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Avatar is about capitalism
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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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So... We manage to master space travel. We manage to master interstellar travel. We eventually find a planet with suitable environment for sustaining our species. And we just overlook it.
Can someone explain me the reasoning behind this?
Sci-fi to the side, there are more minerals available - readily - on asteroids and barren planets than anywhere else. Why go hopping around looking for habitable planets, to the reason of 1 out of who knows how many, to then strip mine it?
There could be many reasons:
Another important detail is that in Avatar they don't have any faster than light tech. Pandora is in the Alpha Centauri system, the closest star to the Sun, and it takes years to get there anyway. Sure, there might be lots of better places to choose, but it's literally the only habitable body in reachable distance from Earth unless you want to spend decades flying in one direction.
Tbf, the air on Pandora is toxic to humans. That was the entire point of using the avatars in the first movie... Wouldn't exactly call that suitable for sustaining the life of our species
And that material they found in the planet was some fictional things humans had never encountered before.
The resource being extracted on the avatar planet was unobtanium.
It was only available on that planet, precisely so intelligent people like you can’t say “why not mine barren rocks instead”?
This annoyed me also.
If the Avatar universe has physics like ours, which it looks like it does from the way things move etc..
The protoplanetry disk that the planet formed from, must have had the unobtanium, since it is so evenly spread around the later formed planet.
Yes, there are higher concentrations in various places, which could have come from impact events in the past; if this is the case the impactors are likely from the local asteroid belt or equivalent.
The unobtanium must be available, in a much easier to extract form, in asteroids in the soloar system or the moons of Pandora.
Either way, a mineral is a terrible maguffin for a space faring civilization.
In the second movie, the whale brain juice is a much better maguffin, but still kinda stupid for a technologically advanced species.
Assume that to get interstellar travel, with the suspended animation and brain beaming tech we are shown, humans are a good 200 years ahead of where we are now....given that they can also make fully functional alien bodies from scratch, that can breed and pass on genetic material to what look like viable offspring. The level of synthetic biology expertise must be insane, and they can't make this brain juice....it is just stupid.
Me too.
It’s supposed to be an indictment of capitalism. But that falls flat when you realize it was one of the most profitable movies of all time; grossing over 2 billion and being one of the fastest to reach the various benchmarks at theaters.
Pandora was a moon, not a planet. (Doesn't change your point, just correcting the detail.)
There are exactly zero minerals available inside planets that are unavailable on asteroids.
Sci-fi will be sci-fi but can we go back to the time it was at least well thought? Can't hurt. If the objective of the movie was to make social criticism, it didn't need to go to such lenghts.
And it was a boring movie; failed to captivate me.
You're intelligent. Or at least, well read/educated.
I didn't say it was a good plot-device. The entire movie was hamfisted from the world building through the dialog, the character development, and those hamfists evolved into bulldozers to bring the moral home.
The only thing it had going for it was the CGI... which was obsequious.
Regardless, it's their fictional world. They designed it to be stupid and boring so they could make some sort of moral superiority bullshit statement about capitalism while grossing 2+ billion.
Also, I'm just gonna say it. It wasn't even sci fi. sure, sure. it had ships and stuff. but that's not what makes sci fi sci fi.
Aliens, Mech suits and remotely controlled vat-grown body doubles aren't enough to make it sci Fi?
Nope.
Science fiction is an exploration of how science or technology changes society, or how society might respond to stuff, or how a society with a given tech might exist; it’s a form of speculative fiction.
Avatar isn’t that. It’s supposed to be an indictment of capitalist greed.
Just because it has technology doesn’t make it “sci-fi” and the elements that might are just a maghuffin to explain what they’re doing there. It could have just as easily been gold. Or diamonds or alien art.
Take Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein and compare it to say, avengers.
Sorry, no. Genre doesn't require a specific theme. This is some literature vs pulp gatekeeping.
So.... if it has robots and space and cloning, its science fiction and if it doesn't it's not?
so by that definition Marry Shelly's Frankenstein is not proto-SciFi?
Or Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? The Steam House? Around the World in 80 Days?
Or HG Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Sleeper Awakes, and The Invisible Man are not?
Or maybe Snow Crash? ...Children of Men?
I find it hilarious that you're criticizing me for gatekeeping. Science Fiction as a genre is much broader than just space, or robots, or cloning. or any of the cool, glittery-glowy-things.
Sure, any single work can span a few genres. Even things you might not necessarily think go together like Comedic SciFi as in Red Dwarf, Farscape or Dr. Who. Sure, books and movies don't have to be overt about it, and most the really good ones aren't. The core of Science Fiction is (or any form of speculative fiction, really,) is asking "the question". It's asking "what if..." For example, The World Well Lost; the scifi elements are secondary to the emotional and social aspects.
If you enjoy Avatar, that's great. I'm glad you did. I found it annoying, cliche and trite with terrible plot development and horrible characterization. The science or technological elements in Avatar could easily be removed for more...historic... settings, devices or straight up objects. the Unobtanium could easily be replaced with Lunar regolith or some sort of fancy Martian Marble™️ being sold for countertops. Or Inca gold. Or Peruvian emeralds. or anything to which an obscene value could be placed.
It serves no purpose at all to the plot. none of the technology or science or technology influences the characters, the plot or anything else. The entire movie is an orgy of CGI and an anti-capitalist screed. (nothing wrong with being anti-capitalist, mind.)
Ultimately, genres are delineated not because they're necessary for the art they're describing, but because people want to know what they're getting into before they sit down and watch it. When you tell me something is scifi, and it turns out to be horror with aliens or... a marvel superhero movie... I'm not going to be very happy with you.
Usually, at this point, I would say even a broken clock is right twice a day, but I'm trying to get accostumed to receive a compliment, so I'll instead say thank you for those kind words. And that we agree.
isn't wood a hard to find resource?
That depends. Although massive deforestation throughout the planet, tree farms are a thing. So...
But haul wood over who knows what expanses of space? It would be cheaper to build greenhouses on barren planets and moons. The biggest challenge would probably be to prevent the oxygen in those enclosed habitats to eat away the building materials.
I remember following the advances on an experiment, during the 90's, where a team of scientists designed and built a fully self contained habitat, with only plants inside. I think the objective was to measure if the plants could/would survive in very limited resources conditions. Well, the plants survived. After an initial shock, the plants self regulated and the habitat stabilized into a fully enclosed ecosystem. Things became weird when the oxygen levels rose to a point where the ciment of the walls started to come apart. They had to hastily coat the walls with very thick rubber paint to prevent more damage.
You know the point I'm making though: there are indeed precious resources that can't be mined from asteroids. It is not inconceivable that there are organic compounds out there with unique properties that can't simply be made in a lab (e.g. ancient wood properties compared to new forest) and exist in a state that is economical for easy extraction.
It's not inconceivable but I will insist on the point that technology is the right tool to solve such issues.
It was inconceivable a few decades ago - even a couple of years ago! - several medical advances that are today used routinely.
It is a fun theoretical discussion to entertain but we would reach no real conclusion.
Crystallised urea
Nice to cross paths with you again!
I'll grant that but what use for crystalized urea is there? Urea I know a few. And if we already know how to cultivate diamonds and other artificial gems, why bother mining for that?
Drag was making an allegorical point. Perhaps Unobtanium results from an organic process. In the second movie, the capitalists are killing whales for a substance in their brains that makes people immortal. Can't find that on an asteroid.
We can save mental effort and just go for the Dune series at this point. What is the point in that? In considering the advances in modern chemistry, there are ever few organic compounds that can not be synthesized.
I fall back to my original thought: is well thought sci-fi so hard to achieve nowadays? If seems there is a fixation about misery and destruction nowadays.
Dune is a universe where computers are severely limited. The ability to synthesize organic chemicals may be limited by that alone.
IIRC, the Tleilaxu do figure out how to produce spice artificially in their Axlotl tanks, but those are another example of Dune getting weirder and more disturbing as it goes.
But they do eventually manage, don't they?
Sorta. By then, the rules on thinking machines have been somewhat relaxed, but people still don't like being around computers. There are machines that can navigate FTL safely without relying on spice. The Bene Gesserit are still dependent on it, though, and they don't like how it binds them to either the Tleilaxu or surviving sandworms.
Doesn't invalidate the point made: at some point, a previously irreplaceable resource was synthesized and mass produced.
I still have to find the time and motivation to read the entire Dune but if at some point they start mass producing the stuff that literally held them prisoners, as there is no going back once spice is first taken, they are literally a civilization of drug addicts, willingly.
Avatar does have some good science fiction like the idea of a planetary hivemind being worshipped as a god. The Na'vi religion is literally true, it just seems false to humans who don't know anything. That's very different to Dune, where the Fremen religion is true because people like Paul's mum make it true.
I'll grant that waffer thin idea as a good attempt of putting something akin to good sci-fi into an otherwise solely for visuals work, although I disagree with the notion of deifying something that is tangible, as in the setting put forward in the movie.
And I mentioned Dune because of the immortality mention. The spice is also irreplaceable and unique, produced only in a single planet, through a rather complex organic process, harvested at great risk and cost, then to be synthesized by the tons.
That was good sci-fi, with sound social and religious criticism in it.
If you'll allow drag to play devil's advocate, Eywa isn't tangible. Ewya is a mind, and minds are made of electrical signal patterns. You can't touch electricity. And you definitely can't touch a pattern of information, which is essentially made out of maths. That's what a mind is, a bunch of incredibly complex maths.
allow me to play the idiot-younger-sibling of said devil's advocate and just point out you can absolutely touch electricity, which is why we use safety plugs to keep toddlers from licking electrical outlets.
in any case, I think the biggest problem with the movie is just how... meh... it was. Hive minds have been done before; and that was allegory for the interconnections inherent in a thriving biosphere. The Unobtanium was allegory for greed. (as was whale brains. maybe that explains RFK's antics...?) The capitalist douchenozzles were... well... if I said it was allegory, it was so they could beat us upside the head with it.
Electricity can be felt, but not touched.
From what I took from the movie, there was a knowledge that such a collective overarching conscience existed. It wasn't a figment of imagination nor a collective (de)illusion. It was tangible in that way.
And being cheeky: electricty can't be touched? i disagree. Every single time I put my fingers where I shouldn't, it reminded me in very tangible way I wasn't looking at what I was doing.
considering that mass media will slap a space ship into anything and call it "Science Fiction".... yes, actually. Because they're idiots who will only copy what's already been done because it's a reliable way to make money.
That said, even the masters will fall back on nonsense to make a point. Asimov had coal-powered spacecraft in the Foundation Trilogy to show how technology was slipping backward as if that makes any sense whatsoever.
gotta make headway before you start backsliding...
otherwise it's just going the wrong way.
Sad but true.
You realized I just opted for having a divergent view on the subject, right?
It seems more like intentionally missing the main point of the comic.