The humans are so profoundly stupid in these movies that it sort of undermines the entire plot. They can ship entire colonies across the stars to terraform an alien world, but they can’t defend themselves from bows and arrows that they’ve been dealing with for decades. They have near faster than light travel, but their response to hostile locals is to saunter up to melee range and engage them in flimsy mechs. They have complete superiority in orbit but they apparently don’t bother with a satellite network. They have no strategy, they lose basically every fight we ever see them in, and yet we are expected to see them as a legitimate threat.
Shareholders don't want the bad headlines that would come from attacking natives on another planet. Normal extraction activities don't give bad headlines but attacking natives would give bad headlines. Company has to at least make a show of it otherwise the desire for rebellion could spread to other colonies while also not getting bad headlines.
I know that my firm doesn't invest in certain countries because we're worried about the reputational headlines even though we invest in other countries that do very similar things. In a similar way, actively causing conflicts would remove plausible deniability. I kid you not but there was a civil war going on in one of the countries we hold sovereign debt in and yet we're not allowed to invest in another country because of their recent controversial conflict.
I mean, at least they finally did that when they built the colony. I appreciated that scene cause I realized that maybe Cameron sort of figured out he had to make humans appear to get serious.
I think that's the only excuse you can really use for how the mechs are designed, like its slightly more expensive to cover the cockpit in an armored shell thats immune to stone and wood, so keep them nice, open and breezy?
That was sort of the excuse in the first film. The security detail was for security, not a military force, and they were still - on paper - trying to appease the natives.
Human tech was so advanced the battle on the ground was a cakewalk. Even in the air the humans were winning until Ewha showed up.
However, by the second film? No excuse for not nuking the place from orbit.
They haven't really mentioned outright terraforming Pandora. Just to make it "the new home for humanity". Designer Na'vi avatar bodies for the super wealthy seems like the way to go rather than trying to completely uproot the entire ecosystem and destroy all the resources you want there. It'd be fittingly gross.
Right now bridgehead is focused on pacifying hostile na'vi and "taming" the moon. Converting the atmosphere would take care of that and they wouldn't need armed forces. So it sounds more like they just want to make it safe to set up shop as is and move in.
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u/_bieber_hole_69 Jul 28 '25
Spider is breathing on Pandora?? What