Avatar (film)/Headscratchers/Technology

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If technology has progressed THAT FAR by the 2150's or so...
Cloned half-human-half-Na'vi bodies. In fully no-glitches-anywhere-ly mind-mapped linkups, 24-7, for as long as you don't need to unplug and feed your human body. So why the hell is Jake PARALYZED IN A WHEELCHAIR? Also, an exoskeleton would still need the ability to to move your legs and lower body - they are intended to be used to compensate for weakness in old people, or augment strength for emergency services and industrial workers (the latter being what the AMP suit is, except just on a larger scale). A 'hoverchair' is complete crap as that would require either a miniaturised fusion thruster (actually, multiple, or it would have no stability, as well as some way of mitigating the resultant heat and exhaust) and associated control and fuel onboard, MASSIVELY complicating it, or else some kind of nonexistent antigravity technology.
 * Because Humans Are Bastards and Earth Is Current-Day America, so there's no universal health-care system to pay for the operations.
 * Because apparently, one cannot get medical services without universal health-care [/sarcasm]. Simple fact is that the economic cost of medical treatments falls rapidly after their introduction, mainstreaming and continual refinement. Same applies with any technology in an environment of competition. But of course, that simple empirical fact gets in the way of the anvils that James Cameron is intent on dropping on the readers head, so to hell with economic reality!
 * No one is mentioning the real reason. The cost to create an avatar, in fluff, is stated to be 5 billion dollars. If we assume Obamacare was completely devoted to this, every ten years 200 people could be rebodied. The author has made it absurdly expensive. The lack of spine repair might be a challenge to the lack of universal healthcare, although soldiers do have universal healthcare, so it would be a stupid point if he was making it.
 * Either this medical treatment requires some sort of rare resource, or over time the medical industry becomes an oligopoly and caters to the rich.
 * Because he can't afford it. He took the job so that he could afford the repair work, because the VA (Veterans Association) hospitals either can't or won't.
 * Which closely ties into "no universal health care." Also, keep in mind that without the Functional Magic mind transference used by the Na'Vi, you'd basically have to keep Jake's "real" body on life support in an extensive chamber for the rest of his life while he used the human-avatar body.
 * Technically In the dialog Jake specifies that they can fix his spine, not that he can't afford a human-avatar which he definitely can't.
 * Btw, the exact year is 2154, as shown in the video diaries. The movie is set between May and August of that year (a 3-month span).
 * You're right; it makes no sense in view of the story's universe. Wheelchairs have been around since the 6th century in China. In this high-tech future, you'd think that a paraplegic would have a better, more efficient way of getting around. And Jake's poverty shouldn't be an issue. Nowadays, Medicare provides wheelchairs to people who can't afford them (this troper knows this personally); it seems like some form of medical care should provide Jake with, say, an exoskeleton suit that would allow him walk. But though it would be more in keeping with this universe's tech to put Jake in a mecha or in a device that would walk for him, narratively it doesn't work. The audience would look at a man in a mecha and think, "Damn, that's COOL! Why does Jake have a problem with it?" So to get the audience's attention, the story has to make an ad misericordiam appeal. The writers have to put Jake in a wheelchair, because almost no one wants to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. That Jake would be stuck in such an old-fashioned device is illogical, given the state of science and technology in his universe, and it doesn't mesh with the continuity...but it does get the audience to sympathize with Jake and his willingness to give up his human existence and be a Na'vi for the rest of his life.
 * Much as I hate this film, this is Fridge Brilliance at one of its better moments. Bravo.
 * Any motorized transport has to be carried across the galaxy. The reason human-powered wheelchairs are so popular is because they're cheap and reliable. Earth has an overpopulation problem; maybe Jake doesn't qualify for enough Medicare or vets benefits to get a fancy chair (just like he can't get new legs), or simply doesn't care what sort of chair he's in if he can't walk. Plenty of people today use manual wheelchairs even though they can afford the motorized versions. There's no meta justification needed.
 * Similar confusion here: If we got man-portable jetpacks for about the price of a house today, why, in 150 years, do we still lack jetpacks? ESPECIALLY in a scenario where several billion dollars are flaunted in biotech?
 * NOT buying it. They could make a hoverchair or hoverpad, or for less effort, stylized the chair to use more era-accurate materials, giving a more believable form of locomotion while still netting their ad misericordiam appeal. (Thanks for the new big word, by the way.) By comparison, the wheelchair in the movie is merely modern by TODAY'S standards, and even then only just.
 * "Nowadays, Medicare provides wheelchairs to people who can't afford them (this troper knows this personally)" I present you Basketball Girl. Don't think just because the rich or those in a rich society benefit all people do.
 * LOL WAT. why would Medicaid (NOT medicare, that's for old people), an AMERICAN social insurance program, provide medical aid to a CHINESE girl. The sense! It makes none!
 * Ok then, here's an American who was born without legs, has a similar makeshift lower-body guard, and gets around on a skateboard. He actually does have access to prosthetics and a regular wheelchair, though. But, as is the case with many double amputees, particularly ones that don't have so much as leg stumps, finds the skateboard a lot less awkward to use than the prosthetics and more portable and manoeuvrable than the chair. I've seen a few 'half-men/woman' who could have a wheelchair if they wanted but don't like using one. Just because they CAN be provided with something doesn't mean they'll want to use it... It could be something similar here, maybe simple technology like a manual wheelchair is simply easier and more convenient for him and a hover-chair or whatever, which may be bulky and perhaps, as a soldier and all, he likes the excersize.
 * Simple answer: Jetpacks are the definition of Awesome but Impractical and they don't have any gravity manipulation technology whatsoever.
 * Earth is a crapsack world. No exoskeleton for Jake. He cannot afford it and nobody will pay for it. and the reason why wheelchair is simple is that he is going into dangerous place and simple is always better.
 * And that, kids, is the best explanation. An exoskeleton is expensive and would be a whole lot of complex, moving parts. On a planet where he's not going to be moving around much anyway, a wheelchair works fine.
 * An exoskeleton (custom-made, obviously) would probably cost more than spinal-cord surgery.
 * Besides, the mass of a wheelchair is a lot easier to accelerate to near-light-speed than that of a mech.
 * "Wheelchairs have been around since the 6th century in China." This is true. And don't you think someone from 6th century China, if they were transplanted to the modern day and saw all the cool tech we have, would ask why we're still stuck using wheelchairs?
 * Medical science has progressed much more in the last 100 years than in the previous 13 centuries. Whilst there's nothing that can predict how medicine will advance, it's unlikely that there is little progress over the next 150-ish years. Also, mass production and the electronics required to power exoskeletons are relatively recent developments. I don't think it's -impossible- for people to still be in wheelchairs in the year 2147, but it seems like a bit of fridge logic to me. I'd like to add that all this is from -today's- perspective. EA Ps could very well have the same evolution computers had during the past century, going from unwieldy ideas that can barely function without ten highly-trained scientists hovering over it to laughably cheap mass-marketed items...
 * They might, they might not, it's a toss-up. Saying "we have X in the future, why don't we have Y" just because off the top of our heads Y seems to be no more advanced than X, is kind of silly. It's like asking why we have the Internet but not flying cars; there are good reasons, even though the Internet would probably seem more advanced and difficult to build than a flying car from the point of view of someone in 1920.
 * The easiest answer is... he didn't need anything more complex than a wheelchair. His job was to pilot an avatar. That's it. Since piloting an avatar is an expensive thing (more so since if he dies, they'd have to scrap that avatar and get a new one in six years), they're not likely to make him also do regular grunt stuff, carry equipment, or otherwise do something outside of his job description. So having an exoskeleton wouldn't really add much other than cost.
 * We already have working exoskeletons. They will only get lighter and cheaper as the years go on. There is no reason for him to not have one(beside thematically).
 * Except an exoskeleton will be A) more expensive than a wheelchair due to the many moving parts, period, and B) it will have many more moving parts, and thus be more likely to fail, break down, or require maintenance.
 * Sure now it would be, but 100 years from now they'll be much cheaper, slimmer, and more reliable. Just look the the history of computers. From warehouse filling computers barely more powerful than an abacus in the Forties, to cell phones at least a million times more powerful carried around by everyone today.
 * but at the same time, the humble wheelchair will STILL be more reliable and maintenance free than fricking exoskeletons.
 * True, just like slide rules are "more reliable and maintenance free" than calculators, yet calculators have supplanted slide rules in every situation. Same holds for exoskeletons and wheel chairs. Truth be told, it is only assumed that they currently are less reliable and more maintenance intensive that wheel chairs. They are certainly more complex, but that doesn't imply reduced reliability. Even if true, the trend for every technology is towards reduced costs and greater reliability. After 150 years of advancement that exoskeletons would still be so bulky and unreliable that wheelchairs would be preferred over them seems far fetched.
 * It still doesn't mean they aren't just out of the price range of somoene like Jake - or indeed, that some people don't prefer a manu al wheelchair, much like today.
 * One word: Batteries. Jake doesn't need batteries to run around on his wheelchair. An exoskeleton, a hoverchair or anything else they could have put him in would not be as electrically energy efficient as a wheelchair; he can keep on rolling longer than a Marine can keep running, given the right kind of terrain (i.e. a human-made forward base with flat floors).
 * Look, batteries have been steadily advancing in energy density for about a hundred years. Currently, an exoskeleton would require a big battery pack, and probably would only get a couple of hours of use. 150 years from now, a week of continuous use from a small power pack is not inconceivable.
 * Again, nobody said they don't exist, just that not everyone will afford one - indeed, if a spine can be repaired, then they would be completely redundant for allowing mobility in applications other than people who are capable of moving but too weak (and as I said above, you still need to be able to move your legs to use one)
 * Note that in the case of Medicaid/care, there ac certain requirements that must be met which generally include living well below the poverty level. As a veteran with benefits (which generally would include free government healthcare), that'd pretty preclude any social program. Anything he got would be through the veteran's plan and that's... well.
 * Try to keep things in perspective. Even though one can have their arm replaced down to the sense of touch in some countries, does not mean that there are not other societies in which a simple - almost afterthought - surgery costs too much for all but the rich to afford. Even in the future, poverty exists. Remember that.
 * The main problem with this is that in a good number of cases, the inability to afford relatively inexpensive (in the 'first' world) ancillary surgeries is heavily influenced by a decrepit distribution system (IE, juntas seizing all the medical and food supplies brought in by charities and not giving it to anyone but their own).
 * Shouldn't humanity be at a post singularity level of technology by this point, anyways? Both A Is and I As should be well within reach of a culture that has 140 years of computational technology on us. And with AIs/IAs readily available, nanotechnology should be a cakewalk, as we have prototypes with our comparatively poor computational prowess already.
 * You're using that "X exists, therefore Y should exist". In the 50s they predicted we'd have cars with flawless autopilot. By 1984.

But What does it do?
Seriously, we are given no reason why the humans want this unobtanium. Even a simple explanation would make us not hate the humans so much.
 * You are a noble soul for actually wanting to (try to) like the human characters. This troper wonders if Cameron actually would have wanted that.
 * It's said in background materials and implied in the movie that oil, I mean Unobtainium fuels Human Starships, making them much faster then usual.
 * Then how did they get to Pandora in the first place?
 * By using a solar sail and an absurdly high-powered laser to boost the ship to near lightspeed and then a nuclear pulse propulsion drive to slow down when approaching Pandora
 * Unobtanium just made interstellar travel a lot more convenient. The first ships to Pandora used man-made superconductors, and thus required massive cooling systems to achieve said superconductivity. The result was a ship that was 4 kilometers long.
 * On the Avatar wiki it says that Unobtainium is a high-temperature superconductor. It's used for interstellar travel because provides the magnetic containment for a matter-antimater reaction without requiring insane levels of refrigeration. It's also useful back on earth for building the tracks of the high-speed maglev cross-planet transport network.
 * On top of that, a high-temperature superconductor would make things like MRI's dirt cheap and most forms of power generation exponentially more efficient.
 * MRI will never be 'dirt cheap' unless the superconductor is (i.e. not significantly higher than the price of non-superconducting common materials) - but it isn't prohibitively expensive anyway for any properly funded hospital, just expensive.

The gas masks.
The atmosphere of Pandora is supposed to be superdeadly, yes? But the skin is left exposed, and the lungs are detinitely not the only ways gas can be absorbed by the human body.
 * It's only 'deadly' due to high levels of hydrogen sulfide, xenon, and carbon dioxide. All are found in concentrations lethal to humans in Pandora's atmosphere.
 * Not all gases that are deadly to inhale can be absorbed through the skin; chlorine comes to mind.
 * I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the atmosphere of Pandora is mostly made up of ammonia or an ammonia-like compound.
 * No, it's the same as Earth's air, with the extra hydrogen sulfide, high levels of carbon dioxide, and xenon.
 * I stand corrected, then- the article which mentions ammonia appears to be over a year old.
 * Still, why not at least give the guards helmets?
 * To shield their head from what? The only thing firing at the soldiers would be the Na'vi with their arrows, and you're pretty much dead no matter where that six-foot long arrow hits you.
 * From being slapped around by Na'vi or Pandoran wildlife that get to close. Plus the mask doesn't look like it'd be that hard to knock loose...
 * No helmet can protect a human from a thanator. Or even a viperwolf. Or any of the super-sized fauna around that's itching to have human meat for lunch that day. The only way the humans protected themselves was killing the animal that was charging at him/her, so they issued guns instead of helmets.
 * Well, while we're on the subject of ineffective protection, the marines wore padded vests that clearly weren't stopping anything, so why did they bother with those?
 * Because a body blow from fauna is more survivable in general? Beyond that, there are other creatures (Hellfire wasps come into mind) that simply cannot get through body armor.
 * That jacket padding isn't going to stop something from breaking your arms/legs/neck, and it wouldn't prevent those Hellfire wasps from munching on the non-armored parts of you. Worse, all that padding seems to be like the bulletproof vests used to stop bullets, which don't actually prevent that much damage from crushing forces (if you manage to survive getting shot, which isn't always certain even with the right body armor, you're still pretty likely to end up with broken ribs/severe bruising).
 * Actually, most of them do wear helmets.

Why are humans still using decidedly modern weapons in 2154?
Military technology is constantly being improved upon, given that it is arguably one of the most swiftly advancing fields of engineering currently undergoing significant development. There seems no reason, therefore, for the marines on this planet, who are funded by what seems to be an extraordinarily wealthy corporation, to still be using weapons that wouldn't look out of place in a 21st century infantryman's hands. Where are the railguns/coilguns that would have put that giant, comparatively slow-moving dragon down in a single, precise hit? Where are the sonic cannons and other forms of non-lethal incapacitating weapons that are in development this very day? This is particularly egregious given that the fluff states that there've been numerous wars on earth in the recent past, and if anything advances military science, it's gonna be war(s).
 * Word of God states that the RDA's security forces prefer weapons that still use bullet casings and explosive shells. It's mentioned these weapons are either extremely dated or obsolete back on Earth, where the main small arms include iterations of ferro-magnetic weapons, whatever that means. It's also stated that these gunpowder-based weapons are cheap but still effective on Pandora, and they'd definitely save money by using traditional firearms than other types of weapons.
 * Assuming they've perfected, or at the very least refined ferro-magnetic weapon, there is no reason whatsoever that they should be using chemically propelled slugs. Gunpowder is volatile, easy to ruin, and arguably more expensive in the long run than having a magazine filled with magnetically propelled slugs that would be both easier to make (if you can make the guns, which is done easily enough in a basement with a box of scraps, if you know how) and safer to transport.
 * Furthermore, I seem to remember the extra source material claiming that the weapons and vehicles used on Pandora are obsolete by Earth standards because the RDA can manufacture the old-school stuff in the fabrication plant in the base. The late-model high-tech stuff would have to be shipped in from Earth, at the cost of a billion million zillion dollars.
 * Is the fabrication plant an Nano Factory? If so, there is no reason why they can't have the state of the art stuff, if the elements are available. If not, why not - it's certainly simpler than creating a sustainable method of transportation between star systems.
 * Because their are hard limits to what it can manufacture. It can make fairly simple things, but advanced computer chips and so forth need to be imported from earth.
 * Why not have the guns use caseless ammunition? Considering it featured in Aliens, which was also directed by Cameron and made 20 years ago...
 * Same reason caseless ammunition weapons aren't used today. The ammo tends to be volatile and may even cook off after prolonged firing. There's also a bunch of other flaws with caseless ammo that tends to be not safe for the user, so it's worth it to spend a few bucks more for extra metal ore for the bullet cases so your guy doesn't kill himself/someone else by accident.
 * I'm just saying it's strange that more 'science ficton-y' weaponry appeared in the older movie and not the newer one.
 * Just because a film is "science fiction" doesn't mean the characters have to do something nonsensical.
 * And metal that floats and artificially grown mind-controlled alien bodies are more believible?
 * Floating metal and artificially grown alien bodies are improbable, not nonsensical. No one's going to use caseless ammunition because ammunition with cases are much safer to the firearm operator.
 * The point pretty much was; Pandora: Awesome, if you know how to live there(and like danger), which explains the rocks. RDA: not a military organization. They had a very limited selection of weapons they could legally have, which caseless ammo possibly wasn't part of.
 * Cook-off was one the first problems rooted out. There's nothing nosensical about it.
 * Since they had to make many of the supplies they used, bullets probably were easier to make on site versus funky energy things. Equipment is relatively primative. Charcoal is easily gotten. Sulfur can be gotten from the refinement of oil and gas (which may be used elsewhere). And potassium nitrate can be gotten from bat guano or something similar. The metal for shells and such can be scrap (which, granted, would mean inconsistent bullet quality but they may not be picky).
 * All the weapons are due to the fact that more modern weapons are unreliable or useless in Pandora's magnetic field.
 * Ordnance silliness could get it's own folder, like:
 * Why the hell were they planning to blow up the tree of souls with a palate of conventional explosives lashed together? They used rockets to take down the (much more massive) Home Tree much more efficiently. They could've just set all their pods on Ripple, pointed them at the Tree of Souls, pulled the trigger, and been home in time for The Simpsons.
 * Why in God's name was Trudy's bird sitting fully loaded in the middle of the goddamn hanger, and unguarded to boot? Do we not have ordnance safety procedures or a CALA in the future?
 * It wasn't. There are missiles visible in the escape scene, which is a small continuity error, but otherwise it doesn't have any loaded weapons apart from the door guns, which are built in. Also, sorry, but who was expected to be going to steal a helicopter? One of the marines? Minimal (and not even a total lack of) activity at night when nothing is in use is fine on a moon where every single human there was brought there by the RDA.
 * Those already have their own folders. Go check it out.
 * Because bullets are ridiculously reliable. With a tight enough seal on the casing, a current gun can be fired in a vacuum, under water, practically anywhere. and this troper doesn't remember much brass flying other than jake's doorgun (where exactly is the ejection ports on that triple-barreled-belt-fed machine gun?) so most of the merc guns could be caseless. Trudy's chopper being stored with loaded machine guns though...
 * There are casings coming out of the chaingun if you look frame by frame, they're just not particularly obvious (they are coming from the centre). As for storage, Trudy could easily have got the ammunition together before breaking Jake, Norm and Grace out.

The Unobtanium Paradox
If the near-light-speed ships that we build to ferry crap to and from Pandora need Unobtanium for their engines, how did we get there in the first place? Just how long have we been mining Pandora (and presumably getting killed)? And how did we know that the unobtanium was there to begin with?
 * Unobtainium was a room temperature superconductor, which only made interstellar travel easier. The first craft the RDA built used normal non-room-temperature superconductors for the matter-antimatter reactions to take place. In result, the craft was over four kilometers long because of the need for massive cooling systems. Really, the unobtainum only made things more convenient, not possible.
 * Unobtainium is either a stable super heavy element, or sum kind of compound/alloy. If it is the former, it would probably cost as much (and be more convenient) to synthesize it in the Sol system (using particle accelerators), and if it was a compound/alloy then there really isn't a reason (beside Word of God) that it couldn't be made at home in vastly greater quantities for a hell of a lot less.
 * It's the latter, and it has a highly complicated structure. Your logic is on par with "oil can't be economically synthesised, so it shouldn't exist".
 * And if it is the former, synthesizing it in Sol system is only possible if it is not much heavier than the heaviest actinides. Otherwise, the lack of sufficiently stable precursor atoms will make synthesis impossible. In fact, that is the major barrier to the discovery of so-called super-heavy elements.
 * See objection for how long we've been mashing our collective head against Pandora--it's vastly inconvenient. It's probably been more than twenty-seven years (one run there and back, and another--and probably more considering both the death rate and constraints on the mass ratio). And how many thousands of people have been sent out there with little to show for it? Then again...
 * Considering the Earth has a population of 20 billion, I don't think the intrinsic moral value of a human matters much anymore to deem a high death rate as a deterrant from exploiting Pandora. Unobtanium had uses besides making interstellar travel a lot simpler and is worth a ton back on Earth because of this, which is why the RDA were so motivated to mine all of it.
 * It would have worked better if they setup a self-sustaining colony in Pandora's system and built the expensive suff in system so they didn't need to ship it. They could have done it in less time and for less money than the film's approach. In this scenario Pandora would be the hub of interstellar travel and Earth would be the capital and scientific/cutural center of the human space empire. Of course that implies humans plan on taking over Pandora's system entirely, which means the Navi are dead no matter what happens. But if we did things logically then Cameron couldn't have his aseops.
 * Kind of hate to jump on the All There in the Manual bandwagon but pandorapedia states that Pandora bound cargo includes a type of manufacturing plant, each trip, so humans are trying to get there it just hasn't happened yet.
 * Those auto-factories produce the basic equipement with lithography. I was talking about the parts for the dragon gunship and shuttles that have to be imported. They should have set up space habitats around pandora so and encouraged the employees to settle in the system. That way the have a permanent population base to draw from and they can develope more industrial production. The have antimatter geneating particial accelerators in the system to fuel their ships so they must have at least a few hundred perminent space employees.

Dangerous dress code aversion RE: Max's beard.
Nitpicky, I know, but you just don't go in an environment that kills you for not having a sealed breather (which just fits over the front of the face, not below the chin or neck like many gas masks) while you have a thick, non-airproof coating of fibers covering your lower face.
 * Actually, there's a section of the exopack where it goes under your chin to form an airtight bond. It's most visible in the first scene in the Valkyrie where everyone's putting on their masks before they get off.
 * So how does anyone talk with them on?
 * Because it's a rubber seal, which offers a lot of flexibility while retaining airtight-ness? The seal isn't made out of steel or anything.

"Unobtanium" is a really silly name
I just had to say that.
 * From the backstory in the various wikis, 'unobtainium' was the name given to a theoretical high-temperature superconductor material as a label for researchers blue-skying ideas they had no solution for yet -- as in "We could do that, if we only had some unobtainium" -- and when the high-temperature superconductor was discovered on Pandora, it got called unobtainium in popular usage, rather than whatever scientific name was attached to it, sort of like the way people will refer to iron pyrite as "fool's gold".
 * Just to add, we have it too.

Shit doesn't blow up

 * Missiles, when sliced up, do not fucking explode. The loss of a single engine, out of at least 4, on a shuttle does not cause it to crash. Grenades, (even incendiary ones, which would be less effective) don't blow up exhaust vents in a fiery explosion, they would just tear it up. For that matter, the Daisy Cutter mining explosives, which I assume is like ALL mining explosives, don't ignite when exposed to fire.
 * What are the odds that the impact and heat of the crash triggered the detonators? Who knows what damage happened to the control system on the shuttle? Who says Jake didn't "overclock" the grenades somehow? What exploding missles are you talking about?
 * Very, Very low. Detonators are like locks with a certain key. They're designed so that they don't accidentally set off their payload, whether this trigger be another explosion, or an electric shock, or anything. And the explosives themselves are designed, especially since they are classified as mining explosives, to be triggered in a very certain way. Conventional means of setting off mining explosives, especially futuristic ones, are ineffective, for obvious reasons. You don't want all your workers to get blown to bits just because Johnny dropped his oil lamp on his dynamite.
 * And I'm sure that losing an engine on a shuttle doesn't cause your controls to go out of whack. That's like saying your brain-damaged because you broke your leg.
 * There's no external source fuel for the grenade to detonate, so besides it being an exhaust vent, the damage would have hardly been different elsewhere on the shuttle.
 * And finally, the scene where Jake grabs a sidewinder missile from the side of the Dragon, and tosses it into a nearby propeller. Yeah. Whirring knives can cause explosions now.
 * Yes, because missiles never carry combustible fuel or explosive warheads. And while the burning fuel and warhead may create an impressive fireball, the little quirks of the material may cause unexpected results -- for example, you can light C-4 and use it to heat your dinner, but if you stomp on it to try to put it out afterward, it will detonate.
 * The detonators on the pallets were shown being activated before the shuttle fall down go boom. It's entirely possible something jarred one of the two in the right way to make it go off which would have taken the other with it in a sympathetic explosion as close as they were shown, with only a thin layer of squished marine between them. And it's not implausible that the grenades damaged the hydraulic systems working the engines' mounts so they couldn't recover as the pressure sprays out... or they were surprised and didn't have time to recover it, or the huge, flat, square object that wasn't moving fast enough for aerodynamic lift really, really needed all four engines working to keep it from going flop-blam. Even if the explosives themselves didn't do much damage, birds which are much squishier than what the grenade casings were likely made out of have been known to wreck jet engines. And while it's not really likely the missile's explosives went off, what would have happened if whatever fuel it used didn't like being smacked around? You can sit in the middle of a puddle of nitromethane with a birthday cake and sing till you get bored, but if you were to hit the puddle with a hammer it'd blow your arm off. (according to a show on the dragsters that use it for fuel, a long time ago.)
 * I always thought the explosives on the pallets used a detonator with a timer, which was activated by one of the marines in the loading bay. That would be logical, because mining explosives rarely use impact detonators.
 * I can accept the rule of lucky for the above ones, if there is one, but really, about the shuttle just failing after losing one engine: The first rule in air transportation is redundancy. This is made so that the one bird that gets sucked into the jet intake doesn't bring down the whole 747, and the single failure in the hot air balloon's balloon doesn't cause a catastrophic failure.
 * The redundancy argument is only true in a very limited way, especially with regard to navigational aids. Apart from that, the general rule in aircraft design is to keep it as light as possible, i.e. NO redundancy. A 747 has 4 engines not because of redundancy, but because there weren't any bigger engines at the time. Nowadays most new planes are twin-engine ones; partially for (limited) redundancy, partly due to symmetry requirements. Helicopters don't have even that; any damage to the tail or main rotor is likely to end catastrophically.
 * 747s use the engines only for forward movement, which is what creates the lift over the wings that keep it from cratering. A better analogy would be a Harrier, although the impression I had of the shuttles was that they were not combat shuttles, just transport. A 747 has multiple engines and even if all of them went poof at once, it would work as a glider. The shuttle was hovering on the four engines and not moving anywhere near fast enough for aerodynamic lift. Losing the left-forward engine would mean it would pretty quickly nose-down and roll to the left; they may have thrown full power to the remaining three engines which, by the time humans could react, would have shoved it in an unexpected direction, and thus into the big trees which would make things worse...
 * If you look closely, the shuttle did upright itself shortly after loosing the engine. Only by the it had drifted towards one of those nasty flying rocks..
 * The DC-10 whose engine came off crashed not because it lost an engine, but because the damage also ruptured the hydraulic lines that controlled the wing slats. A similar situation could have occurred with the damaged shuttle in this movie; if an engine gets destroyed, there are probably other systems near the engine that got damaged as well.
 * A missile chopped into pieces by a fast-spinning lift fan is going to chew up the fan, which depends on being balanced and having a smooth airfoil to function properly. If you look at the damage that a bird strike does to a jet engine's compressor blades, you can get an idea how much more damage would be done by dropping metal shrapnel, rather than meat, into a jet engine, or tossing an aluminum pipe into a spinning helicopter rotor.
 * Also, damage in a jet engine and/or spinning propeller has very often caused large pieces of fast-moving metal to slice through the attached aircraft, with disastrous results, due to severed control lines, hydraulic systems, or fuel tanks. Hell, the crash of the Air France Concord jet in 2000 was due to a flung piece of * rubber* from a blown tire puncturing a fuel tank and an electrical cable, starting a massive fire.
 * Another example of the fuel being more dangerous than the ordnance is Kursk disaster. It was not the torpedoe warheads that caused the disaster, the torpedoes did not have warheads, they were exercise shots. The explosions were caused when the Hydrogen Peroxide fuel leaked and came into contact with metal, and went boom.

What's up with the Broken Aesop ?

 * Ok, so technology is bad and the Na'Vi are good because they use what nature gives them instead. So why is it fine for Norm to pack a machine-gun and Jake to use a communicator and a bunch of grenades? Sure it makes sense if you want to live, but that doesn't change anything. You can't have an anti-technology message when you CLEARLY used technology to solve your problem!
 * .....because there isn't an anti-technology message?
 * Except for the ehvil humans who have 'no green' on their planet because they 'killed their mother'? Yes, complete lack of Science Is Bad.
 * That was a result of humans eager to exploit Earth's remaining resources. The avatars can't exist without science. Eywa is biologically quantifyable. It's more "Imperialism is bad" than Science Is Bad. Hell, the main page mentions this fact.
 * I maintain that it's not "anti-corporate", either. It's just that "anti-imperialism" looks like it's anti-corporate if you squint.
 * "Polluting and overusing your resources and environment is bad" != "Technology is bad." The fact that, as you so helpfully pointed out, technology as used to help the Na'vi proves this point. Avatar has an anti-pollution message and a pro-environment/pro-tolerance message, not an anti-technology message.
 * I think that some people missed the Point from the film. Like said above, the Aesop was supposed to say that one is supposed to find balance between technology or nature. Can't be people preserve the planet without having to lay waste to technology? Can't people have technology without razing the earth to the ground? Humans were greedy and racists, but the Na'vi also have their own flaws, such as being overly suspicious of Jake, even thought he was trying to be friendly. The Aesop, along with the Anti-pollution message, would be "Nothing is Perfect and things need to be balanced", rather than "Technology is Bad". What matters is who use them. Some of the scientists were allowed to stay in Pandora, so I guess they would be allowed to keep researching and finding ways for humanity and the Na'vi to cooperate. Jake only turned into a Na'vi to stay with the girl and gain new legs, but people keep seeing this as a twisted "Science is Bad" Aesop.
 * This would be valid if they ever implied that a balance needed to be reached (i.e. show some of the inherent medical problems in stone age societies) or pointed out that the Navi are just as xenophobic as the humans.
 * Medical problems with humans, you mean (and without overpopulation, disease is far less widespread anyway. Animals in the wild don't regularly drop down dead from diseases either, except for where they have been aversely affected by humans (reduced biodiversity, increased population or forced migration come to mind)) - the Na'vi have a more symbiotic relationship plus a stronger immune system and as a result, serious disease is rare. The Na'vi aren't xenophobic - Tsu'tey understandably doesn't trust humans because Sylwanin (who was to be his mate) was killed by the marines, same with Eytukan (she was his daughter...), yet even then, Mo'at and the other Na'vi saw past that. The Na'vi gave the humans MANY chances, but the humans were the ones who did the damage.

So, Why no Attempt at Unobtanium Synthesis?
Humans have the demonstrable ability to manufacture antimater in sufficient quantities to decelerate ships from near the speed of light on a fairly regular basis. As previously mentioned on this page, the sheer amount of energy required to do so massively exceeds that currently used by the sum of every civilization on earth in a day. Vis, humanity has the ability to produce massive amounts of energy relatively trivially. What's stopping them from simply analyzing the chemical structure of Unobtanium and then using their vast, quasi-unlimited power resources to make some? Cost shouldn't be an object-- they're already willing to spend incredible amounts of resources to forge antiparticles in the quantities required for use as fuel-- and its entirely possible to make chemical compounds out of their component elements even with modern day technology (not currently very well mark you, but there's no reason a hundred and fourty years of technological advancement wouldn't perfect the process)-- its even possible to create new elements with modern technology, so some technobabble bullshit about Unobtanium being made of some as-yet undiscovered element is just that. All they'd need to do was come up with a method, which would require no earth-shattering technical leaps, just some time spent analyzing how the substance comes to be naturally (which is must do, considering that it, you know, exists) and then figuring out how to imitate that.
 * All There in the Manual: "Unlike the fragile crystals of human-created superconducting compounds, the substance found on Pandora was a stable quasi-crystal with its atoms arranged in a never-repeating but orderly pattern with fivefold symmetry. This structure is not only mechanically rugged but also has microscopic voids in the quasicrystalline structure that contains magnetic flux lines." Also, "Researchers theorize that billions of years ago, when the planets and satellites were condensing from the primordial stellar nebula, a Mars-sized planetesimal may have crashed into the still-molten Pandora. The moon's nickel-iron core was disrupted. The high temperatures and pressures produced in the collision far exceeded anything wrought by human technology. These forces interacted with Polyphemus's intense magnetic field and created conditions suitable for the production of this unique substance."
 * I also think the word Unobtanium might be a clue that it can't be synthesized.
 * In Earth's early history, billions of years ago, when the earth was still forming, researchers theorize that a Mars-sized planetesimal crashed into Earth, giving us the moon. So, why no unobtanium on Earth?
 * Things are rarely as simple as "two planets collide, unobtanium forms". In the case of Pandora, the moon's distinct magnetic fields played a part in its synthesis.
 * In fact, the preceding paragraph says exactly that. How'd you miss it?
 * The guide also mentions that there have been attempts to synthesize an alternative to unobtainium by Earth scientists, but they are suppressed by RDA for an unspecified reason (apparently For the Evulz, like every single other thing RDA does in the guide).
 * I have that guide myself, and it doesn't say a single word about this. Any superconductor synthesized by humans is still outperformed by unobtanium. Also, what kind of goal would the RDA be trying to achieve by not making a viable alternative to unobtanium?
 * Which is bunk. Superconductors exclude magnetic fields, and internal voids would be Faraday cages for any magnetic field that inexplicably got there. Even supposing that it can't be made by molecular assemblers for some reason, it's implausible that a collision between planetesimals could exceed the temperatures and pressures that can be produced on demand these days and leave anything cohesive behind. Nuclear explosives and pulsed lasers can recreate stellar-core-scale temperature and pressure, and planetary (even main-sequence stellar) magnetic fields are much, much weaker than the magnets in your headphones. The use of antimatter as starship fuel implies some further technical progress in these regards. Unobtanium as a room-temperature superconductor is plausibly exotic and rare, maybe plausibly naturally occurring but uneconomical to synthesize, not so plausibly impossible to make full stop.
 * You said it yourself: it would be uneconomical to synthesize. Disregarding the previous argument about the (im)possibility of synthesis, it'd be a lot simpler and cheaper to keep mining that unobtanium from Pandora until the entire planet runs out. So why try to synthesize a substitute now? Pandora's a sizable planet, the reserves are going to last for a while.
 * Except when you consider the energies involved in the trip from Earth to Pandora, It should cost about the same if not less to synthesize unobtainium instead of mining it. The manual's explanation for why we don't is just a weak hand wave so Cameron has an excuse for us to go oppress the natives and learn the value of listening to trees and smurf sex.
 * Artistic License Chemistry. Creating a compound isn't as simple as putting elements A, B and C together, especially not when it has a specific structure.

What the hell is up with the arrows?
Okay some else here said that Jake taught the momentum of Banshee Flight + Point Blank tactic to kill the VTO Ls. This doesn't explain how they were managing to crack the large gunship-thing windshield thing from several yards away nor how they were shooting through the walker-mechas windshield thing from a few yards away. I would think that we would have better glass-like stuff in the future.
 * This has been discussed before. Check out the "They are extremely hard to kill" How? section in this page.
 * The Na'vi arrows never crack the Dragon's windows, and they never penetrate the AMP windows.
 * If you notice when Quaritch is shooting at Trudy's VTOL when it escapes, you can see bullet holes in the glass. That means that glass definitely isn't bulletproof. Given a high-enough velocity, those arrows can penetrate the glass on the VTO Ls.
 * According to the wiki, Quatirch was using a railgun.
 * Look closely. Quaritch started using his 'railgun revolver' when Trudy's gunship was facing away from Quartich, so the revolver rounds hit the back. The assault rifle rounds penetrated the glass.

The Giant Knife
The giant combat knife in Quadrich's robot suit just seems a bit silly and impractically designed. The machine has to grab the knife by the handle and pull it out. Why not just have the blade attached to or extend from the forearm so there'd be less of a chance of accidentally losing grip and dropping it? It would be like if a backhoe had a pair of big robot hands holding onto a giant shovel and used that for digging instead of a more efficient scooping bucket arm. Same with the gun- why make it a separate part of the suit instead of just sticking it right on the machine?
 * Both suggestions would make the AMP suit a lot more bulky in the arms. And it needs to very material- and space-conservative, considering it has to navigate through the jungles of Pandora. Not to mention that the suits had to be cost-effective too. Having built-in attachments would increase building time, complexity (circuitry & hydraulics to extend/retract the knife, etc.), and price. The knife was meant to be like a machete for cutting underbrush, so an attachment wouldn't really make the job much easier. The autocannon was simply a huge gun with a belt feeding into it from a backpack full of ammo. Having the gun permanently attached would make things complicated because the AMP suit has a variety of equipment to use (clear-cutting blades, flamethrowers, etc.)
 * The spplimentary materials mention versions with integrated weapons, presumably designed for purely offensive purposes rather than the multifunctional way the RDA uses them. They also mention that they used to have a blade attatched to the arm until they tried to use them for riot control.
 * This troper always assumed it was a unique modification that the general requested. He seems like the kind of crazy bastard who'd want a combat knife on his giant robot.

Bring Out the Super Soldiers
If the RDA can mesh human and Na'vi genes and not get something that looks likethe Elric brother's mom after they tried to resurect her, why can't they just home grow a psychic or something? If they pulled off the USB braid, surely they could make a telepath able to breathe the air and brainwash the planet into submission. Better yet, make an artificial Magneto. Some people are already in tune to magnetic waves, just amp that Up to Eleven and let him loose. Given how unobtanium seems to have done crazy shit with the planet’s magnetic fields to the point of having flying mountains, can you imagine what an artificial Magneto could do? Both of these options would make it so that the Na’vi wouldn’t have to be harmed physically. Faux!Magneto claims he’s a messenger of peace with magic powers or something, brainwashed-by-psychic-Eywa confirms. Has the same ethics as selling cigarettes to five-year-olds, but hey. No Na’vi wipeout.

Or any super soldier really. But come on. They made the Avatars and Giant Mecha but they haven’t made one damn super soldier? (Does this belong more in WMG? It has been bugging me since I saw it…)
 * This has already been discussed.
 * Oh. Well I feel like an idiot...

Unobtanium isn't a fuel source
Nowhere in the movie or on Pandorapedia does it say it's a fuel source. People seem to be getting the non-canon Project 880 muddled up with the canon.
 * Quoted from another troper: "This has already been discussed". We know it's not a fuel source.

AMP suit pressurization.
So during the final battle, the hatches on Quaritch's ship are blown and Pandoran atmosphere leaks in. Quaritch escapes to the AMP suit and closes the hatch, where he apparantly breathes safely. However, wouldn't the air being cycled through the AMP system already be contaminated by Pandoran air? (No, he couldn't have held his breath for that long...)
 * Pandoran air doesn't "contaminate" normal air. Pandoran air is only taken through a filter to take out unwanted gases and then it's fine for humans to breathe.
 * Alright, so how long does it take for the air within the pressurized suit to be filtered until it's breathable?
 * That's a moot point. The fact that Quaritch could breathe normally within seconds means that the filtration is quick.

So in the 22nd century, the obsolete flamethrowers and huge guns designed for construction mechs are abundant yet no one is using grenade launchers?
Aww, come on.
 * Already been answered, please look before going "derrr why didnt dey fgenocide lolz". In short, because the marines aren't intended as an invasion, so they are limited in what they use, and for the simple reason that grenades would, if anything, be less effective against the angtsik than the cannons the AM Psuits carried.
 * Because the RDA is a corporation trying to make a profit, not a military force. Why on earth would you need grenade launchers when normal guns do the job with less collateral damage and more precision?
 * Which must be why they brought flamethrowers (which today is obsolete for military uses for the above reasons) instead of the cheaper, more effective grenade launchers (which is abundant in today's third world country armed forces).
 * Um...flamethrowers are useful for clearing underbrush in a rainforest while grenade launchers aren't? You can also instill fear into enemies (read: Na'vi) much more easily with a twenty foot long stream of fire than an explosive egg.
 * The RDA put a lot of effort into not pissing off the Na'vi in the first half of the movie, so terrorizing them wouldn't be a priority. Fire is usually used when they want to clear a whole forest instead of just a small portion. Most of the forest-clearing in the movie are done with the Giga-Bulldozers, and the mercs and AMP suits walk through the forest just fine. Grenade launchers can fire non-lethal sponge rounds, tear gas canisters, smoke rounds, flare, and many other types of round that could be useful in confrontations with the Na'vi. And even if they can't clear the underbrush and terrorize the Na'vi (and I doubt that the latter is the case), they're still very useful in combat and bringing a few of them along with the flamethrowers (and the immensely impractical AMP suit guns) wouldn't hurt.
 * Because grenade launchers require grenades. Every ounce of cargo capacity on the supply ship is highly valuable, given the expense of shipping. The RDA probably screamed in agony at having to devote that much tonnage to shipping bullets, rockets, and autocannon ammo, throwing multiple types of grenades on top of that would make them go 'What the hell for?!?'. Flamethrowers, on the other hand, simply need flammable liquids of some kind. Which presumably they can find on Pandora.
 * Virtually everything used on Pandora was manufactured on-site for cost-of-shipping reasons. This includes ammo, vehicles (except the shuttles and certain turbine components of the Dragon), and weapons. The lack of grenade and launcher production implies that they weren't deemed practical for some reason, not that they couldn't have been had if desired.
 * But the end point is that the RDA didn't bring grenade launchers. We can go on and on about why or why not they didn't, but it's still the truth that they didn't have any on hand. End of story.
 * They did have grenade launchers in the game.

The flamethrowers themselves
'Cause I'm sure those'd be great for PR...
 * And guns/bullets are good for PR?
 * A gun can be used to defend oneself, especially on a planet like Pandora. Flamethrowers...less so.
 * What do you mean? Flamethrowers can be quite effective at defense, maybe even moreso (and less lethal) than guns. They're particularly useful in just scaring away whatever's charging at you with a twenty foot column of fire. And in hosing down several viperwolves, flamethrowers can do the job faster.
 * They're operating in a jungle environment. Flamethrowers are good for clearing out underbrush. This is a no-brainer.
 * I was reffering more to the horrible burning kind of death generally associated with flamethrowers.

Propulsion of the shuttles

 * So, how exactly do the shuttles leave the atmosphere? I don't remember seeing a space elevator, so do they use conventional fuel tanks strapped to the shuttle that break off during launch? Or something else that I've missed/wasn't included in the film?
 * I'm pretty sure the engines on a Valkyrie are powerful/efficient enough to do a vertical takeoff and simply fly through the atmosphere to the ISV.
 * But wouldn't it need chemical fuel to get out of Pandora's gravity well? Lower gravity aside, once it gets high enough jet engines wouldn't work, and it would need rocket thrusters, wouldn't it?
 * Pandorapedia: The Valkyrie has air-breathing turbojets that activate once their altitude is less than 10,000 feet. When leaving the planet, it reaches Mach 3 with its turbojet engines, enters scram-jet mode, and accelerates to Mach 7 and then transitions to to the fusion Orbital Engine for the final burn to orbit.

Camo-what-now?
This one's just a bit of a weird one, but did anyone notice that the Sec Ops contractors were wearing CADPAT? Just thought it bore mentioning as an oddity. And yes, I know "contractors will wear whatever they want" but still... CADPAT? Is Sec Ops a Canadian PMC?
 * Probably very few people noticed, because not everyone is exactly well-versed in military camouflage patterns. James Cameron is Canadian, so there's a possible explanation. And Sec Ops is the RDA's PMC, so they're not exactly bound to a specific nation.
 * I have only seen the movie once, and I did notice that the camouflage material was a 'digicam' pattern, but not one I recognised from a real military uniform today. It wasn't CADPAT, which comes in a forest pattern (shades of green, with lots of black bits) and a desert pattern (sand, tan, light brown). The camouflage we see in the film seemed to be olive green, black, light sand and a baby-poo khaki. Anyway, I think that digicams will be a passing fad in real life, which will make the uniforms in Avatar a form of 2000s Zeerust.

22nd century technology.
For a movie set almost 200 years in the future the level of technology (the exceptions,of course,being space travel and Avatars) is pretty unremarkable. 1) A hostile planet w/o a breathable atmosphere..and no robots in use? There are robots in most factories today. 2) Ballistic impact weapons I can see. Ballistic impact weapons that aren't much more sophisticated than those of today? Really? 3)Even w/ the "negating field" surrounding the "Tree of Life" they apparently have forgotten geometry AND trigonometry. The planet is a sphere (or maybe an ellipse) of a roughly defined circumference. Once you have that circumference measured,you locate a position on the planet and you program missiles to strike any area that you have programmed into them. They guidance system can even shut down when the missiles get into the "negating field" and inertia will take them to their target. Since surface damage isn't a concern when you are mining,multiple strikes would have taken care of Tree of Life and any stragglers left w/o causing RDA to have to expend any manpower. 4) Umm...since they have access to spacecraft,why wouldn't they have used sub-orbital (or even orbital) bombing or missile strikes? Hell...use the shuttle on auto-pilot to strike area at a high rate of speed. That way you don't have to use explosives and you can still do the job.
 * 1) Assuming Hell's Gate is completely inhabited with robots and nothing else, what happens when a single robot malfunctions or is destroyed by Na'vi aggression? Other robots depending on that single robot's actions are consequentially screwed, and everything will fall apart.

2) Already said on this page: Saying we have X tech in the future but not Y tech is a toss-up. We don't know what directions the development of technology will take in the future.

3) Missiles that the humans wouldn't have. Hell's Gate is a mining outpost, not a military forward operations base.

4) Same point as above. The RDA is a business, not a military force. Any company doesn't just casually get WMDs and use them. And then there's a treaty they had with the UN and ICA that bans all substantial military force/weaponry for a perpetual monopoly on Pandora.


 * To summarise the issue after long discussions concerning viability, practicality and economic considerations:

1: Why no robots? Automation is incredibly common and important in hostile environments, and pretty much necessary to lower long term costs.

2: Why aren't there more advanced weapons? Or weapons that actually do their job?

They're using guns that are out of date, badly suited to the tasks at hand, and failing to use weapons that would work better that are equally cheap and far more effective. Even if advanced mag-gun technology cannot be used, existing tech that would work better (but look less cool), and offer non-lethal alternatives of native suppression.

3 & 4: Why were no missiles (of any variant, long discussions concerning the viability and practicality aside, they had time to make them and motive to use them regardless of PR concerns), or orbital bombardment? I assume "just didn't think of it" still applies.

5: Why no advanced manufacturing methods? Again, necessary to cut long term costs.

Conclusion: Humanity's technological advancements weren't demonstrated in a convincing, consistent manner, were shown in ways that didn't place full consideration on the ramifications of available technology and were consistently ignored.
 * I'm pretty certain your 'overall explanations' delved into strawman arguments at some point, since some of your "argument against" statements didn't actually address what I posted earlier. Can't speak for the other guy though.

There is no mention of iron or hematite being present on Pandora. The mine and the refinery in Hell's Gate were solely designed for acquiring/processing unobtanium. What other potentially 'useful' metals that Pandora had to offer besides unobtanium has never been stated. The first interstellar expedition to Pandora happened in 2129 - that's 25 years before the events of the film. Considering the long travel times to and from Pandora, These 25 years would still be in the "HOLY SHIT WE DISCOVERED A NEW PLANET WHAT DO WE DO!?" phase, so a lot of planning would for short-term comparatively (no longer than a century). Automation does exist in Pandora (see: those bulldozers that tore apart the Tree of Voices), but is likely to be limited to vehicles like that.

When the RDA first got their hands on the monopoly, they were planning for an extremely cost-effective method of mining - recruit the natives for the operation, and use avatars to be their supervisors. After all, the natives thrived in an environment extremely toxic/deadly to humans and you wouldn't have to dole out wads of cash to send disposable humans or construction materials. You'd still need to send people to manage other areas of the base, but that's beside the point. I'm not certain about the RDA's train of thought when they created this plan, since it hinged pretty heavily on the natives cooperating, but it's likely hubris played a part ("lol, we'll just give 'em some of our cool stuff to show we're more awesome and they need to comply"), considering company already outranked most of the world's nations in influence and power. Of course, the natives refused to comply and they didn't accept negotiations.

The RDA was now in a tough spot: they're missing the cheap and effective workforce they had been hoping for. So what now? Nothing else to do but to continue with the mining. Yeah, they're probably losing a ton of money due to worker mortality rates and destroyed equipment, but it's all they have until they figure out how to re-purpose every single employee on the base (or send a large chunk of them home without having to build a new ISV with extra cargo space) and create a system that requires less money. Who knows, automation might have been primary on the base given another decade or two.

The issue with public relations is bigger than you imagine. There are constantly thousands (if not millions) of protesters seriously pissed off at the company for their actions on Pandora. Almost all of them would be saying something along the lines of "You wanna make that planet look like our piece of crap?!", considering the constant attention the media pays to the planet. The RDA was already walking on thin ice, and any serious screwup (may it be attacking the native population or clear-cutting taken to serious levels) would have caused riots. It's not as simple as "oh, the RDA will get negative press if they use a space-laser on the Tree of Souls", it's that they already have bad press and any more would take things over the top. Hell, the Avatar Program was changed into a PR stunt, so the RDA was willing to risk $5 billion assets just to make people on Earth shut up.
 * I did try to show the arguments still outstanding only and skip everything else already covered (sidenote - requiring sensible answers to questions does not mean I like space marines or found this movie challenging to my worldview - I honestly thought Battle for Terra was better), but I may have missed a few. My apologies, my intent was less to strawman and more to bring the issue back to basics and away from details - without retyping every aspect of an already long-winded discussion. If the point(s) missed are still important to the question, please repeat them and I'll make sure to address them properly. That said, thank you, I consider this a more plausible reason. No iron available on the planet seems unusual (unless it was changed into unobtanium by the planet-collision, which would actually be Fridge Brilliance), but it would explain a whole lot about the human-issues on the planet; at very least it's harder to set up an off-world mine on an asteroid. The idea that they were planning on things but hadn't got to that point yet is a fair explanation of why automation and other devices aren't currently in place, certainly if they were essentially expecting to pay the Na'vi in shiny beads in the interim period. Seriously though - why the heck do they get away with flamethrowers (banned by international treaty) and not Alien Pepper spray (given to Na'vi over the age of 70)? "Because not using non-lethal force fits the Humans Are Bastards theme of the movie and makes for a better antagonist"?
 * The usage of flamethrowers is a much more legit JBM for your part. Supplementary canon material states that it's used for "clearing flora and terrorizing Na'vi warriors", but I'm not sure how an uncontrolled forest fire have any benefit for clearing out areas, unless the RDA really stopped caring about collateral damage halfway during their stay on the planet when they realized just how hostile the environment was. The flamethrower serves more as a deterrent than an actual offensive weapon, due to its lack of range. As for the "Na'vi pepper spray", they did use tear gas (or some sort of gas) prior to firing incendiaries on Hometree. Normal, hand-held canisters of pepper spray would probably lack the range to reach the face of a Na'vi, not to mention the Na'vi themselves specialize in guerrilla warfare and ambushes - they won't be charging at you on a direhorse, they'll be putting two arrows through your chest from 70 feet away without a sound.

The mask issue.
At the beginning of the movie, we're told that Pandora's air will knock you out in about 20 seconds, i think it was. When Jake and company are escaping the base after the destruction of the really big tree whose name I can't remember, Quatrich was out there shooting at them for about a minute. Without a mask. How did he manage to stay conscious?
 * It's entirely possible for humans to hold their breath for longer than a minute. Breathing normally in Pandoran atmosphere fills your lungs with deadly levels of carbon dioxide, which contributes to the rather quick 20-second unconsciousness time.

Humans leaving without re-breathers
In the last scene of the humans being frogmarched out of Hell's Gate (the name of the human settlement), Norm and Max are shown wearing re-breathers, but none of the other humans are. At the opening of the film when the marines first land, everyone is wearing re-breathers in the open. Also the shuttle Valkyrie got destroyed during the battle, so how exactly are they going to get back into orbit? It's possible that there are several shuttles at the base - Quaritch says he wants to send Jake on "the next shuttle out", implying there are multiple. That begs the question of why they only sent a single shuttle in the final battle - perhaps they were just so sure they would win, or didn't want to risk too much infrastructure (they may've expected the Valkyrie to get sufficiently damaged to keep it planetside until it was repaired, but would still need access to space from their remaining shuttles).
 * This troper is 90% certain that he saw masks on everybody in that scene. Could it be that the extended use of 3D glasses had disrupted your vision? It has been known to happen.
 * Agreed. When I saw the movie, every single one of the humans was wearing a mask.
 * It's possible, this was my second viewing. I read the goofs page on IMDB before I went, but to be honest I wasn't definitely looking for this one at the end - I was trying to work out if it was Norm's Avatar who was still alive (it's a different one).
 * That's one's easy to explain. No exact timeframe was given, so likely what happened was that the Na'vi assaulted the main facilities, took control, and then occupied the area until the next ship arrived, and sent them out on that ship's shuttles.
 * We do see two Valkyries docked to the Venture Star near the beginning, so the Hell's Gate personnel could have used the other one to leave. Selfridge might have persuaded Quaritch to keep one shuttle in reserve just in case. Even if they disregarded the possibility of the shuttle being destroyed, there might still have been a danger of a banshee or collision with floating rocks damaging it enough to prevent it from reaching orbit safely. Alternatively, Quaritch may have felt that one shuttle was enough to ensure a successful mission. As for the timeframe, my impression was that the Venture Star had remained in orbit of Pandora over the whole film: it takes years to make the voyage, so a layover of weeks or months isn't that unbelievable, particularly when you consider things like repairs and refueling that would be necessary before leaving. Presumably when Quaritch offered to send Jake up, they were nearly ready to go.
 * In fact, Quaritch doesn't just say he wants to send Jake out on "the next shuttle," he explicitly says Jake is leaving tomorrow, so yes, they had one ready to go.