I don’t have words.

The movie is just non-stop humans being absolute colonizer monsters and the people (and creatures) of Pandora, who want to live in peace, being forced to fight back (and kicking human ass).

The movie lives and dies by it’s visual effects and by god are they incredible. Pandora is just such a beautiful world, and Cameron lets you experience it in all its beauty and unity and peace before he shows the ugly human machines and weapons kill and destroy it. You feel the pain and the righteous anger when the Navi fight back. I was cheering for every human death of which there are many.

Is the story perfect? Nah. There are points where it’s cliche etc but I don’t mind that. There is a larger story about nature and colonisation and that’s what matters so much more. Pandora is a world that can fight back because the world itself is alive and connected and god just imagine if Earth was like that.

I’m definitely gonna see it again and I’m super pumped for the sequels.

  • spring_rabbit [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I have an absolutely crippling phobia of whales. Like shaking and crying if I get a glance of our large underwater mammal friends. Is this movie safe for me to watch? Sufficiently non-whale-like sea monsters are usually safe, as are sharks, it's a baleen whale thing.

    • LiberalSocialist [any,they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      Well…a whale inspired creature is one of the main characters in the second half of the film. So…you could stay till then and see if you’ll be fine?

      • spring_rabbit [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        WELP, just googled it and got real anxious. Guess this movie is gonna have to be a hard pass for me. That sucks.

            • TillieNeuen [she/her]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              I have a bird phobia. It's stupid, I know. And yet, if a harmless little sparrow lands on me, I will FREAK THE FUCK OUT.

                  • TillieNeuen [she/her]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    I apologize to all the birds of Hexbear. You're great, just please don't land on me.

                • TillieNeuen [she/her]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  I know, pal. If you've been wondering why, whenever we meet on Liberal Mountain, I insist on waving instead of giving you a big ol' hug .... well, that's why. I'm so ashamed. Comrades can still be comrades if they'd prefer to keep some distance, right?

                • TillieNeuen [she/her]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  As far as I can remember, I've never been pooped on by a bird. I've had the phobia as long as I can remember, and so have two of my cousins who are very close in age to me. We assume some hotshot bird thought it would be funny to freak out some toddlers, and it ended up scarring us for life. What a punk.

            • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              No it makes sense, giant ancient intelligent creatures that could kill you instantly are worthy of fear

            • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
              ·
              2 years ago

              I'm scared of tornados. Have been my entire life. Used to have nightmares about tornados as a kid. I live nowhere close to where tornados form lol, Ive never seen one in real life but it's like paralyzing and I used to get scared of certain kinds of thunder clouds cause I thought they were gonna form a tornado as a little kid.

            • Frank [he/him, he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              I had a really severe phobia of spiders until I started taking anti-anxiety meds and it just evaporated. And it didn't come back after I stopped taking that medication. Just a thought.

    • Tanith [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I hope this doesn’t come off as insensitive (and I get some animal phobias at least, I firmly stand against anything with an exoskeleton they’re fucking gross and make me recoil in disgust) but I don’t get why whales.

      They’re fellow mammals. They are smart. They are mostly gentle (killer whales are smart enough to attack boats but that is a learned response not an ingrained one).

      Is it like an extension of thalassophobia?

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I don’t get why whales.

        If they were in any way rational they wouldn't be phobias. People don't get to choose.

        • Tanith [none/use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          I understand that, being afraid of a roach is pathetic from a rational view, yet I scream if one touches me.

          It doesn’t mean I can’t explain the qualities of the roach that make me itchy on the inside. I wanted to learn what those are for whale phobia.

          • JMAC [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I come within touching distance of whales pretty often, they're massive and if you get too close one swish of their tail can kill you without even knowing you're there. Blue whales are also the largest creatures to ever exist on planet earth, which is a pretty reasonable thing to fear imo.

            • Sephitard9001 [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              The largest creatures to ever exist on planet earth that we've seen so far :alex-aware:

          • spring_rabbit [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            My mom blames Pinocchio, but I'm pretty okay with toothed whales actually. And sharks are really cool, except for basking sharks and whale sharks because they set me off too. I think it's a Big Thing Underwater sort of fear, but very specific.

            The big mouths too maybe? Fantasy art of whalelike creatures underwater with big open mouths always get me.

            I don't think it's just thalassophobia though. I really enjoyed Subnautica, and the scariest part for me was ironically the big peaceful floaty whale guys near the surface. The rest of the game was only the normal kind of scary, not the "I can't function" sort of phobia-scary. Sure that leviathan is currently trying to swallow me whole, but at least it looks like a cool sea serpent and not a blue whale..