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[kaijyuu]

Hey, people with the ability to help others certainly have the responsibility to, but that's pushing it. There's no reason to believe the humans wouldn't cut and burn Pandora and make it just as much a hellhole as they did Earth. Even if the blue space aliens had the ability to save Earth, there's no reason to believe the humans wouldn't accepted it.

Remember the wise old shaman lady saying they can't teach someone who's "cup is already full"? If humanity's screwed, they screwed themselves over, and there's nothing the blue people could've done to change that.

[10ebbor10]

Not evil? While amorality != immorality, it's hard to argue that the former can't be evil.

Genocide and destruction wasn't their goal, no, but they considered it an acceptable cost. Preeeety sure that falls under evil.

You want to talk about genocide? Humanity in Avatar needs unobtainium for FTL, which is in turn used to transport resources and Pandoran biology back to Earth, which is in turn keeping the planet and the people on it from collapsing into apocalyptic chaos. The Na'vi, on the other hand, completely refuse to cooperate and randomly decided to start killing the RDA personnel on sight from the advice of their God-Emperor-Tree-Thing. The actions they take present an existential threat to humanity. They would have gotten off lucky being bombed into retreat, and thanks to traitor extraordinary Jake Sully everyone on Earth is doomed.

Colonel Quartich is the true hero of Avatar and the attempted savior of all humankind, betrayed at the darkest hour by his most trusted follower.

Nope. Backstory tells us otherwise. Unobtanium is needed for FTL, but it is also the only resource brought back to Earth. Bringing back Pandoran biology is
A) Biology fail (No Biochemical barriers)
B) One of the stupidest thing you can do to a weakened ecosystem is bringing in exotic plants. Pandora is on semi Quarantine for that reason.
The backstory(and extended DVD version) tells us that Earth is slowly regaining it's ecosystem thanks to governement (No RDA involved) funded cloning programs. The unobtanium is only needed for energy production (Cheap fusion reactors) and the global maglev network. It is at no point stated and there's no reason to think that unobtanium is needed for human survival. Sure it would make live easier for us on our dying planet, but it isn't needed.

Which brings me to another minor plothole. Does, at any point in the movie, someone attempt to explain to the Na Vi why we're clear cutting the forest ?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The backstory also tells you that the government cloning programs work because of study into Pandoran biology. Where did you think the Avatar Program came from?

Being that Earth is dying and all, cheap fusion energy and FTL are not luxuries, they are a necessity for the planet's recovery.

[10ebbor10]

The backstory also tells you that the government cloning programs work because of study into Pandoran biology. Where did you think the Avatar Program came from?

Being that Earth is dying and all, cheap fusion energy and FTL are not luxuries, they are a necessity for the planet's recovery.

Where have you read that. The backstory explicitily states that the Avatar amnio tanks are adapted from technology that is widespread on Earth. In fact, the thing also reffers to a whole lot of experiments on mamalian creatures that didn't need to be preformed on the avatar versions.

Fusion technology also works without unobtanium, as is evidenced by the widespread RDA lunar He-3 operation and by the sheer widespreadness of fusion engines*, which predates the discovery of Pandora. It doesn't help that we're not told why the unobtanium is so valuable, and that the wiki's article on unobtanium is blank.

*Even the mining systems run on fusion for example.

As for FTL being needed.
     1. FTL doesn't exist in the Avatar verse
     2. The only target for the ISV's to go to is Pandora, they ain't going anywhere else, and in fact, can't go anywhere else.

[Neyvn]

-snip-

not that webcomic, but still: http://xkcd.com/734/

No no no...
This one...
http://www.zombiewaffe.com/home/2011/07/11/page-1/

[miauw62]

A cracked article, iirc. Lemme see if I can find it.


EDIT: Can not find it. Alas.

I do remember the context, though. And probably not cracked, now that I think about it. It was about how some diseases aid in their propagation by affecting your behavior. Beyond the flu, the most obvious virus that makes you do stuff would be rabies; it doesn't make you aggressive out of pure happenstance.

There's also this parasite taht normally alterates between cats and mice, and makes mice attracted to cats so cats can get the parasite again. Can also get to humans, btw.

[10ebbor10]

A cracked article, iirc. Lemme see if I can find it.


EDIT: Can not find it. Alas.

I do remember the context, though. And probably not cracked, now that I think about it. It was about how some diseases aid in their propagation by affecting your behavior. Beyond the flu, the most obvious virus that makes you do stuff would be rabies; it doesn't make you aggressive out of pure happenstance.

There's also this parasite taht normally alterates between cats and mice, and makes mice attracted to cats so cats can get the parasite again. Can also get to humans, btw.

Toxoplamosis I think.

I might also affect human behaviour, btw.

[Loud Whispers]

I might also affect human behaviour, btw.

If by affect you mean "cause brain damage" yes

[scriver]

Not evil in the sense that everyone thinks them to be. They got no reasons to genocide the Na'Vi , and therefore they don't.

Maybe not EVIL, but yeah, they're just as evil, or bad or immoral if you prefer, as any other imperialists throughout our history.

[Vattic]

Spoiler: other thing (click to show/hide)

The pale alien at the end born from the queen grown inside the clone is given a human reproductive system. I want to know who it was supposed to breed with.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The xenomorphs are highly adaptable. The Queen probably would've found a way, and failing that, would've died ending her genealogy. It's not as if all adaptions are actually helpful.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

From what I remember the human reproductive system was part of the scientists plan.

There is one other thing that bugged me from Alien Resurrection.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The experiment is being done out the way, like area 51 in space, but it is still within our solar system (orbiting Pluto). Considering we've been travelling the galaxy terraforming and colonising far off planets for 200 years or more makes anything within the solar system look pretty close.

[Flare]

And why does everyone assume the spaceship that brought them there is also military and loaded with guns? And even if it was, why would it be loaded with nukes? I think these suppose plot holes, are just inventing plot holes.

If I was the chairman of that corporation, I''d probably load them up with some guns, and put in some share-holder nukes along with it. I mean, if you were going to go to a planet that potentially holds life forms, there might be a chance you need to kill them all. There are many other scenarios where the ship might need to defend itself even without the probability of unknown aliens fighting back.  In any case, arming your ships seems like a pretty good idea given how far away from reinforcements the ship will be when it reaches Pandora, you're not exactly conducting a mining operation within the umbrella of any sort of state apparatus.

As for nukes, I would think they would be much more plentiful in an age where FTL travel to other stars is feasible given the power requirements of FTL as well as the substantial danger it poses to earth that dwarfs nukes. The ships probably are carrying a reactor of some sort, if not several in case one fails. The power generation requirements needed to mine out whole mountains are similarly huge, especially when you have so few people around it suggests a great deal of the grunt work would be done by machines, so you probably need a reactor for that too unless you're planning to dig or carry all the fossil fuels for the whole operation.

[MrWillsauce]

A lot of stuff in the new Batman movie broke my immersion. I thought it was a decent movie overall, but there are a few things about it I can't ignore.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In addition to the whole bomb nonsense (which you guys have already discussed thoroughly and I will not go into), I didn't understand the motives of the villain (the lady that Bane protects, not Bane) at all. Apparently she wanted to blow up Gotham because that's what her father wanted or something? What was up his ass that made him hate Gotham so much? Also I don't like how they portrayed Bane. I've read some of the comics with him in them and in those he is basically an evil genius. He seems pretty smart in this movie too, but at the end it turns out he's just doing some on else's bidding. Also there is no mention of the drug that makes him strong in the comics, just a magic mask full of morphine or something. I don't mind them changing the characters if it makes sense, but in this movie it seems like they just did it for the sake of doing it and pretty much all of the changes are for the worse. Somebody please explain to me why Big Mean Evil Double-Crosser Lady wanted to blow up Gotham (besides "my dad wanted to"). Also I don't think comic book Bane would do the bidding of some girl he protected in prison, he would fulfill his own damn evil plans.

[kaijyuu]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was to get back at Bruce for killing daddy.

As for Bane... I've never liked Bane, in any incarnation, so I didn't really care what they did to his character. He worked fine for what he was supposed to do here, I think.

[10ebbor10]

If I were the secretary of the UN, and a corporation whose fundings exceeds that of several nations, and that employs people such as Lovecraft (Inventor of the Dark dreamer project, which became the avatar project) wanted to design a spaceship with weapon capabilities and equip it with nukes, and send that to an alien planet, of which the only intelligent live lies on stone age levels, I'd sure as hell withdraw that mining license* and dismantle the compagny if I could.

The first mission to Pandora was done at great expense, using a 4 km ship. Considering the enormous energy costs involved, there would be no space for redundant features such as weaponry. After that they knew about the Na'vi, and using nukes and orbital weaponry against stone age people seems a bit redundant, doesn't it. Especially when you are having serious PR problems already, and your ship only has a 350 metric tonnes of cargo capacity. (Which isn't a lot on astronomical scales, believe me)

*The RDA was only permitted the right to mine the planet after PETA screwed up their campaign. Turns out using a human with implants as Na' Vi was a bad idea.

Last but not Least:

THERE IS NO FTL TRAVEL IN AVATAR (0.7 c is fast, but not FTL)

The only star they can reach is alpha Centauri, and that only at great expense. All power generation is done by fusion (excepts for the ships main drive, which is an antimatter/matter reactor). Unlike fission, fusion can not be brought to explode. Besides, since fission is barely used anymore, the amount of nuclear weapons would most likely be less, not more. Antimatter/matter reactors being as dangerous as they are, I expect them to be strongly guarded. The deuterium and he 3 required for fusionpower on Pandora are gathered from the gas giant around which the ship flies, using retired shuttles.

[10ebbor10]

ALso, I just found this on the Pandorapedia

More powerful than most Earth governments. The Resources Development Administration (RDA) has monopoly rights to all products shipped, derived or developed from Pandora and any other off-Earth location. These rights were granted to RDA in perpetuity by the Interplanetary Commerce Administration (ICA), with the stipulation that they abide by a treaty that prohibits weapons of mass destruction and limits military power in space.