this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Drag was making an allegorical point. Perhaps Unobtanium results from an organic process. In the second movie, the capitalists are killing whales for a substance in their brains that makes people immortal. Can't find that on an asteroid.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

We can save mental effort and just go for the Dune series at this point. What is the point in that? In considering the advances in modern chemistry, there are ever few organic compounds that can not be synthesized.

I fall back to my original thought: is well thought sci-fi so hard to achieve nowadays? If seems there is a fixation about misery and destruction nowadays.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Avatar does have some good science fiction like the idea of a planetary hivemind being worshipped as a god. The Na'vi religion is literally true, it just seems false to humans who don't know anything. That's very different to Dune, where the Fremen religion is true because people like Paul's mum make it true.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'll grant that waffer thin idea as a good attempt of putting something akin to good sci-fi into an otherwise solely for visuals work, although I disagree with the notion of deifying something that is tangible, as in the setting put forward in the movie.

And I mentioned Dune because of the immortality mention. The spice is also irreplaceable and unique, produced only in a single planet, through a rather complex organic process, harvested at great risk and cost, then to be synthesized by the tons.

That was good sci-fi, with sound social and religious criticism in it.

[–] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz -1 points 4 days ago

If you'll allow drag to play devil's advocate, Eywa isn't tangible. Ewya is a mind, and minds are made of electrical signal patterns. You can't touch electricity. And you definitely can't touch a pattern of information, which is essentially made out of maths. That's what a mind is, a bunch of incredibly complex maths.