- It probably goes without saying Avatar fails the Bechdel-Wallace test for having two female characters speak to each other. In fact, it fails the Bechdel–People-who-aren't-Jake test, because like many movies its essentially first person. It does have a female combat helicopter pilot and a female head scientist, and two female Na'vi shamans, which is a reasonable proportion of the characters, but for better or worse, we see everything through Jake's eyes.
- Rachel says a giant bird, if it exists, might possibly be able to catch a medium-sized bird on the wing.
- Rsymiel muses that:
I admit that's a very good explanation. But I think that of the gigantic number of films that look like a mess of good ideas thrown together as best as the artiste could manage, for only a minute fraction do we have any evidence that the author _did_ have an overarching ideal in mind that was revealed in the sequel, but failed to make the possibility of further revelations clear enough in the original, so the greater truth only _looks_ bodged on later, and everyone who liked the original still feels it was undermined by the retroactive changes.
(The examples that spring to mind are later Harry Potter books -- apparently several of the plots JKR had thought about from the beginning, even ones that looked bodged. And Ringworld, where there's so many layers of indirection and patching it's not clear what you're suppose to take on trust and what not to believe. )
- Rachel says a giant bird, if it exists, might possibly be able to catch a medium-sized bird on the wing.
- Rsymiel muses that:
It's because they're not actually a tribe of sentient beings living in harmony with nature; they, and every other organism around them, are all components/peripherals of the sentient planet; there's no risk of disease because all the micro-organisms are also peripherals, likewise predators etc. The USB ports in everyone's head are a clue here.
The surface similarities to cliches of native American culture is because the sentient planet wants to get some real humans to analyse in depth, and has watched enough human pop culture to know how to frame a What These People Need Is A Honky narrative that a dumb human will fall for.
I admit that's a very good explanation. But I think that of the gigantic number of films that look like a mess of good ideas thrown together as best as the artiste could manage, for only a minute fraction do we have any evidence that the author _did_ have an overarching ideal in mind that was revealed in the sequel, but failed to make the possibility of further revelations clear enough in the original, so the greater truth only _looks_ bodged on later, and everyone who liked the original still feels it was undermined by the retroactive changes.
(The examples that spring to mind are later Harry Potter books -- apparently several of the plots JKR had thought about from the beginning, even ones that looked bodged. And Ringworld, where there's so many layers of indirection and patching it's not clear what you're suppose to take on trust and what not to believe. )