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Anti-Technology Themes in James Cameron's Avatar
ThousandStars writes "'The anti-technological aspect [in James Cameron's Avatar] is strange because the movie is among most technically sophisticated ever: it uses a crazy 2D and 3D camera, harnesses the most advanced computer animation techniques imaginable, and has apparently improved the state-of-the-art when it comes to cinema. But Avatar’s story argues that technology is bad. Humans destroyed their home world through environmental disaster and use military might to annihilate the locals and steal their resources.' The question is two-fold: why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie, and why are we drawn to it? Part of the answer lies in Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out."
That it was a private military force that did the attacking, not a governmental one. Presumably, the government on Earth was not willing to allow any military attack on the Natives, hence their attempts for 5+ years for a diplomatic solution.
Also it should be noted that a statement such as "no greenery left on Earth" is an exaggeration at best, considering life would die on the planet without the Oxygen Cycle. Unless the Humans attempted to develop machines to replace the functions of the plants.
I was astounded by the organic synaptic link technology the Navi had. The Navi were possibly more advanced than we were. Their organic synaptic link tech was more advanced than anything we have. The thing is, they didn't develop weapons. Their entire planet was a linked up hive mind.
What new possibilities could this technology have had? could they start growing Organic ships like the Vorlons from Babylon 5? I'd imagine the Navi probably had better math and science than us.
A friend who actually lived for two years with a south american tribe claimed that crippled babies were drowned as quickly as possible.
Except of course that the Native Americans were nomadic, had no notion of property rights (unlike the Na'vi and their Hometree), and rejected the idea of owning land.
Ah yes, I remember hearing about how the Cherokee uprooted their longhouses to follow the great fields of corn as they traveled around the prairie.
But the ones I really feel sorry for are the Pueblo tribes. Carrying those cliff dwellings around must have been rough! No wonder they could not resist the mighty white man's manifest destiny, they were all tired out.
There is no problem with that, just don't expect not to be forced off someone else's property that they've rightly claimed.
There is so much wrong with that sentence it's hard to know where to start. "Rightly claimed" here means "someone on another continent decided that they owned this land, and had the right to give it away".
I see your webpage links to "Objectivist Roundup". Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about the concept of eminent domain?
I'd say the only flaw in Cameron's vision for this movie was casting too many white people. I don't think it was done on purpose, but it gives some people the fodder to say it's a "white people suck" movie. Had they cast a black guy in the main role (or as the evil CEO, or the Marine Colonel), it would have been really hard to say "white people suck".
I think casting calls, contracts, agents, schedules, budgets etc. had more to do with who got cast than any perceived message the movie is supposedly trying to preach.
You can't produce technology with metal for a large population without having things like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_Canyon_Mine.
You can't produce food for a large population without things like this: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CE0D81438E433A25757C1A9679D94699ED7CF
WHEAT FIELD OF 25,000 ACRES.; It Would Take One Man Thirty Years to Plow and Plant Such a Field as One Californian Owns.
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/editorials/trade-policy-analysis/15288-china-moves-forward-on-biotech-crops
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of rice with 72 million acres devoted to rice annually
technology always involves raping (to a larger or smaller degree) the biosphere. with less people the biosphere heals faster than it is destroyed.
Without things like Bingham Canyon Mine, you don't have affordable computers.
It's at a point that I do not think is sustainable. I expect some kind of huge blowout in 30-50 years. Maybe we will invent our way out of it, but I think it's reached a point where new inventions are now just making the eventual blowout worse.
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The movie implicitly supports a small (I'd say minuscule) population where few individuals know how to do anything except hunt, gather, and sing.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Another hint: floating mountains, people. Come on.
I'm going to really show my geekiness here, but the floating mountains were explained in the original screenplay, though granted only hinted at in the movie. The "Unobtainium" is a room-temperature superconductor. It is well known that a superconductor in presence of a magnetic field will float, and if you look around the entire area it shows curved constructs of rock that look suspiciously like lines of magnetic force... like melted iron twisted by the magnet. This was hinted at because the guy running the base (whose name I forget) had a piece of Unobtainium that floated in a magnetic field on his desk. Although this raises questions like why they didn't just mine the floating mountains, it's still a cool and at least reasonably plausible explanation... at least if you try not to think about it too hard :)
I thought it was a rather clever nod to exactly what it was.