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.

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

    SAME.

    spoiler for avatar 2

    What’d you think of Jake as a dad? He was pretty fucking hard on his kids. Sometimes it was justified, like when they went disobeyed the command to be scouts and started handling the weapons at the train robbery, or when they went to site of the last movie’s climactic battle early on.

    But most of the time Jake was just an ass lol.

    And Neytiri…damn she was so fucking racist to Spider! He’s just a kid! Why you hating on him 😭

    I really like the angle they’re going with Kiri. I’m like 90% sure she doesn’t have a dad at all lol and Ewa did a Mary on Grace. She’s I think my favourite of the Sully kids other than the boy who died (rip).

    I honestly loved all the teenage stuff in the movie. It makes sense to me that they are ones who’re gonna be focused on more and more as the movies progress. Jake and Neytiri will become more supporting and I’m cool with that.

    I think it’ll be the first time we get a movie series where we see the old protagonists just gradually be replaced with their younger counterparts without it feeling forced.

    Anyways, glad you enjoyed it too lol.

    • Phish [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago
      spoiler

      I definitely think Jake was an overbearing father, but I guess it kind of makes sense given the circumstances in which he's raising a family. There were an uncomfortable amount of military dad vibes for sure though.

      Yeah Neytiri was pretty tough on the poor kid. He obviously just wanted to feel accepted by the Na'vi. I'm surprised he didn't make a bigger deal out of her threatening his life!

      Kiri was extremely cool. I'm glad they found a way to work Sigourney Weaver back in. Definitely a child of Ewa. I hope that don't go overboard with her powers but I like where it's headed.

      Anyway, I'm excited about the future of these movies. I wasn't sure what to expect but I really enjoyed it.

    • ikeepforgettingmypw [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago
      spoiler

      jake military dad bullshit

      on my first watch I thought "man that was a weird ass direction, aren't we supposed to like this guy, this was pretty corny, etc etc"

      Just watched it again tonight. I think the military-jargon was a very deliberate choice for a few reasons. First, we don't see jake use any of that lingo until the humans return to Earth. It's almost a PTSD/stress response. It's most obvious in the first quarter of the film and falls off towards the end (but still present). Second, something I noticed was that all the military phrases he uses like "what's your poz" and shit like that gets repeated almost verbatim by the blatantly evil human military counterparts within 2 minutes of each other. Like there's a 20 minute sequence at the start of the film where it goes back and forth between Edie Falcos' General Girlboss/Quaritch and Jake using identical phrases in a way that made me think it was deliberate comparisons. Specific examples elude my high ass right now but I remember several moments in the movie where I thought "wow that bit of jargon was JUST used in an identical fashion by some human ghoul". Third, Jake gets chastised by Neytiri repeatedly throughout the film for doing this.

      I think Jake unlearning old military habits and Earth-biases is going to be a huge point going forward in the next 3 films. I have it, allegedly on good authority, hypothetically in Minecraft, from someone who might potentially a few years ago at one point have had access to the scripts for 3 and 4 in a video game, that the third film will at least partially serve as an Earth origin story. Overcoming last vestiges of attachment to Jake the Human will be a big plot point.

    • RedundantClam [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago
      spoiler

      I thought Neytiri being weary of Spider was because she didnt like seeing the son of the man she killed hanging around. (Wasn't sure if he knew she was the one that did it or not) Then she threatened to kill him so I guess she really just doesn't like him lol