The point of Avatar, why empathy is important and why humans are like cancer

[Candidus]

Humans sort of are like cancer - described as such by a certain Agent.........

We feel no empathy whatsoever to other animals because we are not like them.

We feel some empathy towards them, but not as much as for humans

Not true in every case. I love my tribe- that's me and the few people I'm close to. I'm cautious of and maintain a fairly aggressive stance towards everybody else. Between a person charity and an animal charity, I'd pay to the latter with enthusiasm. Between a drowning dog and a drowning brat, I'd save the dog every single time.

If saving a rainforest means displacing and starving a few thousand people, I'll sign the petition to save the rainforest. There's plenty more where those thousand came from. If the thousand happens to include me? Well that's hard luck, but whether or not I agree in *that* case doesn't make the decision wrong.

Avatar is Fern Gully. It's the man who hates fairies and destroys their environment becoming a fairy eco-warrior. It's not that the story is "unoriginal" that bugs me; it's simply told very inelegantly. It's almost from the Michael Bay school of shit movie-making.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

All characters (and i mean ALL) were bad.

No they aren't.

The main character was stupid (really stupid), main character learns everything fast and gets better than the blue people (Why? Is he some kind of fast learning superhuman?)

Stupid in what way? Mentally? He was a marine. He was trained to be a marine, not a scientist.

He learns "everything" in the span of 3 months. That's not "very fast". Not only that, but all the Na'vi people must take this test in order to become Hunters.

He never gets better at hunting than the other Na'vi people, he wass trying to catch up. The fact that he managed to bond with the big bird(Tulok Mak Tauk I believe) simply shows he thinks fast.

He managed to stage an attack on the humans attacking the Na'vi worship place because he knew that technology would basically mean jack shit up in the flying mountains. That's the only reason he managed to even weaken the super-advanced technological army. Heck if Ewa, the Na'vi deity wouldn't have intervened then all would be lost for the Na'vi.

blue people were kind of a disappointment.

Because...?

You can't make a movie just about the graphics technology.

Yeah you can. The story that the movie tells is "re-told" in a different setting and it's being re-told very well. The movie itself is an experience rather than a "That was deep right there!" kind of movie. It tries to immerse you into the beautiful but also deadly world of Pandora.

See, they don't have a connection to the forest, they have a plug to make the forest their slave. They take a beast, put a plug in it and that beast is their.

If you saw the horse scene, where Neytiri(Can't spell her name right) tries to teach Jake how to ride a horse. Even after the bond is made and the 2 creatures are actually "bonded", you see Jake fail over and over again at riding the horse. This wasn't because of inexperience(If you can fly a dragon, you can ride a goddamn horse!), it was because they 2 creatures were not truly bonded.

But hey, let's look at the dragon looking like flying thingies. As you can hear Neytiri say, "The creature must also choose you". What does this mean? The creatures have a choice as to whether they want a Na'vi to ride them or not. Even with the bond made, if the 2 creatures aren't in "complete agreement" then they won't get along very well I.E. fail at flying etc.

They were jerks too, they didn't listen to the human, they didn't give him a chance to tell what's going on.

The humans were trying to destroy their ancestral home. The humans tried diplomatic attempts but they failed(Well obviously they failed. You can't seriously believe the Na'vi would migrate from their home just to watch it be destroyed by the humans to get their precious "Unobtanium".)

At first, it went well(They managed to open a school and teach the Natives English) but it all went Shitstorm when they found out what Humanity's goal really was. The Na'vi gave them a chance and they betrayed it.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

My opinion?

PURGE THE XENOS.

 

[ben---neb]

I remember what my argument is to all this eco-rubbish:

I don't care.

Really I don't, the human race isn't perfect, this world isn't perfect and that's never going to change (until the Judgement Day) so what's the point in trying to do anything about it?

And despite liking Avatar it did annoy me when I found myself cheering the deaths of humans over some bird type creatures.

All this global warming, tree huggging, nature worshipping rubbish just does my head in.

 

[Internet Kraken]

We have discovered a connection that bonds all of the creatures on Pandora in a literal sense. Something like this is completley unheard of. And we're just going to blow it up.

Yeah that sounds ridiculous to me.

Ignorance has always been ridiculous.
Doesn't make it unrealistic.

The amount if ignorance and stupidity displayed by the humans in that movie is unrealistic. I can't honestly believe that the Government is going to let this corporation destroy an incredibly scientific discovery that could potentially improve the human race.

I mean really, you think it's wrong to chop down trees? What the hell?

Wait a sec... you think it's ok to chop down trees? I certainly hope you're joking/ being sarcastic?

Well considering how important paper is yes, I do think it's okay to chop down trees. What exactly is wrong with it?

Perhaps you're thinking that I am saying it is okay to mindlessly destroy the environment. I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that it's okay to use trees as renewable resource.

That's one of things I hate about Avatar. The connection between the Navi and nature is completley unrealistic.

It doesn't have to be realistic, it's a bloody film. Jesus, it's like everywhere I look there are people picking holes in the smallest aspect of the film. I swear to god, it's as if it's the cool thing to hate Avatar, so many people are following this trend.

I can tolerate unrealistic things in movies. But it just didn't work for me in Avatar.
The movie stretched my suspension of disbelief thin.


And I don't really think Avatar is that bad of a movie. I mean in terms of special effects it's incredible. But the plot is pure bullshit, and I wouldn't mind that if people didn't watch this movie and then start preaching about it's message.

We see Earth as far more than a pile of resources, hence why there is now a greater urge in modern society to preserve our planet.

Nah, you, me and some other people with sense see it like that.

And there is no urge to preserve our planet, there is an urge to stop the climate on the planet changing to a point that is unable to sustain humans.

Yes there is an urge to preserve our planet, and this urge existed before global warming was an issue. Is is mostly about preserving our own species, but there's nothing wrong with that.

I remember what my argument is to all this eco-rubbish:

I don't care.

Really I don't, the human race isn't perfect, this world isn't perfect and that's never going to change (until the Judgement Day) so what's the point in trying to do anything about it?

And despite liking Avatar it did annoy me when I found myself cheering the deaths of humans over some bird type creatures.

All this global warming, tree huggging, nature worshipping rubbish just does my head in.

You should care. Global warming isn't the only environmental threat. There are many others, and we could eliminate them if more people were aware of them. I'm not calling you an idiot, and I'm not saying that you should be stressed over these issues. Just be aware of them rather than ignoring them.

 

[Moriarty70]

But, and I have said this in other threads, the plot isn't the point of the movie.

I petition your name be revoked. Is there anyway to do that? Please. Seeing as how your namesake requires his readers have a flowchart to understand the delicious plots.

 

[Gitsnik]

Isn't the internet a rather significant part of this so-called decadent lifestyle and thus a kind of silly medium to be using to make any point of this matter.

I will say here to what I say to everyone else - give up your clothes, food, knives, blankets, cars, games, alcohol, etc. Go live in the forest and survive on nothing but what you can find and make yourself (that is not human made).

Come back to me in 5 years. Or 10.

If you can...

You need a knife at least. Otherwise you're more than a little screwed. But you're right, this whole debate is more than a little ironic.

Rubbish. You can find a rock and crack it on another rock to make a sharpish weapon. Quit trying to make it easier on yourself

 

[House_Vet]

Rubbish. You can find a rock and crack it on another rock to make a sharpish weapon. Quit trying to make it easier on yourself

But there's no flint where I live! Plus working metal has to be a real ***** if you have no metal to work it with... A stone cutter would do it, but they'd be hard to make and break easily. Whatever - t'would be awesome for the first day or two, then I'd probably die

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Of course we feel more empathy for humans than other animals, don't be stupid. All species do, else they would be extinct. This is not to say that we don't feel any empathy for other animals.

To say that we find Pandora more attractive than earth is an obvious point. It is. Partly because it was designed to be, partly because earth is familiar.

And to be blunt, you sir, are a liar. If you felt as bad about cutting trees down as cutting people's legs off you would starve to death.

To say that we think we have seen everything to see on earth is wrong too; We know incredibly little about the depths of the ocean and other extremes. We know this. We know that we don't know everything yet.

Loads of people see what humans are doing to the planet. Mostly we don't kill species directly; we usually destroy their habitat and inadvertantly kill them.

To be short, I disagree with pretty much everything you said.

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Humans sort of are like cancer - described as such by a certain Agent.........

No

That is the worst way to describe the human race. It's completely inaccurate, and I can't believe that some people here that speech and actually agree with it.

Humans are not like a disease. We're far more complex than that.

Well, humans move into an area, transform it for their purposes, and then use the reasources till there is nothing left. Then we move on. Only in the past 5 decades has conservative measures been put into place. So essentialy, we are just like a virus. A very large, multi-celled, sentient virus.

 

[gigastrike]

I had been criticizing Avatar for one-dimentional characters who are evil for the sake of being evil, but some of these responses are really making me reconsider how ignorant the average person can be. Of course chopping down a tree is equivalent to cutting a person's legs off; humans and trees are both living things. The fact that trees aren't sentient doesn't make them any less alive, we only think that it's ok because most people don't feel any sort of empathy for something that doesn't move. I'm not saying that chopping down trees is nessecarily bad, life's tough. I'll admit that humans are a little greedy, but all living things do what they must to get by and if that includes chopping down a tree, slautering a cow, or even killing a human for the greater good then how can we say that any of those things are bad?

What I want to know is if that "unobtainium" (or whatever it was called) was really worth killing an alien species over. Were the means really justified, or were the humans just being selfish? That's the one thing that really annoyed me about the story mroe than anything else. They tell us that the humans are on Pandora for a rare element, but they never really tells us what it's for. They never even tell us how much it would benefit man-kind, only that it's extremely valuble. I guess they could be intentionally leaving that part out so that we assume that the humans are just in it for the money, and to ensure that we side with the navi, but I'd really like to decide for myself.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Humans sort of are like cancer - described as such by a certain Agent.........

No

That is the worst way to describe the human race. It's completely inaccurate, and I can't believe that some people here that speech and actually agree with it.

Humans are not like a disease. We're far more complex than that.

Well, humans move into an area, transform it for their purposes, and then use the reasources till there is nothing left. Then we move on. Only in the past 5 decades has conservative measures been put into place. So essentialy, we are just like a virus. A very large, multi-celled, sentient virus.

If you're going to argue that humans are like viruses just because we consume resources, then every other animal is also a virus. The deer population in some areas has risen so high that the deer are starving themselves, in addition to other organisms in the area. Are they a virus as well?

Secondly, you can not call us a "large, multi-celled, sentient virus" because a virus can not be those things. Because we are sentient means that, by definition, we are not a virus.

Third, a virus invades a host cell and then corrupts it so that it produces more viruses rather than carrying out it's normal functions. I suppose when you compare humans to a virus that you are suggesting that Earth is the host cell. Well this doesn't make a lick of sense because the way a virus takes over a cell and the way we consume resources are completley different. A virus doesn't even attempt to keep it's host cell alive. Humans are aware of our actions and try to rectify them. We attempt to renew some resources. We attempt to sustain the environment. And while these attempts are not always successful, we are still at least trying. That's a massive difference between us and a virus.


Fourth, we don't just "move on". The place you are living in right now was once the home of generations of people before you. In addition to building homes in new areas, humans are constantly rebuilding in old areas. Viruses don't do this, so that's another reason why we are not like a virus.

In short, it's not an accurate comparison, especially not when are talking about modern human society. So stop quoting the hypocritical computer program.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

This is why I'm a vegetarian socialist. Empathy is important between all things- but right now I think we really need to work on empathy between humans before really delving into the others. Like you said, we can identify with humans- and we still don't empathize. This needs to be fixed before we can start the empathize with everything.

 

[mr Awsome]

I would say we are more like a parasite, we take what we can and give nothing in return.

Parasites are not aware of the damage they do to their hosts. Parasites do not try to keep their hosts alive. Parasites do not think of their host as anything other than food. Humans are not like that. We see Earth as far more than a pile of resources, hence why there is now a greater urge in modern society to preserve our planet.

Humans didnt start trying to preserve the planet untill it started dieing. We were not aware of the damage being done untill now. We are parasites.

Not to be a jerk but the average parasite such as a tapeworm really doesn't want to kill off its host, after all once the host dies so does their food supply. Now sometimes a great mass of parasites will be in the same host and overly tax him leading to the death of the host organism. So I agree with Mr. Awesome.[/quote]

lol i have no idea what to say...it sounded like you were against me in the beggining of ur last post, and by the end you were with me? 0.0? lol watever thanks XD

 

[AkJay]

The whole "Humans are cancer" thing was done about a decade ago in The Matrix and probably even before that.

 

[Arcticflame]

Err, chopping down a tree isn't wrong. (With exceptions of course)
The point with avatar is that the trees weren't just trees, they were a network that the natives connected with on a spiritual, and apparently also on a physical level.

They weren't just trees in avatar, unlike the trees we have on earth.

... I'm not sure how to word how stupid that is so this might fail: I'm pretty sure the Indigenous around the world do exactly that with our trees.

EDIT: To the below, everything is better with aliens.

uhuh, So I'm stupid because in situations I am wrong, despite the fact I declared at the beginning of my post that in situations this wouldn't hold true, and it is evident you didn't correctly read my post.

Great, you are an intelligent individual.

How is it not true that it's not evil to chop down a tree, it's about the situation in which you do it. I chop down a tree to get wood, the tree is my tree that I grew. Not evil.
I chop down a tree that is a spiritual centre for a religion, and the tree has been there for generations - Evil.

What is so hard to grasp about that?

Added to that is that the trees on avatar are a network as the professor said in the film. They are not just trees, but connections in some sort of half spritiual half sci-fi weird way. Our trees don't have that quality. We are not connected to our trees in a neural network. The Indigenous from avatar are.

 

[Pegghead]

Oh yeah and I want rights for vegetables, and I think tractors should be painted green, and like, yeah right, if people are like, too serious right, then they should just take in the world man.

Avatar is a science fiction film, the escapit is a gaming website and you are a close minded twat who only sees the follies of man and not the triumphs.

 

[Lyri]

The amount if ignorance and stupidity displayed by the humans in that movie is unrealistic. I can't honestly believe that the Government is going to let this corporation destroy an incredibly scientific discovery that could potentially improve the human race.

We could never do what they do, however we have the avatar programme which is essentially the same thing.