#not tagging Avatar because it'll interfere with my Last Airbender/Korra tags

[diloph]

Diloph, since the only Avatar related thing you've reblogged is the Yautja killing the N'avi, I'm curious what your opinion on the blue elf movie and how it's becoming relevant again with a sequel.

Haven't seen the sequel at all, but I remember the first movie. I thought it was okay, considering that I was much younger and didn't put much though into stuff like themes or whatever.

Naturally, I thought the film looked nice enough, but I wasn't very convinced about the world. If the bad guys were the standard evil and ruthless Weyland-Yutani types, why did they just... you know, leave after being beaten in ground combat? They could have easily bombed the planet into rubble, or hell, avoided all conflict in the first place by digging under the Na'vi's trees to get to the Unobtainium (sigh).

What had them go down the middle as bad, but not so much as to cause problems for the script?

I understand that for the narrative to work, they needed to be arrogant and aggressive, yes, but they either didn't commit to it fully or took every opportunity to fight for no real reason. Just snapped their fingers and went "Aw, shucks, guess we're beat. But we'll get you next time, Avatars, just you wait!" then went home.

You could argue nuking the site from orbit is overkill and needlessly evil, yeah, because somebody somewhere presumably has some standards. But after negotiations failed and their next response was an all-out assault with missile-armed future gunships against foes they dismissed as uncivilized and primitive, why wouldn't that be their next move? It didn't make sense.

Still, I do remember having one very distinct opinion of the film at the time. One comment raised my ire back in the day, when James Cameron said that his new creature, the Thanator, was apparently capable of easily killing both the T. Rex from Jurassic Park and the Queen Xenomorph from Aliens.

It's then, very anticlimactically, quickly stabbed to death by the main bad guy company enforcer in a mech with a large-ish knife.

Now, that evidence alone makes me laugh said claim out of the room, but I'm of the opinion that you don't insult those two iconic horror monster ladies of film and expect shit like that to fly. Both beings were very capable of taking hits; a creature evolved to deal with ceratopsian horns far longer and sharper than the knife or a creature with above-monster intelligence and highly-pressurized acid for blood would have made far shorter work of Quartrich than the new monster, but it's a thing I'd like to highlight.

A very common and aggressive form of hyping up a creature used in a film, is to compare it to others previously established in canon or out, setting them up as a rival or superior... and that is something I absolutely despise when it comes to monsterdom.

Rather than have it have its own merits, or forge its own legacy, it stands on the shoulders of titans and claims it made the mountainous climb all by themselves. There are certainly some things I like that do that, versus concepts like AVP that I enjoy, but the fact is that most of those I like had the monsters build themselves up, then start making noise.

Going hand in hand with that is the distressing modern trend of marketing/writing in movies nowadays to have a new, tougher monster, kill the old one to establish how badass the new creature is. Then usually have it killed in a way the original one would have shrugged off or just "and then they shot it to death", which is so unimaginative it hurts.

Whiiiich leads me onto the Predator (as in the creature, not the bad film where that stupid thing happens).

Spaghettibastard's art of the Predator killing the Na'vi is, in my mind at least, an extension of that or one of the insulted franchises striking back at said comments. If Cameron's words were true and the Thanator could kill Xenomorphs (HA), then naturally, the Yautja would set up shop there and have a grand old time, their hunts decimating Pandora's landscape when the occasional hunter was downed and activated his self destruct device.

Even when they're being careful, they could easily devastate the planet because of its interconnected ecosystem, which again considering the snide comment against the Predator's favourite rivals who are akin to a living cancer and would topple such a system, bears keeping in mind. They're jerks and glory-hunting killers, but they have a system in place to ensure that they don't cause irreparable harm, contrasting them to the "sure, we're evil, let's mass kill sometimes but not all the time" villains of Avatar.

You could also look at the meta commentary of the images. I'll preface this, given that I'm not learned on the subject and a white European guy about to hit thirty, my words should definitely be taken with a (gratuitous) pinch of salt.

Cameron's Avatar films have been slammed for appropriating Indigenous American cultures and themes, including many themes and tropes that are considered patronizing to said cultures. I've not looked into this as much because I'm not a fan of the franchise, but as far as I'm aware, there's been moves to protest and boycott the films for these transgressions. Opinions of the people that apparently inspired the Na'vi and their world are very dim towards Pandora and they aren't afraid to make that known.

The recent Predator film, Prey, on the other hand, was praised for its ties to the Comanche actors that gave the film its characters and world, even releasing an Comanche dub. Despite the fact that the killer monster is murdering numerous members of Naru's tribe, the Comanche protagonist ultimately wins out against a vastly tougher and better armed foe by using her wits, the environment and everything at her disposal, as a sensible protagonist should.

Better, smarter people than I are more capable of addressing the themes and likely will, but my reasons for reblogging the pictures were the "settling the score" dynamic of monsters I mentioned, rather than any criticism of said themes or dislike of the franchise, which I have little to no investment in.

Will I see the new film? Probably not, unless it's on TV one day or I get the notion to investigate it. I saw a giant reptopanther being stabbed to death by a middle-aged army guy in a mech suit after the director claimed it could get past two of modern horror's most infamous set of fangs and claws without issue. I think I've seen all I needed to.