Avatar - The Metacontextual Edition

SOME DOCTOR: So, basically, you had a twin brother who did stuff like "training", and had an "education", and was actually prepared for this job. But he died, so we got you to replace him, even though you're basically a dumb jock.

JUGHEAD: You will soon see that what I lack in "education", "training", "competence", "listening skills", "ability to obey orders", or any of that other stuff, I make up with by having "heart". But since you don't know that yet, why did you choose me to replace my brother?

SOME DOCTOR: Because of the genetic match, and the brain matching, or something... whatever... look, the point is that the audience doesn't want to see someone who worked hard to get where they are, because that that might make the audience feel inferior for being the fucking sheep that they are. What they do want to see is somebody just as stupid as them, who falls ass backwards into awesomeness by having some vague quality like "heart" that everyone believes is true for them too. That way they can fantasize about making something of themselves without having to earn it. And, amazingly, our technology creates situations that do just that!

JUGHEAD: I'm in a wheelchair! Hah! You didn't see that coming, did you?

SOME SOLDIER: I bet that wheelchair is going to be a source of constant difficulty, dramatic tension, and an opportunity to heighten the risk in action scenes.

JUGHEAD: I think you'll be surprised at just how little a role my wheelchair will play in all this.

RED-SHIRT: Dude, do you have time for me to spout some exposition? It's really the only time my character will contribute anything meaningful.

JUGHEAD: Knock yourself out.

RED-SHIRT: Okay, so these over here are the bodies we call "Avatars". They're artificially created versions of the native Smurf creatures that inhabit this planet. While you sit in a modified tanning bed, you mentally hook up with the body that has been genetically matched to you. Well, to your brother, but that's good enough. Or something. Anyway, being in Smurf-mode takes a lot of training to be able to handle, but we're pretty much going to just throw you in because for some reason, we're in a super rush to get you into the program. Despite the fact that, precisely because you have no training, our lead scientist is going to regulate you to vague security duties you can't even perform because of the overwhelming difficulties of the hostile environment we're in. You won't even know how to handle the first creature you encounter while we do scientific studies you can't help us with.

OTHER SCIENTIST: I guess I won't have much to contribute to this scene.

RED-SHIRT: Yeah, get used to that.

JUGHEAD: Hey, why do I have to do these video blog things?

RED-SHIRT: To provide a context for the voice overs you do where you explain to the audience things that should have been shown through action.

JUGHEAD: I get the lazy writing angle, but mostly I've been describing things that are already obvious.

RED-SHIRT: Oh, you want the justification used within the context of the story? It's for a complete recording of everything, for a complete scientific record. And completeness. Or something.

JUGHEAD: But if we have a level of technology where we can transmit our consciousness into another body, couldn't you just record that transmission and then you'd have all my thoughts and experience as they happen, making a more complete record than I could ever describe in words?

RED-SHIRT: Huh. Yeah, I guess we don't need you to do the voice overs then.

AUDIENCE: Yay!

JAMES CAMERON: Oh no you don't. I've got a scene later that hinges on what you say in your video blog.

AUDIENCE: Boo!

JAMES CAMERON: Sorry, can't hear you over the one and a half billion dollars I'm grossing world wide.

AUDIENCE: We only have ourselves to blame.

RIPLEY: Hey Jughead, fuck you. Seriously, just... fuck you. Fuck you for being you, for being here, and for everything. Fuck. You.

JUGHEAD: So... you don't like me?

RIPLEY: I don't have to spend any time finding out about you to know I don't like you. Everybody knows that as a scientist, I am high and mighty and quick to judge. I wouldn't ever evaluate people by the observable evidence of their behaviour or anything sensible and in keeping with my training.

JUGHEAD: Whatever. Your dislike of me isn't going to slow me down... or the story... or have any impact whatsoever beyond expository dialogue.

RED-SHIRT: I'm in this scene too. Let me speak a little Smurf language just to highlight how untrained Jughead is.

RIPLEY: Who the fuck are you?

RED-SHIRT: I'm the actually trained scientist?

RIPLEY: Whatever. I don't really have any identifiable disposition toward you, so I'm just going to maintain a minimum of interaction with you for the rest of the movie.

RED-SHIRT: Okely dokely.

JUGHEAD: Anyway, I'm going to deflect all your legitimate concerns about my presence in the project with a whole bunch of smart ass responses, because it's quicker to inflate the tension between us that way than having any scenes where my lack of training actually causes any problems.

RIPLEY: Are you sure? Because if we took the time to develop your character by having you actually be not good at your job for even just a little bit, that would give a legitimate depth to the rift between our characters. It would also legitimize the established concept that somehow this Avatar program is difficult to do somehow.

JUGHEAD: Mmm... nah. I don't want to be anything less than totally awesome, so I'm not going to spend any part of this movie being un-awesome, except for one scene where I'll fall off a horse.

RIPLEY: I'm tired of the Weyland-Yutani corporation dicking me around!

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: The Weyland-what now?

RIPLEY: When you sent me back to the colony on LV-426 ... oh, wait... sorry, elements of your symbolic purpose in this movie are so similar to that other situation that I got confused about who I was mad at.

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: Come into my office for a conversation that we would never have had before this in all the years we've been working together.

RIPLEY: About how the harsh realities of capitalism are what pay my salary?

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: Yes. See this hovering clump of rock?

RIPLEY: This is the first time you have ever showed that to me. Strange that you never did.

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: This is "unobtanium". It's a magic energy crisis solver. Back on Earth it has a high enough value that we can simply gloss over all the ridiculously high obstacles to an interplanetary profit making venture that would completely gut my character's motivations and the whole anti-capitalist message of this movie.

AUDIENCE: "Unobtanium"? Really?

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: Hah! You're all lame. It's an in-joke with fiction writers .

AUDIENCE: Alright, we'll allow it.

SOME SCIENTIST: Wow, Jughead has a beautiful brain!

AUDIENCE: That was an awkward thing to say. What does it even mean?

SOME SCIENTIST: Don't sweat it. It won't come up again.

JUGHEAD: Never mind that, look at me! I'm such a fucking maverick that I won't even listen to a doctor who makes the perfectly reasonable request that I sit up slowly! And check this out! I'm already perfectly good at using this body in literally two seconds. Training? Fuck that. I'm running! And smiling! You see, because in my real body, I'm a cripple, so this already establishes how much I love being...

AUDIENCE: We get it. Move on.

RIPLEY: Hey there. Despite how much I was pissed with you for even being here, I'm not even going to mention the fact that three seconds into your Smurf body you're already blowing off instructions and proving that you're every bit as unreliable as I suspected. Instead, here, have a fruit.

OTHER SCIENTIST: Hey! I'm not white!

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: So, even though the whole reason you're here is because of the outrageous expense of training people to do your job and genetically matching them to Smurf bodies, because we're short on staff we might need you to do high risk work as a gunner on my ship, which could get you killed.

JUGHEAD: The way this movie drops threads, I'm sure I'll never actually have to do any gunner duty anyway, so I'm sure I'll be fine. Hey, you're pretty hot, want to develop a love interest that will cause a visceral emotional conflict when I start to date a Smurf chick?

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: That would be really exciting and dramatic. But no, I'm just going to wander away now. I have about as much impact on the story off screen as on screen anyway. Oh, the commander wants to talk to you.

AUDIENCE: Is that a lot? Isn't the gravity different here? We're really not sure if that's a lot of weight or not.

JUGHEAD: You wanted to see me, sir?

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Yeah, I've got a deal for you. If you basically spy for me so that I can blow up the big tree where the Smurfs live, I'll arrange it so that you can have your legs back. That should provide a suitable justification for your character's duplicity.

JUGHEAD: Yeah... I guess...

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: What, you don't want your legs back?

JUGHEAD: Well, it's just that I've already been a Smurf that can run and jump and move in ways that even a human can't, and the audience already knows from the trailer that I'm going to go totally native. It just seems like the whole incentive of getting legs in my human body is kind of null before it's even offered.

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: How 'bout we work it into the plot that later on, when it comes time to choose being a full time Smurf, your Smurf body is by that time crippled and can't walk, so it means giving up the chance of having legs as a human in order to be crippled as a Smurf?

JUGHEAD: Wow! Yeah, that would be an intensely dramatic dilemma! By forcing me to give up something instead of just becoming more awesome, that would show the love for my upcoming love interest and the sacrifice I make to be with her, as well as how deep my bond with the Smurf society has become. It would show real heroism, and conflict, and hard decisions, and...

JAMES CAMERON: Shut the fuck up.

JUGHEAD: Er... yeah, okay, I'll spy for you, Sarge.

RIPLEY: This place is an extremely hostile jungle environment.

JUGHEAD: But if we can find the huge ape and bring it back to New York, we can call it the eighth wonder of the world and make a fortune on tickets.

RIPLEY: What?

JUGHEAD: Sorry, I got confused, because I have a feeling the next little while is going to be about wandering around a jungle being chased by one ridiculously hostile creature after another. Is there anything in this movie that isn't derived from other movies?

RED-SHIRT: I keep it straight by remembering that the animals here are way more colourful.

RIPLEY: Who the fuck are you again?

HUGE ASS ANIMAL: RAWR!

RIPLEY: Don't move! It's a much more comical interaction if you don't move!

JUGHEAD: Okay! But I'm going to add a touch of awesome so that I can claim this interaction as my own, and not based on anything you have ever "learned" by your stupid and boring "observations" or "studies".

JUGHEAD (TO HUGE ASS ANIMAL): RAWR!

HUGE ASS ANIMAL: RAWR!

JUGHEAD: RAWR!

JUGHEAD: Hah, I knew that eventually I would scare it off.

AUDIENCE: This must be one of those moments seen in every movie where he thinks it was him who scared it, but actually when he turns around...

AUDIENCE: Ah, there we go.

JUGHEAD: I don't remember - what did they do in Jurassic Park when there was a situation just like this?

RIPLEY: Never mind that! Run! Run the other way, away from us and all the contingency plans we don't seem to have for this situation, even though we've established that this is a hostile environment where shit like this probably happens frequently!

AUDIENCE: This would be a little more exciting if it weren't such a blur of leaves and motion so that I could actually tell where anything was.

JUGHEAD: Thank god no body of water below a high dive off a cliff ever has shallow rocks.

JUGHEAD: Don't even ask me how I know this liquid I'm dipping my torch into is flammable when it's been clearly established that my character knows nothing about anything. I can't even identify the two largest species of ground animal, and yet I've got mad camping skills.

JUGHEAD: Okay, one at a time now...

JUGHEAD (WHILE FIGHTING): Damn... I thought if a wolf pack showed up, I would dance with them, and win the hearts of the natives that way... But I suppose not everything will be like that movie...

AUDIENCE: Cue the arrow or spear or dart or whatever the fuck it's going to be already!

JUGHEAD: Nice.

POCAHONTAS: Not nice! Bad! Must respect nature!

JUGHEAD: I can literally hear the timer counting down to when you and I get it on.

PAPA SMURF: Daughter, why have you brought this guy here?

JUGHEAD: So the chick who is totally crushing on me just happens to be the daughter of the chief? Awesome.

MAMA SMURF: Hang on, let me make some vague pronouncements originating in my ill-defined spiritual nature, which is sort of derived from the actual biological network of this planet so that more sceptical audience members won't be too put off by the new-age analogies, but is kind of an obvious analogy for mother Earth style Gaia spiritualism to appeal to people who read horoscopes.

JUGHEAD: So church and state are all bound up in this one family, and if I seduce the daughter, I've got a shot at running this tribe one day! Nice! Thank god nobody who makes films ever fantasizes about democracies.

MAMA SMURF: Okay, I know all I need to know after about ten seconds of waving my hands around. He can stay, but you, Pocahontas, must teach him everything about us.

JUGHEAD: Three months, tops.

JEALOUS BROTHER: Fuck you! You are an outsider! You don't know our ways! You can't be here! Fuck! You!

JUGHEAD: Hey, Ripley was kind of saying the same thing to m... ooohhhh, I get it. Parallels. Who exactly are you, anyway?

JEALOUS BROTHER: I have been chosen by the undefined and arbitrary rules of our traditions to lead this tribe, and as part of the package I get Pocahantas as my mate!

JUGHEAD: So, you're like, her fiancé? That's weird, because I am sensing, like, zero vibe between you two. I thought you were her overly concerned brother.

JEALOUS BROTHER: Don't tell me I can't impact the story just because Pocahontas doesn't show the remotest interest in me, nor do I to her! I'm also a big shot warrior or something, so I still have potential dramatic inroads to the story!

JUGHEAD: Oh yeah? I'd need an electron microscope to see how much influence you're going to have on the course of action for the entire rest of the movie. I'm willing to bet you just stand around like an uninvolved bystander and watch me be awesome, while gaining grudging respect for me, until ultimately I take your place as the most awesome member of the tribe.

JUGHEAD: I don't even know who...

RED-SHIRT: Wait! You don't say it yet.

JUGHEAD: Thought I'd get the obvious out of the way.

RED-SHIRT: If we give in to that thinking, this movie would be shorter than the trailer.

JUGHEAD: Right. Anyway, you'll never believe where my Smurf-me is. One fucking day out there, and I am already way past anything that anyone with an education has ever done. Simply by being as awesome as I am, I have been invited by the most awesome babe in their tribe to go back to the centre of their tree and start learning how to be the most awesome member of their tribe.

RIPLEY: Fuck you. But with slightly more respect.

RED-SHIRT: Aw, man, I am so fucking jealous!

RIPLEY: At least that gives you some kind of characteristic to identify you with.

JUGHEAD: You see, all the juiciest energy resources are directly underneath their home. What does that remind you of?

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: I give you three months before I basically ignore everything you learn and go ahead with a plan I have now anyway, because military people aren't ever interested in "information" or "options".

JUGHEAD (VOICE OVER): Okay, over the next little while, Pocahontas taught me how to do stuff.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, we know. We can see you doing it.

POCAHONTAS: You must learn how we move through the forest.

JUGHEAD: Basically, you guys do parkour .

POCAHONTAS: That's about it. Your training is complete.

JUGHEAD (VOICE OVER): Red-shirt has been teaching me the language. Which I find hard, but it doesn't matter, because that's studying, and obviously studying isn't as important as being white, male, and good looking. And awesome.

JUGHEAD (TO RED-SHIRT): Hey, Red-shirt, aren't you jealous anymore that I am doing everything way better than you, even though you did so much training and I basically just wing everything but still win so fucking hard?

RED-SHIRT: No, I'm over it now.

JUGHEAD: Really? Because that seemed like a potentially awesome plot device, where your internal conflict could be developed into a morally ambiguous character that could make decisions that would challenge the audience by being unpredictable at key moments during the adventure.

RED-SHIRT: No, I'm good. Really.

JUGHEAD: Even with all the messages it sends to kids watching the movie that achievement is a matter of just being awesome, and that only losers actually work and study to try to attain goals that they'll never get because they weren't born with inherent awesomeness?

RED-SHIRT: It's a-ok, my friend.

JUGHEAD: Even though without that one defining characteristic, you're an amorphous blob of a character without a single identifying trait that would make the audience give the slightest shit what happened to you?

RED-SHIRT: I'm so fine with it that we'll never have to even mention it ever again for the rest of the movie.

JUGHEAD: Okay then.

AUDIENCE: ...

POCAHONTAS: Okay, take the USB connector at the bottom of your ponytail and connect it to the port on the horse's antennae.

JUGHEAD: Holy shit, you mean I can interface directly with the network of this planet directly by plugging into various connections that living creatures everywhere seem to have? That's fucking wild! And if you think about it, since we humans have the technology to remotely connect my consciousness by WiFi to this body, then that implies we have the ability to network our consciousnesses as well. There could be potentially all sorts of wild story elements of trying to use mechanistic technology to hack into an organic network, pitting an artificial neural network against a biological neural network and highlighting the diff...

JAMES CAMERON: Shut the fuck up.

JUGHEAD: Sorry... Uh... Oh - whoops! I fell of the horse! What an amusing comedic moment! Hah hah.

JEALOUS BROTHER: Hi, just riding through so I can look at you with a sneer. Sneer! Sneer! Okay, my work here is done.

JUGHEAD: I don't even kn...

RIPLEY: Not yet!

JUGHEAD: Oh, for crying out loud, we all know I'm going to say it.

RIPLEY: We have almost three hours to fill.

AUDIENCE: Really? These glasses are kind of uncomfortable for a whole three hours.

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: You need to be a hot shit pilot like myself to fly though here, because this place scrambles all sorts of electronic transmissions, making my whole navigation computer and other types of scan not work.

JUGHEAD: But the WiFi signals that we use to control our Smurf bodies all still work just fine, right?

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: Yeah, funny how that works.

JUGHEAD: What about our nifty walkie-talkie throat communicator things?

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: Yep. We can do all the stuff we need to do, just not be tracked by anyone we don't want to be tracked by, if that situation should ever arise.

JUGHEAD: Gee, I wonder if that will ever happen.

JUGHEAD: So... why was a remote station ever made if our WiFi Smurf Control system seems to have absolutely no problem broadcasting to anywhere and everywhere on the planet?

RIPLEY: Um...

JUGHEAD (VOICE OVER): Everything became blurry... the time I was in Smurf world was becoming more real to me than my life as a person...

AUDIENCE: Dude, we're watching the same movie you're telling us about. If you're going to tell us stuff, tell us what we don't know.

JUGHEAD: Hey, you can't see into my soul to know how I feel.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, you're sooo hard to read. Just fucking say the line we've seen coming since the start.

JUGHEAD: "I don't know who I am anymore".

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Hey, great news! I got you that whole operation we talked about. The one that will get your legs back.

JUGHEAD: You got what...? Oh! The legs... yeah, I forgot about that offer.

AUDIENCE: Us too.

JUGHEAD: Uh, well... um... can I go back in one more time? Because they are going to officially make me the most awesome member of their tribe. I mean, I was from the start, but tonight it's going to be official.

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Oh, alright. You get one more chance to try achieve a peaceful resolution that I am so obviously going to disregard anyway. I'm a military man, so I hate peace.

JUGHEAD: Just want to be clear on something... you guys have all your weird alien ways that take our scientists so long to figure out and all... but... you guys still kiss, and show affection, and all your flirtations, and ways of sending "signals"... and... uh... stuff... it all works just like humans do, right?

POCAHONTAS: What are you getting at?

JUGHEAD: Fucking... there's fucking, right? Just like humans?

POCAHONTAS: Oh, yeah. It's just like human fucking, and we sort of hiss and stuff like cats so in a weird way it's kind of hot even though we're blue cat people.

JUGHEAD: Thank god it's all basically the same. I thought I might actually have to learn an actually different mode of behaviour instead of just a few arbitrary rituals and shit.

POCAHONTAS: Then you are one of us.

PEOPLE AT FURRY CONVENTIONS : Thank you, James Cameron, for the highest budget masturbation material ever made.

JUGHEAD: What the fuck is going on?

POCAHONTAS: It's the start of the third act! We have to run!

PAPA SMURF: Pocahontas! You bonded with this guy?

POCAHONTAS: It's okay! I did it before the whatever-it-is ceremony that would have bound me to that other dude who I'm supposed to hook up with. And, so far as anyone can tell, there are no reprocussions for completely disregarding our traditions like this, so we're all good.

JEALOUS BROTHER: Ooooh... you're so lucky you hooked up with her before she hooked up with me, because if you had, I'd be a hundred times more jealous!

JUGHEAD: Meh... a hundred times zero is still zero. Anyway, it seems that I've managed to avoid yet another potentially dramatic challenge without even really knowing what the fuck is going on. Go me!

RIPLEY: Listen, the whole planet is wired up by ethernet, and everything links through The Great I.S.P., and it's totally fucking amazing if you think about it. If we could learn about this, we could exploit the learning to develop technologies that would make us richer than any mineral resource. Especially considering that mineral resources are potentially all over the fucking universe on uninhabited planets, but the life forms here are certain to be unique, and thus far more valuable...

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: NAH NAH NAH... I CAN'T HEAR YOU AND YOUR POTENTIALLY HUGE BIOTECH STUDIES THAT I COULD MOST LIKELY EXPLOIT WITHOUT KILLING ANY NATIVES AND MAKE ME INSANELY RICH WITHOUT ANY MORAL PREDICAMENTS...

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Here, look at this vlog of Jughead saying that the Smurfs will never leave their home. That pretty much seals the deal. Good thing James Cameron insisted you keep recording your vlogs!

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: Ah, fuck it... let's give them one more hour anyway, for no good reason.

JUGHEAD: Hey, Smurfs, we have to go because...

POCAHONTAS: You lied to me! I had sex with you and everything! I hate you now!

JUGHEAD: Hey, how come when everything is good, we can link up with our ethernet, or have all this spirtual bonding or whatever, but now when I need you to understand me most, you won't even let me finish one fucking sentence of explanation. Seems like fair-weather spiritual bullsh...

POCAHONTAS: Fuck you! Smurfs - tie them up!

JUGHEAD: Huh... Maybe this society isn't so idyllic after all. Seems they have some pretty rough justice when you look past all the pretty rituals, and glowing 'shrooms, and shit.

RED-SHIRT: Aw man, now we're in prison in the middle of a military complex swarming with people with combat ability. I can only assume that the place is covered in surveillance technologies. And no offense, Jughead, but even though I respect that up until this point your wheelchair has been a complete non-issue, it seems like it would be a serious hindrance in the middle of a jail break. All it would take is a couple of stairs to maybe create tension through the possibility of getting captured...

RED-SHIRT: Huh. I really thought the wheelchair might have actually come into play that time.

OTHER SCIENTIST: Hey guys, remember me?

AUDIENCE: No.

JUGHEAD: Dude, you need to stay here because we need someone on the inside.

OTHER SCIENTIST: Why? It's not as if me staying here will make any difference. All events are going to proceed from this point like a freight train without brakes. It's because my character is completely extraneous in every way, isn't it? Be honest.

JUGHEAD: Yeah, pretty much. But hey, you can call us by Skype video later if you get lonely.

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: Okay, we're all on board my helicopter thing and we're flying away from this surprisingly unattended air hanger. Wow, that was easy. What did that take us? Like, a minute?

RIPLEY: Hey, it wasn't that easy. I got shot. Not in any way that would slow down our escape or anything, mind you. Just at the end there.

JUGHEAD: Okay, I think I'll do this incredibly difficult task of catching one of these super bad-ass red flying dragon things that only two people in the history of their civilization have ever been able to tame.

JUGHEAD: Done!

AUDIENCE: What the fuck?

JAMES CAMERON: I've got director's cut DVDs to sell later on, bitches.

RIPLEY: Watch what happens to me very closely.

JUGHEAD: Huh? Why?

RIPLEY: Foreshadowing, moron. It's obvious at this point that by the end of the movie you'll...

JUGHEAD: What? What happens to me?

AUDIENCE: You want us to tell you?

JUGHEAD: Nah, I've got a Braveheart style speech to give to rally all the tribes to fight the invading army.

AUDIENCE: Is there anything in this movie that isn't from another movie?

JAMES CAMERON: Umm.... no.

JUGHEAD: Hear me Smurfs! I am pretty much complete in my awesomeness! I am better at being you than even you are! White man's burden isn't just for primitive human cultures anymore, we're taking it galactic now, bitches!

SMURFS: Yay...?

JUGHEAD: Now go gather more people to bask in my awesomeness. Bring the ones who live on the plains, the ones who live on the rocks, and the ones that... um... wherever there are people who are not yet aware that I have arrived to show them what true awesomeness is!

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: This is going to be tough! Really tough! Lots of you might die! But we are going to go in there and unleash an orgy of violence that I am going to masturbate to before, during, and after. Because I love fighting. As anyone, military or not, who has not ever experienced direct combat themselves knows, all military people just love to get into war. We are impervious to post traumatic stress disorder, we love to fight! We love death and violence! Because we are military! Hoo-rah!

SOLDIER: Couldn't we just bomb from orbit? Instead of flying the bombs in and risking having our asses handed to us, we could just press a button from a satellite and obliterate the enemy without a single loss of life on our side.

ANOTHER SOLDIER: Hey, since they have this whole bio-electronic network that for some reason we're not at all interested in, doesn't that open up the possibility that we could use a large electromagnetic pulse to knock out all their communications and leave them defenseless? Seems like the battle might be a lot easier that way.

YET ANOTHER SOLDIER: Ooh, ooh... what about some kind of gas attack? Germ warfare is probably unfeasible since they have an entirely different biology here, but toxic gases could probably suffocate every living thing within miles, and then we could go in and the engineers could clear the land.

ANOTHER SOLDIER: I'm kind of surprised we don't have any crowd suppression technologies, like microwave guns or sound waves that we can use to repulse the natives. We could potentially make the area unbearable long enough to force them out.

YET ANOTHER SOLDIER: Yeah, it seems like there are definitely lots of ways that this could be handled without putting any of us in harm's way, and some of them might even leave the natives mostly, if not entirely unharmed as well. Did you really think through this operation? Seems to me that there is only the pale imitation of what military strategy looks like from a watching movies, and no actual thought about what would work.

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: ...

SOLDIER: Ooh! Hey! Hey! I just had another idea! How come we haven't already started a siege to blockade their resources...

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! We go in and fight with guns. Got it? Guns. Guns are symbolic of military excess, and bombs from space aren't!

OTHER SCIENTIST: Guys, they're about to head on over and blow shit up. It's some serious shock and awe stuff.

JUGHEAD: Dude, did you just say "shock and awe"?

OTHER SCIENTIST: Uh... yeah. So?

JUGHEAD: I don't know... that just lacks subtlety. Obviously there are some Afghanistan and Iraq parallels being made here, but to just say it outright like that...

OTHER SCIENTIST: Says the dude who is fighting to protect a literal fucking tree of life. A LITERAL TREE OF LIFE. And you want subtlety? Suck my balls.

JUGHEAD: Fair point.

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Mmm... nothing like a sip of Starbucks hazelnut latte as I go into battle, symbolically representing my position as the violent arm of capitalist excess while making me look callous about violence at the same time.

SOME SOLDIER ON THE GROUND: Why do we even need a ground offensive if our only objective is to bomb the tree and destroy it?

SERGEANT STRAW MAN: Shut up and get ready to kill some natives.

SOME PILOT OR GUY ON THE GROUND OR SOMEONE: My scanner thing shows movement.

AUDIENCE: How come yesterday in the military briefing you were able to scan this area from orbit and determine how many hostiles there are, but today you can only scan with enough range to see them two seconds before they attack?

JAMES CAMERON: It's different places. Or something.

AUDIENCE: Wait, but... are they attacking in the Bermuda Triangle or not? And where were the Smurf forces amassing if not there? I'm not sure I understand where everything is... if the ground forces are underneath the flying things, then don't they risk being bombed, and if they aren't, then where are they attacking...?

JAMES CAMERON: Uh... Hey, look! A big fight has started!

AUDIENCE: Oooooh! Exciting!

VASQUEZ WANNA-BE: But it's sad, though, isn't it? I mean, I demonstrated that I had a conscience by not shooting at the tree. That makes me a good guy, and you should be sad when a good guy dies.

AUDIENCE: Maybe if we knew a single fucking thing about you, like why you sided with the Smurfs other than a vague sense of sympathy.

POCAHONTAS: Hey, shouldn't we have maybe tried some different tactics? I thought this was going to be more like the "Battle for Endor" scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, but actually it's more Last Samurai, and the guys in that movie expected to get all shot to pieces. Isn't it standard that if you're a local force resisting against a technologically superior and more organized military that you use asymmetrical battle tactics, like guerrilla warfare or running and gunning? At least the fucking Ewoks used the environment to their advantage and set traps and shit. Our plan doesn't even have the level of military competance you get from a bunch of fucking teddy bears!!

JUGHEAD (VIA THROAT WALKIE TALKIE): Whatever. I skipped military history classes when I was learning to become a marine. Studying is for losers. Fuck strategy. I am awesome, and that's all you need to know.

POCAHONTAS: I'm not looking for a wildly detailed strategy that might confuse the audience, I'm just saying... running straight at people who have machine guns and grenade launchers is obviously fucking retarded! Everyone around me is fucking dead now!

JUGHEAD: Wait! Everyone else is dead? Well, that's different if now it might be my future trophy wife who dies. Do not engage the enemy! Do you hear me! Do not engage!

POCAHONTAS: No, I must. You see, I have some fucked up sense of primitive honour code or something, so I'm going to make a futile gesture of fighting even though it means my certain death. No sense of self preservation. We primitives are silly that way.

POCAHONTAS: Hey, couldn't The Great I.S.P. have pulled that move, say, 15 minutes earlier? Would have been nice for us to not have been massacred and all... We did fucking tell the Great I.S.P. about the whole plan yesterday, so what the fuck was it waiting for?

JAMES CAMERON: Shut the fuck up.

JUGHEAD: How did you know I was over here? You seemed to suddenly sense where I was and come directly over here. Even looking past the fact that it's entirely unclear how much you know about how whole WiFi Smurf Control technology works, how did you know I would be here beside this tanning bed just now?

POCAHONTAS: Maybe I heard you crashing around?

JUGHEAD: Maybe... except that with all the blowing up going on and machines falling apart, how did you know it was me and not just another piece of debris falling down?

POCAHONTAS: Um... I could sense you?

JUGHEAD: Yeah, but you never seemed to have a sense of where exactly my consciousness was before. Like when we woke up to the bulldozers, you thought I was asleep...

JAMES CAMERON: Shut the fuck up!

JUGHEAD: Oh... uh... I see you. Get it? "I see you" is what we say to mean we really connect, but it's more poignant because I'm in my human body... or something... what a tender moment!

EMBODIMENT OF CAPITALISM: Um... we could still bomb you from orbit...

AUDIENCE: Is this over then? The glasses are hurting my nose...

SMURFS (SINGING): It's the circle... The Circle of Life!!

MICHAEL BAY: Planet go boom! Whee! Explosions! Now that's a movie!

GEORGE LUCAS: Oh, man, I can't wait to get my hands on the technology they used to make this movie. Did you see what I did with Jar Jar Binks? Imagine that, but times a billion!

AUDIENCE: Oh god... no... NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!