Many Worlds Theory

I saw Avatar 2: The Way of Water yesterday.  Sure, it was way too long, by maybe two hours.  But that’s the least of its problems.  Plenty of spoilers follow, but I don’t care.

First of all, the alien life looked great; the flora and fauna were truly alien.    But the alien people (the Na’vi) looked nothing short of ridiculous.

They look like poorly drawn World of Warcraft cat people.

This is a pet peeve of mine.  In science fiction movies and TV shows (here’s looking at you, Star Trek and Star Wars) almost every alien race looks human.  It’s so dumb: two eyes, above one nose, above one mouth, on a head, with two arms above two legs.  Evolution doesn’t really work that way.  What are the chances that these things would evolve to be humanoid?  It breaks the 4^th wall for me, takes me out of the moment.  Where are the truly alien aliens?

Unless H. R. Giger is helping you with creature design, the truly alien aliens are found in science fiction novels: see Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir or Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky for two very recent examples.

Oh, I know—I know why directors do this.  It’s so we can relate to the aliens.  We can root for them as characters.  It humanizes them.  But why should we be able to relate to aliens?  Why should we humanize them?  That seems—rather humancentric to me.

The answer, of course, is that we’re not watching true science fiction at all.  We’re watching unsubtle allegory.  The Na’vi could be talking teapots for all it matters to the “lesson” being beaten over our heads.

Now, it’s not just physical appearance.  The aliens don’t act alien at all.  They act like a high schooler’s ideal of what indigenous (human) people act like, except with a little bit of ululation, because… tribal societies always do that?  What the fuck is with the ululation?

Why can’t aliens in science fiction movies look and act… differently than humans?

As an aside, the “secret” behind the whale-hunting is a total rip-off of the 1981 Hugo and Nebula award-winning The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge.  Listen:

The Hegemony’s humans’ interest in Tiamat Pandora lies in mers the Tulkun, a species of sea-dwelling creatures whose blood contains a smartmatter virus a goo that halts the aging process. Mers Tulkun are hunted as frequently as possible…the “water of life” goo produced from their blood allows for virtual immortality.  [Yoinked from Wikipedia]

I have other complaints. The score was about as interesting as an Andrew Garfield Spiderman movie.  The choice to transition from subtitles to English was… distracting.  (Speaking of subtitles: Papyrus font?  Really?)  Everyone’s English-language accent was completely different.  Jake Sully sounds like he’s about to challenge Apollo Creed to a boxing match.  The spooky girl sounded like Emily Dickinson.  I think Vin Diesel was in there somewhere, maybe?  And Wes Studi?  Because, of course, native American.  It’s not like anyone has any name I could remember.  I think Jake’s wife was played by Zoe Saldaña, but who knows?  She only had maybe five lines in the movie.  And how many kids does Jake have?  Two boys (maybe)?  One or two daughters?  They don’t have names, certainly.  And the two sons are indistinguishable except for size.

Oh, and the feral kid from The Road Warrior is thrown in there, for some reason.  Yee haw.  His story arc makes as much sense as a latter-day Star Wars movie.

Making Colonel what’s-his-face the villain (again) was lazy writing.  I thought we had a cool new antagonist when General Nurse Jackie showed up… but no, she was quickly forgotten.  It’s back to Colonel Quidditch, again.  It’s insulting to the viewers: we don’t think you can handle a different bad guy.

Which is why everything is in black and white…like a middle school Disney novel.  Phil Hartman’s Frankenstein’s monster saying Humans BAD.  Natives GOOD.  Everyone is a one-dimensional cardboard cut-out of a character.  There’s not only little nuance…there’s no nuance at all.  You can predict the ending two (long) hours before the end—based solely on tropes.  But I guess that’s what people want.

The plot has the intellectual depth of a choose-your-own-adventure.

Which beings me to the so-called movie’s greatest sin: it’s supposed message.  For let’s be clear, the movie doesn’t pretend to be science fiction, or even space opera.  It’s not even ordinary allegory, but more of a medieval morality play.  Written for third-graders.

On top of that, the message is muddled.

On the surface, the message is as subtle as an elephant farting during a performance of Ave Maria.  And it is, of course, the same message as the first Avatar:  Indigenous peoples I mean Na’vi are good.  Europeans I mean humans are bad.  Yay, environment.  Fern Gully.  Dances With Wolves.  Thunderheart.  I don’t even necessarily disagree with this “message”.  But…

Was the moral of the story really what you thought it was?

The message I get is: violence is the way.  The only real method of achieving anything is through killing.  (In this, the message is a lot less liberal granola than people think it is).  Consider: the only Tulkun (whale-alien) character we get to see in any meaningful way is the outcast—the whale who was ostracized for fighting back.  The other whales are dismissed as jokes because of their pacifism.

What a missed opportunity!  What an interesting species!  Why not focus on them?  What sort of philosophy and culture must they have had, to let themselves be slaughtered?  It reminds me of the Wheel of Time’s “Way of the Leaf”.  At least Robert Jordan showed the Tuatha’an in a more respectful light.

But no, James Cameron’s Titanic-sized ego demanded that he make the film some sort of allegory, even if he couldn’t decide on what he wanted to say.  But here I must quote Tolkien on allegory:

“…I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned – with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”   [Bogstad, Janice M.; Kaveny, Philip E. (9 August 2011). Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy. McFarland. p. 189.]

Ultimately, I left the theater thinking: what is the “way of water”?  Violence?  Environmentalism?  Lowering your heart rate?  Forgiveness?  Slitting your adopted feral kid’s throat?  Family?  Racism?  Screaming?  Ululation?  I have no idea.  At one point Rocky Balboa narrates what the “way of water” actually entails­—but at that point I wanted to see more evil New Zealand scientists being ripped in half.

Is there a word in English for a banal epiphany? While walking today it struck my like a bolt from the blue: 2/3 of every Saturday Night Live episode occurs on a Sunday.

I’ve been playing a lot of internet chess lately: you know, Covid.  I play on Lichess.com, mostly, but also on Chess.com, where I play in an international team league.  Compared to the average player, I am decent, with a rating that fluctuates between 1900 and 2000.  I have drawn a National Master (NM) in over-the-board chess, had a postal win (!) published in ChessLife, and beaten a grandmaster (GM) in a simul online (Jacob Aagaard).  But of course I am nowhere near the level of an NM, much less an IM or GM.  Nonetheless, I have a lot of experience with chess players.  I estimate that I have played upwards of 50,000 internet chess games in my life, much of it bullet chess (with a 1 0 or 1 1 time control).  I have a LOT of experience with blitz and bullet.  And there are 10 main kinds of internet players that ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

1. The Fred

Sometimes you play a game and crush someone.  They want a rematch.  You accept.  And then, as White, they open with 1. f3 followed by 2. Kf2.  (The Fred defense 1. e4 f5 has a similar feel to it.)  Basically these players are saying, “You’re not any good, that win was a fluke, look, I can beat you with this garbage.”  It’s an insult.  Such players have no self-awareness, and aren’t willing to admit that they are fallible.  They’re sociopaths.  I usually just resign when people do this.  Why bother playing these fools?  [Caveat: If you’re with friends, it’s OK to goof around and play such things.  The bong cloud opening (e4 followed by Ke2) or its derivatives have been played by Nakamura and by Carlsen against other GM’s.  But as far as I know they don’t play such things against peons like me.  If they did, they would be punks.]

2. The “Idiot”

Maybe this belongs with the “Fred”, I am not sure.  Every once in a while you’ll encounter some joker who plays a3/b3/c3/d3 etc. moving all the pawns up one square.  This infuriates me.  It’s like starting a pickup game of basketball with someone, and all they do is shoot underhanded.  No thanks.  Why are you playing chess?  Go back to playing Halo in your parent’s basement.

3. The “Sacker”

I sense a theme here.  A lot of people can’t handle losing, but on the internet there’s not really any way to BE a bad loser (especially when, as I do, chat has been disabled).  Without an outlet for poor sportsmanship, internet chess players get creative.  They play the “Fred”, or the “Idiot”, or….just sacrifice every piece on the board.  Ever win a knight in a blitz game, only to have some fool subsequently “sacrifice” every other piece?  What does this prove?  I suppose they could argue that they’re going for stalemate, but it really just means that they’re having a tantrum.  To see what I do in such situations, see the next note…

4. “People who don’t resign”

If you’re playing in a tournament, or for money, or for some other stakes, then fine…play it out.  Or if you’re up 45 seconds in a bullet game, play it out.  But in an unrated game, if you are down on time, AND down a Queen, AND the position is dead, with no possibility of a tactic…then RESIGN.  Not doing so shows an utter lack of respect not only for your opponent, but for the game of chess itself.  In these situations I usually try to recreate the opening position (by promoting pawns to Knight, Bishops, Rooks, etc.) against the opponent’s bare king.  It’s an attempt to shame the opponent into resigning.  It never works.

5. The “Time Adder”

This is a weird one, but common on Lichess.  I’ll get a winning position, and instead of resigning, the opponent does not move, but instead keeps incrementally adding time to my clock.  (Some chess servers have this option so that if someone is about to lag out, you can have mercy and give them more time).  Is this some form of protest?  What’s going through these people’s pea brains?  My favorite thing to do is go eat a sandwich, taking advantage of the time they’ve given me….then coming back and delivering mate with less than 10 seconds my clock.

6. The “No Move” gambit

Another annoying way to have a tantrum is simply…not to move.  I don’t mean disconnecting in a lost position (which probably happens 20% of the time in any game I play) but to let the clock run down.  In bullet this is meaningless, but in a 10 minute rapid game, when I get a winning position against someone and they have 9 minutes left, it’s a real childish move.  So in this unrated, meaningless game, which is supposed to be just for fun, you are really going to make me wait 9 minutes, staring at my +11 position, just to get the “win”?  Nope.  I will just resign and play someone else.  And maybe that’s their point: they can say they “won”.  Good for them.  I’d rather play chess.

7. “Asking for a takeback”

This one just shows that the player has no online chess experience.  If you’re playing a stranger, then you NEVER ask for a takeback.  Ever.  It’s that simple.  Drop a piece on move 3? Then you RESIGN.  Maybe if I am playing a friend and we’re contesting the same opening 30 games in a row, and my friend makes an obvious mouse slip, OK.  But if I don’t know you?  And it’s a bullet game?  Mouse slips are a PART OF THE GAME, especially in bullet.  Sorry.  Resign, biatch.

8. “The absurd draw offer”

I don’t mean when a player in a lost position offers a draw…after all, we might evaluate the position differently.  I actually mean something much more specific.  It’s like when you’re up 8 minutes to 1 minute in a 10 minute game without increment, in a roughly equal position, and…they click DRAW?  No, you imbecile, you’re going to lose on time.  Play it out.  You might even win…you’re a daisy if you do.

9. The “’Good game’ robots”

Bad sportsmanship isn’t reserved just for losers.  Winners can do it too.  To whit: automated “Good game” messages are as annoying as popcorn kernels stuck in your teeth.  Now, I get it.  They’re TRYING to be nice.  But when you lose a piece on move 7, and then resign (as you should in a non-bullet game), no one wants to see “Good game! :)” or “Well played!”  It comes across as condescending and insincere.  If you really want to be a good sport, type an ACTUAL message after the game, that proves you’re a human being.  Of course I disable chat, so never mind.

10. The “Obvious blunder!” morons

My final category is the worst of all, and doesn’t even involve PLAYING online chess.  It has to do with WATCHING online chess.  Nowadays, you can watch any major GM tournament from the comfort of your home, on sites such as chessbomb.com.  And of course, everyone now has a computer engine on their smartphone that could crush a GM.  It’s like this: Svidler is playing Aronian.  And Aronian makes a move that swings the evaluation bar from +0.4 in favor of Svidler to +1.7.  Someone comments, “Obvious blunder!”  Of course all they’re doing is looking at their engine.  They have no idea WHY the move is a blunder.  It boggles the mind.  It’s a form of trolling.  If you’re going to spectate, watch GM commentators that know what they’re talking about:  Tania Sachdev and Peter Leko, for example, or the team of Seirawan, Shahade, and Ashley.  Even when they consult the engine, they put the move(s) in context.  If Aronian’s move was so “obvious”, dude, why aren’t YOU a GM?   

The unicode number for a dagger (†) is 2020. How appropriate:

“Is this a 2020 which I see before me?” –Macbeth

In the era of Covid-19, everyone has to get their side hustle on.  My amazing wife has started selling artistic thingys here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/GreenRavenCreations

Meanwhile I have made a goal to post more often this fall.  See you soon!