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[Ratman_tf]

Gawd. You can smell the preaching on the trailer.

DVD rental for the fact that it's Cameron and not some no-name schmuck.

[WindupAtheist]

That trailer makes me root for the humans to crush the natives, plunder their resources, and infect them with diseases against which they have no defense. Wasn't there supposed to be an MMO of this or something? I want to roll a human and give those natives blankets full of smallpox.

Edit: Then again, the humans have mechs, so fuck them!

[Tarami]

Dances with Wolves Junior in the Amazonas?

There are literally hunderds of examples throughout history of technologically superior civilizations curbstomping primitive indigenous people. Hell, it's pretty much how war has been done since the dawn of time. Tribe A invented bows, curbstomped tribe B which hadn't and took their stuff. There wasn't a need to create a setting with CGI to make the story work, that's just bullshit.

[SurfD]

Well, except for the fact that according to the guy in the trailer, the natives are "very hard to kill", such to the point that it appears they might actually be able to go hand to hand with the battle frames the marines use.  So in that sense, the technologically advanced humans may not exactly be curb-stomping the natives, but when they go to war, fighting a pretty nasty battle of attrition.

[Tarami]

I doubt "very hard to kill" in this case means they deflect high-explosive rounds with their skin. Not even Aliens do that. It's often very hard to exterminate a population though (even if they just have sticks and rocks for weapons), which is what I assume they mean.

Ok, it's an excuse to show off CGI and explosions. I get that. I just expected something more... interesting from Cameron after all these years.

[Simond]

Well, except for the fact that according to the guy in the trailer, the natives are "very hard to kill", such to the point that it appears they might actually be able to go hand to hand with the battle frames the marines use.  So in that sense, the technologically advanced humans may not exactly be curb-stomping the natives, but when they go to war, fighting a pretty nasty battle of attrition.

So you fall back, then nuke their settlements from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Hell, get some Hunter-Killers and orbital-drop them on the planet - no need for humanity to even land until the natives are thoroughly subjugated.

[Merusk]

Here's what REALLY bother me.

1)  The modern army is becoming more and more mechanized, removing the soldier from the battlefield entirely.  After all, why spend all that money training someone only to have them blown to bits.
2)  We have tiny, TINY cameras that offer spectacular resolution and good FOV now, so imagine what this space marine crew has at their point in the future.  Fuck, my iPod has an awesome camera that's smaller than the nail on my little finger.
3)  Between satellite recon, AWACS and live updates from field personnel modern battlefields toss an incredible amount of data around.  Imagine the datalinks and gathering capabilities this future military would have.
4)  They can build battle frames that react as quickly as human response time.

Combining all of those.. why does their military look anything at all like it does.  There should be tiny, unmanned recon vehicles that would do info gathering better than some biologic construct who gets a furry hard-on at the first blue boob he sees.  Those gunships have no reason to be manned, nor do the battle frames.  With the fantastic cameras of the future there's no limit to the amount they could toss on a vehicle to avoid "tunnel vision" commonly associated with camera view.

 You'd need a much smaller cache of Remote soldiers.  The frames/ mechs are getting fucked up anyway so that's not the issue if one of their mechs 'dies' but at least you'd still have a pilot that didn't need fresh indoctrination to the war zone.  Plus, there isn't the urgency to recover/ rebuild a mech that there is with a person.  And as a last resort you can at least melt the fucker down for new raw mats.

The more I think on it, the less feasible these movies are going to seem as time goes on.  We're going to be removing ourselves from the field while movies are still tossing WWI trench fighting on screen using 'future' weapons.

[gryeyes]

1. Cheaper to use humans combined with the scale of the battle. If world spanning stand up engagements were still on the table I doubt we would be gearing our military in the same manner. As opposed to having a military geared towards conquest and plunder in which manpower is plentiful and casualties politically irrelevant. You aren't going to be using the same military strategy to take a planet as you are to battle hut dwellers and insurgents in an urban environment. Many military minds are already claiming the current US military would be ill prepared for a large scale conflict. The modern military is not geared towards the eradication of the enemy. Just about every possible rule of war I can think of limits the effectiveness of the military as a force of fucking folks up.
2. No clue
3. Most of the wars waged with this level of technology have been in a pretty limited area. Would the data saturation remain the same if it was a planet wide engagement? If we didn't already the intelligence infrastructure from decades of development already in place. And even if it was possible would it be economically viable?
4. One super weapon doesn't mean all areas of technology are going to receive the same funding and availability.The fact the humans can create "avatars" is more glaring than the disparity between ninja suits and manned hover crafts. Probably a bit more viable in all areas if you have that level of science is to just use chemical or biological weapons.

Cant use the extremely limited nature of modern war doctrine with something so alien and fictional and expect it to jive. But even now if we could make a terminator with plasma weapons at 100 million a pop, we would still be using humans with rifles. Most of what you say assumes unlimited resources and unlimited availability, which doesn't make much sense since they are displacing a people for some ore. Ignoring all the scifi handicaps on technology that tend to exist in "super advanced" fiction. Their army is a band of marauders looking to plunder some blue skinned heathens. And thats exactly what it looks like.

[NowhereMan]

Yes but it seems ridiculous since they appear to be sending soldiers piloting these mech things and gunships while simultaneously sending an artificially grown body being remote-controlled by a crippled guy. You'd imagine it would just as easy to make sure everything that isn't an actual soldier with a rifle was also being remote controlled.

[WindupAtheist]

These guys can be alien tribal supermen for all it matters. Any army at even a WW2 level of technology would just bomb them from thousands of feet in the air and shell them with artillery from miles and miles away, while they sat there holding their spears and wondering why the fuck the world was exploding.

[NowhereMan]

Maybe  the shit they want to mine is relatively fragile and they don't know where all of it is? Thus large scale bombardment would be a no-no (I have no idea why I'm trying to justify the idiocy)

[Slyfeind]

I was kinda interested in this, saw the latest trailer, then thought "Oh. This old story again."

[WindupAtheist]

I guess if the stuff were really volatile and close to the surface, and the humans didn't want to set off the equivalent of one of those century-long coal fires that would make some sense. Even then they would have to be woefully ill-equipped for their mission in order for it to matter.

I mean they don't need to assert political control over a country, they just need to convince some natives to move from one particular area. Defoliate it with some intergalactic Agent Orange and they'll move when they don't have anything to eat.

[Ratman_tf]

These guys can be alien tribal supermen for all it matters. Any army at even a WW2 level of technology would just bomb them from thousands of feet in the air and shell them with artillery from miles and miles away, while they sat there holding their spears and wondering why the fuck the world was exploding.

Assuming there's no other circumstances keeping them from carpet bombing the planet. We could ask why America didn't just nuke Vietnam into glass.

[Merusk]

Goddamn liberal pansies, that's why. 

[Ratman_tf]

Goddamn liberal pansies, that's why. 

I doubt Cameron will even go there, but I can see a bunch of human pro-alien hippies on "Planet Whatever" tying themselves to trees and protesting the rape of their territory and culture.

[Sheepherder]

Assuming there's no other circumstances keeping them from carpet bombing the planet. We could ask why America didn't just nuke Vietnam into glass.

During operation Linebacker II a total of 741 B-52 sorties had been dispatched to bomb North Vietnam and 729 had actually completed their missions. 15,237 tons of ordnance were dropped on 18 industrial and 14 military targets (including eight SAM sites) while fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons of bombs to the tally.

[WindupAtheist]

Assuming there's no other circumstances keeping them from carpet bombing the planet. We could ask why America didn't just nuke Vietnam into glass.

Because nuclear weapons were seen in a much different light than conventional weapons, and because the North Vietnamese were the military proxy of an unfriendly nuclear-armed superpower. I mean sure, I suppose that with sufficient creativity Cameron could cook up SOME reason for the humans to launch missiles at the natives from mechs at point-blank range and not from fixed positions thirty miles away. But looking at that trailer, I doubt the movie will even bother.

I'm looking forward to the dumbest example of technologically advanced badguys losing to primitives for no good reason since the last act of Return of the Jedi.

[gryeyes]

Yeah be pretty hard to say "Its against the rules to nuke indigenous populations or otherwise blatantly slaughter them for their resources". Ya know, like the real world with dozens of historical incidents of similar tenor that strangely were not resolved by carpet bombings and nuclear weapons. We had to tip toe around this shit with the Indians and still broke the "rules" to do so. Modern conflict seems to be about a bit more than the ability to slaughter your enemy via any means possible. Not sure whats so unbelievable about it being in fiction, since its happening in the meat world at his very moment.

Or you could watch the part of the trailer that says they are supposed to be seeking a diplomatic resolution (Cant go slaughter them all) and that they are on the brink of war. I doubt the brink of war is a statement referencing the planet bound blue folks. That army looks like its been seeing some conflict unrelated to bow wielders. Treaty of blah blah explicitly states you cant go fucking sentient folks up, so you gotta use sneaky methods that have the same net result durf durf. Not like there are any real world examples of technologically inferior peoples battling forces that are superior by every conceivable metric and "winning"  .

[WindupAtheist]

There are going to be helicopters getting taken out by nets and catapults while anyone sane scratches their head and wonders why they don't fly 50 feet higher and you damn well know it. Or hey, maybe there won't be any fighting in this movie at all, because of the treaty of blah blah. Or there will be, but it'll be like the real world. You know, when the US Army put aside it's overwhelmingly superior weapons and fought the Indians with swords, allowing them to win the day.

Idiot.

Edit: Seriously, unless there is a treaty which states that marines with futuristic weaponry are required to engage from spear range I guarantee this is going to be ridiculous.

[gryeyes]

Yeah, or like how the US military nuked them Vietnamese,Koreans,Afghanis and Iraqis right? For a ardent fan of shit fiction you sure have a limited imagination. Oh noes atmospheric distortion on the planet makes long range engagement impossible! Military rules of engagement ban the use of WMD's on sentient creatures! Absurd, there is no real world analogue for anything like this. I bet Dune caused you to have a seizure, OMGZ dudes with fucking daggers made of teeth displace a galactic spanning nuclear power! RIDICULOUS! Emperor should have nuked them! Yeah we sure displaced them Indians by committing the full military might and not by the systematic process of treaties,indoctrination and deception over a period of decades. NEWP we rolled in and slaughtered them ALL in a titanic battle of conquest! The US hasnt subjugated South America through economic means and "low tech" proxies, newp. We nuked em!

War in REALITY is not conducted in the strange retard manner you try to portray it. Let alone whats viable in the context of fiction. Yes there will be absurd battle sequences that are completely unrealistic, welcome to scifi you are in for a bumpy road.

[WindupAtheist]

Oh they could tell a plausible and believable "colonialism in Africa" story where the humans come in and stomp everything flat in short order, then occupy the place and suffer attrition in an endless guerilla war that's horribly unpopular on the home front, ending with the natives eventually gaining independence decades later. They could. If they wanted to. But they won't. This movie isn't that nuanced. This movie is "We will prove that this is our land!" and "Bows and arrows against gunships? Hyuck hyuck, let's do this thang!" followed by guys in mech suits running through the woods. Probably about to fall into quicksand or something stupid like that.

We're going to see mechs tripping over vines and shit, and dudes falling into pit traps, and there's gonna be a part where the hero looks at the pilot of an attacking helicopter all smug right before a boulder smashes it. I can just fucking SMELL it from that trailer.

But anyway, please tell me how something like... say... Korea compares to this in any way, shape, or form. Korea being a proxy war between superpowers and involving, among other things, a shitload of air-to-air combat.

[gryeyes]

Their spears and arrows are made with the magic fucking metal handwavium. They are all Namor level beings with magic weapons in an environment the human forces are extremely hampered by. The indigenous life is made this robust by a confluence of factors, primarily it has 100 times the gravity of earth and their physiology is heavily laced with handwavium. The native life can rend human weapons with claws and arrows, the naturally existing predators are on par with the technology of man in close quarters. The rudimentary weapons and tactics (netting fast moving aerial predators,land based juggernauts) the smurfs employ in their daily struggle for life effectively counters the nerfed human military (which is just an expeditionary force). They are warriors born on their own turf, with a traitor human filling in the blanks.

The use of long range weapons is largely nullified due to these factors combined with unknown forms of radiation that greatly reduces any means of long range targeting and observation that handwavium produces. In addition, there is strict galactic protocol in which such weapons can be used against sentient life. And even if these factors did not exist the ore itself is extremely fragile in its untempered form and would be destroyed if such means were used. A perfect storm of why blowing everything up is not a possible strategy.

The human military industrial complex is seeking a manner to swindle the ore without blatantly breaking the rules, so they use avatars as a means to get the goods without sustaining casualties and causing a political shit storm. The natives initially deceived about the nature of the conflict go along with it until they witness first hand the implications and destructiveness of man. Rampant propaganda portrays the native life as worthless bloodthirsty monsters, the avatar believes these lies until the truth of their savage nobility is revealed (blue boobs with a dash of human corruption).  Push comes to shove and the hardboiled marine leader says fuck the rules and begins the combat in earnest (probably using their self defense as justification). He is not an evil man (simplistic perspective/being corrupted by a corporate lackey), the ore is crucial to his peoples survival in a far greater conflict. The ends justify the means,he has his eye on the prize and smurfs be damned. After an extremely small scale battle (In galactic terms) in which casualties are sustained on both sides. Eventually the public/command becomes aware of these events through the machinations of the good Dr. Weaver whose participation in such an unseemly scenario was predicated on avoiding the destruction of the native people. A Pyrrhic victory of sorts is gained by the native people and humans are shown to be the shit heels they are.

Is any of these "reasons" for the shit you hate really that unbelievable that you cannot get over it? Dune has the same rough shape for why technology is limited, is that as weird to you? You seem to be asking why this movie isn't something completely different and then using extraordinarily spurious logic to justify why its dumb. Judge fiction by internal consistency not how it relates to your ideas about how war in the "real" world is waged. Nothing you are bitching about is exceptional either in stupidity or in comparison to scifi in general. Thats not to say the movie wont be trite preachy nonsense with little to no explanation given. But the premise itself is not something that requires extraordinary means to explain. Personally Im thinking the military forces we see are part of a forward base that will be crucial in a brewing war, the military is so poorly tuned to the environment due to that conflict being ancillary in the "Big picture".

But anyway, please tell me how something like... say... Korea compares to this in any way, shape, or form.

The list of conflicts I gave isnt demonstrating how those are the "same" as our conjectured theories of Avatar (Tho just about every other example is VERY similar). Its demonstrating we don't just blatantly slaughter our "enemies" using all methods available. We dont wage war in that manner, we haven't for centuries (if ever?),using it as some form of standard how "real war" would be waged is silly. The limitations placed on our military are not based on technological capability. So smurfs not instantly being nuked/bombed into oblivion shouldn't be unbelievable. Did we destroy Hawaii's indigenous population or did we sublimate the existing command structure? And use our standard cockfaggery that is used in every other instance we want something that outright taking with force isn't an option. Christ we could just say they need the indigenous people to farm the handwavium to explain why we wont destroy them outright and it would work. I do agree that the technology implied by the use of Avatars seems to be vastly beyond the tactics and weapons we see the humans using.

Fake edit: The mech engaging the smurf with a "dagger" caused you to spit blood I bet.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Is this movie even worth a paragraph of text?

[Brogarn]

Is this movie even worth a paragraph of text?

No. But nerd rage does silly things to people.

[Abagadro]

Hey, the Ewoks did it so...

[Der Helm]

From what plane of existence did you guys phase shift to these forums.

Take a look at that trailer again. Then think about what you have done. Be quick about it, else this is not going to end well.

But it sure could end funny. 

[Rishathra]

gryeyes, WUA's point isn't that a plausible explanation cannot be constructed, but that they probably won't bother even trying to construct one in the first place; instead we will get CGI Ewoks.

[01101010]

Their spears and arrows are made with the magic fucking metal handwavium. They are all Namor level beings with magic weapons in an environment the human forces are extremely hampered by.

Magic > Technology?   

see also Tesla.

[Ingmar]

This thread is going places. 

I think the movie looks potentially entertaining.

[WindupAtheist]

gryeyes, WUA's point isn't that a plausible explanation cannot be constructed, but that they probably won't bother even trying to construct one in the first place; instead we will get CGI Ewoks.

Yeah, like I said, it's not impossible to come up with something. (Hopefully something less stupid than what that wall of text suggested.) Cameron's best movie, after all, featured a squad of futuristic marines getting eaten by what amounted to a pack of animals, and those marines WERE perfectly willing to just nuke the place given a chance.

I'm looking at that trailer though, and I'm not seeing some sort of Little Big Horn scenario. I'm seeing a bunch of guys who put enough effort into their mission to reverse-engineer the alien DNA and create avatars, but who didn't bother to bring any of the plain old dirt-common conventional weapons that would make armed conflict with the natives a non-issue.

I'm seeing infantry standing all bunched together in a row like they're fighting for Napoloen, alien dudes using swords to fight mechs, and helicopters getting eaten by dragons. I can't quite shake the feeling that their gunships are designed with those enclosed rotors specifically because someone wanted to see that last one, either. I mean without it being totally gory and hilarious.

The list of conflicts I gave isnt demonstrating how those are the "same" as our conjectured theories of Avatar (Tho just about every other example is VERY similar).

No, they weren't. At all. You listed two proxy wars between superpowers, and two long-term guerilla conflicts in countries where the attacker was trying to nation-build. Meanwhile in the movie we're talking about getting one village to relocate.

But hey, maybe it's me. I mean I thought we blew the Iraqi Army to shit from the air in no time flat, and then only had things go to hell when we had to try to occupy the country, struggling to root out a substantially foreign-funded resistance while making efforts not to antagonize the general population. But maybe I've been watching the wrong fucking news channels.

Maybe what REALLY happened is that the US military decided smart bombs and stealth aircraft and artillery were all totally inappropriate to use. (We didn't nuke the Indians after all!) So instead they sent the army in there with nothing but small arms and light vehicles, whereupon the plucky Iraqis defeated them with nets and spears to save the day. Maybe that's how it was, and I'm the fucking idiot instead of you. I mean how could I have overlooked the ironclad history lesson of how Iraq won the Iraq war and remains a proud and unoccupied land to this day?

You fucking stupid cunt.

[gryeyes]

gryeyes, WUA's point isn't that a plausible explanation cannot be constructed, but that they probably won't bother even trying to construct one in the first place; instead we will get CGI Ewoks.

Imagine that, getting CGI Ewoks in a movie about CGI Ewoks, would it really make you feel better if why the are so martially accomplished against the Empire was explained? Nothing he mentions NEEDS an explanation, the military beefs need no elaboration because war isn't conducted like that in reality, so it not being done so in a scifi setting requires no explanation to be believable. The reasons why the smurfs aren't bombarded to death at the onset has so many rational justifications (Ignoring it makes for a shit movie) that explaining in detail on screen is superfluous (This also assumes that no reasons are given). The concept of the natural evolution of alien life creating beings whose natural abilities matches or surpasses that of technologically based man is a staple of scifi, it also needs no extraneous explanation.

Or at the very least if you attempt to discredit a fictional setting with real world examples make sure your argument isn't completely inaccurate in all comparisons with the REAL world. It will produce fan wankery of far higher quality.

No, they weren't. At all.

Your right, none of those conflicts involve a vastly technologically superior military fighting a native low tech population without using WMD's. Good call! You even fucked up with the Aliens example, the only people willing to nuke the planet was after the entire chain of command had been decimated and the choice was laid at the feet of a fucking corporal. It was heavily implied that choice was NOT something that would usually happen.

[WindupAtheist]

Leaving aside your well-established mech idiocy (They can provide their own cover with plates on their arms!) you're the same dipshit who stuck up for the competence of the guys in Starship Troopers. Guys who made your average Stormtrooper look like Rambo, and who had to sustain a million casualties fighting giant bugs at point-blank range with foot infantry before remembering that aircraft exist. You enjoy the aesthetics and terminology of all this sci-fi military wank, but you plainly and obviously do not have even the most basic "guy on the internet" grasp of... well... anything.

Who the hell was ever talking about WMD, besides you with your pile of pathetic and badly-constructed analogies? Do you know what I'm actually talking about, what is actually required to blow up a village full of natives while they have no idea what the fuck is hitting them?



That's a light artillery piece from WW2 and has a range of up to seven miles. All you really need in order to fire it accurately are a high quality map and good math skills. Go ahead and explain to me again how, when the shit hits the fan, sending in guys in mech suits to get in swordfights isn't fucking idiotic. Bear in mind that hyperbole about nuclear weapons and carpet bombing the planet won't be tolerated.

Also, calling the Vietnamese and Iraqis and such "low tech natives" is pretty motherfucking hilarious. Oh those low-tech North Vietnamese with their spears and catapults and MiG-17s. You flaming dipshit.

[Soln]

what happened to the Avatar MMO?

[Tarami]

what happened to the Avatar MMO?

It bombed.