Well, Whiskey’s take on the sales (more precisely, the lack of them) of the movie Avatar inspired me to try to understand the why. Why did a movie with such an enormous cost garner so little profit? Since I was dragged in by my family to see it (one of those gatherings), and since I had to wait through 30 minutes of advertising (mostly commissioned by the government of my country, and totally lame, mainly because they spout bullshit and everybody knows it) to finally see it, I’m going to let you know why it is one of the most disgusting attempts at manipulation that I have ever seen.
A point by point analysis of the plot doesn’t do much, since it is a bunch of cliches that can be cut and pasted to any agenda (boring), but let’s check the subtle and insidious aspects of it:
- The shape of the native aliens. Blue because it is a calming color, with big eyes and round faces, which are signs on babies designed to look “adorable” and a surprising lack of evidence of age. My gut tells me that they were designed with the specific purpose of being favorable to the audience.
- The society where they live. It looks like it came straight from a PC handbook, with males as warriors and females as “spiritual” advisers AND warriors. In a primitive tribe, females needed to be kept barefoot and pregnant to ensure the survival of said tribe due to the high amount of males dying from causes such as lack of antibiotics, natural accidents, wars among tribes and the fauna that tries to kill said people. Tribes who didn’t do this went extinct. Don’t blame me, blame natural selection.
- Another page of the PC handbook, no actual raising of children by a mother or a father. All the children seem to flock to Dr. Grace, the oldest member of the scientific team. Looks like a commercial for “It takes a village.”
- The synaptic connection between nature and everybody (which wins the fight at the end). This talk of “energy flows”, of the cult of the Goddess, Mother Earth, I mean, “Ka’ ja”, the huge amount of hand holding and humming wouldn’t be out of place in a hippie/Greenpeace camp.
All that wouldn’t have bothered me too much, but what really makes me angry is that along with all that “Noble Savage” propaganda (Read: Bullshit) they paint the military guys as a bunch of mercenaries and merciless savages engaged in a long, drawn out war designed to steal oil at gunpoint from a bunch of terrorists, no matter who is in the middle. It isn’t too far away from the truth, but the rank and file soldier is a human being, who has self doubts, but puts them away while serving his country (poor guys don’t realize that their country sees them as cannon fodder except when it is too late). Funny how that isn’t mentioned except for the guys that betray their planet for the natives.
One would think that a country that is at war should be more, I don’t know, supportive of the guys that are killing and dying in the war, but that would require an elite that isn’t comprised of a bunch of megalomaniac aristocrats with a desire of controlling the masses, no matter the price, even if it is ruling through thuggish satraps. No chance of that happening.
I just have to laugh, since that decadent elite is going to be one of the first to be exterminated in case of an invasion. And all the ass-kissing in the world isn’t going to change that.
Conclusion: They missed the Obama and Greenpeace logos. Maye they are concealed in an attempt at subliminal control. That wouldn’t surprise me.
{ 122 comments… read them below or add one }
I like your analysis of “Avatar”.
I won’t see it,because I thought “Dances With Wolves” was a long,boring mess even when it didn’t feature cute blue space cats.
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It’s the typical Hollywood limousine liberal “statement” against eight years of Bushy.
Mis-timed by typical Hollywood bureaucratic delays into a present day release.
Michael Moore now
has nothing
to do
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@Firepower
Not so misplaced. Let’s remember that Mocha Boy is in schedule with the program of the Bush administration. That doesn’t eliminate the many, many issues that I have with this movie and it’s creators, but it needs to be said.
I just cannot get fired up to see movies anymore. I much prefer documenturaries instead. There is much interesting about outer space, REAL outer space, that can be learned via documenturaries by simply going to YouTube and viewing them for free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPWFv4f00xw Thats a documentary about the nearest star, our sun. Its extremely interesting, and you’ll come away knowing much more about the source of life on this planet. I enjoy stuff like this more than any movie-full of make-believe anyway. In my opinion, Hollywood can’t even top The Wizard of Oz anymore, as primitive as the effects were back then.
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Soooo…. basically it was 3D Sumrfs. lol.
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“Mocha Boy” !!!???
Wannabe Klansman as well as wannabe PUA is it?
Next week an article analysing the red KKK design at the top of every Marlboro packet?
And by the way Tom and Jerry had cute cartooney faces too, but weren’t signifying a global brainwashing attempt.
We control the horizontal.
We control the vertical.
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Nah, the smurfs were actually pretty hardcore.
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Klansmen are currently the greatest problem in America.
Their oppression
keeps both Bloods and Crips frozen in fear, unable to find jobs.
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Wannabe Klansman as well as wannabe PUA is it?
Next week an article analysing the red KKK design at the top of every Marlboro packet?–AfOR
Oy vey; vat vaysizm ve have here. And we can’t forget the tired, obligatory KKK reference. Amazing how some people really think the KKK were ever a real threat to this country.
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Someone needs to do a more extensive analysis of art and culture and the how/why it is so closely correlated with feminism/marxism.
And I don’t just mean ok it’s marxist jews in power so they make their propaganda.
Take comedy. To me, even as a newly staunch MRA, the comedy that’s still really funny to me IS the anti-male stuff. I still laugh at Seinfeld even as I see the angles I didn’t see before. Does there exist comedy that isn’t anti-male? Is it really funny?
As for Avatar, yes the plot was a joke, it was a straight rip off of Dances. [spoiler] And the second the dude got lost I was like, gee I cant wait for a blue chick to come save him. [/spoiler] But I still enjoyed the movie because it was so well done.
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Yeah it’s pretty much a piece of PC-laced drivel based on the myth of the Noble Savage, and peddling female Gaia-centric “spirituality”.
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I saw it. I saw it in 3D. It was pretty good. The visuals were the main draw for me, as the alien creatures and combat scenes were pretty cool. Its long. Be ready. I thought the whole “nature being interconnected thing” is a relevent metaphor. It is in many ways. (Its also amazingly resilent despite this.) So basically, its a touchy-feely, don’t litter, feel good movie for the whole family. What are you all expecting, Citizen Kane or The Godfather. I’m not a tree hugger, but its common sense that we shouldn’t trash our planet and make it into one big parking lot. I think global warming is highly suspect, but why not transistion to renewable energy sources for no other reason then giving the Middle East and Russia the finger. I think you guys get too reactionary sometimes. I swear, I get the sense you all would just about throw your used car batteries into your local water resovoir just to spite the environmentalist if they told you otherwise. I don’t like extremist on either side of the environmental debate. Is the movie PC? Yes. It is a blockbuster popcorn movie meant to have mass appeal. They wanted to offend as few money spending movie goers as possible. (Same reason Star Wars was PG. Where as you and I might not have minded seeing Jabba defile princess Leah a little, most people don’t want to see that. Supply and demand people. What, we don’t like captialism now.) Does the movie have a message? Yes, two, and yes, they are both shoved down our throats. How many movies are sublte now and days. Umm, very few, and then you would probably complain that it was too vague and ambiguous. Its messages; 1. Native indeginous people often get screwed by more advanced conquerers. (True, thats life, why hide from it?) 2. Don’t fuck with nature too much, or it might just fuck you back. (True, if you pour mercury waste into the rivers and streams, then don’t complain when your developing children can’t eat certain types of seafood because of the mercury accumulation in fish high up the ocean food chain. Cause and affect people, thats all.) This movie is not meant for us. It is meant to have broad appeal.
It was made for one other group of people we must not overlook. If you truely want to enjoy this movie, despite the trite story and overdone theatrics, one word; Acid.
It’s just a movie. Most suck, just like most parts of life. Lets all lighten up some man, smoke some herb, dose a little, and enjoy the 8 foot tall smurfs riding terradactyls fight advanced fighter hover crafts. The hippies took it to far, yes. Lets not put our own proverbial stick too far up our ass also.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by Jabbrewochie-for-the-enjoyment-of-cheesy-summer-popcorn-movies Inc.
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It’s a bad movie, and I don’t want to encourage bad movies.
We all knew it would happen eventually, but I disagree with Jabherwochie, so much so that I spelled his name correctly.
The plot is too simplistic, and I LOVE simplicity. I could imagine complaints if there were more to it than “mean old white soldiers come in to take resources and destroy sacred things in the process”, but how are we supposed to feel? I feel insulted. If you went to watch a movie and litterally everything was kindergarten-grade to the point of explaining that “we need water to live” (not in a poetic way, a “you’re so stupid we have to tell you this way”). The synopsis was as one-sided as most would think mech-warriors would be one-sided against near-naked spear warriors.
It was a PC movie, and it wasn’t marketed as such, they should at least admit that, I shouldn’t have to find out from others who saw it before me.
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What would a Spearhead Avatar remake look like, changing as little elements as possible?
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all the blue critters
would be arabs
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@Amateur Strategist-
But, but….it was 3D…and, and…it was 3D!
I wasn’t defending the movie all that much. I just said it was “pretty good”. I’m rather just defending big event popcorn movies in general. Its about lowering our expectations. I go for the visual spectacle of them, nothing more. I come to The Spearhead for intellectual stimulation.
“Bhetti January 13, 2010 at 12:09
What would a Spearhead Avatar remake look like, changing as little elements as possible?”
Sex and ultra-violence my little droog. Just kidding. Just ultra-violence. I don’t go for blue chicks.
Top three MRA movies:
Gran Torino
Fight Club
_______?
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Ferngully meets Dances with Wolves, plus shitty CGI animation for hours.
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“TAllagash January 13, 2010 at 12:36
Ferngully meets Dances with Wolves, plus shitty CGI animation for hours.”
And this is the contrarion attitude I was talking about and that we should leave to people like Null. The CGI was not shitty. Cameron is a perfectionist. Was it King-Kong good? No, but it was fine. I could have done without the blue skin, but I don’t blame that on the CGI.
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To those who think that Avatar was simply a blunt bludgeoning with environmentalist values, you weren’t looking closely enough at the details:
(1) The “bad guys”, at every point in the movie, are universally male. The only female marine in the entire movie is the one who betrays the humans.
(2) The main character’s partial paralysis is curable, but he can’t afford the cure because it’s too expensive in the evil capitalist healthcare system.
(3) The pterodactyls appear just as fast and maneuverable as the attack choppers–giving the appearance that vehicle-based transport is little better than biological transport.
(4) The invading marines appear not to have thought of obvious solutions to getting the resource they want without displacing the locals–like digging diagonally. This railroads the question into a binary state of kill a bunch of locals to get what we want or else leave them alone and not get what we want.
(5) The military is depicted as not merely valuing the lives of its own above those of the locals, but as having an actively negative value for the locals. I am not in the military, so I can’t say that this is definitively never true, but my experience points to this rarely being the case.
In short, Avatar was a completely lovefest for pushing the agenda of the left and demonizing the right…the environmentalist message was only the most obvious aspect of this.
As a work of political propaganda, it was brilliant…the environmentalist message was known to be obvious, and so provided great camouflage for the smaller leftisms of the film. Add in a visually stunning experience, and the appealing if predictable shell plot, and you’ve got a huge audience that won’t bother thinking too hard about what they’re being told. A masterwork if ever there was one.
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And I liked Dances with Wolves!
What, the Indians didn’t get screwed?! Come on! Shit happens! Lets not dwell on it, but lets not pretend it didn’t suck for the Indians either. I’m sure when an advanced alien species comes to settle on earth, you all will just bow down and accept your fate as extinction bound species, and heaven forbid the aliens make a movie about the once proud humans whose silly little guns couldn’t penetrate alien force fields.
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Of course, I liked Water World…..so maybe my standards are too low.
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Two independent videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWSnSyUgq_Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nkA79k0f1w
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(1) The “bad guys”, at every point in the movie, are universally male. The only female marine in the entire movie is the one who betrays the humans.
-The “hero” was also male. And the female scientist, who was a good guy, was still portrayed as a bitch. Your point is more of a universal problem I think, rather than one you can peg on just this movie. Men are the doers. We make better heros and villians.
(2) The main character’s partial paralysis is curable, but he can’t afford the cure because it’s too expensive in the evil capitalist healthcare system.
-Some people can’t afford expensive surgery in a free market capitalistic system. Is pointing this out propaganda, or a convienent plot device? It is equally notable that such an amazing surgery existed, and that you could achieve things in your life that enabled you to acquire the needed surgery. That is pro-captialism. Plus, the military, lately at least, is notorious for not giving our wounded vets the best medical care available.
(3) The pterodactyls appear just as fast and maneuverable as the attack choppers–giving the appearance that vehicle-based transport is little better than biological transport.
-I think you’re over analyzing here.
(4) The invading marines appear not to have thought of obvious solutions to getting the resource they want without displacing the locals–like digging diagonally. This railroads the question into a binary state of kill a bunch of locals to get what we want or else leave them alone and not get what we want.
-That bothered me also, but plot holes abound in lots of movies. You have to drive the plot forward, not put road blocks in front of it.
(5) The military is depicted as not merely valuing the lives of its own above those of the locals, but as having an actively negative value for the locals. I am not in the military, so I can’t say that this is definitively never true, but my experience points to this rarely being the case.
-I think this does happen. Its human nature, and a way to deal with the horrors of war. You must dehumanize the enemy.
Jabbernull is done with this. I’ve rocked the boat enough.
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”””””””’Bhetti January 13, 2010 at 12:09
What would a Spearhead Avatar remake look like, changing as little elements as possible?
Firepower January 13, 2010 at 12:11
all the blue critters
would be arabs
””””””””’
Spoiler
Make it more realistic. The mechanized army wouldn’t even have needed to fly within range of the arrows. They would have blew up the tree from space and there would have been no survivors. The end where the blue people won is ludicrous to the extreme. You can’t take out a tank with a bow and arrow it is not possible.
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”””””’Gran Torino
Fight Club””””’
Don’t put gran torino above fight club not even same planet not even same universe. The end of torino was pure ghey.
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Thank you for the link, Z.
I’m keenly interested in astronomy, too. This is one I hadn’t found.
Basically, I use TV for viewing documentaries.
Most of the time, I’m on Youtube.
I have gathered an entire collection of such videos as astronomy, Big Bang theory, birth of our galaxy, earth formation, first life on earth, geology, birth of Man, prehistory and history from Babylon to present day. A total of about 5000 ten minutes videos.
I have put them together in a long string: it provides some 800 to 900 hours of sheer viewing pleasure in a row.
It all takes about half a terabyte of disk space.
That’s a long movie..no?
LOL!!
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The second natural born killers for a definition of pure teamwork between a man and a woman and what thay can accomplish.
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“Don’t put gran torino above fight club not even same planet not even same universe. The end of torino was pure ghey.”
I didn’t mean for them to be in any particular order, but, the end was ghey?! It was hard core man! He didn’t just lash out. He knew he couldn’t take them all down with guns blazing! He had a Sun-Tzu like strategy to get them all! He was already dying of lung cancer, so he was ready anyways! He went out like a demi-god, made sure the entire gang went down, and then further glorified his manly bad assness with his awesome will! That ending was ….I have no words. It was beautiful man. Watch it again. That shit was biblical.
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Ooh! I like Natural Born Killlers. Not sure if it is MRA material, but I love the movie and its message.
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Nice analysis arbitrary. They also regrettably didn’t show how the sniper ship that sat 3 miles up that you couldn’t see controlled by computers and with thermal imaging that could put a million rounds downrange a minute on target. So in a few seconds all the recruits that were gotten from around the avatar world where dead. I mean they showed that the advanced people could see groups of people from space vand they had mechs that worked.
They tried to show that the iraqis could win and in reality the us could kill every man woman and child in iraq with no problem.
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””””””’I didn’t mean for them to be in any particular order, but, the end was ghey?! It was hard core man! He didn’t just lash out. He knew he couldn’t take them all down with guns blazing! He had a Sun-Tzu like strategy to get them all! He was already dying of lung cancer, so he was ready anyways! He went out like a demi-god, made sure the entire gang went down, and then further glorified his manly bad assness with his awesome will! That ending was ….I have no words. It was beautiful man. Watch it again. That shit was biblical.”””””””
No he went down like a woman with a false rape accusation using the system to do his manly work. A man with that kind of training could have killed all those thugs who probably didn’t spend very much time at the range with no problem.
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”””””Jabherwochie January 13, 2010 at 13:32
Ooh! I like Natural Born Killlers. Not sure if it is MRA material, but I love the movie and its message.
””””””””
It is a marriage that survives every sort of duress imaginable. Him cheating her cheating. Them against the whole world. She survives abusive parents. She survives rape. He survives jail and so does she. In the end they have a bunch of kids. The big thing is that they didn’t get married with a piece of paper but a blood pact between the two of them and the authority that made it binding was the mans manhood. Yea pretty good example for mras who plan on getting married.
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The Big Lebowski maybe for the remaining spot?
No, Shawshank Redemption!
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“No he went down like a woman with a false rape accusation using the system to do his manly work. A man with that kind of training could have killed all those thugs who probably didn’t spend very much time at the range with no problem.”
I don’t care how good of a shot you are he was severely outnumbered (and not exactly in his prime). Plus, he was ready to pass on anyways. The world was not one he recognized anymore.
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Shawshank Redemption
Fight Cub
Gran Torino
We can make this a Top 5.
I have to veto Natural Born Killers. As romantic as it was to you, it is not a good role model for life.
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First, a playful joke riles up the KKK acusations? LOL.
Second, I have issues with the movie because I payed money to see a FUCKING 3 HOUR COMMERCIAL of the left, with 30 minutes of commercials previous to it.
That and my disgust of the ass-licking faggots that created said movie motivated this post.
As a final point, I am a videogame player. I have seen CGI for years. Takes more than that for impress me, specially with blue furries.
I’ve seen maybe 3 episodes of Seinfeld, and never seen anything I considered even remotely funny.
I always knew that my parents were aliens and somehow forgot me and left me behind when they stopped on this planet for a picnic lunch.
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This is the PCness of the movie coming into play–the bad guys are all male, the good guys are carefully and specifically evenly split.
If something like this were curable at significant but not impossible cost, it would essentially be a no-brainer to offer loans to cover a medical expense such as this–like educational loans, the value add is enough that it would almost certainly be economically viable to borrow capital at a reasonable rate of interest to do this. By contrast, conditions which are chronic rather than curable do not have this advantage–treatment is generally not likely to be a net economic benefit. It is conditions of this sort that are the actual place where a capitalist healthcare system does not always measure up to some people’s moral desire for universal healthcare.
It’s a subtle anti-technology message…but I’ll accept that I am reading a bit much into this one.
The problem is that this is also how people typically frame debates–the only positions you’re allowed to hold are the position they hold and a position that is obviously ridiculous…it’s a tactic rather blatantly being used here. The human/alien conflict could just as easily have been sprung over the aliens’ desire that the humans stop removing the Unobtainium entirely (say, because they needed it to maintain their internet–er, Eywa)…but then the natives would have been the aggressors in the conflict, and that would have gone against message.
We do dehumanize our enemy…but this is not the same as actively devaluing civilians. To quote the West Wing, “We measure success by whether we accomplished the mission, and how few civilians we killed. They [terrorists] measure it by how many.”
During WWII my grandfather was in Patton’s third army. He used to tell a story somewhat related to this point. A POW transport was being loaded up near him, and the captured soldiers were intentionally milling around and giving the guys loading the transport a hard time. So the guy who was supposed to drive the transport pulled out his gun and shot one of the Nazis. My grandfather was furious. While the other Americans loaded the now quite compliant Nazis onto the truck for transport, my grandfather pulled the driver aside and told him this: “If I ever, EVER, see you do that again, you better watch your back or my gun might accidentally go off in your direction.”
Dehumanizing your enemies is a part of war. Never in history has a military placed a higher value on the civilians in an enemy nation than the US armed forces.
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Good point Gunslinger…I just sort of assumed the ship had left, but that leaves the method by which the people returned at the end as a gaping plot hole. The final fight scene shouldn’t have been them floating over in a giant but slow ship to drop a big bomb on the place…it should have been a nuke falling from orbit demolishing the native armies, wherever they had gathered together.
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No he went down like a woman with a false rape accusation using the system to do his manly work. A man with that kind of training could have killed all those thugs who probably didn’t spend very much time at the range with no problem.
LOL.
I’ve read some pretty retarded comments on this website but this one takes the cake.
You must also think that an MMA trained fighter can take on 5 guys at once because he’s had special training.
You need to stop watching 80′s action flicks. The real world DOES NOT work like that.
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the 13th Warrior was a man’s movie
HEAT also has a bunch of positive male role models
and not to be confused with that politically-moderate irish rocker… The Edge
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1. It is simply not true all the “bad” marines were male. There was a long speech from the Commander dude, and a crowd shot showed 30% female at least.
2. It was very clearly stated a couple of times that the Na’vi had “times of strife” among the tribes in the past. The sense I got was that they had evolved from a more chaotic past and had reached an equilibrium with their environment. This is not a “noble savage” portrayal. Humanity should be so lucky to develop an equilibrium with our world.
3. As the Na’vi were not noble savages, but instead a race that evolved over the course of millions of years faced with a difficult environment, it simply not an accurate criticism to state that they were the product of anti-natural selection, pie-in-the-sky claptrap.
4. There was only one female Na’vi warrior that I saw, the chief’s daughter, and she did not fulfill any exemplary spiritual role beyond being the daughter of the tribe’s shaman. Simply not accurate to claim the females had any more responsibility than the males. Also saw female Na’vi carrying around children on several occasions.
5. To say this is liberal propaganda is garbage. “Dune” by Frank Herbert was obviously a huge influence on this movie, with identical plot themes, and I dare anyone to call that book liberal propaganda with a straight face. Secondly, according to interviews James Cameron first had the idea for the movie decades ago. Are we going to claim he saw Bush/Cheney in his crystal ball and decided to make a movie about it?
6. Yes, environmentalists do propose a mind of Gaia. But Ey’wa pretty much sounded like an organic Internet to me. For many years, sci-fi authors, scientists, and other futurists have discussed a possible future where the internet is integrated with the natural world. Oftentimes, they follow this prediction with the statement “So, no need to quit burning fossil fuels. We’ll use technology to fix global warming!” Not sure it’s fair to automatically label the Na’vi’s belief system liberal or environmentalist propaganda.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242409/The-Avatar-effect-Movie-goers-feel-depressed-suicidal-able-visit-utopian-alien-planet.html
The sheer dumbness of this idea makes me hope that they go through with it.
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The last movie I watched was I.O.U.S.A. Very interesting and informative.
I’ve kind of checked out of popular culture. Just lost interest because it seems to be full of drivel like this. I have two words for you: Hannah Montana. Nuff said.
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@Snark.
LOL – these guys might make Trekkies look cool.
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1) I don’t remember seeing any women in either of the crowd shots (the training shot near the beginning or the mission shot at the end), but it’s possible that I just missed some (particularly in the training shot near the beginning). There definitely weren’t any women flying the helicopters other than the betrayer one…
2) Native tribes on the Amazon or in Africa have had times of strife…their environmental impacts have been relatively small until modern times…depicting their lifestyles as desirable is noble savagery.
3) The Na’vi are fictional…assessing the likelihood of their evolution is therefore perfectly reasonable, but also not something I think anyone has brought up.
4) I’m pretty sure one of the other tribes was shown as having a female chief. I don’t remember any other females displayed in military roles, but I could be mistaken.
5) I’ve never read Dune, but I will say that the “plot themes” are not the only reason to call this propaganda.
6) The one statement (integrated world internet) and the other statement (care about global warming) have no particular need to be related.
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Shawshank Redemption
Fight Cub
Gran Torino
13th Warrior
Oh my God, how could I have forgotten the 13th Warrior! Awesome call. Great movie about being a man and bonds of warriors.
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Just by watching the sheer amount of corporate sponsored promotion of this movie virtually guaranteed I would not be running out into the grand stampede of sheeple to see this piece of PC garbage.
Reading reviews such as this one (good jobGX) has more than confirmed my suspicions.
Another “Manly” flick?
Check out Mongol.
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@Snark and @Soap
LOL. Trekkies just cannot look cool, but a bunch of half-naked, blue painted hippies and nerds do gets too close to it.
””””””’Carl Sagan January 13, 2010 at 14:12
No he went down like a woman with a false rape accusation using the system to do his manly work. A man with that kind of training could have killed all those thugs who probably didn’t spend very much time at the range with no problem.
LOL.
I’ve read some pretty retarded comments on this website but this one takes the cake.
You must also think that an MMA trained fighter can take on 5 guys at once because he’s had special training.
You need to stop watching 80’s action flicks. The real world DOES NOT work like that.
””””””””””’
The problem with people is that sometimes they severely severly underestimate what can happen in real life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9AJzv8gb2A&feature=PlayList&p=270236C6EBC07DFA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15
Please watch the above and let me know if one of the thugs would have even thought about shooting the dude shooting them in under a second before they were all dead.
””””””’You must also think that an MMA trained fighter can take on 5 guys at once because he’s had special training. ””””””””
Well your comparing apples to oranges. The mma fighter doesn’t have a gun. But to give an example of how being able to fight could help you. I was always on the basketball court with all black people. They normally gang beat any new white guys that came. But whether I played basketball or football goaline I was extremely physical. Dude asked me to box and I picked him up over my head. He was like I’m good I’m good. I never got gang beat on the courts he he he
Through personal experience of having a gun shot past my face while sitting in a living room in a house. I don’t even think the guys at the house would have even known they where being shot at in under a second or more time for that matter. I smelled the shot but did not hear it (was watching tv). It was some wierd shit as it was so alien. For them to have 5 people and him to pull leather would have already not really fit in there brains as something that could happen. Him having already killed people before and making a descision that they where going to die would put him in a vastly superior position in the exchange. He would be the one dictating time of start of action and knowing what was really about to happen.
Also not being afraid to die helps. Truly not giving a fuck helps in situations where you can get fucked up. Heck I am still alive and have faced more than five people.
So carl really go gather some knowledge about life. Your a retard he he he
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Mongol is too biographyish. That would open up a pandora’s box of potential movies, because then any biography movie would be up for contention:
George Washington
Alexander the Great
Bruce Lee
Ben Franklin
General George S. Patton
Chuck Norris
I’m sure more examples exist, but doing the bio route is a game changer. B+ for effort, but since I’m driving this list idea, I arbitrarily set up the guidelines. Thems the breaks of man code. Its like calling shotgun.
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Hell when I was young and switched schools I used to fight the entire class of boys and win. No bullshit. Tossed em around like ragdolls. I carried banana boxes all day for my dad for flea markets and made money by unloading peoples shit for a flea market and had to carry it from outside the building all the way to the inside. Also did same for craft shows. So I was strong as fuck. No competition.
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gunslingergregi
“Please watch the above and let me know if one of the thugs would have even thought about shooting the dude shooting them in under a second before they were all dead.”
Damn that guy is fast and accurate. By the time the thought was entering their minds, they’d be toast.
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””””””Dehumanizing your enemies is a part of war. Never in history has a military placed a higher value on the civilians in an enemy nation than the US armed forces.””””””
I don’t know I was in camp when the artillary was shooting towards the city. The rounds would go out and you could feel the explosion all the way back to the base miles away. Not exactly pin point shit there.
Plus dropping 2000 pound bombs on cities also not very pinpoint. When I drove through iraq on a convoy or flew overhead. There were masses of building blown the fuck to hell. Holes and chunks everywhere. It is kind of sad to see the loan farmhouse compounds blown to shit. They should of had the decency to go in there and shoot it out with them but instead they blew them to hell and the iraqis inside would have had no chance.
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In bosnia the building just had shitloads of holes in iraq chunks of building where missing.
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@Gun-
No disrespect, as I believe you were a badass, but I’ve been ganged up on more than once, and I’ve managed to handle two people at once, never three. I was jumped by 5 or 6 once, hurt one guy bad with my initial blows, but then got swarmed and had to run inside the bar. Any three average men, who are healthy and willing to fight, will beat any one random badass 99 out 100 times. I could site examples who could somewhat consistently take three at once, but I’m talking pro athletes and heavy weight MMA fighters, and even they will go down a statistically significant portion of the time. This is an opinion and nothing more. The key to this belief is that the three men are “willing” to fight. If anyone of them is paralyzed by fear, or hesitant to engage, that doesn’t count. Many men would freeze up in a real fight. That is how pussified we’ve become as men. I’m taking them out of the equation.
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””””””””’Through personal experience of having a gun shot past my face while sitting in a living room in a house. I don’t even think the guys at the house would have even known they where being shot at in under a second or more time for that matter. I smelled the shot but did not hear it (was watching tv). It was some wierd shit as it was so alien. For them to have 5 people and him to pull leather would have already not really fit in there brains as something that could happen. Him having already killed people before and making a descision that they where going to die would put him in a vastly superior position in the exchange. He would be the one dictating time of start of action and knowing what was really about to happen. ””””””””””
Added bonus material they were fake toughs anyway and had never killed anyone. They showed guns to the other car in a peacocking gesture to intimidate. If they were actually bad/real/tough men they would have shot up the other car for disrespecting their cousin. They were just boys going through a phase not bad/real/tough people. Just like they were only showing there guns to intimidate clint eastwood but if he started actually blazing they would definetly be in shock as they had no real intention of killing. If they had the intention of killing they would have already busted up in clint eastwoods house and killed him for the disrespect of him pointing a gun at them and telling them to leave and getting involved in family business.
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But Clint’s character was like 80. Reflexes slow.
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””””Many men would freeze up in a real fight. That is how pussified we’ve become as men. I’m taking them out of the equation.””””
You have to count them in the equation. That is what training does or thinking about what you would do in a scenerio does is make it so you don’t freeze up and are a usefull component to the team under any circumstance.
But yea I have been knocked the fuck out when I wore the blue and red so I am not invincible to that just apparently invincible to dieing he he he
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Yeah, all it takes is going to the ground when you’re outnumbered and you lose real quick.
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Gunslinger, I will certainly defer to your greater knowledge of current military practice, but you should understand that everything you are describing is significantly less brutal and significantly more considerate than much of military action throughout history. In ancient times it was typical to slay the entire male populace–right down to the infants–of a defeated enemy (or else take them as slaves, at the risk of revolt) in a war over land (wars fought for other reasons were generally less brutal towards civilians). Later imperial powers, forming colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the East Indies, only bothered killing the ones who actually stood in the way, but still did so largely indiscriminately of who was violent and who was not–being in the way was enough. Even into the twentieth century (and up into modern times) the wholesale targeting and slaughter of unarmed people continues. The US isn’t perfect or blameless, but it’s a much more benevolent military force than essentially any other from essentially any armed conflict in recorded history.
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”””””’Jabberwocky from home January 13, 2010 at 15:56
But Clint’s character was like 80. Reflexes slow.
””””
He wouldn’t be using reflexes he would be making a calculated first move that the kids would not have comprehended at the time was about to be permanent.
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”””””Arbitrary January 13, 2010 at 16:10
Gunslinger, I will certainly defer to your greater knowledge of current military practice, but you should understand that everything you are describing is significantly less brutal and significantly more considerate than much of military action throughout history. In ancient times it was typical to slay the entire male populace–right down to the infants–of a defeated enemy (or else take them as slaves, at the risk of revolt) in a war over land (wars fought for other reasons were generally less brutal towards civilians). Later imperial powers, forming colonies in the Americas, Africa, and the East Indies, only bothered killing the ones who actually stood in the way, but still did so largely indiscriminately of who was violent and who was not–being in the way was enough. Even into the twentieth century (and up into modern times) the wholesale targeting and slaughter of unarmed people continues. The US isn’t perfect or blameless, but it’s a much more benevolent military force than essentially any other from essentially any armed conflict in recorded history.
””””””””
True it could be worse but we have the technology to make it better and it is not being utilized.Really no need to kill civilians at all in modern war when you can easily just take out anyone with a gun walking the streets.
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Lots of civilians carry guns (at least, in many countries…I haven’t exactly been to Iraq or Afghanistan myself).
Using only smart weapons is a cost we have thus far been unwilling to bear, but is a good direction to move towards nonetheless.
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The problem with people is that sometimes they severely severly underestimate what can happen in real life.
Please watch the above and let me know if one of the thugs would have even thought about shooting the dude shooting them in under a second before they were all dead.
Now if only the main character played by Eastwood wasn’t 80 years and slowly dying of cancer…
Hey, that’s great that there are some guys out there that are expert gunslingers or marksmen. But the last time I checked Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino was none of them.
Well your comparing apples to oranges. The mma fighter doesn’t have a gun. But to give an example of how being able to fight could help you. I was always on the basketball court with all black people. They normally gang beat any new white guys that came. But whether I played basketball or football goaline I was extremely physical. Dude asked me to box and I picked him up over my head. He was like I’m good I’m good. I never got gang beat on the courts he he he
Good for you. Bonus points for the guys being black.
The vast majority of guys would not last very long against 5 men that wanted to him some serious harm.
Also not being afraid to die helps. Truly not giving a fuck helps in situations where you can get fucked up. Heck I am still alive and have faced more than five people.
Oh, kind of like how Eastwood’s character didn’t give a fuck about dying and showed up unarmed on the doorstep of those thugs.
So carl really go gather some knowledge about life. Your a retard he he he
You mean “you’re” not “your”.
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Snap.
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Gunslingy:
As a recent veteran of the more peace-oriented type of supermassive surveillance operations you describe, I feel a need to interject. The technology and support required to ‘take out anyone with a gun walking the streets’ is, um rather horrendously expensive in every respect, with all the required support elements to actually moniter the people and the boots on the ground necessary to make the call on who to shoot, plus the coordination between them. Not to mention a ‘Second Amendment for me but not for thee’ attitude’ doesn’t go over very well in a country where nearly everyone is armed as a matter of course. (Except very recently, in large cities, mirroring the pattern of gun control in America.)
That and the fact that even with the greatest tactical training, most invasive technology, and finest weapons, you’re still going to have that first guy or couple of guys who gets ambushed, and it usually ain’t pretty afterward.
You also need to be fairly smart (above the bell curve) to conduct urban combat effectively. And the number of fairly smart MEN in America who also meet minimum physical fitness requirements to join the Army isn’t inexhaustible. Legislating with a fuzzy mental image of infinite caregivers, bureaucrats, policemen, and social workers to implement your ideas is bad enough, making WAR with a fuzzy mental image of infinitely qualified young dudes willing to follow increasingly restrictive nice-warrior rules is almost as bad as….women imagining an infinite supply of every-bullet-point-checked Mr. Rights for all women who just hold out for them. Don’t confuse your personal qualifications, real or imagined, with raw collective statistical ability.
Lest this fails to spell it out for you, YOU GO TO WAR WITH THE ARMY YOU HAVE, NOT THE ARMY YOU WANT OR WISH TO HAVE! And among the qualified, you quickly find how small a world it is among those both intelligent and martial. Only here will, say, a SF armor sergeant decide to turn medical doctor and share his skills every day with people ridiculously less qualified. Or will I find the sons of rich guys who were kicked out of the house, actually hacked it in the world for a while, joined, married, and in the meantime developed construction/metal shop/sculpting skills that rival people who had them as active hobbies. Or will a former near-pro level boxer simply decide that the simple life is best, swear off most women, and spend his free time crushing silly hand-to-hand combat myths promulgated by society, the media, and sometimes the Army itself. Course, on the other side we also have ex-mafia bouncers, ridiculously over-drugged orphans, sons and daughters of strippers, and Mormon psychologists. One must suffer many things for local variety.
(Every example was just my own platoon.)
Do not ever, ever, EVER draw a direct comparison of the US military to a ‘business’ that has ‘failed’ in these instances because it didn’t follow the vague wishes of its ‘customers,’ i.e., the American people. The Army is a publicly-funded mostly male guild that succeeds despite itself. It is older than the Constitution and would be keeping general order in absence of it. And if any lesson is to be learned from Iraq, it’s that the last thing anyone in the Army wants to do is rule over an unruly populace. Iraqi militias and police forces are very good in our eyes, even being dumber than a box of rocks and more corrupt than a Kennedy dinner party, because they do the work that we’d rather not be doing, and even better, make us look good when they inevitably screw up. Then the soldiers can get back to taking online classes, playing video games, inventing and embellishing stories, coming up with ever-more convoluted training exercises, and single-handedly keeping the cigarette industry in business.
Somehow this creates the best citizens in America. I’d guess it’s because they actually tend to understand what the ‘common things’ are, without tripping over what exactly the ‘best things’ are.
Read your Chesterton.
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The fast draw thing was just to make this comment look dumb and give you some education.
””””I’ve read some pretty retarded comments on this website but this one takes the cake.
You must also think that an MMA trained fighter can take on 5 guys at once because he’s had special training.
You need to stop watching 80’s action flicks. The real world DOES NOT work like that.””””””’
And I was proving the real world can work faster than that and what you could have imagined from 80′s movies before you saw it.
Back to the movie.
Well no his character doesn’t have to shoot in under a second. His character had been in war and had shot people. He was also the aggressor the kids were not. Puts him way above the power curve on some kids who probably had shot 9 times each in their whole life.
”””””””
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1313550/posts
Along these same lines, the speed of the event is also reported frequently. While it is common knowledge that people report a sense of slow motion during an armed confrontation, there are also people who say, “It happened so fast, I just couldn’t get caught up.” While some may relate this to being startled, I’m not sure that the speed of the event and startle response is one in the same thing. Being startled is being caught flat footed and not being able to get in the fight quickly enough. The people I have spoken with report that their aggressor was fast, moved quickly and aggressively, moved with purpose, and inhibited rational, controlled thought on their part. One person told me that they actually were aware of their attacker’s presence and were preparing to respond, but when the attack came, it just happened faster than they thought it would. This same person asked me, “What happened to all this slow motion s**t that I’ve heard about? This guy moved at warp speed.” Add to this trying to draw a gun, necessary movement, muzzle flash and other related things and, well, speed kills. ””””””””
Also a hell of a lot harder to shoot a handgun down at an angle than on a flat surface.
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”””””Not to mention a ‘Second Amendment for me but not for thee’ attitude’ doesn’t go over very well in a country where nearly everyone is armed as a matter of course. (Except very recently, in large cities, mirroring the pattern of gun control in America.)
””””””
Sure people gonna be pissed but better than bombing out their house with family inside and got to be cheaper than 36000 wounded.
”””””with all the required support elements to actually moniter the people and the boots on the ground necessary to make the call on who to shoot,””””””
Naa the call will be made at the camera by the person monitoring the camera if you are carrying a gun or placing ied you are shot by the camera mounted gun.
”””’YOU GO TO WAR WITH THE ARMY YOU HAVE, NOT THE ARMY YOU WANT OR WISH TO HAVE! ”””””’
We are putting billions and billions into the effort so yea we have the correct army to beat another army without an airforce. Now we just need the correct overlay to monitor a countries roadways so that we don’t lose people on them. Then maybe move it into the towns. I mainly think just securing the roads would already provide a major benefit. Might as well move war into the future. War gonna be like playing a video game for one side and the other side is gonna be annihilated.
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”””””But most of all I offer it to you because there exists not only comradeship, but a very different thing, called friendship; an agreement under all the arguments and a thread which, please God, will never break. ”””””
Well yea men would lose a cool thing to do ie war.
But they could still give each other high fives and see who had the most kills on the big board so still competition.
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Gunny is right.
For example, why should they even see you before they are dead? I mean really?
They go to a certain grocery store, say.
So you go to that store, and park outside.
Wait till they go in. Then go in yourself. Read a magazine at one of the counters. As they walk out, check out.
Say there is four. One or two will have their hands full. From behind, ten feet away, shoot one who has his hands free. At that point their minds begin processing what is happening…. while they figure that out, kill another one. Odds are the other two won’t do anything before you kill them too. But let’s say they drop everything, get their hands in their pockets(assuming they have guns), turn around… and you’ve just killed another. Then it’s a O.K. Corral shoot-out with one of them. I’d say you have a 50/50 chance.
That’s if they are real fighters and are armed. If they aren’t fighters, or aren’t armed, then it’ll be a lot like Duck Hunt. (Technically it only matters if the one that is still alive at the end is a fighter and armed)
Now some people will say ‘what if the grocery store has metal detectors’. Well, even better. Then you KNOW that when they come out of the store they aren’t armed. Just get out of your car, walk up, and kill them. Bang, bang.
You guys REALLY aren’t going to be able to handle the collapse, are you? And I’M the one running away to another country.
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I’m just catching up with this thread, but I have one comment to make about this quote :
Dune is different from Avatar in a few important ways. First, its absolutely clear in the book and especially in David Lynch’s movie that the Spice Melange is incredibly awesome and the audience has no trouble understanding that millions could be killed over it. Cameron barely bothered to motivate that part of the movie at all. Secondly, Paul Atreides was not a traitor to his people by joining the Fremen, he was allying what was left of the House Atreides with the Fremen against the House Harkonnen and the Emperor. Third, the Fremen understood the power of controlling the Spice Melange and simply wanted to control its production. The Na’vi on the other hand don’t seem to grasp this concept.
Dune is one of my favorite movies (though I’m too lazy to read the book again since high school) and if James Cameron had been influenced by it, he left out all the interesting things and kept the most boring.
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What the guy above just said.
Yeah, yeah, Spice just makes you incredibly long-lived , super-intelligent, and is needed for space travel. Oh, and addicts die if they stop taking it. Also, you might gain super psychic powers if you take enough.
But Unobotium FLOATS! In the air!
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Kevin, you’ll appreciate this…the Unobtainium from the movie was supposed to be a room-temperature superconductor. You can see why that’d be worth killing over.
Internet
You seem to have this idea that we can readily and obviously identify our friends from our enemies. My understanding is that this if far from the case.
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@Gunslingergregi
Carl Sagan is right here, imo. Real world violence has two factors – adrenalin and randomness – that make it totally different to what most people imagine. Movie violence is a joke.
In Northern Ireland I remember one famous incident where a guy with a pistol rounded a corner and wound up facing a soldier from my regiment at a fairly close range – 10 or 15 yards. The situation took both of them completely by surprise. The guy with the pistol unloaded on the soldier and when his weapon was empty turned and ran. The soldier was unharmed. I don’t remember the rest of the story but this is a fairly typical outcome for close range real-life shootouts. The adrenalin is pumping so hard and your hands shake so badly that it is very difficult to aim your weapon.
The other factor is randomness. Unlike in movies, if someone wants to kill you, they won’t jump in front of you and pull out a knife. They will just stab you or shoot you from behind before you know what’s happening. In real life it would be super easy to kill your quick draw guy in exactly this way.
I don’t make any claim to be a badass, but I do know that real life violence should be avoided if humanly possible. The outcome is too uncertain and if you’re not the one planning it you are almost certainly going to lose.
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Arbitrary said:
I was talking about the old guy in Gran Torino,.
My post was based on the fact that the gang members COULD NOT readily and obviously identify Grumpy.
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The wife asked me to see this movie with her, I agreed though I generally dislike hollywood movies based on their happy ending constant theme.
I have to completely agree with Jabherwochie regarding the movie, it was entertaining and really didn’t have to be anything else.
I’ve seen Gran Torino , I’ve also seen Rambo. I do believe that some of the posters here believed in Rambo? Clint Eastwood’s performance in Grand Torino was very well done, but the reality is his character would have been taken out by gangs much sooner then he was in real life. It was a nice story, but it was just a story.
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Charles Martel
Very well spoken – real life is not a video game.
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@InternetWood
I have to agree with Jabherwochie, the ending of Gran Torino was pure poetry.
And no disrespect intended, but your grocery store scenario is a long shot. No flesh and blood human would attempt what you describe, though it might work in a video game.
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Apologies…serves me right for not reading closely enough.
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I disagree that the unobtanium rocks are the most dangerous part of Pandora. The real danger is that since their Gaianet has absorbed Sigourney Weaver, a human scientist with encyclopedic knowledge of Earth mechanics and biotechnology, it will now have enough intelligence to go Skynet (the plot of Terminator 3, remember!) and start creating biological terminators, mind-controlling all of its natives into an unstoppable fighting force, and flinging unobtanium asteroids at Earth.
At least it would give an excuse to go even MORE over-the-top in special effects for the next movie.
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Charles Martel said:
Besides the low probability of bystander intervention….. which is better than giving them cars to duck behind in the parking lot…. explain to me exactly how it will fail.
I know, I know, such Alpha, such fierce and God-like Slut-Bangers could hardly fall before a single old man.
History, sadly, is filled with such tragedies.
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””””””’Charles Martel
I don’t make any claim to be a badass, but I do know that real life violence should be avoided if humanly possible. The outcome is too uncertain and if you’re not the one planning it you are almost certainly going to lose.””””””””’
So you prove my point. If the character of clint eastwood in grand torino went there with a gun knowing he was gonna shoot those men he would have had a major advantage. Especially knowing that before in the movie they did not seek revenge when he obviously disrespected the shit out of them protecting the kid they were trying to move away from the house by pointing a rifle at them. Now really if he didn’t give them any warning but just went up to the house and started capping them through the window while they were playing xbox or used the scenerio InternetWood describes even better scenerios. Or hell just shoot up the shit out of there car while they are driving by one day. Last time I checked even a 9 mm goes through a car door. Another thing from 80′s movies where the people always hide behind a car door for protection that is also not accurate in the least to real world scenerio. Or hell you could literally shoot through the walls of the house the dudes where staying in and still kill them. A 9mm will go through a wall and a ceiling and then lodge in a closet. Another thing about movies from the 80′s lol when people hide behind a wall and expect not to play catch with a bullet.
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Not really trying to destroy jabbers dream movie but trying to show it in a diferent light. He didn’t do what an old man that crotchety and clint eastwoods character would do. He didn’t kill them himself. He just used the system to his advantage by playing by the systems rules rather than creating his own brand of justice. So really think about the charge the guys would have had against them. They had every reason to believe he might be carrying a gun and were actually responding in self defense to his aggression. So they probably didn’t actually get put in jail for murder more than likely for possesion of firearms. Then they get out and there is nobody to protect the weak anymore. Not that I think the ending was realistic or in line with what he would have went there to do.
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While Avatar is leftist propaganda for all the reasons described in this post, its worse than that. There is no way the Navi could have naturally evolved on Pandora and not be in the worst kind of poverty that we have ever seen. Their lives would be nasty, brutish, and short. Imagine the real life of a cave man or observe the poorest places in the world to get an idea of what their lives would be really like.
At one point the main character says that humans have nothing to offer the Navi. That’s right because the Navi are luddites who would rather remain completely ignorant of everything around them pretending its one step above pure magic. The Navi have no interest in not just technology, but knowledge and civilization. Of course, given how primitive the Navi are, all the humans on Pandora would have to do is wait until a famine or a plague and then they would have things the Navi want.
Or imagine if something worse happens like an asteroid falling on Pandora taking out enough of Ewa to shut it down. Then what will the Navi do? It’s not like they could fix anything because they treat it as one step above magic. The Navi are completely dependent on Ewa for everything. This will get them sooner or later. One disaster is all it will take.
We hear this all the time that the poorest people in the world (or the Navi) are better off because they live a “simpler life” and “closer to nature”. It’s all bunk whether its in a technologically advanced movie or not. Really, Avatar is slap in the face of anyone who has ever worked to make their lives and the lives of other people better.
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My brain hurts from reading all of Gunslinger’s posts on this page. Seriously, all of them, even though there are like 3 separate topics.
After reading the posts on military experiences, it’s almost too obvious that Gun either wasn’t in the military, wasn’t deployed, or possibly was a “fobbit” in a support unit that saw zero action. To show the contrary, Epo speaks of inside jokes commonplace in the military (ex. that we single handedly support the smoking industry) that shows me he’s not full of shit like Gun.
As far as the war itself goes, my personal opinion is that we shouldn’t be fighting it. (see: http://www.IVAW.org) There’s no need for thousands of American soldiers to die or get maimed in a foreign country that didn’t aggress us. That aside, I’m not sure what Gun was suggesting we should use besides bombs… I think he alluded to some sort of camera operated robot gun platform? The damn RC robots they use to interact with bombs cost a quarter of a million dollars, and the only robot camera warriors I’ve seen are in Popular Mechanics research articles. I know they’ve tested the modern warrior programs with gun cameras and digital helmet displays and all that, but the shit is ridiculous. A buddy of mine is in a testing unit, and the gear weighs an additional 60 lbs. on top of your combat load, so no, we’re not going to be seeing those deployed any time soon.
Then Gran Torino. I’m surprised no one has brought this up before, but perhaps the 80 year old man has some greater belief that vigilantism is wrong, and didn’t want to ruin his good name by shooting a bunch of people. Analyzing the remote possibility that he could merc them all in a Gas-N-Go, or comparing a professional gunslinger (an actual shooter, not a 12 year old with a playstation) shooting 5 balloons from 3 feet away to an old man killing 5 men from 10 yards away is just ridiculous. Your no-scope kills with a Barrett in Modern Warfare 2 do not a sniper make.
Oh, right… this post was supposed to be about Avatar. I feel obligated to say something about it. Did anyone think back to what the Colonel said about his early missions on Pandora? The marines got slaughtered there. I’ll speculate that the Na’vi were assholes who killed the marines for sport, and only grew a conscience once it was obvious that they were about to have some very bad days ahead of them. You don’t get to call time out when your side starts losing.
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””Your no-scope kills with a Barrett in Modern Warfare 2 do not a sniper make.”””””’
Welcome to the future and of course they do.
http://theasiandefence.blogspot.com/2009/04/idef-2009-new-remote-controlled.html
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.109984
What I originally suggested was placing a small caliber weapons mount and camera system every 50 yards or so along the 800 miles of iraqi highway we used. Have around a 100 guys monitoring the sytems but of course only guys who had previous experience in “”””’no-scope kills with a Barrett in Modern Warfare 2”””””lol
People just not ready for future war but the technology is already ready for us he he he
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Someone will use it and win someone else will not mass produce it and lose. Just need to have anti ballistic missile capability that leaves room for conventional warfare and wiping out the people who think videa gamers can’t annihilate the entire worlds population in an extremely short period of time or that war hasen’t changed or that it is not now possible with current technology to exterminate entire populations one bullet at a time.
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Not only were the Marines in this movie portrayed as rapacious loons, they were stupid to boot. There’s no way a bunch of natives with bows and arrows stands up to their airpower, if only the Marines were smart enough to use it rather than engage them in ground warfare.
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“One would think that a country that is at war should be more, I don’t know, supportive of the guys that are killing and dying in the war”
Nope – read “War is a Racket” by Smedley Butler.
Anyway, the USA isn’t at war, Israel is at war – the US military is just hired help – hired at cheap rates.
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Top reasons why I dislike it:
- The bad guys are straight white masculine males. The good guys are treehugging terrorist savages
- It’s a US movie which deliberately paints the evildoers as facsimilies of the US military, which I consider traitorous
- The only good male characters are (i) pussified liberal herb scientists or (ii) disabled insecure turncoats. Both of whom take their orders from women (Ripley and Catwoman respecitvely)
- The happy ending is when the traitors sell-out the employers from whom they continue to draw salaries and aid the enemy in killing their colleagues.
- It is full of cultural self-loathing and a “if they aren’t us, they are better than us”
- It does not explain why the catpeople have any more right to the Unobtanium than the humans. The cat people don’t even use it.
- The cat people are clearly parasites on nature, as everything they have is just taken rather than created. The humans arrived on spaceships they built.
- It perpetuates the noble savage myth – the cat people are all happy and in tune with nature with no internal divisions, and blissfully happy in their mud huts. Ignores the reality of starvation, murder and privation in real savage tribal socieites
- It’s quite ok for the catpeople to kill their prey, so long as they mumble a bullshit prayer to show their respect afterwards.
- The story is shit. And totally predictable.
Plenty more, but that’ll do. I expected my nephews (dad is straight, white, law-abiding, tax-paying male) to come out of the cinema asking “Daddy, why am I evil?”
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@JBryce
Yes. The Clint Eastwood character was troubled by the killing he had done in the Korean War. Not only that, but he had thoroughly analyzed the situation and this was the only way where there would be no repercussions against his immigrant friends. All other approaches (assassination, etc.) would have highly unpredictable outcomes. His solution to the gangbanger problem was something that could work for real, assuming you were brave enough to do it.
It’s my impression that at some level Clint Eastwood is trying to atone for or at least offset his work as an actor (Dirty Harry, etc.) where his movies typically glorified violence. His later work as a director (e.g. Unforgiven) shows violence in a very different and more realistic (as realistic as you can get in a movie) way.
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A room-temperature superconductor would open up a lot of new technologies and would be an amazing thing. However, it wouldn’t be consumed when you used it and it could be substituted for with non-superconducting and Liq-He/N2 temperature superconducting materials when you could get away from it. It would probably could be dealt with the same way we deal with rare metals we deal with today like titanium or processed alloys.
Spice Melange on the other hand was a consumable that couldn’t be replaced for space travel which everyone was dependent on. In addition, it provided unparalled mental enchancements and was addictive like a drug. It was a combination of a cosmic oil and a metaphysical cocaine. Read the book to see what I mean. (A lot of people don’t like David Lynch’s movie for reasons I don’t understand).
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I loved Gran Torino. Probably saw it at the best possible time to appreciate it too – one month after I split with my ex-wife.
The ending made sense to me simply because the whole movie was about Clint’s slow death, his feelings of war guilt, and having nothing left to live for. That’s why it starts with his wife’s funeral, keeps showing him aimlessly loafing on the porch, and coughing blood into a cloth.
If it had been a fit health 40yr old Clint commiting suicide like that, it would be a really odd message. But it wasn’t.
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You should be asking yourselves:
Why is this movie fast becoming the Number #1 movie of all time?
It reinforces what most western people now believe after decades of successful propaganda.
Would Avatar fans likewise appreciate a scrappy band of MRA’s fighting the dumb power of the status quo?
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I can’t believe a single person here commenting on the ending of Gran Torino failed to mention the Christian allegory that was so blatant..
…it was “Old Man and the Sea” all over again.
Did you miss how the bullet riddled body of Eastwood’s character fell down into the Jesus Christ Pose?
For God so loved the Hmongs, he gave his only embittered, ill-begotten son of a gun!
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I seem to remember when Clint was the one doing the killings.
Not he being killed by Asian Imports, no less.
From Dirty Harry to
Dirty Hmong
in one swift
generation
mout
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Avatar was one long Obama HopenChange commercial, in search of a movie. The whole noble savage BS.
Appealing to women who want the fake Gaia worship, “peace and harmony” and of course, revelation of “true Alphas” who are physically superior and leaders. For SWPL feminized folks, it is the end of status-competition anxiety, with a “flat” hierarchy that that does not have all the subtle gradations of status and endless competition. As parodied in Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. No Puffy Shirt disasters, no Bubble Boys, no Jackie Childs, no fights over who buys a Prius FIRST.
What Avatar does not have is any native: art, science, literature, music, plays, books, movies, television shows, sports, cuisine, politics, discourse, or any of the other complicated but tremendously enjoyable things that make up modern Western Life. There is no Christmas, no holidays, no families, no memories, not nothing like that. It’s a blank, empty desert among CGI fake jungles. There is no history, no traditions, no connection to the past or message to the future. No heroism, no villainy, just a flat nothing.
There is no King Arthur, or Voldemort. No Merlin, no Christ, no Judas, no Charlegmagne, no Napoleon, no FDR, no Easy Company, no Superman, no Zorro. Nothing. It is a world so repulsive, so empty, so barren in anything that only SWPL would want to live in it. Contrast with Tolkein’s decades long attempt to create a Antiquity-Dark Ages-Classical-Dark Ages-Medieval world, or CS Lewis’s ability to rewrite Medieval Christian myths (and contrast them with paganism) and you are left with a creatively bankrupt, dead empty hulk of a Michael Bay movie without all the fun.
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Whiskey,
You’re comparing a fake alien civilization one is exposed to for only 3 hours in a theatre to Western civilization history, characteristics, and it’s enjoyable aspects???
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I know that feeling!
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I have to agree with Jabherwochie for the most part about this movie. And yeah I’m going to say it, I liked it as well.
I mean, so what if the good guys just happen to take orders from females? If they took orders from men, I’d be fine with it as well. So what if the aliens worship a Gaia like deity, it’s a movie and their aliens.
Now I do understand the complaints about how the main bad guys were white males. Then again, just about all mainstream movies have a predominantly white cast. But then the main bad guys didn’t have to be all male.
About the “cultural self-loathing”, I can see how it can symbolize that. I wonder what can drive a person to reject his human self and become a entirely different being (besides having the ability to walk, run, etc. and falling in love). Was it because he liked their way of life? Did he relate to them more?
But it’s on their planet…..Do you think coming to THEIR planet, killing them off, and destroying THEIR land was the way to go?
You’re comparing something that happened on planet Earth to a make-believe alien race. You’re basing your arguement against the lifestyle of a fake alien tribe on REAL human primitive tribes and natural selection on Earth….
I thought those particular children were orphans.
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Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2241542/
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So we’re taking it out of context, they are a make believe race and can play by any rules because it’s all make believe…
Well what about OUR context? People don’t go see a make believe movie and then interpret it out of their own experience. To most it’s a literal interpretation that “this is the way things are, for you, for us, for everyone, pandora is Earth”.
We’re just pointing out the propaganda as where it would strike John and Jill Q. Public the most.
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JBryce: Thanks for the assist, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Gunslingy hasn’t had military experience. I have roughly the same type of tech-headed scidealist in my squad too. (Former Navy IT man-should have guessed. And in my paternal grandfather, bless his stubbornly not dead Mennonite soul.) Neither of them play videogames regularly, they’re just really intelligent, detail-oriented people who haven’t squared their own highly specialized abilities into a tactical setting or training program.
At least the Real Time Strategy genre is much more realistic about the fact that some of your units just gonna die, even among the best players.
Eh, maybe I should start doing video game review segments for the Spearhead, or something.
And on tactics, I’ll speak for gunslingy on the still realistic belief that sheer crazy effrontery by a qualified and well-prepared gunman can kill very many people before the opponents have time to react. Though I prefer the Kevin Costner movie Open Range for the deepest and most incisive use of the ‘how to go crazy while outnumbered and still make it out alive’ trope. They at least had a hard-nosed tactical planning session the night before the shootout, taking into account not only the fight, but the battlefield psychology of who would need to be killed first (the most qualified ‘gun hand,’ natch.)
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@whiskey
And that only reveals how truly empty are SWPL. I pity them.
@Renee
The problem with that argument is that it doesn’t change the fact that this movie is pure leftist propagand with a heavy political agenda. Is as plain as the day, and I, as several commenters, explained fairly well why. That’s our issue with that movie, and the “Is fiction, teeheehee” excuse isn’t going to change that.
[i]I have to agree with Jabherwochie for the most part about this movie. And yeah I’m going to say it, I liked it as well.[/i]
Renee, one can enjoy a piece of entertainment even if one knows the intent of that entertainment is in fact an attempt to indoctrinate the consumer.
One of my favorite bands is Rage Against the Machine…yet much of their lyrics are Noam Chomsky themed, marxist garbage for which I cannot stand. But I still own all of their albums, and I’ve seen them in concert 3 times, and would go see them again if I had the chance.
I appreciate them for what they are, but I’m also aware of their message.
I, on the other hand, find that political messages in music are usually overt and easily ignored. One can enjoy music IN SPITE of the attempts of the artist to influence the listener.
But when it’s done through movie plots and character depictions to elicit subliminal emotional manipulation of the viewer…and the viewer is aware of it and is diametrically opposed to that viewpoint the film maker is trying to indoctrinate them with, it kinda destroys the suspension of reality that is necessary to enjoy a movie.
If you are not annoyed by leftist/PC propaganda themes in a movie, than good for you.
I’ve found that awareness of such covert and subversive attempts at manipulating the audience to be highly annoying and ruin many movies for me. I become more aware of the “message” rather than the actual characters and plot.
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”””’Epo January 14, 2010 at 18:34
JBryce: Thanks for the assist, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Gunslingy hasn’t had military experience.
””””
Army mechanic 5 half years went to bosnia.
KBR in kuawait and iraq went as mechanic worked way up to operations 5 years straight of 12 hours a day work 7 days a week other than vacation. My idea for the cameras went as high as the guy in charge of kbr defense worldwide.
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Buti f you look around it is gonna happen just a matter of rolling it out full scale. Still at the opportunity stage for the little guy to make some big money perhaps.
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Also came up with the idea for scan guns like they use at caterpillar or wherever but it would have gotten rid of almost all the minority jobs so it was also not utilized. Could have automatic ordering but again loss of minority jobs is not acceptable and contractors make quit a bit of money per person hired as well as long as they can show a need and when you up the paperwork you up the need even if not needed he he he
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Funny part is they made a big deal about kbr using 20 billion over like 5 years right?
Well the new contract is three diferent contractors that are each allowed contracts up to 5 billion each per year. Last I checked that is 15 billion per year lol and the infrastructure was already set up by the original cowboys from kbr for the 20 bil. All the new companies gonna be doing is basically upkeep of what kbr already put in place for 20 billion in 5 years but the new companies again getting 15 billion per year in total. Shit funny as fuck. The money to contractors was tripled and you don’t really see anything on the news on that. Then they had that electricity scare crap and the article about shoddy electrical work but if you run the numbers iraq and afganistan safer than the states as far as people being electricuted. I brought that shit up as well and was wondering why the company was not defending itself on that one. We only had like one electrician die. These guys are working under pretty poor conditions too. Like hot as fuck. Like metal objects will be burning you basically. Then the gas prices where they said it was costing 3 dollars per gallon for gas. Ok these convoys of trucks are being blown the fuck up and it was still only costing 3 dollars a gallon. Fucking amazing accomplishment. Except somehow for the media it was some kind of expose. I mean even with all the dead weight. The sheer fact that a lot of people there are really doing it because they want to do a good job and help with the war effort and there country still can’t totally fuck it up.
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This would not work. I do think we could have made better use of ground based sensors, but this gun camera idea is not feasible for numerous reasons.
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***
THIS. I was an Environmental Analyst (Watershed Mgt) for the People’s Republik Of Kalifornia and AG lobbyists run the show.
Their CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) produce HUGE amounts of pollutants in the water and especially when you combine these in major urban areas with other pollutants such as cigarette butts, canine fecal matter and even excess estrogen from female birth control, you have a tremendous problem of contamination than the public may be aware of.
But I digress.
The fact of the matter is that there is a global paradigm shift underway in more ways than one. I’m not thrilled about it either but one can either adapt to the situation, improvise and thrive or go the way of the dinosaur.
I’ve made my decision.
What say you?
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””””’What say you?”””
improvise adapt overcome.
Provide pupose direction and motivation to those around me.
Get the hell out of dodge and save my ass.
But it is fun to talk about what ifs and such. It is also still sad to see people being crushed and an interesting endeaver to try and come up with ways to turn the tide or arm people with the tools to defend themselves.
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**Great minds think alike.
Had a great analogy relayed to me the other day regarding saving your own ass before you can save others.
Went something like: “when you travel by plane and the oxygen masks drop, there’s a reason the stewardess tells you to put yours on first, then give assistance to others. It’s because if you do it bass ackwards, you both die.”
So yes, “improvise, adapt, overcome”. Then help others. Kinda like a giant chess game played across years instead of minutes…
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””””””Words Twice January 14, 2010 at 21:12
Gunslingergregi: What I originally suggested was placing a small caliber weapons mount and camera system every 50 yards or so along the 800 miles of iraqi highway we used. Have around a 100 guys monitoring the sytems
This would not work. I do think we could have made better use of ground based sensors, but this gun camera idea is not feasible for numerous reasons.
””””””””””
Please name them.
Sure mortars could be targeted at them but they would still be shooting at an inanimate object with no hope of killing it lol Then same thing happens either a jet or helicopter comes and takes them out.
A mark 19 automatic grenade launcher only cost 15k each.
I think we would get the camera mount in at under 20k Maybe 25k with generator.
Then your talking 800 miles of highway 19000 gun mounts even if placed every 50 yards. Which would probably be some severe overkill. Majority of highway is sparcely populated. So we are talking 475 million for the mounts. Lets say you get them in around 50k well 950 million. Figure another 100 million for maintenance and fueling program and training.
Load up the some trucks with some new gun mounts with quick change capability for those that are actually fired and routine maintenance.
At the moment there are more than 19000 light sets in iraq that are refueled every day as needed. Those light sets have a generator attached to them providing more than enough electricity to run the gun mount. There are more than 19000 light vehicles in theatre at the moment. Cost is not prohibitive then for what it could give you.
36,000 wounded troops. Vehicles that where lost with all cargo. Cargo that has bullet holes in it. Tanks that are destroyed on a truck that burns to the ground after being hit with an ied. Plus not being sure if a loaded truck is going to make it to destination. Could have some pretty high cost parts on board and that could be burned to ground. Trucks literally burn to ground. Don’t really know how it happens but it sure as fuck does. This shit pays for itself. How much will it cost to take care of 36,000 wounded well into the future.
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””””I do think we could have made better use of ground based sensors,””””’
Yea I do too. I was in a camp that had barbed wire stolen off of the perimeter by iraqi’s along with a generator.
I heard the iraq’s shooting mortars off ya know tunk tunk tunk right outside the berm of the camp. We were waiting for them to come over the berm and we were unarmed lol
Time to quit saying we can’t and actually move into future war.
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So that was you?
I suggested they re-deploy to the frontline with surplus M1′s and bayonets and do house-to-house sweeps …lookin’ fo Insurgents n’ Osama.
I was rewarded handsomely
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I have no intention of getting into a drawn out debate since it is apparent that you have neither inclination nor the experience to understand why this is not feasible. No offense. Suffice to say that I am not as enamored with hi tech as you obviously are.
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@ BillWallac: Some good comedies I would recommend are Flying High (aka Airplane) and Hot Shots.
For movies that are not so anti-male I recommend you watch older movies. cinema went to shit sometime during the 90s/early 00s and I’ve given up on it.
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What about The Seven Samurai? I realize that it’s not an American flick but there was definitely some pro male messages going on there. The fight against banditry, the admonishing of the cowardly peasants by the samurai. The samurai who was really just some poor guy who strapped on a sword. The killing…. Great stuff.
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Well,the fact that this movie is now the top grossing film of all just proves that people will pay $18 bucks to be told how much of an asshole they are because some Indians got killed 100 years before they were born.
And before anybody says it, I’m part Cherokee on my Dad’s side. If you want to cry out your White Guilt over the poor Red Man, do it someplace that I don’t have to watch. None of you White Guilters really give a fuck about Indians.
If you did,you’d like actually *do* something instead of making shitty movies.
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There is no way out, you may think, but it is not true! One of the best painkillers at your disposal That’s what i want to say here.
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