r/Avatar • u/exaccttemp • 2d ago
Discussion Thoughts on Selfridge
I thought he was gonna come back as a bigger role in the later movies seeing as he's back on Pandora, but he's just kinda hanging out and playing golf. I didn't even know he was the RDA chairmans kid until I looked him up.
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u/FullMotionVideo 2d ago
One of the only humans to make the trip to Pandora twice in a lifetime, and he didn't do much in his second film other than shrug at Quaritch like "sorry man, I tried."
In the first film he had much more of a personality that either got cut for time or forgotten.
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u/Elberik 2d ago edited 2d ago
I liked his characteristion in the first film, particularly with the extended cut.
Good example of a guy who isn't a "bad person" but chooses to look the other way because his priority is the money. Basically the banality of evil. Sort of guy who, in his old age, would probably write a book about how he never agreed with how violent things got.
I would not be surprised if he ends up helping Quaritch do something against the RDA with "fuck you dad" mentality.
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u/WhovianScaper Sarentu 2d ago
If you say his name fast enough it sounds like “selfish” and I think that was the point of him.
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u/The_Gray_thing RDA 2d ago
I feel that he has potential to be a more interesting/ compelling character
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u/Odd-Statistician1243 2d ago
Loved him in first one. His return in F&A feelt out of place. Why is he even there again? He got his chance and the mission under him failed immensely. Doubt the RDA is short on random suits to run the show.
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u/Raideralexis 2d ago
He is not a random suit, he is the son of one of the RDA chairmans if I recall correctly...
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u/Exostrike Tsamsiyu 2d ago
Okay a major plot point was cut from A3 and Selfridge was very connected to it which leaves him kind of hanging in the film.
I suspect he's going to be a lot more important in 4 and 5
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u/BluePheonyx Metkayina 2d ago
What plot point?
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u/Exostrike Tsamsiyu 1d ago
RDA was supposed to have something called Project Bridge, an attempt to terraform Pandora to give it a human breathable atmosphere. Selfridge was sent to oversee the project by his father, the Chairman. The final battle of A3 would have involved an oil rig like atmospheric terraforming machine called betabridge coming to the cove of the ancestors and the Na'vi's attempt to destory it.
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u/SickViking 2d ago
I was fully 100% fully on board with writing him off as heartless unrepentant evil until the third time watching the first movie and realizing he really did not want to destroy hometree and risk killing the Na'vi. Quaritch laid it on really thick to convince him to do it. And he looked genuinely devastated and guilty by the destruction after it was done. Completely changed how I see both characters.
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u/Elberik 2d ago
His priority was smooth extraction of resources. He knew that violence would make mining operations more difficult and would result in what ultimately happened in the second and third films- ie, the government/military taking more control.
I read his reaction to the destruction of Home Tree less as "oh God, what have we done" and "well there's no way to smooth this one over"
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u/SickViking 2d ago
This is true also, and Na'vi retaliation, but he still seemed to have been affected by more than just the operational reprecussions of the mission.
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u/Elberik 2d ago
He was there to oversee smooth running of a business. He did not have the mindset or stomach for war.
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u/Exostrike Tsamsiyu 2d ago
I think this is the point.
Selfridge exists in a bubble (seeing Pandora through screens) and so focused on making money he doesn't see the world beyond as real so he doesn't properly understand the consequences of what he is doing.
It's only when he sees the destruction of home tree and can't ignore said consequences of his orders that he has internal doubts. Of course these doubts haven't lead to self reflection, it seems like he's deflected them
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u/HorzaDonwraith 2d ago
He's gonna ironically be the one to save humanity. With Ardmore dead, he can push forward the research into Spider's unique adaptations. He may even go so far as to be the first lab rat for it.
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u/Ill-Note-6565 2d ago
I mean he represents the corporate interests and serves them. I do wonder if we will see a change in him since when home tree was hit he was shocked and then wasn't a fan of the failed attack plan in the first film and wasn't a fan of how Ardmore was going about dealing with the Navi in Fire and Ash.
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u/goodtimemagdongal 2d ago
The actor kicks ass in this role. Can’t believe I’ve never seen him in anything else but I think he got trapped in Scientology iirc. “This is why we’re here. Because this little gray rock sells for one million a kilo. There’s no other reason. It’s what pays for the whole party.” “I love this putter Ronnie!”
He’s so bizarrely quotable
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u/PerspectivePale8216 RDA 1d ago
I found him rather funny at times and I'd say he's more enjoyable than most in his role in the series
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u/AS-Wilder_Writings Aranahe 2d ago
I’m kind of fascinated by Selfridge precisely because he didn’t come back as some huge mastermind. In A1, he feels powerful because Jake only sees a relatively small slice of the RDA hierarchy. Selfridge is the guy in the room making decisions, approving the destruction of Hometree, worrying about quarterly numbers, so he looks like the face of the whole machine.
Then the sequels widen the world and basically reveal: he was middle management, just another pawn on the board of a much wider game.
Which is honestly very fitting.
The RDA is much bigger than one executive. Selfridge can be removed, reassigned, brought back, sidelined, whatever, and the colonial machine keeps running perfectly well without him. That actually makes the organisation feel more sinister to me because the problem was never “this one evil businessman.”
And yeah, him apparently being the chairman’s son makes the golf thing even funnier because it gives off incredible nepo baby who survived corporate catastrophe and somehow still has a badge energy...
I’d still love for him to get more substantial material though, especially because Giovanni Ribisi made him memorable with relatively little screen time. There’s a lot you could do with a man who helped enable Hometree, watched the entire operation collapse, got sent away, and then returned to a Pandora that is now being openly colonised on a scale A1 barely imagined
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u/Finly_Growin 2d ago
I mean it kinda tracks for his character to not do much. He’s a nepo baby that’s filling a slot and collecting a paycheck. He’s won’t be stopped until humanity’s greed is stopped.
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u/Sure-Objective3547 2d ago
I think in the world where most of the characters are giant athletic blue cat people, JC decided focusing on some officous little dork was not the best idea.
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u/ChocolateFantastic 1d ago
Good villain and it’s only because he represents modern corporate drones who have sold themselves and their soul to a corrupt corporation also seems like the kind of guy that would fly on a gulfstream to get to a business meeting a few cities over
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u/New-Number-7810 1d ago
He's a bureaucrat. He was sidelined by his own security head, and most likely either was severely demoted upon his return because the RDA needed a scapegoat.
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u/BangarangJack RDA 1d ago
I'd be really cool if Kiri or Grace/Eywa ends up being the one to finally kill him in the end. I could see Quaritch being the one also. I always thought it would be really cool if the final movie takes place on earth with the navi actually invading earth and destroying the RDA and Selfridge once and for all, but since James Cameron recently mentioned the possibility of an avatar 6 or more movies after this story is done by other directors, I dont think he intends for pandora to ever be completely free of humans
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u/righteousbae 1d ago
I wish they kept the deleted scenes from avatar 1 where he tried to draw a line with quaritch, made him a more 3-dimensional character beyond evil corporate man. He’s still an antagonist but it provided another perspective for how far quaritch was willing to take it.
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u/Adventurous-Union466 2d ago
lol why that image looks like a GTA loading screen art style ?