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When you have an astronomical budget and modern digital production technology, depicting a believable alien ecology is much easier than it has ever been. Starwars was never really much about ecologies, and I've never watched too much Trek. I was impressed with Anne McCaffrey's world... really put a lot of thought into it.

The only alien encounters I have found impressive were individual, not planetary. The John Carpenter "The Thing" and "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with Donald Southern was well done. "Alien had some good touches but the monstrous growth of the alien with no or little physical input bothered me. The aliens in Avatar were, frankly too human to strike me as truly alien and most of the fauna a flora, although nicely depicted, were variations of land and undersea Earth things. As others have noticed, the floating mountains were simply beyond reason.

You know what, you're right about the flora and fauna being derived from stuff on Earth. I thought about that too but never brought it up. And the aliens being too "human," I thought about that also, like how they had our basic facial and corporeal features, and must have had similar brains to speak a language we could deduce. I'm sure a lot of people think of things like that. I never complained because I doubt I could do better.

They should perhaps do something with a planet filled with machine life one of these days, I'm sure a planet full of things that have evolved beyond comprehension will be the aim of some Hollywood writer in the next 10 to 20 years; having all this technology and shrinking frontier to exercise it in.

Like I said earlier though, it may really go toward cerebral surrealism as well - not quite fantasy, a bit more thematic and laced with ties to reality.

Avatar is a hybrid of a few different movies. Namely, Pocahantas, Ernest goes to camp, and Ghost in the machine. Connected together by CGI.

Ahem...The Matrix(es)?

See http://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/ ... stria.html

It was still an 'evil scheme' that all revolved around us. It would be much more bizarre and interesting if we were completely outside of its dynamics.

That's always going to be inevitable as long as the scriptwriter is human.

After seeing the movie - just to be contrarian - I complained about some of the plot details. Particularly what sort of idiots would fight a war against a powerful tribal foe in a secluded juggle near ground level? Why not follow Slick Willie's Kosovo campaign and wage war 30,000 feet in the air?

Aside from that I found the ending far too optimistic and ahistorical when one compares it to the outcomes of real imperialism.

Actually, I sort of liked the subtle misanthropy (not that I'm a full blown self-admitted misanthrop like some people on here - particularly those with usernames that match pseudonymns used by great authors).

There are far to many movies about alien invasions of earth portraying fictional ETs as evil - based on the prospective of humans. There are not enough films portraying humans as seemingly evil, alien entities to other-worldly beings.

The best movie would be to not have any crossing of human and ET beings - it would purely potray the pillaging outsiders from the alien's perspective.

Yes, yes a thousand times yes. I would actually pay money to watch a movie like that.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman

Two observations:

1) Avatar was raided not so much by a public military force but by private Mercenaries. Have you ever read of Blackwater? Or, for that matter, think of KBR and they "don't bring rape issues to outside court?" Imagine what a private company - which can selectively choose what types of people can attend a foregin, largely inaccessible, world (which, I presume, takes years to reach) - can do?
2) Think of ethnic conflict in numerous places. Remove the outside, disinterested parties. Now, try and picture "peacemakers". Everyone in Avatar had a vested interest in the conflict - all humans were employed by the minning corporation and all Na'vi were attached to their native ecosystem.

Lets not forget the the Na'vi are genuinely alien to humans. Xenophobia against indigenious people persisted quite a while as the colonists exterminated them - even among people with above average education, knowledge, or intelligence or all three! As a matter of fact, many nineteenth century American novels empthasized the insidious Amerindians plots while US forces were exterminating them!

Above all, the virtue of Avatar was its avoidance of cliche conciliation - even if the victors were ahistorical.

POSTSCRIPT ADDITION: Furthermore the scientists were would be peacemakers. They minning corporation hired them merely to facillitate cooperation from the Na'vi but the scientists did - through subversion and insubordination - to initiate peace between the humans and Na'vi, but failed because of the narrow constraints of the system they operated in. Lastly, while I never saw "Battle for Terra", but I heard of it - the whole "human pilot selflessly saved by the aliens" who tries to "save the aliens" seemed ridiculously cliche. Good film - if it is art - should radically challenge the mind and nothing does so more than reversing the traditional "alien-human" dynamic.