Another Take On Avatar

[Mikey]

Why? Do you bother to say "Pass the salt - sodium chloride."

He may not even have known the scientific name.

Sorry to say it, Stitch, but that is an idiotic analogy.

A) "salt" is, among other things, an accepted alternative term for "sodium chloride." "Unobtainium" is a generic term for an unspecified and sometimes imaginary substance.

B) To consider it from that viewpoint - which means that the guy in charge of the company's efforts to obtain mineral "x" doesn't know the name of mineral "x" - is an insult to the intelligence of every moviegoer who doesn't need reminders of the way to tie shoes.

[Reliant121]

Just have Sigourney have a rant about it. "that jackass cares more about his stupid, generic named lump of space rock than actual life...bastard" (this being said while she's wondering around Hells gate).

[Coalition]

A good point. Though in that case they could have made it less absurd if the stuff's introduction had gone something along the lines of

"This is what we're here for, Unobtanium, *insert fancy scientific name here*, worth 20 million a kilo..."

How about: "You see this shiny rock? It sells for twenty million a kilo back on Earth. It is what provides the budget for your science department. Without it we all either go home; or we are stuck here, and only transmit data back by blinking light. It'll take over twenty times as long to get data back to earth that way." (tossing out a multiplier there, something high enough to impress the audience that losing the access to the mineral means scientific research communications will be cut off)


For Jake, he should have been better written. Any decent marine knows the value of good intel, so he should have been recording the data as soon as he got back, in excess detail (so the base intelligence can sort it out). This allows Colonel Quaritch to spot Jake's breakdown after the camera smashing, when he thinks to check on it. I'd also expect Norm (or Jake) to have recognized that Jake had near zero relevant knowledge of Pandora (large predators especially), and ask (Norm who asks) Trudy for help. This puts Norm and Trudy together, allowing them to have a relationship. During the briefing montage for the battle, we'd see Trudy explaining air combat tactics to the Na'Vi, with Norm translating.


Solka - Good catch on the camera smashing and two minutes before. I hadn't thought about that.


For the mecha, I think they were designed as cargo loading suits, thus the large window in front. That was to let the operator see what was going on with his own eyes (in addition to any Holoscreens) when moving cargo around. For the primitive equipment being used, the environment is corrosive enough to the fancier gear that it couldn't be really used.

[Mikey]

Good point on the exoskeletons, and yet another example of easily-corrected laziness. If we saw a scene in which one of them was being used for work and an offhand comment by some grunt to the effect of "Now they're pressing these things into combat," then it would have been fine.

All these examples point to the fact that Cameron et. al. decided at some point that they could make a lazily-written film, not care about the quality, and show blue nipples and glowy mushrooms and the sheep would still shell out oodles of cash. He was absolutely right, and I'm not judging his acumen. Still doesn't make the movie any better.

[stitch626]

Why? Do you bother to say "Pass the salt - sodium chloride."

He may not even have known the scientific name.

Sorry to say it, Stitch, but that is an idiotic analogy.

A) "salt" is, among other things, an accepted alternative term for "sodium chloride." "Unobtainium" is a generic term for an unspecified and sometimes imaginary substance.

B) To consider it from that viewpoint - which means that the guy in charge of the company's efforts to obtain mineral "x" doesn't know the name of mineral "x" - is an insult to the intelligence of every moviegoer who doesn't need reminders of the way to tie shoes.

A) Its actually the common name for any alkali-chlorine compound (and I think alkaline as well). Its just as unspecific as Unobtanium.

B) Even as whatever his position was, he may not have known the complex scientific name (remember, he was a business man, not a mining expert). He may have known, but not considered it important to bother saying name.
If I asked the head of a desalinization plant what they were removing from the water, he'd say salt.

[Tyyr]

Because you likely don't want to hear the various dozens of salt compounds that are getting removed. Sorry, I'm not buying that the company spent tens of millions of dollars to ship this guy out to this planet but he's too stupid to bother learning the name of the mineral they're digging up. Everyone on Pandora should be absolutely top their game, 99th percentile sort of people.

[stitch626]

Everyone on Pandora should be absolutely top their game, 99th percentile sort of people.

Did you actually see the movie? Especially the combat at the end. There are better combat strategies in a laser tag game.

99th percentile.

[Mikey]

A) Its actually the common name for any alkali-chlorine compound (and I think alkaline as well). Its just as unspecific as Unobtanium.

Yep. It is ALSO a commonly-accepted term for sodium chloride specifically. The word "unobtainium" doesn't share that duality.

B) Even as whatever his position was, he may not have known the complex scientific name (remember, he was a business man, not a mining expert). He may have known, but not considered it important to bother saying name.

The he doesn't belong doing what he's doing. The head of Exxon may not be a trained organic chemist, but I'd expect him to know at what stage diesel is cracked compared to gasoline. And when would be more appropriate to use the correct term than when addressing the mission's lead scientist?

If I asked the head of a desalinization plant what they were removing from the water, he'd say salt.

Of course he would, because "salt" is a commonly-used term for sodium chloride.

[stitch626]

He wasn't even the head of the mining op. He was the face of the company. He was there to protect the interests of the company, not have scientific knowledge.

[Mikey]

He wasn't even the head of the mining op. He was the face of the company. He was there to protect the interests of the company, not have scientific knowledge.

Yes, you said this already:

B) Even as whatever his position was, he may not have known the complex scientific name (remember, he was a business man, not a mining expert). He may have known, but not considered it important to bother saying name.

The he doesn't belong doing what he's doing. The head of Exxon may not be a trained organic chemist, but I'd expect him to know at what stage diesel is cracked compared to gasoline. And when would be more appropriate to use the correct term than when addressing the mission's lead scientist?

[Sionnach Glic]

Good point on the exoskeletons, and yet another example of easily-corrected laziness. If we saw a scene in which one of them was being used for work and an offhand comment by some grunt to the effect of "Now they're pressing these things into combat," then it would have been fine.

All these examples point to the fact that Cameron et. al. decided at some point that they could make a lazily-written film, not care about the quality, and show blue nipples and glowy mushrooms and the sheep would still shell out oodles of cash. He was absolutely right, and I'm not judging his acumen. Still doesn't make the movie any better.

Actually, the mecha in this movie didn't bother me too much. And I usually can't stand them. Given that the planet's atmosphere is supposedly quite hostile, in addition to most of the flora and fauna being much bigger than on Earth, the idea of troops wearing exo-skelletons to both protect them and allow them to weild heavy weapons actually makes a fair bit of sense.

[Graham Kennedy]

The unobtanium label is probably the thing that bothered me least about this whole movie. I find it entirely, totally credible that a new material might be named unobtanium. We live in a world where particles have properties called strangeness, charm, and colour, after all.

[Mikey]

The unobtanium label is probably the thing that bothered me least about this whole movie. I find it entirely, totally credible that a new material might be named unobtanium. We live in a world where particles have properties called strangeness, charm, and colour, after all.

Sure, it's possible - and in any event, it's a minor nit in the whole framework. But it is an excellent example of the sort of things that are wrong with this movie.

[Sionnach Glic]

I didn't mind the Unobtanium either. The term has been floating around the internet long before Avatar's script was ever writtene up, used simply to refer to whatever super-elements a particular show was talking about. I felt that the use of the term in Avatar was something of a humerously intended poke at their own movie. A sort of "yeah, we know the giant floating rocks are BS, just go with it".

And hey, it's not entirely unplausable that the scientist who first discovered it had a sense of humour.

[SolkaTruesilver]

The unobtanium label is probably the thing that bothered me least about this whole movie. I find it entirely, totally credible that a new material might be named unobtanium. We live in a world where particles have properties called strangeness, charm, and colour, after all.

Sure, it's possible - and in any event, it's a minor nit in the whole framework. But it is an excellent example of the sort of things that are wrong with this movie.

Not really. What went wrong with the movie was the intelligence of the actual plot and the protagonists involved, not with the labelling of MacGuffins.