AVATAR

"They're just pissin' on us without the courtesy of calling it rain"

The scene I'd like to discuss extends from when we are first introduced to Grace Augustine to when she exits the scene to talk to Selfridge. Stepping aside from the reality of the fantasy in Avatar, in this scene we face the reality of..... reality. We are in the laboratory sector of the colony and all of a sudden a technician bolts off in a sprint as a capsule opens and an exasperated Grace Augustine demands a goddamn cigarette. As this is happening, Norm is oogling about Grace to Jake saying, "She literally wrote the entire book on Pandora." Grace is introduced to Norm and Jake and completely ignores Jake until Dr. Patel re-introduces him. Dr. Augustine doesn't even shake his hand and demands that she needed his brother "with the Ph.D. who trained for three years" and asks him how much lab training he's had and he replies with "I dissected a frog once." Then Dr. Augustine bursts into a ball of anger and storms out.

I found this scene interesting because it had the first group vs group conflict in the movie (besides what was presented during the debriefing). This conflict being the whole clique conservationist(scientists) vs imperialist(money hungry) conflict. This scene is mainly built on dialogue between Dr. Augustine and the others, but you can already sense the conflict approaching as soon as her capsule opens. The scene switches from being calm and collected to the assistant rushing to get her cigarette and the people in the background rushing around signify this lady means business. For the movie viewer, the scene goes from stressful to even more stressful when Dr. Augustine and Jake Sully exchange words, especially in tone and body language when she storms off and curses Selfridge.

This scene argues the movie viewer into a "sure, they're getting screwed, but give the guy a chance." Because the first introduction to Dr. Augustine isn't the best and by the fact that she belittles Jake Sully essentially calling him incapable makes you sympathize with him and, as bad as it sounds, makes the viewer think, maybe it isn't so bad that they're plundering Pandora because of the first impression of Dr. Augustine and how horrible she seems as a person. (Of course, later proves otherwise.)