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Rottenwatch: AVATAR (82%)

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I love this alternate character interpretation:

So Eywa is a planetary brain made out of all the trees of the world. That is quite amazing, but not divine. Okay, so all Pandoran life hooks into her, but only plants are wired to her network full-time.

Eywa liked being worshiped as a goddess and chose to use her control of the world's more primitive animals to keep the Na'vi locked in scientific and technological stasis so that they would never advance far enough in science to study her true nature and blow the whole thing. After all, when she provides them what they need, why would they advance?
Her plans hit a snag when humans came to Pandora.

Here was a sentient species with technology to reach the stars and the science to figure out what she really is. These people obviously had to be gotten rid of before they could spill the big secret to the Na'vi. But she had to do it in such a way that no curious Na'vi would consider talking to or learning from the humans should they return, which ruled out a simple Zerg Rush of wildlife (which would also have risked the humans attacking from orbit).

She finds out that they are here for the Unobtanium, which is the perfect source for the conflict she needs.

Eywa, in her role as Na'vi goddess, tells her people to be as uncooperative as possible. She has them spurn all offers of technology or science, and tells them to ignore the desperate need the humans have for the stuff that they're sitting on. As per her orders, some engage in low-level guerrilla warfare (such as the arrows on the truck tires). They expel the school from their village, which raises tension.

When Jake Sully arrive on the planet and becomes an Avatar, she senses in him someone bitter with humanity and fascinated by the lushness of Pandora. As a bonus, he is not a scientist. She decides that these things make him valuable as a pawn, which is why she called off Neytiri's attacking him and orders him let into the Hometree. She has him bond with animals of Pandora, perhaps subtly messing with his brain via her control of them, until he comes to feel more Na'vi than human. This has the bonus effect of distracting him from his diplomatic mission. She needs atrocities to be sure that the Na'vi remain anti-human and anti-science.

She allows the destruction of the Hometree in order to galvanize the anti-human sentiments of both her pawn Jake and the Na'vi. The naive chumps make it even easier for her by bringing her Dr. Grace to heal. Grace is the top scientist on the planet, who had been actively hunting for her secret and who would have loved to reveal it if she found it; that would have caused Eywa's whole charade to crumble. And she gets to heal her? Perfect!

As a bonus, Grace was shot by a human, so Jake's anti-human sentiments were raised even further. Dr. Grace took wounds in the chest, which shouldn't affect her mind — but they do give Eywa the perfect excuse after she absorbs the poor woman's mind. "Her wounds were too great"? Likely story. She was still alive, and her mind was intact. Nothing stopped the transfer but the fact that she would be far more useful to Eywa dead than alive. Also, to be sure that Jake further reveres her, she has Grace's hollow shell say, "I'm with her, Jake. She's real." A planetary brain that can control thousands of animals at once can control one more body (even a human one) for a minute.

Then, to ensure that all the tribes of Na'vi remember the humans only as bringers of death, she gave Jake the Toruk to gain power over them. He led them into battle, where the humans' superior technology easily slaughters them. Eywa wanted this. She needed plenty of death to get the Na'vi to hate and distrust humans forever after.
After she judged the slaughter to be sufficient, she commanded her mindless herd of slave-beasts to charge and overwhelm the humans. She could have done that at any time.

After that, she has the Na'vi "escort" the humans offworld. Note her insidious effect on her pawn Jake Sully: by then, he referred to his own species as "aliens". Then she transferred Jake Sully's mind to his avatar form permanently, probably performing any remaining necessary mind rearranging as well.

The plan worked like a charm. The humans are gone. The Na'vi are led by a firmly anti-human leader who deifies her. The Navi are embittered towards the humans. There is no more risk of the Navi realizing that they've been played for fools. That's right, the true villain won. You just didn't see it.
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;___; Depressing.
 
Jake knew this all along.

This is clearly the face of an evil megalomaniacal genius:

N55K4.jpg
 
Ninja Scooter said:
Arnold would ruin Avatar 2. He's too recognizable and has become his own character. It's the Samuel L. Jackson effect.
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Not if he gets shoved into a Na'vi body!

But yeah, !!!!111
 
Schwarzenegger for the villain is dream casting. How else do you top Stephen Lang for a bad ass in a James Cameron movie? You send the Austrian Oak. And I agree, Sculli; Michael Biehn needs to show up at some point. I miss seeing the man in awesome movies.

Hell, make Avatar 2 and 3 the James Cameron regulars circle jerk movie. Arnold, Biehn, and Paxton.
 
well fuck me, if Ahnold gets cast as villain, then this might do twice as much as the first one.
 
Scullibundo said:
So remember how Cameron had just left for Brazil with Arnold?

http://www.hollywoodnews.com/2011/03/26/james-cameron-looks-to-brazil-for-avatar-inspiration/


!!!!111
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“Actors could learn about the natives and what real life in the jungle is like,” Cameron said, while speaking at the second International Forum on Sustainability. Organized by Brazilian company SEMINARS and promoted by LIDE, the seminar also features presentations by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton confirmed for Avatar 2!!1

In all seriousness, I doubt Arnold was in Brazil for anything other than the seminar (and to chill with Cameron in the rain forest). In fact Cameron hinted as much on his twitter:

I know you're always ready for an adventure, anytime anywhere. And this was for a good cause RT @Schwarzenegger: Landing on the Xingu River
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FUCK ME

I'm watching this on a new samsung led i bought today and well, like i said fuck me, most amazing piece of image magic i've seen.
 
alterno69 said:
FUCK ME

I'm watching this on a new samsung led i bought today and well, like i said fuck me, most amazing piece of image magic i've seen.
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I just finished watching it in 3d and it was just as awesome as in the movies. I don't care what people say. Sure the story isn't anything amazing. The whole thing was put together so damn well though.
 
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/25/james-cameron-picks-up-50-red-epic-ms-high-fives-peter-jackson/

Looks like another director's been on a shopping spree lately, as RED's Jim Jannard's just announced that he sold another 50 EPIC-Ms to one generous customer. Who's this, you ask? Why, it's James Cameron of Avatar and Titanic fame, and he's probably just blown $2.9 million on his latest stash of cinematographic toys -- it's $58,000 a pop for these hand-machined professional cameras. Details are scarce at the moment, but any educated guess would point at the upcoming Avatar 2 due end of 2014, meaning our favorite blue aliens will be returning in a healthy 5K resolution.
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Boom. Because PJ's 30 aint gonna cut it.

Also Ghaleon, I got banned for pointing out that news had already been discussed in an official thread. I almost made a new thread for this news but didn't want to draw the ire of GAF members complaining about Cameron/Avatar threads and going through the fun balancing act of old.
 
Nice video. Nice to see Cameron rolling with a joke.

And I just realized that this thread only needs about 2300 more posts to approach closing time due to so many posts.
 
Scullibundo said:
Take with a massive grain of salt because its MarketSaw, but apparently Cameron and Landau just booked studio floors for the sequels down in New Zealand whilst visiting the set of The Hobbit.

http://marketsaw.blogspot.com/2011/05/exclusive-cameron-and-landau-visit.html
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It'd make sense for him to want to continue shooting the LA parts in NZ, due to the close proximity to Weta Digital. Also, he's gone on record saying the sets and props built by Weta Workshop were some of the best he's ever worked with.

Either way, yeah its marketsaw, but its not exactly a reach to assume that it is what he is doing.
 
I don't think I want quaritch to come back. I don't think I want the Avatar sequels to have much to do with the first one. The fewer recurring plot threads, the better, IMO. Remember Jake is a part of a different world now. I hope if humans are involved they are treated like horrible disgusting enemies, with no attempt to justify their actions.
 
The only way hes going to reappear in the movie, is if there is some kind of flashback of some sort.

Lang probably knows he's not in it, he's just riding that train for as long as he can, lol
 
LOL I don't think Quaritch is actually coming back. Cameron is still writing the script anyhow.

I'm hoping that Cameron goes a lot further with exploring his universe - which I'm pretty confident about after his comments on the direction of the sequels. I am hoping that Norm gets wasted pretty early on though.
 
Aww, I like norm!
It is a problem he is avatarless, though. I expect he will be relegated to a few scenes behind the computer and nothing more. I am pumped to see the oceans and moons of pandoras, and go into the anthropology of other tribes on pandora. Jesus, the sequels are going to be out of this fucking world. I bet something similar to the dreamhunt will make it in. Maybe jake confronts eywa again and is taken on some mindblowing 3d spiritual journey head exploding special effects tour.
 
He spent the entirety of march writing, not to mention he probably has loads of notes dating back to pre-production. I doubt the script for 2 will be finished until the end of the year.

Its amusing, when Avatar 2 comes out, it will actually be the first fully new script that Cameron will have written and produced in nearly 20 years

Jtwo said:
Aww, I like norm!
It is a problem he is avatarless, though. I expect he will be relegated to a few scenes behind the computer and nothing more. I am pumped to see the oceans and moons of pandoras, and go into the anthropology of other tribes on pandora. Jesus, the sequels are going to be out of this fucking world. I bet something similar to the dreamhunt will make it in. Maybe jake confronts eywa again and is taken on some mindblowing 3d spiritual journey head exploding special effects tour.
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Im still pissed the Dreamhunt didn't make it in, especially since finding out it supposedly pretty accurately re-creates south american native psychadelic experiences and wasn't pulled out of JCs ass.
 
Yep Dreamhunt was easily the biggest loss.

The humans will be back. I'm really really fucking hoping that there is still a huge focus on human tech. The vehicles and HUDs and gun porn gave me an absolutely chubby in the first film.

I want to see what technology the humans couldn't take to Pandora because of the flux vortex.
 
Dead said:
Id rather see JCs take on Alien tech, assuming he has plans for a new race in the 2nd or 3rd
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Depends. I'm not sure if I could suspend my disbelief if another sentient race just happens to exist on one of the neighboring moons. But then again, Cameron said the Na'vi look human for a reason that would be revealed in sequels, so if it is something that is designed and would make sense, then I'd be all for it.
 
some of the most interesting shit ive ever read about avatar was about the first trials of the link process

it might have been in the scriptment, or in a magazine or something, it was talking about they used deathrow inmates as the first vehicles and all this crazy shit. thats how theyd practice the link process.
 
Scullibundo said:
Depends. I'm not sure if I could suspend my disbelief if another sentient race just happens to exist on one of the neighboring moons. But then again, Cameron said the Na'vi look human for a reason that would be revealed in sequels, so if it is something that is designed and would make sense, then I'd be all for it.
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Eywa is actually skynet, Pandora is earth, Alpha Centauri is our Galaxy after a billion years
 
So that other ridiculous thread got me on an Avatar kick and I started reading Pandorapedia's ISV entries and thought the wording of this snippet was encouraging.

As with the other ships of the “Capital Star” class, it was designed to carry a large payload of cargo and passengers to the worlds of the Alpha Centauri star system, especially the rich world of Pandora
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That pretty much implies that humans have already sent cargo - however small the payloads have been, to other worlds within the Alpha Centurai system.
 
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...in-his-excitement-as-he-strides-into-a-4.html
6a00d8341c630a53ef01543283b090970c-500wi


Over the din of buzz saws and beeping forklifts, producer Jon Landau can barely contain his excitement as he strides into a 45-foot-tall sound stage that is barren except for workers building sets for a commercial shoot.

“We’re taking over these two buildings here. We'll have 200-plus people working down here. This is going to be the heart of the next two `Avatars’,” he beams, referring to the planned sequels to the highest grossing film of all time.
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“We had a choice,” Landau said. “We could have been anywhere. When it came down to it, we looked at what they had to offer and it was almost the perfect production paradigm: with big soundstages, adjacent office space and dressing rooms and state-of-the-art infrastructure.”

Lightstorm recently signed a five-year lease to occupy 115,000-square-feet of soundstage and production office space at the studio, owned by private global investment firm Carlyle Group and operated by Hollywood-based Raleigh Studios, which also manages studios in Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia and Hungary.
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Additionally, Carlyle and Lightstorm will invest more than $5 million in improvements, including adding two gyms, one for employees and a private one for Cameron; a commissary adjacent to the sound stages; and a private screening room for Cameron. Solar panels will be installed to provide all the electricity needed for the “Avatar” films, which are expected to begin production next summer.

Two of the stages will be used to create a virtual stage where dozens of small cameras capture the movements of actors wearing special body suits as they run through their scenes with mock-up props that simulate actual objects. The data are stored on computers and manipulated by a team of visual effects artists, who will be able to observe the action through windows installed between the sound stages and offices.

“For the last film, our art department was in Santa Monica, our editors were in Malibu, our production team was in Playa Vista," Landau said. “Here, everything is going to be in one area, and we’re all going to be together.”
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