It's I Against I and It's Me Against You

So, thought I'd make further remarks on Halo (which is probably my favorite video game after Legend of Zelda) and Avatar (which is my new whipping boy).

Halo first:

• So, the Elites have blue armor for normal soldiers, red for leaders, and silver and gold for quasi-boss types. Doesn't that mean their social organization is basically the same as a sentai team (like Power Rangers)?


• Played ODST, and discovered, I quite like the guys who play Mal, Jayne, and Wash when Whedon isn't involved—Buck, Dutch, and Mickey have most of the same dynamic, though Jayne's whipping-boy role was passed off to Romeo. It's also kinda odd how the whole game is a sorta weird fanfic shipping Mal with Number 6 from BSG (or, more accurately, Carla from Burn Notice)—though apparently those two actors actually used to date.


• How the hell do Elites eat, anyway, with that gap at the bottom of their mouths?


• The Grunts reminded me of something I also noticed about the Yaotja (the critters in Predator): glowing blood is just a bad idea, if there's animals around who see in the visual spectrum (and considering the environment the Predators prefer, it makes no sense for them to see in IR, sorry). It's a bad idea to get more visible if you're wounded. In the Grunts' case, though, since they need breath masks, it might only glow in our atmosphere.


• Noticed the Engineers are sorta a much cuter version of the Outsiders, the guys who sold humans the hyperdrive in Niven's Known Space. This is actually something I like about Halo: it's not ripping off Star Trek and Star Wars, it's ripping off Niven. Another example is the Halo rings, of course—not only are they Ringworlds, but they were built by the Forerunners, who have some connection to humanity...y' know, like how the Pak Protectors built the Ringworld? And the Brutes and Elites are sorta the two aspects of the Kzinti—the Brutes got the cannibal Leeroy Jenkins aspect, and the Elites got the Proud Warrior Race aspect. Cortana's thing about how Chief's unique because of his luck might also be a Ringworld reference, but that's a bit of a reach. And we all know what happened to Reach.

I'm deeply sorry for that pun.

Anyway, hitch up your britches, boys, gotta say some more 'bout Avatar, too.

• Remember how I said how come the humans in Avatar don't just firebomb? For that matter, why not just neutron bomb? Or even glass the planet's surface? It would be justifiable if they had said the EM effects of nuking (or orbital bombardment) would screw up the Unobtainium—and that'd be a lot more justifiable if they'd had the stones to call the stupid rocks magnetic monopoles.


• So, the exoskeleton that Quaritch uses. Uh, guys, why does it have a glass cockpit? At least use bulletproof glass (and therefore also giant-arrow-proof)! Actually, of course, we want our exoskeletons to have armored cockpits...preferably with armor made of an alloy you can only make in zero-g. The ones in Avatar make a Zaku look like the Big O.


• How is it possible to combine genetic material from a species that breathes something toxic, with human DNA? Aside from the fact aliens probably wouldn't use DNA even if they do breath oxygen, whatever the Na'vi breathe probably doesn't work the same with the ATP-ADP process, now does it?


• My little sister's friend actually pointed this out first—restoring my faith in mankind at a blow—but how the hell come the Na'vi have four limbs, when nothing else on their planet does? Those goofy double-forearmed ape things are their ancestors, right? Well, aside from it being ridiculous to have limbs fusing all willy-nilly, what, other than needing humanoid aliens, is prompting the change? And how is it that their arm musculature is anything like human, the internal anatomy showing no traces whatsoever of their ancestry? There's a lot of traces of the standard Carnivora anatomy left in the pinnipeds, aren't there?


• Finally, y'all do realize that in the sequel, they'll discover another branch of the Na'vi called the Ta'tl, right? And then another race called the Mid'na? How is it that nobody's decided to caricature the message of the film as, in environmental terms, "Hey! Listen! Watch out!" Seriously, how did nobody notice the Navi serve the great frigging Deku tree?