"Cast your mind back five or six months and you may remember a modest little film called Avatar, officially the world's first attempt to fuse the aesthetic of Starship Troopers with the ambience of mid-period Enya."
Alright, let's look at Avatar from a sci-fi nut's point of view (i.e. my point of view). What we have here is a classic intro-to-a-horror movie scenario, and not a lot more. Here we have a planet which seems to have a planet-wide nervous system, and is covered with deposits of a mineral that is really, really useful to a civilisation which has star travel, but isn't all that advanced, all things considered.
In short, the Avatar planet is a civilisation trap.
The unobtanium is the bait, and the planetary nervous system is the alarm system. Anyone or anything who turns up and starts mining triggers the alarm and sooner or later (we're not told if faster than light travel is possible here) the trapper turns up to see what he's caught.
The trap could be in place for several reasons. The one who set it could be lonely, might want to contact other civilisations for friendly or trade purposes, or they may simply be paranoids who really don't like advanced civilisations which might go rogue in their stellar back yard. One thing's for sure: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.
Good point, Dr Holdsworth. Everyone was saying it was Pocohontas/Dances With Wolves in space, but personally I thought it owed more than a little bit to Harry Harrison's Deathworld.
5 comments:
It was an ok film in a sort of switch your brain off and ignore the mega holes in the plot sort of way.
It made me go home and paint the cats blue. Ban it! Ban it immediately!
"...in a sort of switch your brain off and ignore the mega holes in the plot sort of way."
My favourite sort of film, actually.
"It made me go home and paint the cats blue. "
:D
Alright, let's look at Avatar from a sci-fi nut's point of view (i.e. my point of view). What we have here is a classic intro-to-a-horror movie scenario, and not a lot more. Here we have a planet which seems to have a planet-wide nervous system, and is covered with deposits of a mineral that is really, really useful to a civilisation which has star travel, but isn't all that advanced, all things considered.
In short, the Avatar planet is a civilisation trap.
The unobtanium is the bait, and the planetary nervous system is the alarm system. Anyone or anything who turns up and starts mining triggers the alarm and sooner or later (we're not told if faster than light travel is possible here) the trapper turns up to see what he's caught.
The trap could be in place for several reasons. The one who set it could be lonely, might want to contact other civilisations for friendly or trade purposes, or they may simply be paranoids who really don't like advanced civilisations which might go rogue in their stellar back yard. One thing's for sure: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.
Good point, Dr Holdsworth. Everyone was saying it was Pocohontas/Dances With Wolves in space, but personally I thought it owed more than a little bit to Harry Harrison's Deathworld.
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