money

If you tell a producer "I don't care what the cost is" - you'll likely be mocked, yelled at or fired - that's just the reality.

And anyone who invests their own money into a project is either an established big name looking for more control - or - they've got no other options - and they'll quickly find that financial limit.

Film is parts entertainment, art, anthrolpological investigation and business. It is extremely cost and risk averse. You have to be openly willing to want to throw money away just for the 'glamour' of it. Without the business component - the money it takes to produce the 'art' - there would still be films but more likely less of them and more financially restrained in both scope and distribution. I love cinema - but creating million of litres of snow in the desert or watering down kilometres of highway for gloss - whilst adding to the final aesthetic - really is a mad activity. It is why as I said it is the most expensive and wasteful artform ever known.

So... when a billionaire filmmaker creates a film that condemns our wasteful society - whilst having a reputation known for creating several 1:1 scale replicas of the Titanic at a cost of $80 million and then destroying them - it's as Truffaut says - "anti-bourgoise by the bourgoise for the bourgoise". I enjoyed the film - but it doesn't mean I don't appreciate the reality of what it took to make it.

In the end, for all the statements about legacies and film's artistic importance to human culture - all dvd's warp and all nitrates fade.

Ugh, couldn't judge that.
But maybe your 8-year old daughter does? Or maybe you fear she does?
And maybe it doesn't even matter, to your daughter I mean?


Yea, but hey! What are you asking?
Do you realize how DIFFICULT this human behavior is to explain?
You're asking Avatar to explain why the German Volk industrially murdered 6 million Jews. You're asking Avatar to explain why US-America funds and supports the theft of land and the murdering of thousands of Palestinians. Let alone native Americans, etc. etc.
Did you see any peacemakers in Palestine, Nazi-Germany, North America, etc. that hat to be rolled over first before the weaker were innocently slaughtered and robbed of their land? Perhaps there were, but perhaps their role had so little impact on the final result that their efforts are not relevant for the final story.
As I said, I think one has to be aware of the crimes of Westerners to fully appreciate Avatar. Without this awareness, Avatar is just a simple-story special effects spectacular with pretty extraterrestrials. For kids that's often good enough, but grown-ups are more picky.


Greed is one simple and basic drive. What comes to mind is ignorance about what is foreign and unknown, self-interest (ME WANT PALESTINIAN LAND / JEWISH JEWLERY, etc.!) and prejudices. This leads to strongly biased propaganda. Like in Nazi Germany. Or in western civilizations, such as the USA. Isn't it interesting how DIFFERENT Al Jazira's (don't know correct spelling) reports and topics are from CNN's or Fox News'?


That's my point exactly. That's why I like Avatar a whole lot more than if it were just another Hollywood special effects extravaganza. I think it's VERY interesting.
"But he didn't"? - Didn't get what you meant there.

Weren't the "peacemakers" in Avatar the scientists? The teacher/PhD (Sigourney Weaver) opened a school and was trying to gain the trust of the natives so that the dying planet (Earth) could be saved with the "unobtainium" that the Na'vi sat on top of...without first destroying the Na'vi. To a lesser extent, the business exec (Giovanni Ribisi--the guy who stared at the floating rock in the central office) was trying to give her the time to do that, but he didn't have all the time in the world. The big army guy with the scared face just wanted to kill, and went to far as to destroy the lab to do that.

It seemed to me that the "peacemakers were rolled over" because they weren't able to get the job done in time, or get the job done at all, in fact (seeing as the natives never trusted the teachers/scientists until Jake Sully showed up).

Eh, well said and well observed, gypsyRN!

Scientists in Hollywood have graduated out of being nuts with crazy ideas who violate cultural traditions and create disasters with"forbidden" knowledge. Science fiction has helped encourage positive views of knowledge. The bad guys are now greedy corporations, the CIA, and Arab terrorists. That's somewhat encouraging but part of a trend.

Not in the way I mean. They had no power or authority, and never did. They were there to butter up the Na'vi so the corporation could do whatever it wanted on that planet. That isn't peace. No one at the top ever wanted to compromise or negotiate. They just wanted to avoid a public relations blunder.

i loved the movie Avatar. i was having such a bad day the night i went to see it, and it turned my whole night around. though i have decided i need to be careful what films i see in 3D... i got a little too into the movie, and actually forgot at some points that i was just watching a movie and that it wasn't real life, especially during the final battle. but i love the movie. i want to go see it again in theaters, if possible, and i will be buying it the day it comes out on DVD.
i thought the entire idea behind the movie was amazing. the idea that we are all interconnected with everyone and everything else, including our ancestors, is fascinating to me. and after seeing the Tree of Souls, i will never be able to look at another tree the same way again. i mean, i am pagan, so i already don't look at trees the same way most people do, but still. it changed the way that even i look at the environment.

it seems to me that the chief Na'vi female has a nice tail

I'm sorry, but I just can't stop hearing "Hey! Hey! Listen! Hey! Watch out! Hey!" in my head every time someone brings up the Na'vi.

Me too! Especially because my friend has it as a ringtone (I think for some particular person).