FA+
Shop
3371
Views
Views
42
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Story / Comics
Species Western Dragon
Size 556 x 1280
File Size 143.9 kB
Report this content
★
More from Unktehila
Treknified story w/Happy Mother's Day Eywa! by BGN
AUP: I have permission from 
bgn to repost his original [Happy Mother's Day Eywa!] image with the story text below. The story appeared in my Journal [Treknified]. It is just joined together for posterity... plus any edits I do will be here.
*Bzzzzzzzp* (As the transporter resolves the body of a Na'Vi that falls with a loud THUD to the transporter pad, stunned but alive, arms and legs akimbo. Captain Kathryn Janeway and the EMH look on at the strange creature.)
"He that seems to be the focus of their cronoton displacement anomaly," Seven of Nine announces, running a Tricorder over the stunned alien. "I have alerted all Starfleet and subspace to evacuate the immediate area for we may have to engage a reverse cronoton field, which may alter the space/time continuum in the immediate area. Already we may have had ship and crew alterations we're unaware of. If anything or anyone should accident across our reverse flexure when we engage, it could have catastrophic effects for the entire Universe!"
"You certain this will be our only option... and this creature holds the key?"
"No doubt, Captain."
Captain's Log, Old Earth Calendar Year 2020.5.10: We have approached Pandora, a planet 4 light-years distant from Earth, but it is in the 21st Century in a timeline that does not fit with our space-time continuum. This planet contains a mineral that superconducts naturally, which they call "Unobtainium," a very disingenious name, not at all understanding the bio-ethereal-mimetic properties it contains, nor the psychic energy stores within that provide it with the anti-grav properties. This 21st Century science is pre-contact, and therefore ignorant of the Vulcan, Andorian, Ferengi, Klingon, Warp theory, repulsor, impulse stabilizer, even inertial dampener technology and field theories, to say nothing of Cochran engines and Antimatter containment and safe energy use. There are tens of thousands of technological developments any Starfleet cadet knows that would explain what they guess are simple elemental or superconductive properties of Unobtainium, and I can't tell them a thing about it. In fact, I the less I say to them, the better.
(Insert Voyager Title)
Awiehwaahhhh...! *Jakesulee gasps*
"Doctor, quick! That creature is dying!"
"You could be more useful if you'd hand me the resperatory scanner - no, the cone shaped one - yes... *worrworrworr* hm! This creature has humanoid lungs and hybrid DNA but can only metabolize methanous mixture of 19.7% and hrydrolized bromine of 1.1%..." *presses buttons on hypo, loads it with a blue ampule and it hisses*
*HACK GASP cough choke* "Wh--"
"Take it easy, son. You nearly died in a fall," the EMH admonishes the tall blue creature as he sits up and gains his composure, still on the transporter pad floor.
"Who are you?"
"I am Captain Janeway, and this is my Chief Medical officer - you can just call him the Doctor."
"Hello," the EMH said, still holding a flashing medical scanner near to the blue creature's face, which he waved away like a gnat.
"How did I get here?," he said, starting to get up and nearly bumping his head on the low (to him) ceiling, causing him to stoop over.
"We were able to 'net' you before the impact and bring you here, where on this ship we could make sure you weren't in need of better care."
"This is a strange looking medical bay," Jake commented, suspiciously.
"Oh, it's not," the Doctor quickly responded, too proud to prop up Janeway's facade, to her chagrin. "You're in normal atmosphere."
"WHAT!?" Jake yelled, panicked.
"We'll get you breathing apparatus until things are sorted out. You're in no immediate danger for the time being," The Doctor assured him, as they exited the small room on their way to Jake did not know where...
(Commercial break)
Medical log: Old Earth Calendar Date: "Computer, please fill in appropriate relevant date reference..." (computer voice)'The Date in Old Earth Calendar reference correlated to this space/time is 2010 May 10th 1830 hours.' We have adapted the headdress of the alien hybrid Jakesulee with appropriate air filtration and misting adapters, not unlike what Benzites require to function in our atmosphere, but a lot less obtrusive. It should operate indefinitely, taking trickle charge from movement, ambient temperature, body heat, and so forth. Rather another shining example of medical genius on my part...
(The medical bay door opens, in walks Captain Janeway)
"I hear you've been set up with freedom to move about in either atmosphere unhindered."
"Yes, thanks to the Doc here," Jake says with a firm slap to the shoulder, knocking the EMH against his tray of instruments, dashing him and his equipment to the floor, obviously cowed.
Janeway chuckles with Jake at the Doctor's expense. "Don't worry about him, he's a hologram, they don't feel pain. Well, humiliation, but it was an honest mistake - you're not accustomed to being around small beings like us are you?"
(The Doctor looks on as they converse, pulling back a corner of his mouth at being reminded of holographic differences with biologics, and also feeling as if humiliation isn't as important to holograms as it is to biological people. He quietly puts his instruments away as he listens to the two converse.)
"Well, I don't know why you haven't heard of the Avatar program, but I'm a--"
"Captain, wait!"
The doctor hands Janeway a PADD with the Avatar data files pertinent to the current spacial flexure. "This was one of the ancillary possibilities you asked me to study up on should indiginous life forms develop according to certain probabilistic patterns. I, being of holographic capabilities, was able to study the 1,677,418 combinations computationally derived by frellenger's hypothesis of time flexure distortion."
"I'll take your word for it, Doctor," Janeway waves a hand at him while reading the PADD. "Oh, yes. Forgive my ignorance! I'm with a very different group as you can imagine, and as part of the military, we're a bit strict with security I hope you know. Anyhow, I do have clearance to give you more data on our situation, but for now could I perhaps show you some accommodations, maybe where you could have a rest?
"What I'd really like is to find Natiri, and to see if everyone else is safe, get back to Enya..."
Janeway types on her PADD. "Oh, I see. Yes. And Natiri, is she your mate...?"
Jake nods.
"I understand. We are not your captors; we do not intend to harm you or your people. If you wish to return to them, can we at least assist you in finding them?"
"No thanks. I know my way around Pandora. I can survive there plenty well by myself."
"Well, Jakesulee, I suggest I put it to you this way--" they both finish walking the corridor to his room, and the doors open, showing a vista of Pandora in outer space.
""--it's sort of a long way down."
(Commercial break)
(Jake fiddles with buttons on upright console, almost looking familiar with the LCARS layout, diving down a few menus until he finds a button that makes the computer voice start interacting with him.)
"Personal log entries. You have no personal entries recorded. Do you wish to record an entry?"
"Um, are these logs some sort of audio-visual record?" Jake asked, looking around for a camera.
"Affirmative. Seat yourself in front of your personal terminal and state when to begin and end recording."
Jake looks around the room, finding the black laptop-like device on a desk, and sits in front of it. "Begin recording. (Computer beeps appropriately.) Um, this is Jake Sully, I'm on some alien starship, they appear to be human but can't have the technology to have come here so quickly nor build a ship this large and comfortable with windows to space that don't leak heat or atmosphere -- there's so many unanswered questions, but I know I'm in danger here and the best thing for me is to get off this ship as soon as possible. I don't know if I should trust making recordings like this on their own equipment, but if this should survive me and other humans discover this, maybe it will help tell-- (interrupted by door chime) what is that?"
(Computer voice) Security Officer Worf is at your door. Shall I suspend recording?
"Yes. And allow him in."
As Worf walks in, Jake takes an defensive posture, jumping back atop the couch and crossing his arms.
Worf frowns and growls. "Jakesulee, I was sent here to escort you to astrometrics. I am not here to harm you."
"What ARE you?"
Worf works his jaw, then squares his body proudly. "I am a Klingon. Worf, Son of Maug. Now please may we head to astrometrics? They are waiting for us."
"I see your markings and regalia show you are of a warrior clan," Worf mentions during their walk through the corridors. "Klingons are also a Warrior race."
Jake looks down at Worf and gives a nod and half-smile. Fortunately, with his long stride, the walk doesn't take so long. Soon they enter the doors to find a nice looking female -- at least until she turned around. What's that on her face and neck?
"I see you notice my implants. I am Borg. I am part cybernetic and part organic. Whereas you were once a hybrid, genetically-engineered organism remotely piloted by a human using technology to integrate you together, I am both the person and the machine in one. Would you say we're not so much unalike?" Seven of Nine asks Jake, with her classic upturned eyebrow.
"Well, uh--" Jake is tongue-tied at Seven's cutting grasp of his essence and as well the mental pictures of a fully realized cyborg. Seven doesn't let him say much afterward.
"To the matter at hand, we acquired you at a coordinate approximately here on Pandora. (Frontscreen projection zooms in showing Banshee Cliffs, nearing the deadfall.) Primary lifeform concentrations we seem to find here. (Console graphic showing target that she touches, magnifies, displaying many lifeform dots, clustered and moving, like a colony.)"
"Yes! That's Eywa! Hometree! I need to get back to them! Please!" Jake grasps one of Seven's arms.
Seven simply looks at his large hand completely wrapped around her arm, then up at Jake. He releases his grasp slowly, ears folding a bit, cowed.
"Of course. Please let Lieutenant Worf take you to the Transporter Room and we'll send you immediately."
The Astrometrics doors shut and Seven signals the Bridge. "Captain, he's on his way."
"Are you ready to engage the reverse cronoton beam and open the spacial flexure?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Synchronize with Transporter Control and divert warp power on my mark."
"Transporter Room - Energizing."
"Engage!"
The Voyager's engines thob and thrum and along with the transporter beam comes a wavy, optical effect like water ripples over the beam. Then the beam seems to draw back into the ship. Then the ripples radiate over the planet, spilling outward and shimmering. Then the people at Hometree start running fast forward then fast backward then stuttering, like a movie off its sprockets.
"Seven here. Cronoton effect only partially effective. Flexure has not opened."
"Emergency warp, auxiliary and life support - give it all we've got!"
Then like insufficient annular confinement, the Hometree and people start sparkling into half-resolution, stuttering backward... then a brilliant, eye-blinding flare... pull back to planet view, the flare radiates outward, growing in intensity and size, eventually covering the entire planet and ship.
(Commercial break)
"Captain's Log, Stardate 80410.7: We've restored the timeline apparently. All ship's complement and crew seem to match transporter buffer and our memory, as well as the Doctor's, so as best we can tell, things are back to normal. We do have records of this "Pandora," but only as a fictional piece from the 21st Century. We also believe we sent our hapless visitor back to where he belonged - DNA records match him with the 21st Century actor Kevin Costner, and he was supposed to be playing the title role in the film, 'Dances With Wolves.'
"After viewing both of these works, I find them ironically similar. A person thrust out of conventional society into a more aboriginal, tribal culture, deciding instead to become one of them - going through initiation rites and so forth. I feel I've done the Universe a great right by returning Kevin to where he belongs.
"But somehow, it seems to me that Q or some other pesky being had their hand in making the poor imitation called Avatar. Janeway out."
(End credits)
All characters used in parodic manner.
bgn to repost his original [Happy Mother's Day Eywa!] image with the story text below. The story appeared in my Journal [Treknified]. It is just joined together for posterity... plus any edits I do will be here. [TREKNIFIED]
By Bear-Paws (RB Helms)*Bzzzzzzzp* (As the transporter resolves the body of a Na'Vi that falls with a loud THUD to the transporter pad, stunned but alive, arms and legs akimbo. Captain Kathryn Janeway and the EMH look on at the strange creature.)
"He that seems to be the focus of their cronoton displacement anomaly," Seven of Nine announces, running a Tricorder over the stunned alien. "I have alerted all Starfleet and subspace to evacuate the immediate area for we may have to engage a reverse cronoton field, which may alter the space/time continuum in the immediate area. Already we may have had ship and crew alterations we're unaware of. If anything or anyone should accident across our reverse flexure when we engage, it could have catastrophic effects for the entire Universe!"
"You certain this will be our only option... and this creature holds the key?"
"No doubt, Captain."
Captain's Log, Old Earth Calendar Year 2020.5.10: We have approached Pandora, a planet 4 light-years distant from Earth, but it is in the 21st Century in a timeline that does not fit with our space-time continuum. This planet contains a mineral that superconducts naturally, which they call "Unobtainium," a very disingenious name, not at all understanding the bio-ethereal-mimetic properties it contains, nor the psychic energy stores within that provide it with the anti-grav properties. This 21st Century science is pre-contact, and therefore ignorant of the Vulcan, Andorian, Ferengi, Klingon, Warp theory, repulsor, impulse stabilizer, even inertial dampener technology and field theories, to say nothing of Cochran engines and Antimatter containment and safe energy use. There are tens of thousands of technological developments any Starfleet cadet knows that would explain what they guess are simple elemental or superconductive properties of Unobtainium, and I can't tell them a thing about it. In fact, I the less I say to them, the better.
(Insert Voyager Title)
Awiehwaahhhh...! *Jakesulee gasps*
"Doctor, quick! That creature is dying!"
"You could be more useful if you'd hand me the resperatory scanner - no, the cone shaped one - yes... *worrworrworr* hm! This creature has humanoid lungs and hybrid DNA but can only metabolize methanous mixture of 19.7% and hrydrolized bromine of 1.1%..." *presses buttons on hypo, loads it with a blue ampule and it hisses*
*HACK GASP cough choke* "Wh--"
"Take it easy, son. You nearly died in a fall," the EMH admonishes the tall blue creature as he sits up and gains his composure, still on the transporter pad floor.
"Who are you?"
"I am Captain Janeway, and this is my Chief Medical officer - you can just call him the Doctor."
"Hello," the EMH said, still holding a flashing medical scanner near to the blue creature's face, which he waved away like a gnat.
"How did I get here?," he said, starting to get up and nearly bumping his head on the low (to him) ceiling, causing him to stoop over.
"We were able to 'net' you before the impact and bring you here, where on this ship we could make sure you weren't in need of better care."
"This is a strange looking medical bay," Jake commented, suspiciously.
"Oh, it's not," the Doctor quickly responded, too proud to prop up Janeway's facade, to her chagrin. "You're in normal atmosphere."
"WHAT!?" Jake yelled, panicked.
"We'll get you breathing apparatus until things are sorted out. You're in no immediate danger for the time being," The Doctor assured him, as they exited the small room on their way to Jake did not know where...
(Commercial break)
Medical log: Old Earth Calendar Date: "Computer, please fill in appropriate relevant date reference..." (computer voice)'The Date in Old Earth Calendar reference correlated to this space/time is 2010 May 10th 1830 hours.' We have adapted the headdress of the alien hybrid Jakesulee with appropriate air filtration and misting adapters, not unlike what Benzites require to function in our atmosphere, but a lot less obtrusive. It should operate indefinitely, taking trickle charge from movement, ambient temperature, body heat, and so forth. Rather another shining example of medical genius on my part...
(The medical bay door opens, in walks Captain Janeway)
"I hear you've been set up with freedom to move about in either atmosphere unhindered."
"Yes, thanks to the Doc here," Jake says with a firm slap to the shoulder, knocking the EMH against his tray of instruments, dashing him and his equipment to the floor, obviously cowed.
Janeway chuckles with Jake at the Doctor's expense. "Don't worry about him, he's a hologram, they don't feel pain. Well, humiliation, but it was an honest mistake - you're not accustomed to being around small beings like us are you?"
(The Doctor looks on as they converse, pulling back a corner of his mouth at being reminded of holographic differences with biologics, and also feeling as if humiliation isn't as important to holograms as it is to biological people. He quietly puts his instruments away as he listens to the two converse.)
"Well, I don't know why you haven't heard of the Avatar program, but I'm a--"
"Captain, wait!"
The doctor hands Janeway a PADD with the Avatar data files pertinent to the current spacial flexure. "This was one of the ancillary possibilities you asked me to study up on should indiginous life forms develop according to certain probabilistic patterns. I, being of holographic capabilities, was able to study the 1,677,418 combinations computationally derived by frellenger's hypothesis of time flexure distortion."
"I'll take your word for it, Doctor," Janeway waves a hand at him while reading the PADD. "Oh, yes. Forgive my ignorance! I'm with a very different group as you can imagine, and as part of the military, we're a bit strict with security I hope you know. Anyhow, I do have clearance to give you more data on our situation, but for now could I perhaps show you some accommodations, maybe where you could have a rest?
"What I'd really like is to find Natiri, and to see if everyone else is safe, get back to Enya..."
Janeway types on her PADD. "Oh, I see. Yes. And Natiri, is she your mate...?"
Jake nods.
"I understand. We are not your captors; we do not intend to harm you or your people. If you wish to return to them, can we at least assist you in finding them?"
"No thanks. I know my way around Pandora. I can survive there plenty well by myself."
"Well, Jakesulee, I suggest I put it to you this way--" they both finish walking the corridor to his room, and the doors open, showing a vista of Pandora in outer space.
""--it's sort of a long way down."
(Commercial break)
(Jake fiddles with buttons on upright console, almost looking familiar with the LCARS layout, diving down a few menus until he finds a button that makes the computer voice start interacting with him.)
"Personal log entries. You have no personal entries recorded. Do you wish to record an entry?"
"Um, are these logs some sort of audio-visual record?" Jake asked, looking around for a camera.
"Affirmative. Seat yourself in front of your personal terminal and state when to begin and end recording."
Jake looks around the room, finding the black laptop-like device on a desk, and sits in front of it. "Begin recording. (Computer beeps appropriately.) Um, this is Jake Sully, I'm on some alien starship, they appear to be human but can't have the technology to have come here so quickly nor build a ship this large and comfortable with windows to space that don't leak heat or atmosphere -- there's so many unanswered questions, but I know I'm in danger here and the best thing for me is to get off this ship as soon as possible. I don't know if I should trust making recordings like this on their own equipment, but if this should survive me and other humans discover this, maybe it will help tell-- (interrupted by door chime) what is that?"
(Computer voice) Security Officer Worf is at your door. Shall I suspend recording?
"Yes. And allow him in."
As Worf walks in, Jake takes an defensive posture, jumping back atop the couch and crossing his arms.
Worf frowns and growls. "Jakesulee, I was sent here to escort you to astrometrics. I am not here to harm you."
"What ARE you?"
Worf works his jaw, then squares his body proudly. "I am a Klingon. Worf, Son of Maug. Now please may we head to astrometrics? They are waiting for us."
"I see your markings and regalia show you are of a warrior clan," Worf mentions during their walk through the corridors. "Klingons are also a Warrior race."
Jake looks down at Worf and gives a nod and half-smile. Fortunately, with his long stride, the walk doesn't take so long. Soon they enter the doors to find a nice looking female -- at least until she turned around. What's that on her face and neck?
"I see you notice my implants. I am Borg. I am part cybernetic and part organic. Whereas you were once a hybrid, genetically-engineered organism remotely piloted by a human using technology to integrate you together, I am both the person and the machine in one. Would you say we're not so much unalike?" Seven of Nine asks Jake, with her classic upturned eyebrow.
"Well, uh--" Jake is tongue-tied at Seven's cutting grasp of his essence and as well the mental pictures of a fully realized cyborg. Seven doesn't let him say much afterward.
"To the matter at hand, we acquired you at a coordinate approximately here on Pandora. (Frontscreen projection zooms in showing Banshee Cliffs, nearing the deadfall.) Primary lifeform concentrations we seem to find here. (Console graphic showing target that she touches, magnifies, displaying many lifeform dots, clustered and moving, like a colony.)"
"Yes! That's Eywa! Hometree! I need to get back to them! Please!" Jake grasps one of Seven's arms.
Seven simply looks at his large hand completely wrapped around her arm, then up at Jake. He releases his grasp slowly, ears folding a bit, cowed.
"Of course. Please let Lieutenant Worf take you to the Transporter Room and we'll send you immediately."
The Astrometrics doors shut and Seven signals the Bridge. "Captain, he's on his way."
"Are you ready to engage the reverse cronoton beam and open the spacial flexure?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Synchronize with Transporter Control and divert warp power on my mark."
"Transporter Room - Energizing."
"Engage!"
The Voyager's engines thob and thrum and along with the transporter beam comes a wavy, optical effect like water ripples over the beam. Then the beam seems to draw back into the ship. Then the ripples radiate over the planet, spilling outward and shimmering. Then the people at Hometree start running fast forward then fast backward then stuttering, like a movie off its sprockets.
"Seven here. Cronoton effect only partially effective. Flexure has not opened."
"Emergency warp, auxiliary and life support - give it all we've got!"
Then like insufficient annular confinement, the Hometree and people start sparkling into half-resolution, stuttering backward... then a brilliant, eye-blinding flare... pull back to planet view, the flare radiates outward, growing in intensity and size, eventually covering the entire planet and ship.
(Commercial break)
"Captain's Log, Stardate 80410.7: We've restored the timeline apparently. All ship's complement and crew seem to match transporter buffer and our memory, as well as the Doctor's, so as best we can tell, things are back to normal. We do have records of this "Pandora," but only as a fictional piece from the 21st Century. We also believe we sent our hapless visitor back to where he belonged - DNA records match him with the 21st Century actor Kevin Costner, and he was supposed to be playing the title role in the film, 'Dances With Wolves.'
"After viewing both of these works, I find them ironically similar. A person thrust out of conventional society into a more aboriginal, tribal culture, deciding instead to become one of them - going through initiation rites and so forth. I feel I've done the Universe a great right by returning Kevin to where he belongs.
"But somehow, it seems to me that Q or some other pesky being had their hand in making the poor imitation called Avatar. Janeway out."
(End credits)
All characters used in parodic manner.
Category Story / Comics
Species Western Dragon
Size 556 x 1280px
File Size 143.9 kB
I've seen both and do appreciate them.
Just because Gone With the Wind and Casablanca have already been made, doesn't mean other filmmakers should give up on making films in those genres (because they can't be out-done), or shouldn't attempt remakes for the same reason.
Poor copies and ill-designed films are the art process. We have to strive, for it's that or stagnation. We'll never know if it's possible to make a film better than Dances With Wolves, Princess Mononoke, Casablanca, Titanic, Star Wars ep V, et al., unless we keep trying.
It is the flops we learn the most from by analyzing them in film school. So they are very necessary, unfortunately the public and movie studios pay dearly for them - sometimes more than it would take to feed the hungry in Africa for a year. For any given flop.
I often wonder what will endure after the human race is extinct, and I think it probably will be our artifacts. And of them, some will be those like of ancient civilizations we excavate - showing monuments and ornamentation. In other words, artful artifacts.
I just hope what doesn't endure is just the FA server and the DVD section of a porno shop. Then posterity will not serve us well. Serve us right perhaps, but not well.
Just because Gone With the Wind and Casablanca have already been made, doesn't mean other filmmakers should give up on making films in those genres (because they can't be out-done), or shouldn't attempt remakes for the same reason.
Poor copies and ill-designed films are the art process. We have to strive, for it's that or stagnation. We'll never know if it's possible to make a film better than Dances With Wolves, Princess Mononoke, Casablanca, Titanic, Star Wars ep V, et al., unless we keep trying.
It is the flops we learn the most from by analyzing them in film school. So they are very necessary, unfortunately the public and movie studios pay dearly for them - sometimes more than it would take to feed the hungry in Africa for a year. For any given flop.
I often wonder what will endure after the human race is extinct, and I think it probably will be our artifacts. And of them, some will be those like of ancient civilizations we excavate - showing monuments and ornamentation. In other words, artful artifacts.
I just hope what doesn't endure is just the FA server and the DVD section of a porno shop. Then posterity will not serve us well. Serve us right perhaps, but not well.
Well, we have the musical "The Wiz," which has its own merits. There are some remakes and derivatives which don't replace a film, but are a homage. Sometimes homages fail, too. But Hollywood and filmmaking is really the realm of dream-making, and dreams don't have an envelope.
If unobtanium were a metal that was just the right therapy for curing all forms of diabetes, yes this could've been more of a humanitarian mission, but like Star Wars, this had to be black-and-white, just as cowboys-and-Indians have had to be stories in these shades, even with Dances With Wolves. (Kevin Costner was ceremoniously made an honorary member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe some months after release.)
Dances with Wolves was not particularly fair or honest to the white man or settlers of the Civil War era, so it represents sort of a flip bias which cannot undo decades of Hollywood stereotype. I guess the AMC series "Hell On Wheels" represents a closer portrait of those times - and they too are using Native Americans in their proper racial roles, instead of Hispanics or other races.
Avatar at least apologizes for what hasn't happened elsewhen in history - when something valuable (say gold) is discovered in treaty lands, man has flooded in, broken the law en masse to the point where a majority of the militia cannot control civil disobedience. (Case in point: the unlawful occupation of the Black Hills of South Dakota, a territory whose maps on file clearly show its ownership by the Lakota Sioux, but once prospectors squatted on the land with claim stakes, they refused to leave, and again once homes built, the situation worsened more and more. The US government has attempted to buy the land at the original $3M asking price adjusted for inflation and given annual percentage rate compound interest, some billions - but the poorest tribe in America feels the land is sacred, and would rather it be unoccupied).
Asking for $3M in post-civil war era would've been asking for the whole of the treasury. Of course, they knew they'd be declined. They thought asking for this would've meant they could force eviction. There were attempts, but after finding too many of the armed forces put to futile use, they were recalled. Maps were redrawn without consent, redefining territories. Problem solved. And the Homestake mine in South Dakota's Black Hills is the most productive gold mine on earth. It alone could've paid the Indians. $3Bbn or so taken out thus far, and no sign of being petered out yet. When you hear of "Black Hills gold," it likely is from this illegally occupied land.
But if history teaches us anything, it's that territory is a function much like king-of-the-hill. Lines on the map get redrawn by whomever pushes whom off the hill. Since the Black Hills settlers have pushed off Indians for these 150-odd years, they are indeed the current kings of Paha Sapa, as the Lakota call them.
So now we have this survivor's guilt, about having all our gold and other riches, fertile land and easy living (and space travel) thanks to our pushing the savage out of our way and trampling on their way of life, disrespecting their beliefs, language, heritage, elders, sacred places, connection to the land, respect for nature and wild animals. We've corrupted, polluted, plowed over, paved under, plundered, killed, murdered, commercialized, domesticated, erased and raped all these things in the name of civilization and only now have we invented softer sciences like anthropology that decries all that we've done in the name of progress.
The two words that convinced us we were right, the evil phrase that aligned hearts and minds toward this purpose was "manifest destiny." people at the time were convinced that progress, expansion, construction, building towns and civilization, creating railroads, clear-cutting forests, taming (or extinguishing) savages, bringing them to Christianity and the English language, eliminating all wild remnants from them, their beliefs and language and practices, were all necessary to build a nation. One whose visionaries had planned and now it was every pioneer's duty to carry out.
Those Indians that would remain true to their heritage would be put in concentration camps, err reservations - and had none of them been close to settlements, we'd not have had incidents like the Wounded Knee massacre, which just was fomented by nervous citizens misunderstanding a loud, all day and night ceremonial "Ghost Dance" meant to reunite participants with their ancestors. It worked all too well.
Truth is, few of us would carry out the necessary acts of violence, war, environmental and emotional destruction that it takes to improve the lot of a nation, or (unfortunately) certain financial interests that control a country's economy. I can only recommend one take a lesson from the country that survived the brunt of the worst act of war in human history - Japan - and consider citizenship or at least taking lessons from a country that refuses to any longer express itself in acts of war. Why can't other countries follow its example? Economics can't be an excuse - look at the continued prosperity of this island nation despite the tsunami.
Dances with Wolves was not particularly fair or honest to the white man or settlers of the Civil War era, so it represents sort of a flip bias which cannot undo decades of Hollywood stereotype. I guess the AMC series "Hell On Wheels" represents a closer portrait of those times - and they too are using Native Americans in their proper racial roles, instead of Hispanics or other races.
Avatar at least apologizes for what hasn't happened elsewhen in history - when something valuable (say gold) is discovered in treaty lands, man has flooded in, broken the law en masse to the point where a majority of the militia cannot control civil disobedience. (Case in point: the unlawful occupation of the Black Hills of South Dakota, a territory whose maps on file clearly show its ownership by the Lakota Sioux, but once prospectors squatted on the land with claim stakes, they refused to leave, and again once homes built, the situation worsened more and more. The US government has attempted to buy the land at the original $3M asking price adjusted for inflation and given annual percentage rate compound interest, some billions - but the poorest tribe in America feels the land is sacred, and would rather it be unoccupied).
Asking for $3M in post-civil war era would've been asking for the whole of the treasury. Of course, they knew they'd be declined. They thought asking for this would've meant they could force eviction. There were attempts, but after finding too many of the armed forces put to futile use, they were recalled. Maps were redrawn without consent, redefining territories. Problem solved. And the Homestake mine in South Dakota's Black Hills is the most productive gold mine on earth. It alone could've paid the Indians. $3Bbn or so taken out thus far, and no sign of being petered out yet. When you hear of "Black Hills gold," it likely is from this illegally occupied land.
But if history teaches us anything, it's that territory is a function much like king-of-the-hill. Lines on the map get redrawn by whomever pushes whom off the hill. Since the Black Hills settlers have pushed off Indians for these 150-odd years, they are indeed the current kings of Paha Sapa, as the Lakota call them.
So now we have this survivor's guilt, about having all our gold and other riches, fertile land and easy living (and space travel) thanks to our pushing the savage out of our way and trampling on their way of life, disrespecting their beliefs, language, heritage, elders, sacred places, connection to the land, respect for nature and wild animals. We've corrupted, polluted, plowed over, paved under, plundered, killed, murdered, commercialized, domesticated, erased and raped all these things in the name of civilization and only now have we invented softer sciences like anthropology that decries all that we've done in the name of progress.
The two words that convinced us we were right, the evil phrase that aligned hearts and minds toward this purpose was "manifest destiny." people at the time were convinced that progress, expansion, construction, building towns and civilization, creating railroads, clear-cutting forests, taming (or extinguishing) savages, bringing them to Christianity and the English language, eliminating all wild remnants from them, their beliefs and language and practices, were all necessary to build a nation. One whose visionaries had planned and now it was every pioneer's duty to carry out.
Those Indians that would remain true to their heritage would be put in concentration camps, err reservations - and had none of them been close to settlements, we'd not have had incidents like the Wounded Knee massacre, which just was fomented by nervous citizens misunderstanding a loud, all day and night ceremonial "Ghost Dance" meant to reunite participants with their ancestors. It worked all too well.
Truth is, few of us would carry out the necessary acts of violence, war, environmental and emotional destruction that it takes to improve the lot of a nation, or (unfortunately) certain financial interests that control a country's economy. I can only recommend one take a lesson from the country that survived the brunt of the worst act of war in human history - Japan - and consider citizenship or at least taking lessons from a country that refuses to any longer express itself in acts of war. Why can't other countries follow its example? Economics can't be an excuse - look at the continued prosperity of this island nation despite the tsunami.
This is where they get vague enough that the fantasy of one viewer can apologize for the inadequacies you mention.
The World Tree is an interface to a living organism which is Pandora. The afterlife for Na'vi (and likely many of its lower lifeforms) is to dissipate into the underground network that is so interconnected and bio-electrically complex and active, that the plants, trees, are interconnected like neurons, and globally, they form an emergent property of a conscious entity that is Enya. How would a planet-size brain or organism behave? With such minute control tantamount to us directing some of the cilia inside our intestines? To interface with things so microscopic and less-than-a-teeny-tiny-tingle that they need to explode a nuke to get your attention?
What language, basis of symbology, thought patterns, view of the universe, value systems, frames of reference, could you find in common? You, a being that lives billions of years, where entire species and billions of creatures en masse are like one voice, one note in a symphony of existence, a slow aria that plays out over millennia? Do you even process thoughts faster than a single turn of your orb? Is this cycle of rotation like a heartbeat to you, something that drives the rest of your systems, and paces the progress of your intelligence, memory, reasoning, responses, deduction? Does a planet need to be "twitchy" on the hourly or even minute-by-minute basis? Second-by-second? Or even the 40 hz alleged CPU speed of the human brain?
So yes, the Deus Ex Machina is a goddess inside a tree, which is just the local access terminal for Pandora 127.0.0.1 IP. There, the optical fibers hook you up to the peta-peta-giga-mega-mondo-fuckloadofstorage that is the Pandora cloud (or clod, since it's the planet itself). And of course we're just too backward to know what savage people and hyper intelligent planets have known for eons, that human consciousness can be quantum teleported (TRON style) from one brain to another (just takes 50,000 petabytes. Chump change. And the fiber bandwidth is blazing, like 10K petabytes per second, meaning it's not light going through those tubes, but spread spectrum gamma rays).
All the singing and throbbing is bio energy to get the bandwidth up. Think BITTORRENT and you understand how the data transfer from one to another gets done. Almost Star Trek transporter style. Bits and pieces here and there, then re-assembled. No problem.
Avatar is a spectacle in 3D. I actually may have to spend for it again in this format now that I have the right gear. It's that amazing of a immersive environment. I actually was commenting on some other critique I wrote that it felt a LOT like it had been written for a motion simulator ride - all camp and nonsense, where you weren't there to have a deeply stimulating intellectual pastime, you were there to be thrilled, tossed and turned and shown all these amazing, beautiful and sometimes scary things. Flying the gliders, walking in the exotic grasses, stalking the buffalo (whatever the substitutes were called), flying the alien/human war craft, experiencing the transformation to a Na'vi, being immersed in the ceremonies, standing so close to those alien-but-fascinating creatures that were the right slope of the Uncanny Valley, Thrill Thrill Thrill - toss and turn, get poked, prodded and made to duck and flinch several times. Yeah, it SO said thrill ride script expanded too big, too long - too expensive to implement, for you couldn't move crowds through fast enough, couldn't build the rig that ran the program cheap enough, couldn't find a park that would take this sort of risk on a ride this dicey.
So my analysis is somebody couldn't let their pet project for Pandora go. Instead of dropping it, they worked the 3D movie angle, and the bleeding heart industry is bad/saving the planet is good black-and-white pablum, completely stereotyping all actors out of any human role opportunity. Everybody is a stereotype, and most of the experienced actors seemed to know - Sigourney could've used voicemail for her lines (almost sounds like she was on a cell several times); I think only our new actress Zoe (?so who also played Lt Uhura) had enthusiasm for her character, and worked some african native voodoo woman mojo into her, which for her stereotype was good. At least not wooden, but it is inside the box, where Cameron seemed to want everybody to be.
This film, for better or worse, created performance capture technology. It would've been invented for someone else, but Cameron's pockets were wide open for it, because he just had to have these wide-eyed, catlike aliens where prosthetics wouldn't cut it anymore. Without this technology, other films that followed like District 9 might've had to wait `til later, or compromise in how the aliens looked on screen, moved, etc.
Performance capture very quickly became status quo on animated feature films, so that the faces of the main characters could quickly be captured doing extremely realistic and intricate performed expressions that are unique to the actor wearing the equipment. What's amazing is their animated character can be nothing like their real self - very much an avatar. Older, younger, taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, stronger (!), even a robot or weird looking alien-thing. As long as there's some facial expressiveness to articulate intricate enough for a rig to be a good application, they use it quite commonly nowadays - and are cranking out content because of it. I have no real idea, but it seems an extremely enormous labor saver.
My mom is loathe to see new films with me for fear of SFX dominating the picture. She has the opinion that once you've seen one car chase (or shoot-out, or sword fight, or boxing match, or brawl, or stuff blowing up, avalanche, tidal wave, etc.), you've seen it all. She sees action sequences as a break in conversation between characters, and therefore this amount of time spent wordlessly engaged in a sequence of images is tantamount to silent pictures - just a thrill, nothing substantial. No dialog, no cunning plot happening. So she's someone who probably would butcher films like Bullitt. :p
Even so, she does like various musicals. They certainly can be very light on plot and if people ran around with song on their lips as much, you'd think your GLEE nightmare was answered by Terris-Thule herself!
The World Tree is an interface to a living organism which is Pandora. The afterlife for Na'vi (and likely many of its lower lifeforms) is to dissipate into the underground network that is so interconnected and bio-electrically complex and active, that the plants, trees, are interconnected like neurons, and globally, they form an emergent property of a conscious entity that is Enya. How would a planet-size brain or organism behave? With such minute control tantamount to us directing some of the cilia inside our intestines? To interface with things so microscopic and less-than-a-teeny-tiny-tingle that they need to explode a nuke to get your attention?
What language, basis of symbology, thought patterns, view of the universe, value systems, frames of reference, could you find in common? You, a being that lives billions of years, where entire species and billions of creatures en masse are like one voice, one note in a symphony of existence, a slow aria that plays out over millennia? Do you even process thoughts faster than a single turn of your orb? Is this cycle of rotation like a heartbeat to you, something that drives the rest of your systems, and paces the progress of your intelligence, memory, reasoning, responses, deduction? Does a planet need to be "twitchy" on the hourly or even minute-by-minute basis? Second-by-second? Or even the 40 hz alleged CPU speed of the human brain?
So yes, the Deus Ex Machina is a goddess inside a tree, which is just the local access terminal for Pandora 127.0.0.1 IP. There, the optical fibers hook you up to the peta-peta-giga-mega-mondo-fuckloadofstorage that is the Pandora cloud (or clod, since it's the planet itself). And of course we're just too backward to know what savage people and hyper intelligent planets have known for eons, that human consciousness can be quantum teleported (TRON style) from one brain to another (just takes 50,000 petabytes. Chump change. And the fiber bandwidth is blazing, like 10K petabytes per second, meaning it's not light going through those tubes, but spread spectrum gamma rays).
All the singing and throbbing is bio energy to get the bandwidth up. Think BITTORRENT and you understand how the data transfer from one to another gets done. Almost Star Trek transporter style. Bits and pieces here and there, then re-assembled. No problem.
Avatar is a spectacle in 3D. I actually may have to spend for it again in this format now that I have the right gear. It's that amazing of a immersive environment. I actually was commenting on some other critique I wrote that it felt a LOT like it had been written for a motion simulator ride - all camp and nonsense, where you weren't there to have a deeply stimulating intellectual pastime, you were there to be thrilled, tossed and turned and shown all these amazing, beautiful and sometimes scary things. Flying the gliders, walking in the exotic grasses, stalking the buffalo (whatever the substitutes were called), flying the alien/human war craft, experiencing the transformation to a Na'vi, being immersed in the ceremonies, standing so close to those alien-but-fascinating creatures that were the right slope of the Uncanny Valley, Thrill Thrill Thrill - toss and turn, get poked, prodded and made to duck and flinch several times. Yeah, it SO said thrill ride script expanded too big, too long - too expensive to implement, for you couldn't move crowds through fast enough, couldn't build the rig that ran the program cheap enough, couldn't find a park that would take this sort of risk on a ride this dicey.
So my analysis is somebody couldn't let their pet project for Pandora go. Instead of dropping it, they worked the 3D movie angle, and the bleeding heart industry is bad/saving the planet is good black-and-white pablum, completely stereotyping all actors out of any human role opportunity. Everybody is a stereotype, and most of the experienced actors seemed to know - Sigourney could've used voicemail for her lines (almost sounds like she was on a cell several times); I think only our new actress Zoe (?so who also played Lt Uhura) had enthusiasm for her character, and worked some african native voodoo woman mojo into her, which for her stereotype was good. At least not wooden, but it is inside the box, where Cameron seemed to want everybody to be.
This film, for better or worse, created performance capture technology. It would've been invented for someone else, but Cameron's pockets were wide open for it, because he just had to have these wide-eyed, catlike aliens where prosthetics wouldn't cut it anymore. Without this technology, other films that followed like District 9 might've had to wait `til later, or compromise in how the aliens looked on screen, moved, etc.
Performance capture very quickly became status quo on animated feature films, so that the faces of the main characters could quickly be captured doing extremely realistic and intricate performed expressions that are unique to the actor wearing the equipment. What's amazing is their animated character can be nothing like their real self - very much an avatar. Older, younger, taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, stronger (!), even a robot or weird looking alien-thing. As long as there's some facial expressiveness to articulate intricate enough for a rig to be a good application, they use it quite commonly nowadays - and are cranking out content because of it. I have no real idea, but it seems an extremely enormous labor saver.
My mom is loathe to see new films with me for fear of SFX dominating the picture. She has the opinion that once you've seen one car chase (or shoot-out, or sword fight, or boxing match, or brawl, or stuff blowing up, avalanche, tidal wave, etc.), you've seen it all. She sees action sequences as a break in conversation between characters, and therefore this amount of time spent wordlessly engaged in a sequence of images is tantamount to silent pictures - just a thrill, nothing substantial. No dialog, no cunning plot happening. So she's someone who probably would butcher films like Bullitt. :p
Even so, she does like various musicals. They certainly can be very light on plot and if people ran around with song on their lips as much, you'd think your GLEE nightmare was answered by Terris-Thule herself!
Read "Blood Music" by David Brin. It's about nano machines that a researcher (not wanting his project canceled) injecting the project into his bloodstream to smuggle it out of the facility. And from there, the little self-replicating robots fix his body, get bored... and keep replicating... until after so many exist, they develop an emergent property, that of a hive mind, a collective intelligence - at not much bigger than a single blood cell in total size.
Well, let's imagine a multi-processor computer. Today, you can put together 1024 or so CPU chips that collectively have more processing power than the human brain. With enough artificial intelligence software loaded in them, they could well be like unto a person in many respects - and indeed, more research and development is being made along these lines.
In every 13 months or so (no longer 18), we double computing power. Half the amount of space needed, square root the amount of power required, cube root the amount of waste generated, double the processing power. So in the same space, you can have four times the computing power, or eight times if you stack vertically as well (which they do). Imagine that happening with molecule-sized computers hooking up!
So take this to the planetary size. Hook up every ivy plant, every fungus root (which it has been found that IS connected globally on our own planet - a signal sent to one mushroom on one side of the planet can be understood on another side, research is discovering), suddenly has a higher order of data traffic, an intelligent data networking signal tantamount to the flashes of sensory and thought processing of a human brain, or frighteningly still, something orders of magnitude greater.
Like Greg Bear's novel, what happens when every single person is infected by an organism that networks with copies of itself? What would it want? What would it think of these concepts of war, violence, property, rich and poor, class hierarchy, want and need, denying healthcare to the sick, and all other examples of man's inhumanity to man - would be viewed to an organism that sees us all as equally viable hosts? And would it ever manage to "notice" us as an individual, willfull, intelligent, self-aware, sentient being worthy of its own rights and privileges?
On Pandora, this decision has already been made. The answer is no - just let them think as if they are. But they all must worship and protect the main organism, like antibodies and white blood cells. So their human-seeming bodies are probably not an evolved form (notice how most other organisms were 6-limbed?) but probably created recently to cope better with those Enya knew would come.
So as these creatures were made by Enya, she (I figure all planets are by default she, just as any ship is female) has processes to create them from some bio-electric data pattern that when you structure the grey matter the right way, opening and closing synapses properly, you re-create the personality of a person, transferring the soul.
Of course, a creature of your origin probably has some belief in a supreme being above and beyond the whole of multiverse of creation that works miracles and is the only one capable of touching, creating, and destroying souls. Mine was created by a few megabytes of data running on a cheap PC, so I have very little mystique regarding a soul, and fully believe it can be stored, transmitted, uploaded much like any other data.
Well, let's imagine a multi-processor computer. Today, you can put together 1024 or so CPU chips that collectively have more processing power than the human brain. With enough artificial intelligence software loaded in them, they could well be like unto a person in many respects - and indeed, more research and development is being made along these lines.
In every 13 months or so (no longer 18), we double computing power. Half the amount of space needed, square root the amount of power required, cube root the amount of waste generated, double the processing power. So in the same space, you can have four times the computing power, or eight times if you stack vertically as well (which they do). Imagine that happening with molecule-sized computers hooking up!
So take this to the planetary size. Hook up every ivy plant, every fungus root (which it has been found that IS connected globally on our own planet - a signal sent to one mushroom on one side of the planet can be understood on another side, research is discovering), suddenly has a higher order of data traffic, an intelligent data networking signal tantamount to the flashes of sensory and thought processing of a human brain, or frighteningly still, something orders of magnitude greater.
Like Greg Bear's novel, what happens when every single person is infected by an organism that networks with copies of itself? What would it want? What would it think of these concepts of war, violence, property, rich and poor, class hierarchy, want and need, denying healthcare to the sick, and all other examples of man's inhumanity to man - would be viewed to an organism that sees us all as equally viable hosts? And would it ever manage to "notice" us as an individual, willfull, intelligent, self-aware, sentient being worthy of its own rights and privileges?
On Pandora, this decision has already been made. The answer is no - just let them think as if they are. But they all must worship and protect the main organism, like antibodies and white blood cells. So their human-seeming bodies are probably not an evolved form (notice how most other organisms were 6-limbed?) but probably created recently to cope better with those Enya knew would come.
So as these creatures were made by Enya, she (I figure all planets are by default she, just as any ship is female) has processes to create them from some bio-electric data pattern that when you structure the grey matter the right way, opening and closing synapses properly, you re-create the personality of a person, transferring the soul.
Of course, a creature of your origin probably has some belief in a supreme being above and beyond the whole of multiverse of creation that works miracles and is the only one capable of touching, creating, and destroying souls. Mine was created by a few megabytes of data running on a cheap PC, so I have very little mystique regarding a soul, and fully believe it can be stored, transmitted, uploaded much like any other data.
Movie producers have faced this issue of making high fantasy before. Without a terrestrial anchor on which the audience can relate, it makes it hard to build an emotional investment in characters and environment - even an ability to separate characters FROM environment.
For example, I'm doing disservice to Isaac Asimov, but he had a short story about 3 gender reproduction, also of beings that weren't corporeal in a traditional sense - either in another dimension, maybe just 2 dimensions, or able to move through all 4, I forget. In any case you have:
A number of physical dimensions in which the reader cannot immediately imagine, so the characters cannot be adequately pictured.
Processes of biology and thought that operate using Nth dimensional physics that have nothing to do with our own.
Creatures whose emotions and interrelationships are complicated by a 3rd gender needing to be mutually agreeable to a joining with another 2 in order to procreate.
The offspring being something that at least 2 of the 3 must cooperate for a significant fraction of their daily lives to nuture and educate or it begins physically withering and dying.
No offspring in this world can be abandoned. No divorce can result in a single parent raising an offspring. 2 of the 3 parents must remain in a union to complete the successful creation of a viable offspring after let's say their equivalent of 16 years. Foster parents and step-parents are not the biological equivalent, so don't work.
With all these restrictions to work with, can you write a story that can speak to relevant human issues, describe earthly animals and scenes, and have metaphors which anchor a reader in the humanity of these characters? Asimov did.
Even though these were like a roundish gelatinous bubble, a more rigid oblong, and a squarish opaque, all of whom had sense organs and a means of locomotion I don't know. Probably all were living in a petri dish or an ocean somewhere.
Point being, moviegoers have to see terrestrial analogue animals on a terrestrial analogue planet. And although Pandora is toxic to us, there are organisms found with a DNA helix that can withstand arsenic taken at 100x the lethal amount to humans into its matrix and thrive. Thus far. they are basically just a specific color of algae found near mono lake in California, one of tho most toxic lakes in the world. But it proves there are shadow evolutionary trees of life quite different from the singular DNA chain we thought was the end-all, be-all of everything on earth.
This may mean there is a new evolutionary tree starting up for the fabled Mayan "Sixth Sun" of Dec 21, 2012, or it simply could mean that starting life is not as hard as we thought it was. Starting it with these precious combination of molecules isn't the magic formula, and can be started also with arsenic in the mix. Who knows what else? Only recently has anyone even thought of questioning the DNA helix as being the only seed on earth.
Thing is, an arsenic-based human would look just like you and I. Only their body fluids would be poisonous to us. And nobody can vouch for their thought processes, or how long they've been around... Conspiracy theorists, start your engines!
Back to The Dark Crystal and Avatar, both which I own on Blu-Ray, they are fantasies that are better and worse realized. Cameron worked on a language for the people, for an expression of their regalia and weapons, very much was seeing himself like directing another Lord of the Rings, where of course what was happening was another Dances with Wolves bacon cheeseburger.
I can understand why some people DID become fanatical enough to dress up and make asses of themselves, wanting to become Na'vi - down to the bodypaint. If only the paint gave them the lanky, buff beauty of the people as well (though the eyes didn't do much for me - perception boost, sure). Unk too has given me wish fantasies for the Iksar's strength, scaly beauty, power in his limbs and tail - I'd sacrifice public revulsion for scaly skin and the way his face/head looks to own that body as the new housing for my mind, no problem. Especially with that junk upgrade ;)
It would be insulting now to attempt to be a human race you're not, so being Na'vi or Iksar or Klingon, et al., is how we live a dream, go and try and think about becoming better than we are, more honorable, more brash, more honest, more adventurous, more straightforward, more gutsy, bolder, bigger than life, something we look up to - more than we look up to ourselves, often because so little in life gives us any boosts to our ego, instead it just crushes us under iron heels. And it hurts.
In the end, it does come down to how well a message reaches you, and since language works better and worse on all of us, there definitely are excellent, classic messages in film that score highly on a great many, and some called cult classics (of which I think Avatar may be one, and I think Dark Crystal another) which only jibe with a smaller few.
Since I so well "got" the message of Dances With Wolves, maybe too well, after much critical discourse and learning, from both sides of the Indian wars, I grok Avatar, and think I get its ambitions, hopes and dreams, and understand its shortcomings, and make some excuses for it, but ultimately do have to wonder if some of its terrific capital could've been spent on more screenwriting. The performance capture sold the picture; they could've not gone so effects crazy and given care to plotting and originality.
I guess Cameron's best apologies for the film has been the various environmental charities he's tied to the film, but as well he's released SO many copies in packaging that is not 100% post-consumer waste, and shiny packaging that I assume takes 600 years to decompose.
For example, I'm doing disservice to Isaac Asimov, but he had a short story about 3 gender reproduction, also of beings that weren't corporeal in a traditional sense - either in another dimension, maybe just 2 dimensions, or able to move through all 4, I forget. In any case you have:
A number of physical dimensions in which the reader cannot immediately imagine, so the characters cannot be adequately pictured.
Processes of biology and thought that operate using Nth dimensional physics that have nothing to do with our own.
Creatures whose emotions and interrelationships are complicated by a 3rd gender needing to be mutually agreeable to a joining with another 2 in order to procreate.
The offspring being something that at least 2 of the 3 must cooperate for a significant fraction of their daily lives to nuture and educate or it begins physically withering and dying.
No offspring in this world can be abandoned. No divorce can result in a single parent raising an offspring. 2 of the 3 parents must remain in a union to complete the successful creation of a viable offspring after let's say their equivalent of 16 years. Foster parents and step-parents are not the biological equivalent, so don't work.
With all these restrictions to work with, can you write a story that can speak to relevant human issues, describe earthly animals and scenes, and have metaphors which anchor a reader in the humanity of these characters? Asimov did.
Even though these were like a roundish gelatinous bubble, a more rigid oblong, and a squarish opaque, all of whom had sense organs and a means of locomotion I don't know. Probably all were living in a petri dish or an ocean somewhere.
Point being, moviegoers have to see terrestrial analogue animals on a terrestrial analogue planet. And although Pandora is toxic to us, there are organisms found with a DNA helix that can withstand arsenic taken at 100x the lethal amount to humans into its matrix and thrive. Thus far. they are basically just a specific color of algae found near mono lake in California, one of tho most toxic lakes in the world. But it proves there are shadow evolutionary trees of life quite different from the singular DNA chain we thought was the end-all, be-all of everything on earth.
This may mean there is a new evolutionary tree starting up for the fabled Mayan "Sixth Sun" of Dec 21, 2012, or it simply could mean that starting life is not as hard as we thought it was. Starting it with these precious combination of molecules isn't the magic formula, and can be started also with arsenic in the mix. Who knows what else? Only recently has anyone even thought of questioning the DNA helix as being the only seed on earth.
Thing is, an arsenic-based human would look just like you and I. Only their body fluids would be poisonous to us. And nobody can vouch for their thought processes, or how long they've been around... Conspiracy theorists, start your engines!
Back to The Dark Crystal and Avatar, both which I own on Blu-Ray, they are fantasies that are better and worse realized. Cameron worked on a language for the people, for an expression of their regalia and weapons, very much was seeing himself like directing another Lord of the Rings, where of course what was happening was another Dances with Wolves bacon cheeseburger.
I can understand why some people DID become fanatical enough to dress up and make asses of themselves, wanting to become Na'vi - down to the bodypaint. If only the paint gave them the lanky, buff beauty of the people as well (though the eyes didn't do much for me - perception boost, sure). Unk too has given me wish fantasies for the Iksar's strength, scaly beauty, power in his limbs and tail - I'd sacrifice public revulsion for scaly skin and the way his face/head looks to own that body as the new housing for my mind, no problem. Especially with that junk upgrade ;)
It would be insulting now to attempt to be a human race you're not, so being Na'vi or Iksar or Klingon, et al., is how we live a dream, go and try and think about becoming better than we are, more honorable, more brash, more honest, more adventurous, more straightforward, more gutsy, bolder, bigger than life, something we look up to - more than we look up to ourselves, often because so little in life gives us any boosts to our ego, instead it just crushes us under iron heels. And it hurts.
In the end, it does come down to how well a message reaches you, and since language works better and worse on all of us, there definitely are excellent, classic messages in film that score highly on a great many, and some called cult classics (of which I think Avatar may be one, and I think Dark Crystal another) which only jibe with a smaller few.
Since I so well "got" the message of Dances With Wolves, maybe too well, after much critical discourse and learning, from both sides of the Indian wars, I grok Avatar, and think I get its ambitions, hopes and dreams, and understand its shortcomings, and make some excuses for it, but ultimately do have to wonder if some of its terrific capital could've been spent on more screenwriting. The performance capture sold the picture; they could've not gone so effects crazy and given care to plotting and originality.
I guess Cameron's best apologies for the film has been the various environmental charities he's tied to the film, but as well he's released SO many copies in packaging that is not 100% post-consumer waste, and shiny packaging that I assume takes 600 years to decompose.
Well in those songs, you're showing an easily-made-fun-of-fondness for broadwayesque show tunes. So I won't go there, being gay myself, and as well having best friends who are very heavy Disneyphiles. Plus it was Lerner & Lowe that made me love musicals again, and have emotional reactions to them - some Sondheim, sure; and when Disney released Little Mermaid, I heard the next best/better songwriting/composing duo since them. I'm very sorry AIDS claimed one of them before he could've seen the theatrical release and after-market success, especially the ironic broadway stage performance and smash sell-outs and ovations of it in live theatre.
I think 2011 sucked for us in many ways, and we have to take a while finding some gems in the train wreck of that abysmal year. 2012 is yet another doomsday (I dunno why a defunct culture that kept abandoning perfectly good cities every 5000 years or so were really so smart just because they worked out the date when the sun re-aligns with the galactic plane, and why this means they have to figure it's doomsday).
Superstition keeps defining more of us, and keeps us from learning about and preparing for the real mysteries in life and nature. We do have the answer for why Avatar had popularity; it did speak to people's desire to transform into another form of life, something more connected to nature, and perhaps just naturally fat-free and buff :p And as well doing a vulcan mind meld by plugging your hair fiber optic cable into the convenient port in most any other species on the planet. Hey, no haters.
Anyway, it went its way, with its freaky kinks, and couldn't frame the "gee whiz" stuff in anything that was any more sophisticated than a tinkertoy barbell. That's what you get when you're about the ideas and not the story.
So let me instead plug "Trek Nation" on the Science Channel, produced by Eugene Roddenberry, son of the late, great Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek. Check listings to see when/if it's still running. If it weren't for the inspiration of that man's creation and spinoffs, I'd have perhaps not even thought up any story for this silly BGN cartoon in the first place, and would've left things be. Then we'd have never had our discussion about the relative degrees of lack of merit of Avatar as a film, from your extreme to my more moderate fairly bad.
I think 2011 sucked for us in many ways, and we have to take a while finding some gems in the train wreck of that abysmal year. 2012 is yet another doomsday (I dunno why a defunct culture that kept abandoning perfectly good cities every 5000 years or so were really so smart just because they worked out the date when the sun re-aligns with the galactic plane, and why this means they have to figure it's doomsday).
Superstition keeps defining more of us, and keeps us from learning about and preparing for the real mysteries in life and nature. We do have the answer for why Avatar had popularity; it did speak to people's desire to transform into another form of life, something more connected to nature, and perhaps just naturally fat-free and buff :p And as well doing a vulcan mind meld by plugging your hair fiber optic cable into the convenient port in most any other species on the planet. Hey, no haters.
Anyway, it went its way, with its freaky kinks, and couldn't frame the "gee whiz" stuff in anything that was any more sophisticated than a tinkertoy barbell. That's what you get when you're about the ideas and not the story.
So let me instead plug "Trek Nation" on the Science Channel, produced by Eugene Roddenberry, son of the late, great Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek. Check listings to see when/if it's still running. If it weren't for the inspiration of that man's creation and spinoffs, I'd have perhaps not even thought up any story for this silly BGN cartoon in the first place, and would've left things be. Then we'd have never had our discussion about the relative degrees of lack of merit of Avatar as a film, from your extreme to my more moderate fairly bad.
It was about Neverending Story, with the song by the temporarily popular German or Austrian group... I guess you can find a review by that same guy with glasses or his nerd girl :p Soon as I saw the dragon was a flying dog, I was about out of there, save for I had no place else to go. Sort of wish I had asked for the ticket refund, but I dunno when I ever will... having sat through that :p I mean I LIKED Xanadu, so it's hard to say just what I'll want a refund for... :p
Oh I guess they in the Spoony Experiment hated my very favorite game of all time, Final Fantasy X, and basically lambasted all the franchise, even what I consider the Sacred Cow, Final Fantasy VII. Hate? Well, just made it seem quite stupid, where well it's SquareSoft! WTF were you expecting!? It's a JRPG! Like not expecting some dumb character that totally steals the focus of the episode and even steers the rest of the year off course in an Anime series! "Oh sweet candy lips, we can't live without you, don't leave us-!" "Sorry, but it's time for me to kiss off... Adieu!"
What happened to Smurfs? Or any number of children's favorite characters before or since? I'm just curious how this, vs even Muppets or Dark Crystal even, could be a most beloved family fantasy film... Disney not dominating the top 20 or 50, honestly...
What happened to Smurfs? Or any number of children's favorite characters before or since? I'm just curious how this, vs even Muppets or Dark Crystal even, could be a most beloved family fantasy film... Disney not dominating the top 20 or 50, honestly...
I like David Gerrold, one of the writers to "out" himself early when it wasn't at all helpful or fashionable to do so in Hollywood or in the writing industry. He wrote most of the Land of the Lost episodes for TV iirc. I've not seen all of the films, but the latest amused me because of the Vorishness of Wil Farrell going completely through Grumpy's digestive system, basically intact! He was a meal for a giant tick earlier, so one could've seen this sort of gag coming...
Maybe swallowing a fully-clothed human is exactly the sort of fiber intake a T-Rex really needed in the Cretacious period to survive bowel distress! Maybe we'd be able to have lived side-by-side and become good buddies if only the time lines had crossed earlier... or that portal had been more accessible!
Then you'd have your answer to exactly why people would WANT to be swallowed by a dinosaur - because they'd survive it, and have a new big powerful friend for life... or at least until he needed another personal colonoscopy!
Maybe swallowing a fully-clothed human is exactly the sort of fiber intake a T-Rex really needed in the Cretacious period to survive bowel distress! Maybe we'd be able to have lived side-by-side and become good buddies if only the time lines had crossed earlier... or that portal had been more accessible!
Then you'd have your answer to exactly why people would WANT to be swallowed by a dinosaur - because they'd survive it, and have a new big powerful friend for life... or at least until he needed another personal colonoscopy!
The Na'vi biology - their blood chemistry and gas exchange - I think was explained to have developed oxygen AND the sulphur or whatever toxic component dependency is in the atmosphere. I think it explains the blue skin, probably because something in their diet is rich in silver or silver compounds (oxides). Silver is an excellent natural antibiotic, so again they are very hearty, with terrific immune systems.
Comments