Ok, controversial. Am i the only moderate on pathfinder?

I just got the Pathfinder book and read it through, and I'm really moderate about it. But most people seem to either really hate it or love it. Which i think is curious, because i'd rather enjoyed it Anyways, i'm going to write down my thoughts if i can find the time, but if anyone wants to rant/gush about it, go ahead here. And first day second Sr. half of the year :)
from
EE

D&D Philosophy One-Liners:archive

Basically I saw this in the Order of the Stick Forum, and its just so brilliant that i wanted to have a place to keep these. I didn't make any of these, just to note.

Nietzsche: "Alignments are for slaves."

Socrates: "Use True Seeing to bypass the illusions of the world."

Hegel: "The Spirit of the World is my shapeshifting animal companion."

Heraklitus*: "Everything is a Fire elemental in a different form."

Parmenides: "Only with Divine Favor will you walk the Way of Truth."
Descartes: "I am the DM."

Nietzsche (as Nihilist): "Rocks fall, everybody dies."

Donatien François, Marquis de Sade: "I head to the nearest brothel!"

Descartes: I have an intelligence score higher than 3, ergo sum.
Descartes: De ominieighteen dubitandum (All-eighteen stats are to be doubted, so roll on the table!)

Hamlet: To play a monk or not to play a monk, that is the question.

Marx: Commoners of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your WBL.

Adam Smith: *weeps in corner crying*

Emerson: Every campaign becomes boring in the end. Play a druid instead of any other class.

Sartre: existence precedes essentia.
Socrates/DM: "So you're all in the cave..."
Bruce Lee: "Boards don't hit back unless someone cast animate objects on them."
"One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a lot of XP."-Stalin
"2+INT skill points ought to be enough for anyone."
ear: How sharper than a serpent's tooth is the same serpent's tooth with frikin GREATER MAGIC FANG +5 CASTED ON IT AGH AGH AGH OWCH -dies-

PETA: Watch out, commoners. Cats will kill you, because they can.

Arthur C. Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Descartes: I've rolled, therefore I am.

Mao: Power grows out of the pages of a spellbook.

Sun Tze: Know thyself and scry thy enemy.

Oscar Wilde: "I can resist anything except temptations with a will save over 31."

Augustine: Oh Lord, make me Lawful Good...only not just yet.

"Losing a limb is a tragedy. Falling into a pit of Gelatinous slimes is hilarious."

"It is said that if you have both the Monster Manual and the Player's Handbook, you will not be imperiled in a hundred encounters; if you do not have the Monster Manual but have the Player's Handbook, you will win one and lose one; if you do not have the Monster Manual nor the Player's Handbook, you will be imperiled in every single encounter."
-Sun Tzu

"All warfare is based on Bluff checks."
-Sun Tzu

"Be a rogue. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."
-Sun Tzu

Aristoteles: "A party is more then the sum of its members"

Mark Twain: Dance like you have Greater Invisibility. Sing like you're Silenced. Love like you've never taken hit point damage and live like you've been Plane Shifted to Celestia.

Machiavelli "It is a sound maxim that when an act is evil, the result may excuse it, and when the result is good, always excuses it"


Nietzsche: The DM IS DEAD!
Hobbes: Life is nasty, brutish and pwned.

Locke: "This will make the BSF and the GC win the combat with little damage to themselves - and they will feel like "they" won. That's the point - you're God after all, let the mortals have their victory." -Treantmonk

Kierkegaard - If you label me you apply negative levels to me.

"When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because the DM wants it to. When the strike of a hawk breaks the body of its prey, it is because of a critical hit."
-Sun Tzu, Complete Warrior

"To play, or not to play, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The +1 slings and flaming arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of kobolds,
And by opposing end them?"
-Hamlet (William Shakespeare, the Epic Bard)

"All the world's a game,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their character sheets and their Player's Handbooks;
And one man in his time plays many characters,
His acts being seven classes. At first the monk,
Mewling and puking in the DM's arms;
And then the whining fighter, with his backpack
And shining plate armor, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to battle. And then the bard,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a barbarian,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the dragon's mouth. And then the cleric,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth class shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd wizard,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful campaign,
Is second noobishness and mere oblivion;
Sans Constitution, sans Wisdom, sans Intelligence, sans everything."
-Jaques (William Shakespeare)

"There's one rule for the DM and that is: make the most exciting scenarios possible at the lowest railroading possible, paying the highest loot possible." - Henry Ford

I am the DM. I think (I am right), therefore I am (right).

"Build a man a fire, he's warm for a day. Cast continual flame for a man, he's warm for the rest of his life."

"Know your enemy but don't let them know you."
Sun Tzu, devoted Lich Cleric of Vecna.

Camus: D&D is inherently absurd


"Many who live deserve death, and many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them?"
Cleric: "...Yeah, pretty much."
Nietzsche: "Chapter Three: Why my stats are so high"

It is better to cast Cause Fear than Charm Person, if you cannot cast both.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

God does not play D&D. - Albert Einstein

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst. - Aristotle, starting history's first alignment debate

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
- Sun Tzu, explaining the concept of the Batman wizard.



The skilful employer of men will employ the wise man, the brave man, the covetous man, and the stupid man. - Sun Tzu

Modern translation: LFG need healer, tank and rogue. Noobs welcome. Gogogo!

"gaze not into the abyss, for It gazes also into you. That, and theres's at least 666 layers of the thing."
-Nietzsche

Berkeley: Only one being rolls perception checks, and he is called DM. / Either you roll a perception check, or you are perceived by one.

J.S. Mill: Your actions determine your alignment, not your intentions.

Hume: Just because your sword struck me, doesn't mean that your sword is the cause of the damage I took.

Locke: That purple Deva possesses no inherent purple-ness.

Hursthouse: You're lawful good not because you act that way, but because those are your character traits.

Karl Marx: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
(not altered)

Richard Bach: Perspective- Use it or lose it. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a prestige class.
FDR: The only thing we have to fear, is cause fear....and the DM

Socrates: I only know that I have no ranks in Knowledge

Theodore Roosevelt: Speak softly and carry a staff of the magi.

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the others and assume the powers of Earth... Wait, with some editing, this could work for the Congress too!"

Thomas Jefferson, preparing an adventure for his weekend D&D session.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Craft a create food and water trap, and you feed him for life"

Or..

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will fail survival checks constantly, because he didn't level up and invest ranks in the skill yet."

The prophet of Delphi: Why Socrates, you rolled the highest wisdom score.

Neitzsche: Stare into the abyss and a Baalor stares back at you.

Will Rogers: When Wizards makes a joke, it's a rule. And when they make a rule, it's a joke!

William of Ockham: In general, entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. But if you have power attack, go nuts.

If a paladin falls in the outlands, and no one's around to see it, does he need an atonement?
(yes)
"You can choose any path, as long as it's the only one I prepared."
Henry Ford as the DM

"I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice."
Albert Einstein
"Stop telling DM what to do with his dice."
Niels Bohr

Some unchanged quotes:
"Friends share all things."
Pythagoras (probably while disputing loot division)

"Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons."
Pythagoras spoke as a true powergamer.

Light a man a fire, keep him warm for a day. Cast Empowered Maximized Twinned Energy Admixtured Sanctum Orb of Fire on him, and keep him warm for the rest of his (short) life.

If an NPC is in the forest, and no one is aware of it's existence, it doesn't exist. Until they find him dead. Then he was created dead.

If an NPC is in the city, and the party doesn't plan to fight it, does it have stats? No.

As flies to wanton boys are NPCs to DMs. They kill us for their sport.

"Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the DM amongst his books for to you your characters and their equipment are mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment to be overturned by the flicking of a finger."
Locke: We all start with a blank character sheet.

Kant: I ought never to make a house rule except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become RAW.

The bigger they are, the larger their grapple bonus is.
Confucius: "Do not be ashamed of fumbles and thus make them crimes"

Gandhi: "Hate the sin, love the succubus"

Kurt Vonnegut: "Those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand."

Julius Ceasar: "I came. I saw. I critically hit."

Charles Darwin: "Owlbears? Well, err..."
Subtle is the DM, but malicious he is not...
...I have second thoughts. Maybe he is malicious...
...I, at any rate, am convinced that he does not throw dice. -Albert Einstein

To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate has made me an authority myself. (After becoming the DM)

As a child, I received instruction both in the Players handbook and in the DMG. I am a player, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the DM.

Oscar Wilde: "Nothing worth learning can be taught. Only learned through the indiscriminate slaughter of unrelated monsters."

Plato: "He who neglects his education wastes his first level on a low-education class, and his build walks lame for the rest of his progression."

Mark Twain: "I see no problem between us that cannot be solved by your departure. *PLANE SHIFT!*"

Nietzsche: "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum proves that it takes more than faith to take Cleric levels."

Nicola Abbagnano: "Reason itself is fallible, for logic must account for all the crazy **** wizards keep doing."

Anaxagoras: "The descent to Hades is the same with every Plane Shift."

Anaxagoras: "Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but ammo for cheesy Hulking Hurler builds, and the sun ammo for Half-Red Dragon Hulking Hurlers."

Anaxagoras: "Men would live exceedingly quiet if these five words, talking is a free action, were taken away."

Anaxafriggin'goras: "Appearances are a glimpse of the illusory."

Neil Gaiman: "Sod this. Fireball."

Marcus Aurelius:

- Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else. Besides, you might get better stats on the reroll.

- A great pile of GP is a great disadvantage to those who do not know how to use it, for nothing is more common than to see PCs blow half their loot on a single easily-sundered, easily-stolen item; riches do them no service in order to virtue and happiness; therefore 'tis precept and principle, not WBL, that makes a character good for something.

Schrodinger: "Quick! My familiar MAY need healing!"

Schrodinger: "I'm gonna roll up a wizard."

Foucault: "The soul is the prison of a black sapphire of at least 1,000 gp value for every Hit Die"

Marx: "The DMs have only interpreted the pre-built settings, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."
The die is cast."
-Julius Caesar


Also, completely unaltered (except for the translation):

"I do not care to play the part of Monk; I will not play it myself, and I do not choose that others shall do so. "
-Napoleon Bonaparte


A campaign is the sidequests that come up while you're busy trying to achieve the main plot.
John Lennon

Lawful Good- If liberty means anything at all, it meas the right to say what others don't want to hear
Lawful Neutral
People sleep peaceable in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf
Lawful Evil
Big Brother is watching you
Neutral Evil
Powers is not a means, it as an end. one does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution, one makes a revolution in order to establish the dictatorship
Neutral-
On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time
Neutral Good
All the war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariable from people who are not fighting

Chaotic Good
In a time of universal deceit-telling the truth is a revolutionary act
Chaotic Neutral
Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsiblity
Chaotic Evil
If you want a vision of the future...
imagine a boot stamping on a human face
Forever

Kirkegard: "I reached 20th level, what do I do now?"

Obi-Wan: "Use the d20."

Genesis 1: "I cast Genesis"

Otto von Bismarck: "If there is ever another war in Khorvaire, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Lhazaar Principalities"

"I have an Intelligence score, therefore I am."
Rawls: Always write your character sheet as if you had to give it to someone else to play, and you had to accept and use the character sheet written by a different anonymous player.

Foucault: The only dungeons are the ones constructed in your mind by society. But first, let me explain the last 100 years of back story...

Derrida: What does an attack of opportunity really mean anyway? What does it mean to attack? Is it really an opportunity? And who wrote these rules anyway?

"The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of six is a TPK."
- Joseph Stalin

"A Set of House Rules is what the people are entitled to against every game system, and what no just game system should refuse, or rest on inference."
- Thomas Jefferson
I'd give my right arm to dual wield.
-Yogi Berra

Locke: DnD is a social contract between the players and the DM.
Machiavelli: It is better to rule through fear than through love...... at least until some adventurers come along.
Hobbes: Life is like a Dwarf. Nasty, Brutish and Short.

Or should that last one be Kobold?

And I know everyone has done this one, but I want to as well.
Einstien: GodThe DM does not play dice with the universe. He lets his PCs do all the rolling.

modified:

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they roll; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they role.
Buddha

The mind is everything. What you make them think they become.
Buddha

unmodified:

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?
Buddha

If war isn't your last resort, you didn't resort to enough of it.

Lao Tzu: "From Gygax came the original box set D&D; from the box set came AD&D Player's Handbook and DMG; from the Player's Handbook and DMG, came the 10,000 splatbooks and accessories."

We see, therefore, that combat is not merely a complex BAB check, but also a real complex skill check, a continuation of a Diplomacy check, a carrying out of the same by other means.

- Carl von Clausewitz

"Players should not be afraid of their DMs. DMs should be afraid of their players."

"The players are condemned to be free."
- Satre, on sandbox games

"When system elitism returns it will be in the guise of opposition to system elitism."

"Strange game. It seems the only winning move is not to play." (Could be said of D&D itself, and most certainly the Blood War.)

"How smart is Vecna, really? Smart enough not to let you know how smart he is."

"What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?"

"I'm gonna pray. Know any good religions?"

The die is cast. Fortunately, the DM didn't see it.
-Julius Caesar

An adventuring party is no more a team than a heap of building materials is a house.
-Sun Tzu

A collision at sea can ruin one's entire day, so fly.
-Thucydides

To lead 1st level PCs to war is to throw them away.
-Sun Tzu

Tier Sixes of the world, unite!
-Marx

on Barbarians:

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
Einstein

Get mad, then get over it.
Colin Powell

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.
Bede Jarrett

on Paladins:

A man of courage is also full of faith.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

on Wizards:

Intelligence is not a science.
Frank Carlucci

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.
Henry David Thoreau


on Experience:

Experience is the teacher of all things.
Julius Caesar

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Oscar Wilde

I think we are a product of all our experiences.
Sanford I. Weill

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.
Napoleon Hill

on dungeons:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

on teamwork:

When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
Edward W. Howe

on summons:

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Hobbes: "Life is nasty, brutish, and short."

Elan: "Life is Belkar?"

"A consistency proof for RAW … can be carried out only by RAI." - Kurt Gödel

- "A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short. " - Bertrand Russell (unmodified)

- "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness." - Russell (As a Batman Wizard, trying to cheer up the Glass Cannon and the Big Stupid Fighter)

- "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. " - Russell, this time after taking Knowledge Devotion! :)

Hunter S Thompson: If you're going to be Chaotic Evil, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
Oscar Wilde: "The only thing worse than being talked about is having your abilities talked about by a rules lawyer while combat grinds to a halt."

C.S. Lewis: "I believe in Zeus as I believe that the foes are smited: not only because I see the lightning bolt, but because by it I see everything else."

Blaise Pascal: In the decision to believe or not believe in Zeus, it's the better wager to believe -- because, well, his avatar will come stick a lightning bolt up your nose if you don't.

DM Samuel Taylor Coleridge, setting the scene: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea."

DM Lewis Carroll, setting the scene: "'Twas brilling, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe ..

Nietzsche: "You must be of the Chaotic subtype to give birth to a dancing star"
H.P Lovecraft - That is not dead which has a 9th level Cleric and a diamond handy. And with Craft Wondrous Item and a Phylactery even death may die

Liebniz: "The DM is an optimizer, and this is the best of all possible campaign settings."

Another Liebniz: "Newton stole my commoner railgun idea!"

Oh, right, this one goes with the first one:

Voltaire: *recounts Lanky Bugger's crazy DM story, but adds in a fellow player who keeps praising the DM's style, throughout all the incidents past the session*
Leibniz: Every character is as a world apart, independent of everything else except the DM.

Leinbniz: I do not believe that a world without evil, preferable in order to ours, is possible; otherwise there would be no XP

Caesar: Alea iacta est - unless you have a Luck reroll.

Caesar: Veni, vidi, vesperugoviri

The Devils Dictionari: Lawful good(n): A willingness to find excuses to beat people up.

Hobbes: Homo homini Tarrasquus

William James: The art of being wise is the art of knowing which spells to overlook.

Think of how underpowered the average class is, and realize half of them are more underpowered than that.

"La campagne, c'est moi."
- Louis XIV

"As a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich spiele RPGs."
- John F. Kennedy

"A player should be upright, not kept upright. "
- Marcus Aurelius

"If it won't give you XP, don't start an encounter"

"There are appropriate times for burning things with fire"
-Sun Tzu (adapted)

"Those who do not learn from previous encounters are doomed to repeat them."- George Santayana.
"Optimize, after you have first learned to submit to rule."
- Solon

"Then our battle shall be in deeper darkness!"
- Leonidas I

"Character creation is the most important part of the work."
"Party members have all things in common."
- Plato

"When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, the DM is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?"
- Epictetus

Spinoza: Fear cannot be without saving throw nor saving throw can be done without fear.

-If all movement must take place in five-foot intervals, then how can any movement ever be completed, because to move five feet you must move two and a half?

-Pun-Pun has an infinite number of abilities on his character sheet. If you erase the first and write in a new one, then erase the second and write in the first, and so on, you will never finish; therefore, you can not grant abilities to Pun-Pun.

-If a rogue uses UMD to perfectly simulate being a Batman wizard, clearly that does not make the Rogue a Batman Wizard, but instead just emulating Batman wizardry without understanding.

"Level 20 is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."
- Bruce Lee

"Those who do not learn from previous TPK's are doomed to repeat them."- George Santayana.

Alistair Crowley: If you're a wizard, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Nietzsche's works:
Dwarfen, all to Dwarfen
Gay Elven Science
Thus spoke Gary Gygax
Beyond Alignments
Ecce Commoner
The Will to Power and Psions

Einstein: I believe two things to be infinite: the player's ingenuity, and the DM's malignity. But I'm not sure on the last one.

Adorno: What use is a high level if apart from that you're a fighter

Ambrose Pierce: RULEBOOK, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a game and making it hard and inelastic.

Richard Feynman: Character optimization is like sex; sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.

Julien Green: Wizards fly and fighters go on foot. Therein lies all the drama of a melee-er.

Abraham Lincoln: if you want to test a man's character, give him a candle of invocation.

Ronald Reagan: How do you tell a fighter? Well, it’s someone who plays Dungeons & Dragons. And how do you tell a wizard? It’s someone who understands Dungeons and Dragons.

Ronald Reagan: Mr. Gorbatschwow, open this gate.

and washed their sheets clean with their tears,
did he smile, his work to see?
Did he who statted lambs stat thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
in the forests of the night,
what dungeon master's hand or eye
dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

*****

A dead body, revenges not injuries.
The rogue condemns the trap, not himself.
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the paladin lays his curse on the fairest joys.
The sorceror wish'd every thing was magical, the fighter, that every thing was not.

--William Blake, writing on the back of his deceased character's sheet as the TPK unfurled

"Victorious warriors choose their feats first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to choose their feats."
- Sun Tsu

"In a final encounter there is no substitute for victory."
- Douglas MacArthur

Kilgore: "I love the smell of guano bat in the morning. Smells like victory."

Willard: "Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Tucker's kobolds squats in the bush, they gets stronger"

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well casts wishes for my sake. -Aristotle

"Against stupidity the very DMs
Themselves contend in vain."
- Friedrich Schiller

"All the lawful good are friends of one another."
- Zeno

"Balancing is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You at WotC will see that some day."
- Benito Mussolini

Richard Dawkins: In order to Craft: Apple Pie, one must first create D&D.
from
EE

Um....I'm scared

Right now I am normally a fan of HBO (I got True Blood for Christmas, so they are really trying my patience) and epically Rome, which despite its down right silly second season is still in my list of top shows ever. And I liked Gladiator. So this new Spartacus series looks like the second coming, but its scaring me, because it looks like its going to be horrible. And from what i've heard it is awful, which is terrible considering that the premise could be a really good show. Anybody know anything?
from
EE

District 9 vs. Avatar

Mind you, this part is real

Now all writers have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to focuses of writing. Actually that is true of all writers, but internet reviewers like me are especially prone to stylistic polarization in this degree because of the hilariously low standards we are held too. The most common method for a reviewer, and forgive me if I am just getting the hang of this, is to be hilariously critical towards everything, spurt a lot of curse words, make some hilariously offensive comments to piss people off and finally some veiled comments about sexual inadequacy. And like more critics, I am far more qualified for negative reviewers, through unlike most that is not because of my lacking a soul but instead from my absurdly high standards (and great sense of modesty to go with that). I’ve always had a talent both for blowing my own trumpet, and for articulating what is wrong with a movie, book, video game or what have you. But my weakness is positive reviews, because I tend to take ages to explain why something is good (See my M review) due to how hard it is for something to appease my unreasonable standards. So instead of trying to improve my writing talents through repetition and practice, I’m going to give in to sloth like most teenagers and so I’m not going to review Distract 9 directly but instead just show how it is better than Avatar to explain why it is good. Horary, underachievement. So, after a second brief introduction, the ten reasons why District 9 is better than Avatar.

So lets talk about the District 9. Like Avatar it is a film about humans interacting with an alien species and the humans come off as the evil ones. Underlining themes include culture shock, veiled racism and the somebody being turned into an alien. However, unlike Avatar, District 9 seemed to have people on the team who actually considering plots important rather than just subtext, and while Avatar is the cheap pornography of the science fiction world (through very good porn, but still would bore the fuck out of me), District 9 is….I’m not going to keep this metaphor going actually. Anyway, unlike Avatar District 9 is actually good, which isn’t saying very much but what ever, but even on its own it is a good movie. And so, lets have the contrast

1) Concept. Now neither film is really a paragon of originality. Avatar is just Dances with Wolves with aliens and District 9 is the South African Apartheid all over again but with aliens. Actually just that is a sigh of why the latter wins, because quite frankly, exploring the themes of racism and African culture interest me more than watching Kevin Coster’s hypocrisy combined with James Cameron’s talent for self indulgence in 3-D. But even my own massive personal bias aside, the way its done is far more interesting. Avatar is just the basic “evil military shows up, and oppresses noble natives on super special awesome sci fi world”, while District 9 is about a bunch of aliens who land in Johannesburg, South Africa, starving and on the verge of death. Lacking any real awareness of how they got there, being basically drones nor knowing hot to use any of their own technology, they are then put in the slums. Now that alone is intriguing, because…come on, that explores something human. Also, the more movies in Africa the better I say. When I heard the premise, I was honestly intrigued, even if they didn’t pull it off I was certainly into the theme, because there is so much more room for complexity in this one. And while both movies are about aliens seeing us as monsters, stand ins towards the US military have been done

2) Setting- Yeah, yeah, Pandora is an alien world full of crazy monsters and weird environments but we’ve seen that before. Now that’s fine, if they added something new, but apart from ripping off the matrix, it doesn’t really have anything to it. Now, South Africa, that I find interesting, because I’m always fascinated by human nature, and in our sheltered First World, people don’t normally don’t realize the full extent of horribleness that is African slums, and also because unlike Pandora, this isn’t just escapist fantasy, there is a lesson here. District 9 was filmed in an actual South Africa slum during an eviction, and is therefore touching a real and complicated issue, instead of simply the fantastically problems of Pandora

3) The aliens- Yeah, know that James Cameron wrote like a 300 page document explaining the Na’vi and how his planet works, but honestly, any fan fic writer could do that and still not be impressive. Within the world, the Na’vi are simply disinteresting because they lack depth. There culture is just a mix of Native American and African cliff notes, created to fulfill the “oppressed native” stereotype more than anything else. Because beyond there own language and internet like nature powers, they really don’t have any real alien trait them, they are just humans in weird bodies, nothing about them feels really alien. In contrast, the Prawns are distinctly inhuman. While they share some traits with humans, they also are just really weird. The aliens who land for the most part simply want to eat cat food and wander aimlessly seemingly lacking the ability to think on a long term (with a few exceptions). The Prawn have these weird technologies, but they trade them like they are nothing, and don’t’ know how to control their own ship. Being insect like, they are also kinda scary, or at least disturbing. When the film’s protagonist finds the eggs of these creatures and casually burns the larvae, there is enough moral distance that the audience can at least understand his callousness. The creatures also are never really explained, the humans seem to think that they are just listless or stupid biologically, however that could just be general stereotypes towards creatures who lack any education or prospects. One alien is clearly intelligent, is he just proving that they are in fact quite intelligent naturally or is he a different caste, the way drones are different from workers in a been colony. I mean, their inability to speak English is so much more real than all of the Na’vi contently knowing English in that broken “me proud native” sort of way.

4) Humans being shown as the real monsters- Both movies are remarkable because they are about showing a culture class between aliens and humans, and the humans are seen as the sinister monsters. In Avatar through, this isn’t really developed beyond the stereotypical “white imperialists attack noble savages” cliché that we seen in Dances with Wolves. No effort is really made to explore why the humans are so sinister beyond the general idea of them having guns and some veiled references to George W. Bush. The humans aren’t really that scary, just incompetent, as the Na’Vi are so similar to us in terms of thought process intelligence and mannerism. In district 9, humans are legitimately scary because we are held in a sharper contrast to the aliens. Like the Na’Vi, the Prawn are physically more than a match for humans, being at least eight feet tall with incredible armor and strength. And unlike the Na’V, they have technology that can tear apart anything humans could find. And yet, they are in the slums, because the Prawn lack the human ability to organize and think long term, and thus we dominate them. The Prawn are just individuals and listless, they don’t really identify with each other as a society, the largest group of them is about three guys and even then they have trouble coordinating (such as being unable to hide there precious fluid at all intelligently.) The humans are also legitimately dangerous because they actual display real human ruthlessness. This might sound cold, but honestly, the humans in Avatar were playing with the kiddy gloves on. Seriously read what societies will do if we really want something, Napalm, and smallpox come to mind. Now in District 9, humans are using methods that they we actually have used on minority groups. Those slums you see? Yeah, those exist, in South Africa, right now, where people live in pretty much those conditions. Forced eviction and massive camps full of segregated oppressed minorities who are considered inhuman? Yeah South Africa did that. Cannibalism? Not as much as western racists would want you to think, but it does happen, for example, Albinos can be in trouble in some countries. How about human experimentation. Well les discount Africa, and look at Dr. Manglia., who is much worst than what could happen in the film. When it comes to being villains we are able to do so much worst than simple Hollywood villain laughs.

5) Racism. Yeah let me say it, Avatar is a racist patronizing film. We have the old stereotypes of the Mighty White man who leads the Noble Savage to bring down his White Guilt. The natives are a bunch of Generic Native American/African tribes and the Whites are basically culturally imperialists. In the District 9 movie through, there is more than just a bunch of stereotypes. Yes, it’s a massive parallel to the South Africa Apartheid, and it’s the exact same dichotomy of oppressive Boer Neo Nazis oppressing the impoverished minority. And yet, unlike Avatar’s metaphor for imperialism, this movie actually explores the real racism of that situation For example, in real life, there was a big problem with casual racism, IE even those whites who weren’t out killing blacks still regarded them patronizingly at best and with disgust at worst because of their extreme poverty and ignorance. We have the UN who are trying to “help” the Prawn, but mismanagement and lack of interest (subtle racism) actually makes things worst, and we have advert racists who are then shown to have more positive aspects. And more importantly, its somewhat realistic, the scientists who are experimenting on Wikus are horrible, but they are doing what most incompetent dictatorships (yeah I mean you South Africa) would do. Its more real. Also the whites, while horrible, aren’t total monsters, we see there personalities in the start when they are talking to the documentaries. And we see the main character chatting casually with the ruthless enforcers, indicating that for all of the horrible things they do, the Boers are still people, they have families and loved ones and a sense of humor. Even when the protagonist is trying to help the Prawn, he clearly views that am an inferior people. And the Prawn aren’t shown as ideal either, while they are clearly the victims, they are still kinda disgusting, and for the most part pretty stupid. Also they do bad things, mostly in reaction to oppression, but still bad things, like randomly burning down houses and getting involved in gangs (alien prostitution ewwwww). There is a moral grayness and a examination of racism rather than exploiting it

6) Better characters. As I mentioned before, everybody in Avatar is a stock character who lacks any originality or depth, and most importantly has been seen before. None of the characters are ever conflicted or taken outside there cliché comfort zone. The characters in District 9 are more fleshed out. Lets compare Wikus and…Mini Mel. MM also goes into an alien culture and tries to live among the natives, but at no point does he seem anything other than the ideal Christ like hero. He makes a few mistakes, but he instantly realizes it and repents and is never really conflicted, nor does he show any weakness. Wikus on the other hand is very human, in that he is kinda pathetic. He is socially awkward, nervously high strung, hilariously cowardly, and pretty inept. Besides that, he is a racist, a selfish bastard, and a willing member of the oppressor’s regime. The character is almost the quintessential pencil pusher (he has a calculator in his bullet proof vest for gods sake). And he isn’t even a kinda badass evil protagonist, but kinda embarrassing just watching this incompetent goof screw up in every scene. And yet, that makes him very sympathetic and actually complex, selfish bigot he may be, but he honestly loves his wife, and even as a member of a corrupt organization, its implied that he makes some basic effort to care for the Prawn, limited as it might be. Wikus isn’t a great person, but the thing is, I can imagine people like him, hell I know people like him. He is far more sympathetic and more realistic. If you had to face living your life as an alien life form and giving up your comfy old government life, would you be happy? Hell no, and he isn’t. He also betrays his comrades for his own best interest, which makes sense when you realize he only just met them and doesn’t give a damn about their cause. His somewhat loose regard for morals is actually somewhat enlightening, such as when he kills a guard in debatable self defense despite telling his comrades that there would be no killing. “He shot at me” and honestly , most people would do the same. And when he does do something decent, it stands out more, like his risking his life to tell his wife he loves her. Badass heroics are meaningless if they lack context, and Wikus for all of his many faults, is still a good person at heart. This extents to the other characters, Wilku’s wife is a bit of a moron, but she has a good heart, the corrupt father in law is shown as thoroughly evil, but still has some humanity in him when he is with his daughter, the Nazi Captain is…well a Nazi but he is a total badass in how he defeats the aliens by being clever. Here is the thing, humans aren’t ideal and don’t do the right thing, humans are weak, awkward and morally flexible. But we are also brave, selfless and thoughtful.

7) The storytelling. Do I even need to explain.

8) The graphics. You know what, considering that one had 130 million dollars and the other had 20 million, District 9 gets the cake, because I find the real world much more fascinating than CGI fantasia.

9) The style. Maybe I’m a sucker for hand cameras, but the way the story is told is far more intriguing, we aren’t subject to a bunch of macho voice overs, but we have a quisi documentary style (which I wish they kept up…somehow) and a much more intelligent explanation of how the aliens live

10) The moral. Avatar doesn’t have a moral, it has a plot that serves a purpose. Imperialism is bad, and cat people are perfect yeah we know its BS. District 9 gives up its storyline about half way through, but the main moral is still there, the effects of poverty and misunderstanding upon racism. Is it as clear cut or heavy handed as Avatar? No, and that’s why its better, it presents the situation, shows it from different perspectives, and lets me understand a real life situation in a real place. So not the movie for a quick three word moral (IMPELRALISM IS BAD) unless you want (AFRICA SUCKS WHITY). All in all…better movie.

from

EE

Dances with Wolves….again

Oh you got to be kidding me.....Learn Cherokee

Alternate title: Avatar, An Exercise in Escapist Pornography

Now, I’ve been biased against this film since I first saw the trailers, because honestly…I knew what I was going to see before I went in. James Cameron, the director of Titanic ("Gags) has made a movie where humans in the future land on an alien planet full of giant blue cat elves who live in harmony with nature, making a general environmentalist utopia (besides lack of indoor plumbing i suppose, thats just to be expected) . Then the big bad humans come in with their greed, selfishness, and decadence and try to destroy this paradise, until the main white characters comes and unites the primitives, I mean natives together in a great coalition and defeats the evil cooperation. Thus proving that spears with the power of love can beat bullets (just ask the Zulus…no wait). I knew that the movie would be pretty and have inventive new graphics, but ultimately would be lackluster propaganda, as I am very much not impressed by visuals. So I thought I would be leaving the film in a state of rage that might give me an ulcer. And that didn’t happen. The graphics didn’t impress me as much as I thought they would (which is saying a lot) and the plot didn’t annoy me as much as I thought it would, at least when I watched it. It was the next day when walking my dog that I was hit with intense ulcer inducing rage, for what the film represents, and I think i need a doctor. See also, Mediocre Pornographic Propaganda

The plot is exactly as I described it, except that the EVIL corporations have the ability to create these fake bodies of the native blue people (called Navi, and quite frankly, are about as annoying as that damned Zelda fairy). Basically, a humans plugs himself into a terminal and awakes in one of these artificial beings where he can walk around with his real body miles away. Maybe I’ve been jaded by the internet, but the first thing I thought when I heard a crippled white man was pretending to be a hot blue nature loving archer was “hey its just like World of Warcraft”. Oh right, the main character has lost the use of his legs, which adds whole levels of escapist subtext to the film, I’ll get to that later. Anyways, so our main character…I think his name was Jack. Actually, speaking of that, I’m not sure about the names of any of these characters. The main guy I have dubbed Mini Mel, as he does everything short of wearing a kilt in his big battle speech (in the DVD he blames the Jews for the invasion), who has his big “we must fight the invaders with our barbarian rawr” speech and pretty much exists as a Mel Gibson stand in, but not as good an actor…gods help us all. At random moments in the film, I swear an Australian accent suddenly emerged, even through the character normally sounds American.

OK , lets recap the plot.

The movie opens with Coming Home goes into Platoon, does a cleaner (see stupider) version of Matrix with a tip of the hat to Alien, then its out into the jungle where we replay Jurassic Park straight into Dances With Wolves, and finishes the jungle bits with a little of Dinotopia.

Back at the base we shift between Apocalypse Now and generic bad US military – corporate talk, (see Fern Gully), Back to the jungle we have Dances with Wolves/Braveheart/ Last Samurai/Apocolypse Now/Castles in the Sky/ Dynatopia/ Star Wars 3/Princess Monanokee/more Castles in the Sky/Apocalypse Now/The Matrix/ The hero and chick kiss and the curtain drops. At least I think it drops because I left the Theater after the defeated capitalist leave the planet. Feel free to fill in your own movies, because I’m not sure I got everything (some people have mentioned Dune which I haven’t read, and um, the Smurfs? Also there are some things taken from Titanic, does that count?)

The scenery of air ships attacking floating rocks in the sky is impressive, but lacking the complexity and depth that Castle in the Sky brought us, what we see here feels like a hollow attempt to capture another film's glory. Avatar is just a list of Hollywood clichés that are coupled with new graphics, a cynical attempt to hid the film’s lack of a soul. Other points that occured to me.

1) How can you glorify nature when this MOVIE IS ONLY MADE POSSIBLE THANKS TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. Hell, this movie would only sell because our culture is so seeped in escapism and boredom that we have the luxury of seeing a Romanized jungle as an attraction. I mean, if you want to show man vs. nature, fine, and if you want to be anti imperialism, I’m down with that, but don’t play up the role of the Noble Savage if this movie's main selling point is its advanced 3-D graphics.

2) Ok, an actual movie point, this culture's not a culture. They have weird rituals, they love nature, awesome internet styled spiritual connection like connection with…everything and lack any sort of civil disunity. There are no problems in their society, a shallow portrayal of a society just the glamorized advertisements (like many of my college pamphlets). Its essentially a utopia. Ladies and Gentlemen, lets talk tribal societies for a second. The Native Americans and African tribes which this movie is blatantly copying were very advanced people with their own cultures, customs and depth. However they weren’t a utopia, they had their own flaws, which is why they lost. I"m Cherokee, and that tribe was notable because we conformed to the white lifestyle (at last before the Trail of Tears) The whites would trade guns and trinkets to the tribes in exchange for assistance or land, and would play the tribes against each other. When the great native victory came at Little Bighorn, the tribes after winning simply dispersed rather than doing anything with their victory. And disenfranchised members of the tribe were willing to work with whites to better there station. I mean the Na’vi have a caste system for gods sake, why are they so hollow? We see not dissatisfied members of the society, nobody who displays a personality against that of the main three characters (like not working with the guy who helped fire bomb your tree, no matter how pimp his ride), or even people who are cubby?

3) Hey, for Aliens they are very human, patronizingly so. To the point where they don't even feel like Aliens, just an obvious knock off of real life human cultures....wait

4) The world feels like a fan fiction. I mean, planet that is alive and everybody having a special connector cord? Really

5) I am not politically opposed to this film. Is imperialism wrong? Of course it is, the company has no right to destroy the village and the Na’vi are justified in defending themselves. However, it is very misleading to simply have the industrialist be a bunch of generic evil stereotypes. Again, Princess Monokee, the iron companies have a perspective.Its insulting that they don’t think I can handle complexity. It’s the Disney problem, if you give people heavy handed idealism, you just get a generation of kids with black and white mentalities. I mean, seriously, don’t give me a perfect idealized race, don’t give me some utopian planet, give me real people, other wise the message doesn't have any meaning, its just Soviet style insecure propaganda. If the film's message is just, it can afford to give its villain some depth.

Finally this film is scenic pornography. I hate porn, not because I’m opposed to sex, but because it isn’t sexy. Ok, and because its sexist, supports eastern European slavery, and is really disgusting (feel ashamed). But aside from all that, its just so blatant that it ruins any beauty in sex, you have contrived situations where people have overly unrealistic sex for pretty much not reason other than to show off the girls and pander to the audiences hormonal urges. The beauty is there, but the real beauty is the spirit behind the act, and it’s tainted if it’s just flaunted like a cheap device to make money. In a similar sense, this film is just pandering to my appreciation of the visual, but without any spirit behind it, its just cheap landscape porn. Contrast to Castle in the Sky or Princess Monokee, where the landscape is truly beautiful and overwhelming but with the feeling that both are labors of love, not just another marketing toy of the same Hollywood clichés. I mean, a film that has feels alive, even if it isn’t as visually stunning like Wall-E will be remembered for generations. This is just another gimmick that will fade when the next even more impressive 3-D film replaces it, just as Titanic will fade by the next generation (except maybe in Kurdistan, don’t know what is up with that). Akira Kurosawa’s RAN was made in 1985 in Japan lacking modern technology but it is still a visual masterpiece. The most poignant moments I’ve experienced in film are visual in nature, but they only matter because of the context, the spirit and the feeling that the directors are creating art. This isn’t art, its porn, showing the image but it’s a hollow soulless illusion. This is porn, because it is all about entertainment, and not about art. There is no real story, no real suffering, no real learning. It is just a generic Disney dribble.

Finally, escapism. The movie had the potential brilliant in terms of touching upon the escapist nature of a movie, a self referential comment upon the escapist nature of film, like Vertigo, and the Matrix. In our current world of advertising and self indulgence, movies are just another empty past time, and ultimately, that is what Avatar is. The film is not about the crippled marine learning that though is body is broken he is capable of living a complete life. Instead we have an emotional crippled society that cares more about fantastical utopias instead of facing the real sociopolitical challenges in life, like imperialism and racism. Apocalypse Now is a journey inward, revealing the dark and disturbing essence of humanity, while Avatar is simply a whimsical fantasy of wish fulfillment.

This clumsily allows me to diverge into racism. The film isn’t racist as “Dances with Wolves” is, but it’s the same manifestation of White Guilt, a typical white oppressor who realizes the corrupt nature of his society and joins the oppressed. However, even after “integration” he isn’t becoming a victim, a standard member of the tribe forced to deal with being an oppressed group. Instead Mini Mel dominates the natives indirectly, thus satisfying his guilt without having to actually give power to the natives. Is Avatar racist? No, but the format it follows is, it cops out actual racism because they don't show any real groups, but its still racist in the same sense Jar Jar Binks is a racist depiction.

Why I’m so angry is because this is so typical of Hollywood, to give me more empty spiritless clichés rather than art. We’ve seen this movie again, because it’s just the zombie corpse of earlier films. I'm not even impressed by the imagery, because this is just going to lead to rip offs trying to avoid making a quality film by using fancy visuals, and this has been seen before. Avatar adds nothing to the genre but the latest technology, which will be replaced within five years. In short, James Cameron is a hack.

from

EE