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Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

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Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#41

Post by eagleal »

sliverstorm wrote: post #36
eagleal wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He looked over the Na'vi bio-networking quite superficially. But his point was that how can a rhinoceros destroy a robot like that. It's like you take an armored elephant against an M1A2 Abrams.

We're talking about technology and life forms that don't exist, but imho: The rhinoceros was huge. A couple bullets, even from the robots, will not stop something that size in it's tracks. The robots are smaller, flimsier, and seemed to posses lesser firepower than tanks. Elephants have armor and defense nowhere in their body. The rhinoceros in Avatar looked like they had a veritable carapace to me.

I'm not saying that elephants have armor; I made the analogy of elephants covered with armor.

The rhinoceros was about 2 times the mass of the robots (even they seem light, in realty they shouldn't, different composition, eg. man and a humanoid). The gun was at least a .50 cal. With all this advancement in technology, AI should guide the gun to Aim at the knees (technology that exists today, evaluation of damage trough pre-imposted data).

And yes, you're right, it's just a movie.

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#42

Post by philwelch »

cryptoz wrote: post #38
philwelch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an admittedly cool idea, but it's also very blatantly set up as if it isn't technology at all, just so he can paint technology as evil. James Cameron is a white man using technology and corporations to make movies about how white men, technology, and corporations are evil. I lasted about an hour and a half through the movie before the preachiness outweighed the special effects for me. District 9 was better told…

James Cameron does not paint technology as evil. It is very clear that he thinks the greatest technology of all is the Avatar itself; the Avatar is humanity's achievement in science and technology that allowed us to communicate with aliens in a familiar way. The dull grey ships and weapons of the military look backwards and old compared to Avatar technology.

I don't think the movie has anything positive to say about humanity's achievements. The avatar's only there so a white guy whom the audience identifies with can be on the "right" side of the fight, i.e. against the other humans.

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#43

Post by sliverstorm »

eagleal wrote: post #41
sliverstorm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about technology and life forms that don't exist, but imho: The rhinoceros was huge. A couple bullets, even from the robots, will not stop something that size in it's tracks. The robots are smaller, flimsier, and seemed to posses lesser firepower than tanks. Elephants have armor and defense nowhere in their body. The rhinoceros in Avatar looked like they had a veritable carapace to me.

I'm not saying that elephants have armor; I made the analogy of elephants covered with armor. The rhinoceros was about 2 times the mass of the robots (even they seem light, in realty they shouldn't, different composition, eg. man and a humanoid). The gun was at least a .50 cal. With all this advancement in technology, AI should guide the gun to Aim at the knees (technology that exists today, evaluation of damage trou…

No, I understood that, but it's massively not the same. Metal armor has a lot of problems, like chinks and deformation crushing the flesh below. Plus the rest of your body needs to be geared for it. If you donned a metal helm and started butting heads with a mountain goat, you'd loose. The metal stops your head from cracking open, but that's about it, and you wind up with a host of other problems. The goat has an entire body built for the shock.

There's a ton more I want to interject with, but yes. Just a movie.

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#46

Post by jpwagner »

goodgoblin wrote: post #27

What is great about this movie review, for me, isn't the exact point-by-point analysis that the author makes, but the fact that author is noted futurist Ray Kurzweil. It would be like having Colin Powell review the Hurt Locker - its just kind of cool.

I literally laughed out loud at that analogy. Thank you.

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#47

Post by tree_of_item »

derefr wrote: post #32
mclin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of this article from little while ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1169875 Nerds want every question answered with a reason, even if that question shouldn't have one. Why is Superman strong? He gets his powers from the sun. Why does he get powers from the sun? Because his skin is a solar battery. Well, why is he still strong at night? Well, he's charged up for years as an adolescent, he has a lo…

Well, yeah—that's what it means for something to be "science fiction." SF is fiction that not only feels scientific, but can be expected to hold up to genuine, in-depth scientific inquiry on its concepts and progression. If you didn't write a movie/book/whatever that will stand up to such nerdery, you should really stop calling it sci-fi.

I feel as if it's the exact opposite.

Do any of Asimov's books on "positronic brains" hold up to genuine, in-depth scientific inquiry? He just glossed over the details of their workings. Does this mean they're not sci-fi?

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#48

Post by Confusion »

Jim72 wrote: post #6

What bunk. He tries to say that riding the backs of the birds is a rip of Harry Potter. Does the guy know nothing of Greek Mythology? Did he not see Clash of the Titans with Persius riding the back of Pegasus; which clearly predates Potter.

He tries to say that

You are putting words into his mouth to support your interpretation of those images. I interpreted those images as simply another demonstration of the lack of imagination the movie displays. Whether riding a big flying animal is derived from Greek mythology or from Harry Potter is irrelevant.

Before flinging the first criticism that comes to your mind at him, be critical of your own criticism. Supposing 'the guy know nothing of Greek Mythology' is a vast and unnecessary underestimation of his intelligence and credentials. If you'd bother to look him up, you'd see that he is probably quite aware of the mythological origins of these images.

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#49

Post by derefr »

tree_of_item wrote: post #47
derefr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah—that's what it means for something to be "science fiction." SF is fiction that not only feels scientific, but can be expected to hold up to genuine, in-depth scientific inquiry on its concepts and progression. If you didn't write a movie/book/whatever that will stand up to such nerdery, you should really stop calling it sci-fi.

I feel as if it's the exact opposite. Do any of Asimov's books on "positronic brains" hold up to genuine, in-depth scientific inquiry? He just glossed over the details of their workings. Does this mean they're not sci-fi?

It's not the setting that needs to be scientific for a work to be SF, though, but rather the conflict. The conflict in the Robot books isn't about "positronic brains," it's about robotic interactions with humanity. The science being employed is sociology.

To put it another way—the initial state of the universe when the book starts can be anything you like, with any rules you like. SF is just a strict dedication setting up those rules and following them wherever they may lead. ("Hard" sci-fi additionally requires that those rules be a superset of the rules of our own universe.)

Re: Reflections on Avatar by Ray Kurzweil

#50

Post by tolmasky »

mclin wrote: post #11
megaduck wrote: post #10

I think he largely misses the point. Like many other sci-fi pieces, Avatar is a fantasia and not a serious look at our possible future. Much of the human technology was obviously modeled after current American military tech, and that was a deliberate choice. This approach allowed Cameron to tap into current feelings and cultural currents. If things had been more 'realistic', then it would have been alien to modern au…

It reminds me of this article from little while ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1169875 Nerds want every question answered with a reason, even if that question shouldn't have one. Why is Superman strong? He gets his powers from the sun. Why does he get powers from the sun? Because his skin is a solar battery. Well, why is he still strong at night? Well, he's charged up for years as an adolescent, he has a lo…

I don't feel this is true at all. I think people start to question reality when the plot is weak or when the object that in unrealistic is tied to the plot in a significant way.

I've never sat through Back to the Future and seen a nerd say "but what exactly does a flux capacitor do in order to enable time travel, this movie is so unrealistic!". I think that as long as a minimal effort is given to explain away these points it is satisfactory to most people as long as those points are not essential to the movie: the physics of time travel is not essential to the story of Back to the Future.

However, the more important to the movie, the more time must be spent. Cloning dinosaurs, and specifically how they clone dinosaurs, was pretty important to Jurassic Park. Hence, more effort was placed in explaining this to the audience (they're all girl dinosaurs, fossilized dna, need frog dna, etc etc). This is significantly more involved than "oh we have a flux capacitor for that" explanation. Both are perfectly fine though, since they match their necessity to the movie.

I personally felt that Avatar succeeded at this level of explanation. Aside from "unobtanium" somehow making it past the first edit of the script, the technological/biological stuff was fine: Unoriginal? Yes. Uncomfortably unrealistic? No.

However, I think absolutely everything else about that movie was pretty subpar. The plot was really uninspired. Its sad, so much gloss on top of such an empty story. On top of that, I really was not that impressed with the graphics. I'm sure plenty of people will tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, but when I'm 70 years old and someone asks me, visual effects-wise, what was the highlight of my movie going career, I'm going to say seeing the brachiosaur in Jurassic Park, and probably won't even remember Avatar.

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