mmoa_writes

There used to a show where they would get a bunch of scientists on their off day and get them to create a planet with it's own biosphere etc etc. One series was called 'Alien Planet', the other 'Alien Worlds' or something. You can probably tell what I'm going to say next.

Oooh, I have to find this. I pretty much hated Avatar, partly for issues and partly because I just didn't think it was good SF, or particularly good storytelling. As someone who loves science-based worldbuilding...it was terribly disappointing.

Grace's "it's not just some silly spiritual belief, it's SCIENCE!" was maybe supposed to be her trying to sell her project, but she did a lousy job, too late. And yeah, I couldn't buy her as someone who'd played the politics of science well enough to lead a huge, expensive project like that.

Why do they have such huge eyes?

Because CG animators still haven't figured out how to avoid the uncanny valley (I wish I could find that xkcd strip again!) with human-sized eyes, I'm guessing. Plus the Na'vi are supposed to be super-pretty, and big eyes = pretty.

*And by the end of the film, I was not the only person wondering how cool it would have been to have the movie done where Jake's brother is still alive and you have a scientist at the heart of the story.

Yeah, that would have been more interesting (there are precious few movies about scientists that bear any resemblance to reality, sadly), although it would not have been enough to save the movie for me if nothing else about it changed.