At the center of the "story" Avatar is an "inter-species" romance between the humanoid Na'vi and a Human. Our protagonist falls in love with an "alien" woman and an "alien" culture, abandons all to quite literally "go native." In my opinion the whole exercise is at best sloppy sci-fi; the Na'vi could easily be swapped with any idealized aboriginal tribe on earth (if their mysticism was real), the setting could be any tropical forest (with phosphorescence), and the Marines could be employees any colonial company of the 17th-19th century without any major change to the story. This is sci-fi that I hate as the technology and setting aren't used to explore any interesting aspects of humanity and the robots and aliens are just there to provide a CGI spectacular.
Imagine if instead our protagonist had to deal with an environment and alien species that was genuinely alien. Instead of dealing with a furry's wet dream of anthropomorphic cats, what if they where sentient blobfish? Instantly the love story is made more difficult by the fact that there is no innate sex appeal. Now the story has to deal with the issue of what love is should the blobfish even be capable of love. Suddenly we have to dissect what love is and weigh intellectual attraction v. sex appeal, human hormones in conflict with blobfish ones. And we'd also have the question of what is it like to be put into a truly alien form that lives in a truly 3D environment and swims as primary locomotion. Our characters would have to deal with how grounding is a human body; how does form effect our interactions, our self-concept, and our view of our environment?
Dealing with complex questions about humanity is what makes science fiction a great medium. Avatar is lazy. (425,733)
Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:31 am I know! Blobfish would make this story waaaay hotter -- er, more compelling. Imagine, the challenges of fighting, conducting diplomacy, mating underwater. I'd pay to see that!
Icthoicky
Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:54 am Dude your so missing the point of Avatar. The cat-people where there to show how greedy and crappy people are by offering contrast of what we should be. I hope I'm good in life so that I can reincarnate as a Na'vi. :)
BestialityRULES
Thu Mar 04, 2010 5:12 pm The blobfish would be too hot. The military guys would turn the Na'vi into sex slaves and turn Pandora into a brothel.
Thu Mar 04, 2010 5:48 pm Great ideas swimming around. Maybe Cameron could make a calendar of these beauties to get funding for Ava-Blob:
Hawt!
ichthyophile76
Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:00 pm Oh dude those are really cool looking blobfish. I want to, uh, examine them more closely -- can you send me big hi-res files of them please?
At the center of the "story" Avatar is an "inter-species" romance between the humanoid Na'vi and a Human. Our protagonist falls in love with an "alien" woman and an "alien" culture, abandons all to quite literally "go native." In my opinion the whole exercise is at best sloppy sci-fi; the Na'vi could easily be swapped with any idealized aboriginal tribe on earth (if their mysticism was real), the setting could be any tropical forest (with phosphorescence), and the Marines could be employees any colonial company of the 17th-19th century without any major change to the story. This is sci-fi that I hate as the technology and setting aren't used to explore any interesting aspects of humanity and the robots and aliens are just there to provide a CGI spectacular.
Imagine if instead our protagonist had to deal with an environment and 
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