Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TempAcc]

Rolan is right on point, they do take a fair bit from tolkien elves, except without the cool things, as in, a drive for creating new things and having actual personalities (tolkien elves do have flaws, after all, some noldorim are the main reason to why melkor/morgoth got so powerful and caused the whole mess with ungoliant in the first place). They're basically really primitive and boring elves that are intentionally depicted as a cross between some generic idea of african and north american tribal societies (they even speak in a really generic sounding south african accent, IIRC).

[inteuniso]

The Girl is always lighter-skinned than the Boy. So irksome.

[Starver]

Rolan is right on point, they do take a fair bit from tolkien elves, except without the cool things, as in, a drive for creating new things and having actual personalities (tolkien elves do have flaws, after all, some noldorim are the main reason to why melkor/morgoth got so powerful and caused the whole mess with ungoliant in the first place). They're basically really primitive and boring elves that are intentionally depicted as a cross between some generic idea of african and north american tribal societies (they even speak in a really generic sounding south african accent, IIRC).

To be honest, they had to be something.  Slender elf-like creatures, in this case, and being of an environment-neutral/environment-positive nature they were naturally going to share a lot of the characteristics of the typical 'enlightened native' myth, as shared between the North American and African tribespeoples of various kinds (who, it has to be pointed out, were also known to be environmentally destructive).

I can hear the cries from the alternate universe version of this forum in which the complaints were that the diminutive blue native aliens were just Smurfs without the pants'n'hat wardrobe, or the one where they were yet another "oriental is exotic" parody, or the one where the good/bad guys were so obviously the same old American/English parodies...  you get the idea.

Not defending the trope, but I'm not entirely sure it's the lazy trope.

[TempAcc]

It really IS lazy, though, and intentionally so, regarding the overall plot, and not only the Na'vi. The rest of the setting wasn't terribly lazy regarding pandoran flora and fauna and etc, those parts were actualy rather well done. The problem is that it takes the old tired narrative of noble savages vs evil civilized humanity without adding anything interesting to it.

One evil civilized man gets in contact with the noble savages and becomes enamoured with their oh-so-wise ways by dating a conventionally attractive noble savage girl, ends up becoming the ~The Hero~ by telling them of the evil men's plans and makes them stronger by teaching them about things they don't know. The noble savages suffer some losses but end up taking out far stronger force through virtue of their magical noble savage ways. However, it is made clear that they would never have been able to do it without the The Hero's help.
By the end of the plot, The Hero chooses to stay with the noble savages because he has found his one true love and a way of living he considers superior.

Its basically a slightly modified pocahontas and modern elements added to it. Instead of evil european conquerors we get a powerful (and very american) evil and greedy corporation with no regard for the savages wellbeing. Instead of conventionally attractive noble savages with an implied link to nature, we get conventionally attractive furry alien noble savages with a LITERAL link to nature.

I get that they made the aliens conventionally attractive to make the whole romance plot device appealing to most people, since they couldn't make them into noble savage squid/arthropod/reptilian beings without causing squick on most of the audience, but if the plot and the setting were actualy interesting, they wouldn't have to hamfist a romance subplot into it, because without it, all they would have left would be an overused plot with a furry wet dream makeup.

[LordBaal]

For what a bad movie it is, Battleship projected a more likely alien race. Their motives were weird and beyond comprehension, they didn't simply onslaught everything, even communication was impossible (as it would be bound to be). Their whole psychology was "fucked up" against the standard of aliens on Hollywood.

I would have liked the native pandorians to be more like that, the problem is, when you have truly alien aliens, then you can't wave your pretentious big-bad-corporation-against-wise-good-hippies/natives dick. An then you'll have to come up with some really good and interesting narrative of the first contact with intelligent species of another planet, implications of it back on Earth and so many other interesting stuff most people would yawn at it.

BTW wasn't a The Sparrow movie with Brad Pitt on the works?
Oh boy I bet that if he does again what he did with the World War Z book then that movie is going to suck balls as well.

EDIT: Thank God the author realized Brad Pitt would eat her book and shit a movie of it, so she revoked the rights for movies. Now there's a TV series being done by the channel that makes The Walking Dead. If they don't stretch it beyond necessity to profit from endless seasons it could work. The book could comfortably be done as a mini series even.

[Starver]

After a while (re: Avatar, and this being @TempAcc, before LordBaal got in the way), they're all "old tired narratives".  Either the old standard Monomyth, one of its rival long-standing monomyth alternatives.  You get deliberate subversions, occasionally, but even then you can usually reduce it to the exact same reduction as a previous example.

Depends how cynical one wants to be.   I'm more 'meh' (with a side-order of "nice visuals!") about the film but obviously you're less of a fan.

[Jopax]

Wait, how was the abomination of WWZ Pitts fault? Did he do anything other than be the main guy?

[LordBaal]

Wait, how was the abomination of WWZ Pitts fault? Did he do anything other than be the main guy?

I think Plan B, Brad Pitt's production company was the one behind the production of the film, introducing all of the crap that made the movie what it is.

Now, don't get me wrong, the movie by itself is not that bad, it's entertaining which is the point of most kind of movies. And I consider Pitt to be good actor himself*. However I read the book long time before the movie, and my opinion is that the movie is really subpar when compared to the book.

*which is why not every actor that has enough money to produce/direct movies should go for it.

[TempAcc]

After a while (re: Avatar, and this being @TempAcc, before LordBaal got in the way), they're all "old tired narratives".  Either the old standard Monomyth, one of its rival long-standing monomyth alternatives.  You get deliberate subversions, occasionally, but even then you can usually reduce it to the exact same reduction as a previous example.

Depends how cynical one wants to be.   I'm more 'meh' (with a side-order of "nice visuals!") about the film but obviously you're less of a fan.

Depends on what you consider cynism. Its completely possible to take old themes and ideas and make them interesting by adding your own twist to it. I mean, look at warhammer/warhammer 40k and warcraft, who took generic fantasy race concepts and made them genuinely interesting by adding their own twists to them, while avatar just took a tired narrative and setting, put it in space and added furries to it. But hey, to each its own :v

[Dirst]

We can come back to Avatar in nine pages

Why does every anime character with superpowers seem compelled to pull I Am Not Lefthanded in every single fight?  Even when the audience has already seen the character use more impressive stuff in the past?

"Hmmm, this guy is tougher than I thought.  Time to use my powers!"
"Wow, he's really tough.  Time to use my real powers!"
"Ow, this is starting to hurt.  Serious power time!"
"Oh crap, he's been toying with me the whole time!  Look at that power he just pulled out of his ass..."

[LordBaal]

Bad narrative? Or perhaps clichés to give more tension to the fight? One also might wonder, depending on the setting and context, that going around always showing up your biggest power might be detrimental on the long run.

Perhaps you would attract too much attention, maybe your enemies could figure out exactly how to outdo you, or could it be that exerting that much power might damage you or run out the source of your powers.

But for when there's no excuse, yes, its pretty dumb.

[Dirst]

Bad narrative? Or perhaps clichés to give more tension to the fight? One also might wonder, depending on the setting and context, that going around always showing up your biggest power might be detrimental on the long run.

Perhaps you would attract too much attention, maybe your enemies could figure out exactly how to outdo you, or could it be that exerting that much power might damage you or run out the source of your powers.

But for when there's no excuse, yes, its pretty dumb.

It's not restricted to anime nor to individual characters.  It was particularly grating in Falling Skies when the aliens, more than once, pulled something out of reserve that had the potential to end the entire conflict had it been used from the beginning.  Or failed to use an incredibly effective tool again for no reason whatsoever.  In reality, the writers were introducing stuff they just thought up without any regard for why it wouldn't have been used before then.


I did finally stop watching that series when

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the pattern of "Humans work really hard to get X, then X is taken away cheaply" became boring and then they introduced a carbon copy of Elizabeth from the original V, complete with convenient aging.

[LordBaal]

I hate that kind of interspecies hybridization. It's senseless, stupid and a cheap way to make aliens more likeable relate-able while keeping special effects budget low.

For example on skyline the invasion, which is an awful movie, the aliens are invincible monsters capable of rebuilding themselves from a nuclear blast, in short they are magic, and no, is not a case of sufficient technology is confused with magic, it is stupid magic and plot armour. Anyway, they harvest humans for their brains? WTF? Why would they need wet ware like that if they are capable of traversing the vast distances of space they are more than capable of building chips, or hey, making clones of a perfect brain or use the same magic they employ to rebuild from a nuclear explosion or something.

I keep imagining the robots failing to function out of a million ways because different brain diseases, imperfections and what not. And finally the protagonist (no spoilers because no one saw or care about that excuse of a movie) is able to steal the machine his brain is because of love. I have news, he's not the only one that loves his wife/girlfriend with burning passion, heck, the douche is not even a great example of it. So ,how long before literally millions of other humans do this too and the aliens met an ironic and premature end?

Biology on realistic basis should be really incompatible and even so different that you might have difficulties recognizing alien life the first time you see it.

[Jopax]

I think the plot in Skyline was there after somebody came up with an idea of aliens jacking our brains to power their war machine, and they didn't really bother fitting it in because they realised it was pointless. Also I don't think it was because of love but because he managed to survive/resist the whole bright light in your face turns you into a puppet thing, it probably altered his brain in some way to make it able to resist or something.

But yeah, other than the cool alien designs that movie had nothing going for it, heck, they ran out of budget before finishing it so the big finale where he busts out in an alien body to save his girl is done as a fucking slideshow of paintings :V

[Sergius]

Well he did keep saying he felt "stronger" because of all the interrupted hypnosis attempts. So I guess he was able to do that in the end because of that.