SCIENCE MOMENT by E.C.McMullen Jr.

AVATAR - 2009 20th Century Fox Rating: USA: R SPOILER ALERT on AVATAR and THE ABYSS

TECHNOLOGICAL

The word Unobtanium (please tell me you get it) is an old joke scifi staple used in SF satire and comedy. To find it actually being used in what is supposed to be a serious SF movie fraught with social commentary only serves to further demean any attempt at intellectual or moral depth. But that's not the only problem AVATAR has.

For those who don't know, James Cameron has made his mark in making hard-core science fiction movies. In The Terminator movies, time travel is a theory, possibly unlikely, but it isn't fantasy masquerading as science. Everything else made sense. In ALIENS, Cameron expanded on the hard-core science fiction of ALIEN and ran with it. This gave a logic and sense of realism to a futuristic movie. That feeling of place and unforgiving reality allowed audiences to seamlessly plug in to what was happening on another planet, because there remained an order to everything despite the unknown.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, James Cameron was largely all about getting the science right in his movies. Audiences rewarded him by making his films not only theatrical hits, but giving his movies long legs in the home video market.

In between ALIENS and TERMINATOR 2, however, Cameron allowed his focus to blur in 1989's THE ABYSS. Like AVATAR, THE ABYSS was Cameron's Special Effects preachy moral tale and, like all preachy moral tales coming out of Hollywood, it was dumbed down and infantile (possibly so a studio boss could understand it). One mind-bogglingly moronic thing after the next happens and it is amazing that the crew of the undersea lab didn't die from their own incompetence above and beyond the call of idiocy. In fact, there is even a moment where they intentionally try to kill themselves right AFTER they've been rescued. In the final scene, the crew, without going through hours of decompression (which the movie repeatedly took pains to explain was vitally, life or death, important! It's why the bad guy goes bad!), blithely walk out of their undersea lab, now at sea level. Mere seconds after they step out, the character of Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), let's the audience know that even THEY realize just how suicidally stupid they are, when she says:

"We should be dead. We didn't decompress."

One of her crew should have hollered out, "Yeah, well no shit, ya stupid cow!"

Now we have James Cameron's only feature film for the 2000s, AVATAR.

So how does it hold up in the science department?

Awful.

How does it hold up to his past triumphs?

BY 2154, WE SOMEHOW LOST THE 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGY TO DO THIS...

Well, have you watched ALIENS lately? I watched it today. Co-wrote (with David Giler and Walter Hill) and directed by James Cameron, ALIENS still holds up as a futuristic tale both in story and appearance. The Sulaco deep space craft looks like a futuristic craft would appear, as does the drop ship. Military in appearance, yes, but neither look like craft that already exist today, or merely the next model of an existing craft. Released over 20 years ago in 1986, the only thing in the movie moving into obsolescence, right now, would be the curved screen, standard definition monitors they use. Built into the hull or bulkheads, however, we don't know that they are not flat monitors.

AVATAR on the other hand, employs futuristic tech of the year 2154 that is obsolete, Right Now!

For example, in AVATAR, we see that computer monitors are all holographic, futuristic, right? We already saw that eight years ago in FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN, but cool all the same. Then we see character Jake Sully recording his video diary on a camera & sound system that is about the size of an old VHS tape cassette. The hell?

...AND RESORT TO THE 20th CENTURY TECHNOLOGY OF THIS...

Is there anyone who has bought a laptop computer in the past few years that has a camera and microphone? Hell, forget laptops, let's talk about cell phones. You know what I'm talking about here, right? 2007-2009 cell phones with video camera, microphone, and even a display screen to watch videos, look at stills, or play games. Size is slightly more than a standard business card and slightly thinner than a DVD case. In the year 2154 AVATAR, they have a big and boxy camera by comparison and even worse, the camera needs to be mounted on a heavy duty retractable arm and you can't watch videos or play games on it. It just records sight and sound. What was James thinking?

They have spaceship designs built upon the 1969 design for a Rockwell space shuttle! It EVEN has the black trim indicative of heat resistant reentry tiles.

The hell? Back in 2005, SpaceshipOne advanced the atmosphere reentry technology. It left and re-entered our stratosphere without the need for heat shields. That was in 2005 and the technology has advanced since then. We don't have it in 2154? Oh, but we DO have Faster Than Light drives?

...ACCORDING TO AVATAR.

Did you know our construction technology is moving at an ever faster rate? In the 1950s, skyscrapers were monoliths of stone and concrete walls, built on a scaffold of iron and more concrete. In the 1960s, skyscrapers removed the concrete walls, kept the concrete and iron scaffolding, and built their walls out of glass. In the 1990s, skyscrapers moved from concrete and iron scaffolding to just iron scaffolding.

And what about what was going on within those skyscrapers? Just in communication tech alone, consider: In the 1980s, skyscrapers were wired with copper lines for their telephones. In the 1990s, skyscrapers were built wired with clear fiber optic filament. In the 2000s, new skyscrapers were doing away with communication wires altogether and going for wireless. Don't you wonder what 2010 will bring? Well in AVATAR, orbiting space stations will be made the same way now as 150 years from now, with shiny metal scaffolding. In fact, there won't be any noticeable difference between orbiting space stations 150 years from now, and the 20th Century design of the International Space Station (ISS) today.

SO WHY HAS 22nd CENTURY SPACE STATION TECHNOLOGY ...

Think about that! Extrapolating from a century ago in 1909 when we had no spaceships or jet propulsion (microchips? We didn't even have transistors! Hell, we didn't even have the first true electronic vaccuum tubes - Irving Langmuir's Pliotron for General Electric - until 1915!) our technology has come a long way. And as the decades pass, technology advances faster. Technological achievement moved faster in the last 50 years than it did in the prior 100 years. What's more, the technological advancement of the last 20 years moved far faster than it did in the prior 80 (and most of it was actually based on theories and inventions first advanced in the 1950s!). Your tiny 2009 cell phone is a far more advanced home computer, sound recorder, game player, stereo system, video camera, video still camera, GPS tracking device, radio, walkie-talkie, AND telephone than Anything Anyone had for home use in 2000! It can store more photos than any film camera, and can store up to 200 CDs worth of 7.1 high fidelity digital quality music on a memory card the size of a postage stamp. If you have a mere 4 gig memory in your cell phone, it can store up to 6 full length feature films of Standard Definition quality. And we're just talking about a cell phone. That is just ONE thing!

...NOT ADVANCED FROM 20th CENTURY TECHNOLOGY?

I wanted to love AVATAR. As readers can see by our SCIENCE MOMENTS of TERMINATOR, ALIENS, TERMINATOR 2, as well as our constant reference in OTHER movie reviews to the high bar that James Cameron set with those movies, that all other movies must reach toward, there would have been nothing I'd love better than enjoying and praising another J.C. movie.

What's more, I'd have accepted it if it was any one thing or even a few missteps. But it was So Many Things from a guy who set the standard for having his cinematic shit together! EVENT HORIZON is a pretty decent movie for Paul W. S. Anderson. If James Cameron had directed it, you'd be rightly shouting WTF?

For AVATAR, there was hardly a scene among the humans and their tech that wasn't ridiculous. Most of us in the audience had better technology turned off and in our pockets. In AVATAR, they have robotic suits that walk and even move its arms for you. But a paraplegic like Jake Sully has to use a manually operated wheelchair design from the 20th Century?

1986 - THE SULACO FROM ALIENS. IT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE ACTUAL SPACESHIPS THEN OR NOW. IT REMAINS FUTURISTIC.

In AVATAR, we have the technology to keep our AVATARS remotely connected to our humans from many miles away. But we've lost the ability to remotely fly unmanned drones? We've lost the ability to precisely target an object from thousands or even hundreds of, or at least a few miles away, and must place our manned machines within yards of harm's way of our Own Explosions to shoot at ANYTHING? We have giant, hulking, virtually indestructible (certainly from wooden spears and arrows) manned robot machines that can act as towering foot soldiers. But we still need armed soldiers on foot, walking on the ground all around the massive crushing feet of these manned robots? When our aircraft attack, they have to be in a formation so tight that if one should get hit by anything, it will invariably tilt and crash into the next aircraft? And we need all of this in our fight against a life form so primitive that they haven't advanced beyond wooden spears and arrows?

Are you freaking KIDDING ME?

According to AVATAR, the latest 2154 tech in military aircraft will be 20th Century Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) craft. And even though they are propeller driven, they'll sound like helicopters (THE INCREDIBLES had the same type of VTOL and they got the sound right).

I'D MAKE ONE UGLY NA'VI!

Then consider the mining of the Unobtainium, the magical stuff that will solve all of earth's energy problems (ahem). Think about that. In the 22nd Century we can fly 4.5 light years in a matter of months and drill and mine deep into ANOTHER world, but we can't just drill down to the geothermal surface of our OWN planet, the mantle, and harness the geothermal energy there (we penetrated earth's mantle in 1993. Geothermal energy is available from every square inch of the earth), or use the geothermal energy of ANY of the planets in our solar system (I'm not even counting the ridiculous ignorance of ignoring the massive energy output of not one, but four different stars along the way!)! Our 22nd Century energy solution only exists in one place and that is under a tree at least 4.5 light years away. GAH!

What's more, we've lost the ability to both mine or drill from up to a mile away and excavate what we need below without damaging or weakening the integrity of the surface. In other words, we've even lost 19th Century horizontal drilling and mining technology! We can no longer mine or drill something over Here from way over There and still Drink Their Milkshake!

Holy Freaking CRAP, man!

Cameron has never made a science fiction movie so devoid of science and so inordinately stupid. And he even made THE ABYSS!

Just in the human technology designs alone, AVATAR already looks dated. Once the novelty of the amazing 3D animated cgi aliens is gone, that will be it.

SCIENCE MOMENT BY KELLY PARKS

BIOLOGICAL
by Kelly Parks

You have four limbs. Have you noticed that? Pretty much all large land animals on Earth have four limbs. I have to specify "large" because 80% of the animal species in the animal kingdom are insects. But mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds all have four. Even snakes have four vestigial limbs, visible when you see their skeletons. That's the norm for Earth.

James Cameron did a very good job of creating a whole ecology full of strange and wonderful beasts on Pandora. And they all look like different branches on the same evolutionary tree because they all have six limbs - four in front and two in back. Well done, James.

Except, of course, for the Na'vi. They are utterly humanoid, with only four limbs (among many other humanoid features). In other words, they don't fit. It's clear that either:

A) They didn't evolve on Pandora and thus are as alien to that world as we are.

or

B) Cameron overlooked a detail!

You be the judge.

Copyright 2009 - 2010 by E.C.McMullen Jr.



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