Avatar (James Cameron's)

Now is the time for the most highest-grossing movie of all time (if not adjusted to inflation, otherwise it loses it’s title to Gone With The Wind, a film made 70 years before this one), a movie which is basically a computer animation with some added human cameos, which stole it’s plot from Pocahontas and it’s visual milieu from Bug’s Life and Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and which would not be the highest-grossing movie of all time without the newly introduced 3D-technology back at 2009. This is of course the famous Avatar (not to be confused with Avatar: The Last Airbender), which uses the infamous Papyrus as it’s title font.

But don’t get me all wrong, I actually enjoyed the movie, because of the (unintended?) visual similarity to Bug’s Life and Morrowind, which I love both.

Avatar’s archery is though depicted all wrong.

First of all, all the Na’vi (the blue super tall humans with tails, elf ears and slightly deformed facial features, who should look like “alien”, but not too alien, so that the viewers can still identify with them) are all left handed. It is because the director James Cameron and the lead actress Zoë Saldaña are both left handed and they decided to make all Na’vi lefties. I must admit this not to be a mistake this time, since they really decided it to be that way, but it bothered me for the whole movie.

Mistakes:

1. The beginners bow grip mistake, holding the arrow with an index finger. It keeps there without holding if you’re calm, and this only hurts your hand, damages the fletching of the arrow and can effect the flight of the missile.


2. This string grip is reversed. The moviemakers apparently thought this would look more “alien” to us, but it looks stupid. It is impractical and unnecessarily hard form, which no bow hunting people (on which the Na’vi are based) have ever used on Earth, because it’s just not good. This hand just shouldn’t be upside down.


3. The string should go here where this circle points, close to the face of the archer. Now the bow is way overdrawn, since the string is about half a meter back from the face. This makes aiming much more difficult, since the end of the arrow is not close to the archers eyes.


4. The fletchings of arrows in this movie are made either from feathers, or from insect wings. That is not a mistake, since fletching can be made of different materials (although feathers would be best), but the number of feathers on these arrows are. Based on the screencaptures I can only see two feathers (or bug wings) in the arrows. An arrow needs three feathers in order to rotate around itself in three-dimensional space, after releasing of the missile. This rotation makes the aim more accurate, two feathers don’t do anything.


5. The distance between bows arc and string, called fistmele or brace height, should be the length of the archers fist and a protruding thumb (thumbs-up-hand). This bow is way overcurved, since the fistmele is as long as Neytiris entire forearm! That is the reason behind the mistake in point 3. I’ve drawn there a longbow with good proportions for scale.

Good:

I can’t actually think of any. Yes, these could be tried to justify since they are “aliens” from another solar system, but it doesn’t substitute the physical errors with the bow, and arrows fletching, nor the beginners grip mistakes with both hands. Surely the Na’vi, who rely on archery with their society’s food supply, would have corrected these flaws in design when they notice them. Or then they are a really stupid species which repeat their predecessors mistakes form generation to generation.


P.S.

It would’ve been nice to see what the moviemakers would’ve came up with if the Na’vi would’ve had six limbs like every other species on that moon, not just the regular two arms and two legs.


Update

Five years later I have updated this review with some corrections, read it here.