Plot holes in "Avatar"
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I got a question, at the end of the movie what happened to norm and the other guy who were allowed to stay?
Because Norm's avatar was destroyed and I don't think the other guy had a avatar so they couldn't get transplanted into them and a avatar is pretty hard to make so I don't think they had a spare.
Because Norm's avatar was destroyed and I don't think the other guy had a avatar so they couldn't get transplanted into them and a avatar is pretty hard to make so I don't think they had a spare.
It seems like other people have plugged these two holes pretty well, and I just thought I'd preemptively fill in another one: why, if the humans wanted unobtainium so much, they didn't just mine it from the floating mountains (which float because they're full of it, and which are seemingly uninhabited by the Na'vi). I'm betting they don't do that for the same reason a mechanic wouldn't try to remove the engine from an airplane while it's flying.MONSTERheart said:
EDIT: Oh, also, was Norm's avatar killed or just wounded? My friends both thought it was wounded, and the shock was what caused him to "wake up"...
1: The other avatars are all scientists, thus they would not have been involved in the fighting, and since they were not one of the 2 permitted to enter the village they would have not been a part of the rest of the movie. Not a plot hole, just done to point out that jake is not a special person with a magical ability, simply the only one who is not a biologist.MONSTERheart said:
2:Jake cannot use his legs, norm was able to stand up and put on a mask. Jake, being paralysed,could not put on a mask and was forced to breath the toxic air or pandora.
How is that a hole? Cameron doesn't have to explain every single fucking leaf on the trees for the movie to be complete. We can safely assume that the other hybrids are being piloted by researchers in the other pods/in different stations (given that the narrative gives the impression that there are a few piloting stations). We never see them again, but, then again, Jake only spends one day in that camp. The rest of the time he's only seen with the Na'vi tribe. Their purpose was probably similar to his.MONSTERheart said:
Norm is ejected from his pod, has a minor heart attack or something, and then picks up a gun and goes to fight. We don't know where he ends up, but he's likely quite far away from the 'trailer' when the AMP and Jake are fighting.MONSTERheart said:
I guess this is sort of useless, given that people have explained it to you time and time again. However, excess is fun.
MONSTERheart said:
#1 There are always researchers but are fairly useless to the true desire of the program. They were all rejected by the Na'vi and aren't important to the plot line.
#2 When Norm is disconnected from his Avatar, the pod is still intact. He is "killed" long before Jake has trouble. He's seen later trekking through the jungle chatting on the throat communicator. Jake is struggling for air because Commander Baldy punched the window and broke the seal, venting the atmosphere, which causes Jake's body to asphyxiate.
And honestly, this is like on the level of save the rainforest debates, but it's truly a moral dillema. But it's not something traitorous, the entire operation was a MINING one. Something of rediculous value to the economy, but it's value is based in greed. Not survival. It wasn't farmland, it wasn't logging, it wasn't water.... none of the basics.
And why NOT have knives? Besides, its quite common to have machetes in that enviornment, I think in their first foray out someone was hacking with one, actually.
I think it's pretty clear now that the initial point about the 'plotholes' is cleared up now. I find the idea of betraying your own species much more interesting 
"The humans returned to their dying world" is something Jake says towards the end of the film. Considering this and the lengths the humans go to to obtain unobtainium [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium] (which by the way is any substance that is perfect for the job but is unfeasibly hard to get), they really need this stuff. Their planet is dying and unobtainium is their last shot at survival. But isn't their impending doom due to their lifestyle? They destroy and they consume, you can see that when they march towards Hometree. They are completely out of touch with their surroundings.
The Na'vi on the other hand live perfectly harmoniously with their environment, just look at how pissed Neytiri is when she saves Jake by killing the things coming after him. Jake's ignorant, "child-like", human behaviour causes the unnecessary deaths of living things. The Na'vi are an example to the Humans. They need to find their place in their world like the Na'vi have. Even if they had beaten the Na'vi and had access to all the unobtainium they wanted, it would have run out eventually and then what? Find another world?
This is blatantly pointing at us modern day humans. How long have we been told by the scientists to live in a more sustainable way? How often do you hear about the more harmonious tribal humans causing environmental problems? How often do those tribal people get in the way of the corporations seeking their 'unobtainium'?
If you could choose between the resource-hungry, self-destructive humans and the harmonious, sustainable Na'vi, would you really stay human? Out of pure zealous patriotism?
For those of you who have endured to the end, I congratulate you and wish you a merry christmas
"The humans returned to their dying world" is something Jake says towards the end of the film. Considering this and the lengths the humans go to to obtain unobtainium [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium] (which by the way is any substance that is perfect for the job but is unfeasibly hard to get), they really need this stuff. Their planet is dying and unobtainium is their last shot at survival. But isn't their impending doom due to their lifestyle? They destroy and they consume, you can see that when they march towards Hometree. They are completely out of touch with their surroundings.
The Na'vi on the other hand live perfectly harmoniously with their environment, just look at how pissed Neytiri is when she saves Jake by killing the things coming after him. Jake's ignorant, "child-like", human behaviour causes the unnecessary deaths of living things. The Na'vi are an example to the Humans. They need to find their place in their world like the Na'vi have. Even if they had beaten the Na'vi and had access to all the unobtainium they wanted, it would have run out eventually and then what? Find another world?
This is blatantly pointing at us modern day humans. How long have we been told by the scientists to live in a more sustainable way? How often do you hear about the more harmonious tribal humans causing environmental problems? How often do those tribal people get in the way of the corporations seeking their 'unobtainium'?
If you could choose between the resource-hungry, self-destructive humans and the harmonious, sustainable Na'vi, would you really stay human? Out of pure zealous patriotism?
For those of you who have endured to the end, I congratulate you and wish you a merry christmas
my biggest problem with it was that the avatar program seemed like a really stupid idea, as the subterfuge it offered was completely null.
The native na'vi KNEW that the RDA had an Avatar Program. They called them Dreamwalkers.. they might not have completely understood what they really were, but they knew that the Sky People had strange Na'Vi that were somehow loyal to them.
There was really no subterfuge. They knew that Jake was a Dreamwalker.
If we're going to go the dances with wolves analogy, imagine if Kevin Costner painted his face red, went out into the plains, met some native americans and just said "Hey, I'm white".
I was expecting there to be a bit more subterfuge, especially when Norm was practicing his Na'Vi speech, but there wasn't any. I imagine that there probably was some sort of stealth and trickery when the project first started, but by the time we get into the movie, the cover has been blown and I just felt odd about it.
The native na'vi KNEW that the RDA had an Avatar Program. They called them Dreamwalkers.. they might not have completely understood what they really were, but they knew that the Sky People had strange Na'Vi that were somehow loyal to them.
There was really no subterfuge. They knew that Jake was a Dreamwalker.
If we're going to go the dances with wolves analogy, imagine if Kevin Costner painted his face red, went out into the plains, met some native americans and just said "Hey, I'm white".
I was expecting there to be a bit more subterfuge, especially when Norm was practicing his Na'Vi speech, but there wasn't any. I imagine that there probably was some sort of stealth and trickery when the project first started, but by the time we get into the movie, the cover has been blown and I just felt odd about it.
wasn't said anywhere in the movie that that was the case, although I can see how you might think that considering how they lamented over jack's lost avatar in the beginning (when he goes over the waterfall), but they never actually say that it would kill him if his avatar died.Rutawitz said:
However, from Norm's reaction to his avatar's death, it seems pretty clear that it actually feels like dying... It's like, dying and then you wake up and you still feel like you died.
actually, what we call Unobtainium as a joke is any substance that would be perfect for a given task but doesn't actually exist, or hasn't been discovered or invented yet. The Unobtainium in the movie doesn't fit that mold at all and is therefore just a really really stupid name for a new compound. Unobtainium is a theoretical tool, basically allowing you to set certain aspects of a physics problem to 0 or infinity. (What would this motor be like if we made it with a completely frictionless material? for instance)Zakini said:
He was actually holding a rock of "unobtanium" in the movie.
Light speed is far from instantaneous. It is damn fast but it is still not instantaneous. 299,792,458 meters per second according to Wikipedia. And Alpha Centauri (The sun Pandora orbits according to Avatar Wiki) is about 4 and a half light years from our sun so the ship travels at about 70% the speed of light. (I am getting this from Wikipedia and James Camerons avatar wiki if you want to know my sources I could do the math myself but I am too lazy right now.) It is unknown if there is any method of exceeding the speed of light. Wormholes or quantum tunnels might do it but we cant produce the power to create artificial versions of those and physics hasn't even proven their existence yet. My guess is it would take 4 years for their reports to get back to earth. Radio waves like some other radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum (visible light and IR light etc not sure of microwaves or gamma radiation)travel at the speed of light. Isn't physics fun?Gmano said:
The reason you didn't hear many people talk about Dances With Wolves before Avatar, was because Kevin Coster turned into a big douche after making it. And after being in horrible movies like Waterworld, The Postman and Rumor Has It, we all just wanted to forget about everything he's been in, even the good stuff.StevieWonderMk2 said:
Want a proper plot hole. Given the level of technology they had and given by the fact that come the final bombing run the objective was simply to destroy the uprising plus the soul tree, rather than try and win the hearts and minds of the Na'vi, the question has to be asked why waste the number of people, man power, and equipment on the bombing run that they did. They are a space fairing race now so it surely would not have been beyond them to just nuke the place from orbit?
As I understand it, interstellar space flight had only just evolved to the point where the trip to Pandora was possible, it's pretty freaking expensive, the ship we saw at the beginning was the only one the humans had built to date, and it was a transport, not a bomber. I suppose they could do that in the inevitable sequel if the unobtainium is that important, but it'll take at least ten years (they said it was a five-year trip from Earth to Pandora, right?).Laughing Man said:
EDIT: And no, I don't think they could've used the shuttle. They'd have to jury-rig a heat shield and some sort of guidance system for that big pallet of explosives those guys had to push out the back, and even then, it might not have worked. Besides, as far as the humans knew at that point, bows and arrows were still useless against their choppers, so why go to the trouble?
ANOTHER EDIT: Also, even though the bows and arrows were working, the Na'vi still got slaughtered. Really, the only reason the tree didn't get demolished in the end was that the humans got Zerg-rushed by the planet itself.
So i saw Avatar last night and was very impressed. But i was a little confused as to why humans are still using case bullets in their weapons. I mean it is the year 2154 you would have thought there would be some innovation in weapons designes (i.e caseless rounds, laser or plasma weapons etc.) Also, knowing James Camerons experience in military shoot-em-up type movies, i would think he would at least tried to show some technological progress in weaponry.
The door gunners in the transports look like they are using M-60 machine guns, which at that point would be almost 200 years old, i know they are probably new and improved, but i was disappointed with the lack of futuristic weaponry.
Also i feel that by that time some form of faster then light travel would have been discoverd (physicists have acknowledged the possibilty of warp speed like in star trek, in 150 years science should have come up with something.)
All this is nitpicky, but its hard to ignore some of those plot details that were left out. But this is just a movie so i should just appreciate it for what it was.
The door gunners in the transports look like they are using M-60 machine guns, which at that point would be almost 200 years old, i know they are probably new and improved, but i was disappointed with the lack of futuristic weaponry.
Also i feel that by that time some form of faster then light travel would have been discoverd (physicists have acknowledged the possibilty of warp speed like in star trek, in 150 years science should have come up with something.)
All this is nitpicky, but its hard to ignore some of those plot details that were left out. But this is just a movie so i should just appreciate it for what it was.
Really? Like, really, honestly you believe that? Empires across the world, (and on a smaller level, tribes and peoples of various origins) have always sought to displace/subjugate/conquer/hegemonize the indigenous for one thing, and one thing only: Filthy Lucre. Case in point: British Empire - one of the world's smaller countries ruled most of the world - turned the map pink - for the purpose of a better economy. Nazi Germany? The Nazis dragged the German ECONOMY out of the dust with weapons production and the armed forces. That was the main reason they held such support (as far as I remember anyhow...).Internet Kraken said: