Poll: Avatar - Who did you root for

[Therumancer]

I was wondering if anyone else rooted for the humans in avatar?

[HEADING=2]Here's my reason for siding with the humans:[/HEADING]
I took this from another one of my forum posts

Spoiler

I agree. I always thought that the Na'vi were being arrogant and unreasonable. Humanity was offering them a lot and they refused. Humans were out there for there own survival and the Na'vi would not be diplomatic. That gave them only one option. The humans didn't care about exterminating the Na'vi, just surviving.

Jake Sully specifically was a jerk. Aside from showing no emotion he damned his own species. In addition to this he was hurting the Na'vi as well. If he had not united them maybe like twelve aliens would have died. Instead hundreds perished, both human and Na'vi. I'm sure that after the mining had been set up Na'vi would have been forced to negotiate with humanity, and maybe they could be uplifted from their primitive society.

In addition to this I quite frankly did not like any of the aliens. The only characters who stuck out to me were humans. I liked the executive and the macho military guy (I can't remember their names, sue me). On a really shallow level I didn't like the movie which made me immune to its propaganda.

Okay wow there's been 29 views and no posts. can you PLEASE qualify your opinions.

Why did everyone root for the Na'vi?

EDIT: Nevermind, thank you Hubilub.

Understand that these forums are VERY left wing, and the support for indiginous peoples and such even when unreasonable is a big deal with the left wing. The intentional, preachy, similarities between the Na'vi and pop-culture Native Americans was intentional. It *WAS* a propaganda movie, and you have to understand who that propaganda was created by, and directed at, and the general leanings of the forums your posting on.

As far as I'm concerned I felt that the movie was shallow enough where I couldn't really "root" for either side. The implication of the material being nessicary and the numbers involved did make me think that humanity was more in the right here. Especially seeing as we humans tried to negotiate first, and tons of money was spent on the entire "Avatar Program" specifically for that purpose.

Of course the entire "they already killed their mother" crack by our hero was the thing that really poisoned me against the message in the movie above and beyond anything else.

A lot of people will bring up the issue of "well, what if aliens showed up and tried to kill humanity for a mineral they needed like in this movie?". The differance being that for it to be equal it would have to be something they made generous offers for (trade, etc...) given our respective tech levels, something we didn't need on any level, and something we refused for unreasonable spiritual reasons which seem to be tantamount to "we really like this big tree".

Of course the reason why I can't side with the humans is that they seemed to be just as big a group of douchebags. At no point did I get the impression that they ever explained to the natives why they needed the mineral (and the reason for it's value was left to our own deduction anyway). This incidently makes Sully and everyone else working with him, as well as the humans giant jerks, just as much as it does our big blue skinned aliens.

Nice FX, but plotwise this was really an awful movie, intended to sell propaganda to the brain dead.

It's one of those situations where like in a lot of TV shows and movies all the action basically revolves around nobody wanting to bother to talk to each other or explain anything, leading to the stupidest misunderstandings possible. I got the impression that I could probably have peacefully resolved this entire conflict inside of an hour.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

This is hilarious. Out of 373 people who watched this movie, only a bare THIRD didn't want to see these "kind-hearted" hippie cat-people get their heads bashed in.

 

[stygN]

I voted Glados because both the Humans and Na'vi sucked! The movie could have been good, but it was just Pocahontas with space smurfs instead of Native Americans, and retarded brutes instead of... Oh well..

At some parts where the action was at its peak, it was almost a decent movie, but the rest of it was so crappy!!

I'm so happy it didn't win over Hurt Locker..

Seriously, it took me about 20 minutes in to the movie to understand the whole plot and could predict the rest of the movie.. Super shallow...

 

[SovietSecrets]

I went Neutral. Both sides were annoying to see/hear in the movie. Hell, I was rooting for the planet to kill everyone.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

I would prefer if they nuke the planet, both sides die and there is no more talk of Avatar. I guess that would mean that the planet wins. It doesnt matter who wins as the film is biased. The humans are written as evil and the Na'vi are written as innocent. Even the planet was over designed to make it the most magical place ever. Its is just cheap and pathetic, Cameron might as well as dressed all the humans in Nazi uniforms.

Looks like you and Ripley came to the same conclusion.

 

[DarkRyter]

On an emotional level I stayed neutral, but I believe the Na'vi are right and the humans are wrong.

It was never explained that humanity needed unobtanium to survive, only that it's really expensive stuff they can get rich on. On an entire planet there should be more than just one place where they can find unobtanium, but apparently they didn't want to make the effort of relocating to another side of the planet.

And of course, that is considering that there are no other places in the entire universe where you can get unobtanium, which frankly sounds far-fetched. If it's so damn rare, then I don't see how humanity would survive for long on that stuff.

Jake Sully isn't a jerk. Why should he side with the humans in this conflict when they are the bigger assholes? And why should they just let the humans get their will through? They'd probably start harassing and killing other Na'vi as they went looking for more unobtanium.

And who the hell can support the idea of the humans uplifting the Na'vi from their primitive society? Remember the words Manifest Destiny?

Unobtanium is apparently a superconductor that not only supplies the entire Earth's energy needs, but fuels interstellar space travel. It's vital to the establishment of a space-faring civilization.

Personally, I rooted for the Colonel. Not humans, not Na'vi. Just... Colonel Miles Quadritch. I liked him, even for racist hateful bastard he was.

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

While I wrote humans, I was actually routing for time. What a long and pretentious, yet stupid and insubstantial movie. Eugh.

 

[Anarchemitis]

And of course, that is considering that there are no other places in the entire universe where you can get unobtanium, which frankly sounds far-fetched. If it's so damn rare, then I don't see how humanity would survive for long on that stuff.

I concur.
We live in a perfect region of our galaxy full of nice heavy elements like carbon, iron and oxygen. Luckier still, we have more than ample amounts of more heavier-still stuff like aluminum, gold and uranium to make our species' lives more luxurious.

There are elements that have been discovered that have the potential for being fabulously useful, but we don't exploit them because they're so dang rare and expensive to either retrieve or refine. Even moreso if it has to come from space. The only viable economic thing I could think of Unobtainium being useful for is as a rare metaloid for use as a Currency Standard, and even then that would make accountants and economists cry.

If an ore came from the moon that could have pure silver and aluminum be refined out of it by spitting at it, it would probably never justify the expense of having to transport it back form the moon, especially if the moon was a hostile organic environ [as opposed to a dead dry rock].

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

On an emotional level I stayed neutral, but I believe the Na'vi are right and the humans are wrong.

It was never explained that humanity needed unobtanium to survive, only that it's really expensive stuff they can get rich on. On an entire planet there should be more than just one place where they can find unobtanium, but apparently they didn't want to make the effort of relocating to another side of the planet.

And of course, that is considering that there are no other places in the entire universe where you can get unobtanium, which frankly sounds far-fetched. If it's so damn rare, then I don't see how humanity would survive for long on that stuff.

Jake Sully isn't a jerk. Why should he side with the humans in this conflict when they are the bigger assholes? And why should they just let the humans get their will through? They'd probably start harassing and killing other Na'vi as they went looking for more unobtanium.

And who the hell can support the idea of the humans uplifting the Na'vi from their primitive society? Remember the words Manifest Destiny?

Well written good Sir. nevermind the forest for a moment. How would you feel if you had an oil patch under your house. there MAY be more elsewhere, but it's you're house. Your family has lived there for generations and you don't think you should dig through the house yourself or syphon it for fear of the foundation. Oil is starting to become scarce in the world.

Now in this instance, how would you feel if the oil companies came and destroyed your house to get to the oil, because they could get rich. The na'vi were having their home, their society, their way of life destroyed for trinkets. Everything they held dear was going to be destroyed. Not to mention that the forest was LITERALLY alive and could feel. Would YOU defend it, or would you destroy lives?

I don't see how I would be called an arrogant ass for defending everything I held dear to me.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

While I wrote humans, I was actually routing for time. What a long and pretentious, yet stupid and insubstantial movie. Eugh.

The movie was about preservation of nature and the environment, about holding close what we care about and defending family and friends. It's deep, compalling, thoughtful.

So... How do you get Pretentious, stupid, and insubstantial?

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

On an emotional level I stayed neutral, but I believe the Na'vi are right and the humans are wrong.

It was never explained that humanity needed unobtanium to survive, only that it's really expensive stuff they can get rich on. On an entire planet there should be more than just one place where they can find unobtanium, but apparently they didn't want to make the effort of relocating to another side of the planet.

And of course, that is considering that there are no other places in the entire universe where you can get unobtanium, which frankly sounds far-fetched. If it's so damn rare, then I don't see how humanity would survive for long on that stuff.

Jake Sully isn't a jerk. Why should he side with the humans in this conflict when they are the bigger assholes? And why should they just let the humans get their will through? They'd probably start harassing and killing other Na'vi as they went looking for more unobtanium.

And who the hell can support the idea of the humans uplifting the Na'vi from their primitive society? Remember the words Manifest Destiny?

Unobtanium is apparently a superconductor that not only supplies the entire Earth's energy needs, but fuels interstellar space travel. It's vital to the establishment of a space-faring civilization.

Personally, I rooted for the Colonel. Not humans, not Na'vi. Just... Colonel Miles Quadritch. I liked him, even for racist hateful bastard he was.

And with it being so damned rare, it won't last for long. Did they ever mention it in movie? imply it? I could care less if it's a super conductor and can do all those things. They mentioned MONEY in the movie. making money. Mooooooolah...

And even so, back to the oil thing. lets say oil could run everything, but it was so rare there were only a few puddles of the stuff. ould you destroy the environment for it, or would you start looking for a new way to power the world since the oil won't last you long anyways

 

[ElTigreSantiago]

The only reference I heard to them wanting it, was that it was crazy valuable. And we don't exactly invade other countries just to get diamonds, or other valuable resources, when the owners don't want to sell it. As for those Marines, it's blind obedience like that, that tends to fuck things up. They weren't out there for the government, they were out there as private security. They just did it for the paycheck, same as Jake at the start.

Yes my friend, sad as it may be, countries do indeed go to war over valuables. Have you ever heard of The Invasion of Kuwait? Blood for oil, a valuable resource that people will kill for. And how about when one country wants land, and the "owners don't want to sell it". Naploleon didn't pack up his bags when he found out that people didn't want to give their land, he conquered them.

I fail to see how "blind obedience" is fucking things up. You'll find that if you enlist in your countries military, it's a whole hell of a lot harder to be disobedient than you might think. You forget that the Marines fighting the Navi were also fighting to stay alive. Maybe in the fairy tale world of avatar, that crippled Marine was given an incredibley unlikely opportunity to go AWOL and it somehow worked. But like I said in real life there aren't any soldiers joining the Iraqis and Afghans and overthrowing America and the coalition. That shit doesn't happen. It can't happen.

It all goes back to the writing, in that the humans are evil and the mystical aliens are perfection. In real life, military organizations are all government controlled, so those men wouldn't have been mercenaries or whatever you say they are. And you'll find that the military doesn't pay you shit, nobody's doing it for the paycheck.

Haha all this over that stupid movie I didn't even like.

 

[Wolf Devastator]

The Last Airbender, but it failed. -.-

 

[Canadamus Prime]

While I'll admit that the main protagonist of the film wasn't very likable. In fact, he was kind of a dipshit, but you'll never get me to side with a bunch of corporate douchebags and their military cohorts who are willing to destroy the lively-hood and well being of an entire race just to make a quick buck.

 

[Mr. Win]

The Water Tribe.