Another Take On Avatar

[Tyyr]

Actually really. Just pissing away the names of things like your MacGuffins is indicative of the entire approach they had to writing the film which also shows up with idiotic characters (Jake Sully is the biggest moron I've seen on screen that wasn't in a Dumb and Dumber style role) and a half assed plot. It's just easier to say, "They named the mineral unobtanium, so you can imagine the care they took with the rest of the plot," than give a detailed breakdown of all the stupid people (JAKE) and plot contrivances.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I can't argue with that.

Ultimately, the lack of care they took to name the MacGuffin was a symptom of the general lack of effort put into the plot. But if it had only been the MacGuffin, I wouldn't have given the movie a second thought.

I'd rather piss Avatar on genuine problems than merely symptomatic weaknesses. And as far as "genuine problems" go, you just nailed some big ones.

[Mikey]

The unobtanium label is probably the thing that bothered me least about this whole movie. I find it entirely, totally credible that a new material might be named unobtanium. We live in a world where particles have properties called strangeness, charm, and colour, after all.

Sure, it's possible - and in any event, it's a minor nit in the whole framework. But it is an excellent example of the sort of things that are wrong with this movie.

Not really. What went wrong with the movie was the intelligence of the actual plot and the protagonists involved, not with the labelling of MacGuffins.

Yes, really. I've already stated ad nauseam that I wasn't going to take shots at Avatar based on the hackneyed and contrived plot and theme; as has been said, there are many films which go that route and still manage to pull it off based on creative takes and interesting characters and writing. Avatar could have been much better, even with the derivative plot. Of the reasons why it wasn't, "unobtainium" is definitely a good example.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Yes, really. I've already stated ad nauseam that I wasn't going to take shots at Avatar based on the hackneyed and contrived plot and theme; as has been said, there are many films which go that route and still manage to pull it off based on creative takes and interesting characters and writing. Avatar could have been much better, even with the derivative plot. Of the reasons why it wasn't, "unobtainium" is definitely a good example.

I don't know. Starting to go beside Avatar's bad plot/character to rather nitpick on minor elements is like putting aside the fact Russia nuked us, and starting to protest the radioactive fallouts smell bad.

I think at this point, we should just instead shoot down the poor animal. It has suffered ennough.