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We can save mental effort and just go for the Dune series at this point. What is the point in that? In considering the advances in modern chemistry, there are ever few organic compounds that can not be synthesized.
I fall back to my original thought: is well thought sci-fi so hard to achieve nowadays? If seems there is a fixation about misery and destruction nowadays.
Avatar does have some good science fiction like the idea of a planetary hivemind being worshipped as a god. The Na'vi religion is literally true, it just seems false to humans who don't know anything. That's very different to Dune, where the Fremen religion is true because people like Paul's mum make it true.
I'll grant that waffer thin idea as a good attempt of putting something akin to good sci-fi into an otherwise solely for visuals work, although I disagree with the notion of deifying something that is tangible, as in the setting put forward in the movie.
And I mentioned Dune because of the immortality mention. The spice is also irreplaceable and unique, produced only in a single planet, through a rather complex organic process, harvested at great risk and cost, then to be synthesized by the tons.
That was good sci-fi, with sound social and religious criticism in it.
If you'll allow drag to play devil's advocate, Eywa isn't tangible. Ewya is a mind, and minds are made of electrical signal patterns. You can't touch electricity. And you definitely can't touch a pattern of information, which is essentially made out of maths. That's what a mind is, a bunch of incredibly complex maths.
allow me to play the idiot-younger-sibling of said devil's advocate and just point out you can absolutely touch electricity, which is why we use safety plugs to keep toddlers from licking electrical outlets.
in any case, I think the biggest problem with the movie is just how... meh... it was. Hive minds have been done before; and that was allegory for the interconnections inherent in a thriving biosphere. The Unobtanium was allegory for greed. (as was whale brains. maybe that explains RFK's antics...?) The capitalist douchenozzles were... well... if I said it was allegory, it was so they could beat us upside the head with it.
Electricity can be felt, but not touched.
From what I took from the movie, there was a knowledge that such a collective overarching conscience existed. It wasn't a figment of imagination nor a collective (de)illusion. It was tangible in that way.
And being cheeky: electricty can't be touched? i disagree. Every single time I put my fingers where I shouldn't, it reminded me in very tangible way I wasn't looking at what I was doing.
Dune is a universe where computers are severely limited. The ability to synthesize organic chemicals may be limited by that alone.
IIRC, the Tleilaxu do figure out how to produce spice artificially in their Axlotl tanks, but those are another example of Dune getting weirder and more disturbing as it goes.
But they do eventually manage, don't they?
Sorta. By then, the rules on thinking machines have been somewhat relaxed, but people still don't like being around computers. There are machines that can navigate FTL safely without relying on spice. The Bene Gesserit are still dependent on it, though, and they don't like how it binds them to either the Tleilaxu or surviving sandworms.
Doesn't invalidate the point made: at some point, a previously irreplaceable resource was synthesized and mass produced.
I still have to find the time and motivation to read the entire Dune but if at some point they start mass producing the stuff that literally held them prisoners, as there is no going back once spice is first taken, they are literally a civilization of drug addicts, willingly.
I fall back to my original thought: is well thought sci-fi so hard to achieve nowadays? If seems there is a fixation about misery and destruction nowadays.
considering that mass media will slap a space ship into anything and call it "Science Fiction".... yes, actually. Because they're idiots who will only copy what's already been done because it's a reliable way to make money.
That said, even the masters will fall back on nonsense to make a point. Asimov had coal-powered spacecraft in the Foundation Trilogy to show how technology was slipping backward as if that makes any sense whatsoever.
gotta make headway before you start backsliding...
otherwise it's just going the wrong way.
Sad but true.