Danger Syndicate

So this “Avatar” movie is now the highest-grossing film of all time. So most people like it. It is no secret to those who know me though, that I have within me a fiery hatred for that movie usually reserved for telemarketers and precocious children. So instead of retreading why I dislike the movie so much, here is my revised draft of Avatar.

Also, I am not going to look up any of the plot points I forgot, so whatever.

Terminator/Crippled guy Jake Sully doesn’t have working legs, and is an ex-marine. Even though it’s really far in the future and mankind has mastered both space travel AND giant kickass robot building, Jake still uses a wheelchair that looks like it belongs in the 1870s.

Jake's wheelchair, back when it had the lead role in Gone With The Wind.

Pandora is a planet inhabited by a variety of freaky animal and plant life. Just some of the planet’s inhabitants are giant blue elves, purple rhinoceri, and angry cougar things that snarl alot. Also, all the plants make noise when they are touched and look like they belong in Timothy Leary’s dreams.

Jake’s brother was a fancy scientist fellow working for science/The Man, and trying to discover a way to communicate with the elves. Through the majesty of computer animation and biogenetics, the scientists create what they so cleverly dub as “avatars”-giant blue elves that are only mobile whilst someone is operating them from an MRI. In a stroke of scientific brilliance, these gajillion dollar “avatars” are only compatible with the specific DNA of whom they were designed for. Jake’s brother was supposed to be one of these “avatar” users, until he spontaneously combust under mysterious circumstances, and died.

Luckily though, Jake’s brother had a brother. Jake. And brothers share enough of the same DNA that Jake can use the Avatar meant for his brother. So Jake is approached by the Government to go “avataring” in his brother’s stead. At first, Jake declines, but after watching his brother’s corpse stuck in a cardboard box and cremated, set to a heartfelt, introspective melody, Jake agrees to go to Pandora.

The big deal with Pandora is that it has a crazy mineral/gem/rock there called Unobtanium. And the big deal with Unbtanium is that it’s worth a lot of money because it does something….exciting. You see, future-Earth isn’t Star Trek: The Next Generation future-Earth, where mankind has moved past wants. This is Huxley/Orwell dystopian future where everyone is probably an asshole to each other.

So once Jake gets to Pandora he meets the scientist people. Which consist of the Indian Guy with a Fro and Glasses, Important Science Woman who bitches a lot but probably just uses her cold outward appearance to stop people from seeing her true self, and the other guy with an “avatar” who probably spent all of his youth playing alone in his basement. When the scientists first meet Jake, they’re all kinda “What the hell? How can a crippled Jarhead be of any use to us?!” But what they don’t realize until later is that while Jake’s legs don’t work, his heart still does.

Then Jake goes and meets the marine-folk, led by scarred badass general Guy Who Played Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals, heretofore referred to as Jackson. Jackson thinks the scientists are all pansies trying to screw over his military operation with their peacenik “love” and “communication” nonsense, and tells Jake that if he spies on the scientists/blue people for the Marines, Jackson will make sure Jake gets working legs.

Jackson, seen here with Robert E. Lee.

Soon enough, Jake goes on his first trip in the MRI and becomes an “avatar”. After getting used to being able to walk again and being a blue elf, Jake gets lost in the forest and sassy, plays-by-her-own-rules pilot  girl-who-played-Anna Lucia-on Lost is unable to find him. Because he is, dare I say..Lost.

That night, as Jake is wondering about in the forest, he gets attacked by pygmie dog wolf things, but before the wolves can feast upon his innards, Uhura from the Star Trek remake comes and saves him. Only she isn’t Uhura, because she is blue and lives in a forest. Uhura is angry that Jake would have the audacity to try and protect himself from man-eating animals, but Jake follows her back to her home anyway because it’s not like he has any better plans.

Back at the alien’s home (which is also a giant tree), Jake meets the King and Queen of the blue people. Apparently, humans have tried to communicate with them before, because the “Na’vi” (as they are called) are suspicious of Jake, who convinces the Na’vi that he is a warrior and maybe if they work together they can overcome whatever struggles they may face. We also meet the guy that Uhura is engaged to, who is also blue and elvish, which sets up the bizzare love triangle that will soon unfold, because the sexual tension betwixt Jake and Uhura is already thick as thieves. ALSO, once upon a time one of the old Na’vi chief people rode a dragon and united all of the other blue clans together, but no one talks to the other clans now. And I personally did not even realize there were other clans until 30 minutes before the movie ended.

Uhura is tasked with teaching Jake the way of the Na’vi, which includes riding animals, and having sex with the planet non-stop, thanks to some freaky tentacles that the Na’vi, as well as everything else on the planet have, which bonds them together or somesuch nonsense. Anyway, Jake sucks at riding horses, and his skill at seducing the forest is initially subpar, but it’ll improve later on. Because if he didn’t improve he’d never be able to lead the Na’vi against the white man OH WAIT DID I SPOIL THE STORY BECAUSE IT’S OBVIOUS WHAT’LL HAPPEN TWO SECONDS INTO THE FILM.

Anywho, Jake continues reporting what he discovers to the marines and Jackson, and slowly winning over the sciency folk with his good teamwork and winning attitude. Eventually, our super science team relocates themselves to a mountain. Or it might be a floating island thing. And then Jake and Uhura fall in love and fornicate amongst the trees. Also, Jake learns how to ride a lizard-dragon thing which is kinda cool. AND THINGS THINGS TAKE A TURN FOR THE AWESOME.

Basically, by now the Man and the Marines have decided they’re tired of pussyfooting around the whole “indigenous peoples being in their way” thing, and seeing as Jake gave them all the nifty tactical info they needed to destroy the Hometree, they decide to launch an attack. Unless Jake can convince the Na’vi to leave their home. Which he attempts to do by telling everyone that he totally screwed them over, but he’s changed. He’s no longer the cripple, ex-marine who plays by his own rules. Now, he’s discovered that the only rules he needs to play by are his heart’s. But naturally, the Na’vi don’t take too kindly to learning that the fellow they’ve been trusting around their home all this time is completely responsible for the bitch-slapping that is about to ensue, and they banish him, and Uhura bitches at him because she thought Jake loved her and whatnot.

AND THEN SHIT GETS REAL.

Jackson and his marine folk blow the living hell up out of the Na’vi’s home. Except Anna Lucia decides that she’s too good to destroy the home of thousands of elves whose only crime was being too dumb to not mess with Earth. Also, Uhura’s dad get’s killed in the destruction, which of course, makes her even more angry at Jake. So now the Na’vi have to go and migrate to another part of the planet.

Artist rendition of what happened.

And in the non-blue people part of the planet, Jake, Sigourney Weaver and that loser guy are taken capture by Jackson’s forces. All hope seems lost until Anna Lucia busts them out of their prison, and the gang is pretty happy about all that until it turns out Jackson shot Sigourney Weaver WHO IS DYING because bullets kill.

It is at this point Jake, now back in Avatar form, decides the only way he’ll be able to overcome the fiendish white man is by bringing all of the elven clans together, by uniting them all under the one ring a giant dragon. Once Uhura and the Na’vi see the dragon, they realize Jake is actually the king of Gondor only hope they have left. Also, the Na’vi try to transfer Sigourney Weaver’s consciousness into her avatar, but she dies before they suceed.

So in an 80s style Montage involving Jake riding a dragon, he convinces the other elves to band together, and that the only way they can survive is if they look past their differences. Because friendship is bulletproof.

While Jake is getting all the wood-folk together, the Man decides to end the Na’vi menace once and for all by destroying another ridiculous religious symbol. Soon enough, a fight ensues, and while it initially looks like the humans will be able to throw off the yolk of the opressive elves, the forest decides to unleash all the crazy animals to attack the humans, and the Na’vi win. While this is happening, Jackson, the last bastion of truth and justice remaining on the planet, is mercilessly slaughtered by Jake and Uhura.

In the end, all of the humans are kicked off the planet, and Jake, blissfully unaware of the fact he just committed THE BIGGEST ACT OF TREASON EVER, is declared King/Vicar whatever the hell type of political system the Na’vi have.

This happiness is short lived however, because days later the entire planet is glassed by a series of nuclear explosions, and everyone dies.

The end.

If that last part were true, Avatar would be my favourite movie of all time. But it isn’t.

Alright, so I’ve been talking with a number of acquaintances recently about The Beatles and their artistic merit. Now, let me explain that The Beatles were the first musical group I ever remember listening to and also the first I was ever obsessed with. However, over the years, I seem to have “matured” perhaps, and I lost my love of The Beatles. Its not that I don’t like them anymore, its just that I’ve found so much more music that I think is so much better.

This pretty much sums up my ideas on The Beatles

I really do not like it when people decide to worship the Beatles (or any musical group, really) and I don’t like supporting a group that are, at best, extremely influential and very inconsistent, and at worst are pretentious and boring. I was trying to imagine how I could possibly reconcile my current view of them with my childhood love of the Fabs, and I decided that their biggest problem was the inconsistency and their lack of coherent album visions. If I could somehow take all of the things that seem not to fit on Abbey Road and put them with much more similar songs from other albums, to create a consistently psychedelic (or symphonic, or experimental, or whatever style best fits that song) album I think that it would greatly improve The Beatles’ catalogue and perhaps even rekindle my jaded heart for them.

Son, the Fab Four are disappoint

So, in the following months, I plan to listen to all twelve of the Fab Four’s albums very carefully and rearrange and reassemble them into some as-yet-unknown number of new albums that will provide a more linear, coherent view of John, George, Ringo and Paul as music-makers. I will post up my results on this website when I finish. Please stay tuned!

Answer: VIDEO GAMES. The evidence is all there.

Have you guys ever played any of the Civilization series, or Spore, or any similar game? These games are all about world domination. They’re all about coming to some sort of stasis in the world, achieving some sort of universal balance. This usually happens one of two ways.

First, and easiest, you can just kill everyone. Really hard. Really fast. You’re the human, playing against computers. Chances are you’ve set it on a rather easy setting, and if you haven’t, you’re experienced enough with the game to win. The easiest and fastest way to win in Civilization is to build up an army and conquer the world. Even when conquering the world in Civilization, sure, you negotiate sometimes. But there’s usually an ulterior motive. You’re going to backstab Stalin when you’re done getting all of his spice.

This dude has no chance.

Some people try diplomacy. It ends up sometimes working. It’s a long, hard road, with many sacrifices, and your civilization ends up less territory, less expansion, less population. You achieve world peace, sure, but have you really won?

World peace truly existed, I think, when no one actually knew each other. Way before England tried to go and kill everyone and take over the world with their tea and meat-guns, everyone on the world lived in isolation. There were warring tribes, sure, and perhaps our primitivity was more prone to warfare, but if there was any chance for world peace, I think it would have had to be then. There was hardly a reason to war back then aside from greed. I think modern humanity comforts itself with thoughts that war now has much more moral basis.

We’re just killing because we have to, right guys?