Brad Ideas - Review - Comments

Keep away the humans

brad — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:07:44 -0700

Actually, it is indeed a flaw in this interpretation that Eywa did not simply use techniques to keep the humans away from the primitive reserve created fro the Na’vi. One could argue that it didn’t do this until it became clear the humans would interfere so greatly, knowing it could find a subtle way to resolve things. We can’t truly understand the planning of god-like beings. But it certainly seems the simplest situation would be to just not let the humans land in the first place. It seems hard to imagine it would not have the capability to stop them.

Perhaps, one might speculate, it felt some need to shake up the Na’vi society with an external threat. Even at a cost in lives.

Frankly, this idea makes more sense, plot-wise.

Q42 — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:53:39 -0700

Given that James Cameron is planning two sequels, and that the gun-toting humans will probably be returning to retake Pandora in the near future, all I can say is: the Na’vi are going to need that fancy, world-bending, post-singularity tech pretty quickly! Unless Eywa can telekinetically repel starships, landing craft and/or space-to-surface weaponry (unlikely, given that humans have been landing safely there for decades), I don’t see how else the Na’vi could possibly survive a full-on invasion.

While I’m more than happy to see where Mr. Cameron actually takes the sequels, I would love to see a story arc in which Jake and company have to unlock the secrets of Pandora and its builders. As the humans rally for a military invasion, it would make sense that Eywa would see a need to reactivate some of Her makers’ powerful technology. And who better to make use of it than Jake and the Avatar team, who at least have some grasp of technology beyond the Neolithic level? Thus begins an all new globe-trotting adventure, in which our heroes must journey across Pandora – giving us, the audience, some awesome scenic eye candy along the way – on an epic quest, searching for the clues that will awaken Pandora’s hidden power. If they fail, Pandora will become Earth’s conquered, dying twin. If they succeed, the revelations they uncover may save Pandora – and possibly Earth, as well.

Besides being beautiful, maybe the Na’vi’s white, star-like biolights are a hidden message from their ancestors. Perhaps the People once traveled the stars … and are destined to return there one day.

The plot might not be terribly original, but then, that didn't bother too many people about Avatar (least of all me!)

I really appreciate your

Joy — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:53:25 -0700

I really appreciate your striving to be as objective as you were concerning this movie that portrays your father as the bad guy. I do agree with the earlier comments that it was not the producer's intention to invoke the temptation of Jesus and cast your father as Satan. Obviously someone made a parallel to it, but it doesn't mean everyone draws that conclusion. In my opinion and it has been shared by others, your father had undergone a crisis in his faith and seemingly never recovered. His doubts did affect Billy Graham and became the catalyst to Graham's breakthrough. That is a wonderful story for Graham--and his descendents. But not so wonderful for your father--or you, as it casts him in a dark light. Who wants their father to be remembered that way? So, while the Christian community rejoices for Graham, it is perhaps bittersweet for you. As a Christian, it is devastating to see a dear friend walk away from the Lord. I have no doubt that Graham was deeply grieved about your father and earnestly prayed for him. But as much as us Christians would like God to overcome our will and bring us past all doubt, God will never force His will on us. If we're looking for answers from God to refute the "wisdom" of science and this world, God oftentimes will not give it to us, but instead presents to us the walk of faith. God's word says that we Christians must walk by faith, not by sight. I say this to you not as a Christian to a Christian as I don't know if you are, but just an attempt to explain why Graham broke through. Graham came to the point where he was willing to be humbled in front of others for not being able to answer questions like the ones your father posed to him. That is no to be taken lightly as no one wants to look stupid.

repetition

Wayne Gail — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:18:36 -0800

I don't see how a sequal can be viable,.how much more drama can we take...regardless of other moons full of aquatie and the like.The ending of the extended remix was freaky enough..I think Mr Landau's imagination may have been exagerated a little too much for all the buzz.A sequel with one central character,..who died at the end...I'll eat my hat!.I always thought Avatar was a two parter originally,but someone bottled it and went for the jugular for the blu ray sales crammed with all the ommissions instead.T'was more of a fable/documentary type production which draw to a natural end once Camewron had told the intended.All the talk of sequals is to further interest in the Pandoram tale so we all rush out and hammer hard the limited edition box sets.No amount of back story either could fill all the holes and answer the un-answerable,..my only hope is Avatar will be re-issued to 2011 Summer audiences,to remind us all just how much fun it all was!

It's of only minor use

brad — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:27:49 -0700

It certainly won’t go HD on your system and connection. It may help you do “HQ” on your lower speed system but I am not even sure about that.

Everyman Webcam

Dannie — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 06:02:41 -0700

I want to purchase the Everyman webcam, however I do not have a dual-core processor. I have an Intel 4 processor with 2GB RAM and run Windows XP Professional. My download speed is pretty good, usually 4 megabits. Upload speed is much slower, .43 megabits.

What resolution should I be able to use the webcam at?

Billy, the Younger Years

Debbie — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:13:09 -0700

I recently watched this movie and my heart broke for your father. I did not see him as Satan, but as a man in crisis. I believe we all go through doubts about God at some time or another in our lives. In fact, I found his conversion scene to be realistic. This may be due to the fact that I have always attended churches who are there for the real people of the world. It is not unusual to see conversions of people who have come from the depths of alcoholism. I believe that your father was a true believer of Jesus Christ when he was an evangelist and I would like to believe that in his final hours, he once again accepted Christ as his saviour. I do not believe the once saved always saved philosophy.
As a Christian, I would like to direct you to our churh's website: www.cornerstonefmc.org Perhaps it can give you some insight into Christianity. I will be praying for you and your family.

The probability

brad — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:58:38 -0700

The problem is a lot of FFs came true not because they were the most probable thing but because they were highly improbable things that somehow were going to happen through a long series of unlikely events. And some came true in spite of the people working to not have them come true. Sure, you can imagine that Olivia is meant to be with Lloyd. But that Janice is going to get shoved at a particular time on a particularly crazy mission and need to go for an ultrasound? Others came true only because of great effort to make them come true (Keiko) but others (car crash into water) are the results of chaotic events.

In other words, it was all destiny, but oddly a destiny that some people can change and others can’t.

One point they didn’t say but might have been the case — because Dimiti was holding the QED ring during the vision period, it could have explained his lack of flashforward. Truth is, if he was really slated to die, and didn’t, that should have changed a lot of other people’s visions too.

They left loose ends. They said the President’s FF was of him losing the presidency but we didn’t see that at all. Anyway, this will remain unwritten.

But some of them happened anyway

DensityDuck — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:10:01 -0700

It seems that some of the FF's (*) did still come true, only with differences in the details. I think that the whole idea of the series was that the FF showed you the universe with the highest probability of actually existing; I would have liked to see, for example, whether someone else was giving the African Speech.

(*) yes, I know. But the style guides' foolish insistence on "plural NEVER has an apostrophe" can lead to confusion in the case of acronyms; "FFs" might well mean something other than "plural of acronym FF".

I did

brad — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 21:21:14 -0700

And they did a better job than I expected. In essence — these are spoilers — they showed everybody’s flashforward as being a view of the post-flashforward universe.

This makes much more sense than having some people’s FFs be of a world without an FF, and some people seeing the world with an FF. However, it is hard to reconcile because they showed that the future can indeed be changed, that many of the bad-guys have had multiple FFs and seen multiple futures. Instead the FFs were exact in a way that can’t be explained by coincidence and people trying to have the same FF.

It remains a problem that lots of people reported mundane FFs. The main characters had non-mundane ones and we learned what led to those FFs, which is fine. But the rest of the world should have all been seeing scenes of big parties, watching TV coverage of the FF. Large numbers of them should have been of them staring at pre-prepared lists meant to be messages back in time. Nobody should have been asleep.

And with such a determined future, the people who died before they were meant to die don’t make much sense.

So, did you watch the whole series?

DensityDuck — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:23:45 -0700

I'd be interested to see you revisit this post in light of how the series turned out.

I like the theory and hope

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:40:09 -0700

I like the theory and hope that the sequel goes along these lines, else it is just the "same old story" retold with some new special effects.

I'm fine with the story as told so far as long as it is expanded upon. I hope he doesn't waste a great backdrop to create an arc that could be this decade's trilogy.

Manual adjustment

brad — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:16:20 -0700

This would be good, but I can see why they are afraid to give it to us. For one thing, it’s more UI, and they don’t want to have a more complex UI for the majority of users who will not touch it. If you manually demand it to use more than the connection will support you will get a very sucky connection, perhaps one that does not work at all, and they are afraid you (or the other party) will complain about how bad Skype is.

Nonetheless, I know many people who, frustrated with the automatic choices, will stop and restart video to fix them.

Thanks for the great review.

yideng — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:29:03 -0700

Thanks for the great review. IMO, the camera itself is fine. What I really hope to see for the camera are two things: hardware compression for lower resolution as you have pointed out, and a proper stand along software developed by Everyman that is able to test, adjust the camera and hopefully record videos in HD to HDD.

What I am a bit upset about is skype. It should openly let users adjust the video quality instead of making the decisions that I don't think is that smart or reasonable at all for the users. In addition, the software development team is always reluctant on other platforms....

Graham's story

brad — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:49:24 -0700

It’s not my claim that Graham’s story isn’t interesting. It’s just that their various efforts (and the book makes this clear) make his character “the bad guy” without the nuance of the real story. Of course, this is not uncommon in movies, though less common in books. However, I wasn’t the only one to see the story of temptation by one who is trying to lead Graham away from God, and a moment of dedication in the wilderness as having parallels to the bible story. Of course, you can never be sure about a metaphor in a movie, but this is how I read it.