The downing of Trudy's Samson

[ISV Venture Star]

I will be watching this scene carefully on my next viewing.


Wow, just noticed the dates. This is an old thread!

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by ScottWashburn

What I want to know is what happened to the eight missiles in Trudy's missile pods When they flee Hell's Gate the pods are fully loaded. When she attacks the Dragon, they are empty. What did she use them on? Just one missile into those huge ordnance pods on the side of the Dragon, or one right through the open cargo hatch on the shuttle into the pallet of mine explosives and game over!

Interesting observation. I'll have to look for that the next time I watch Avatar (e.g., tonight ). I'm sure we're to assume that they were emptied on some of the other Samsons, but...

Trudy must really have been conflicted. Surely there would have been many people among the other SecOps that she was friendly with, so even if they were clearly in the wrong, just opening fire on them would have been really hard! Nobody else would have known them for anything other than "the bad guys."

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Eywa's Pet

Trudy must really have been conflicted. Surely there would have been many people among the other SecOps that she was friendly with, so even if they were clearly in the wrong, just opening fire on them would have been really hard! Nobody else would have known them for anything other than "the bad guys."

This is why I think she's utterly fascinating - she'd be killing her friends, and people that she has lived with and worked with and had that military-community bond with for years. And she does it. But then there is her expression before she gets shot, all that quiet regret, which makes me wonder how she would have squared with herself had Quaritch not blown her up.

And there is a screencap, somewhere, of her blowing up another Samson, so she did use at least some of the missiles.

[Human No More]

That is a small continuity error (actually, one of the only ones that DO exist) - aircraft are not kept with weapons loaded, unless about to be used, so presumably the shot of the escape is the one with the mistake. Of course, if she had had those missiles loaded, she could have shot down Quaritch without him ever even having known what had killed him... but that would be a lot less dramatic

An excuse might be that she had used them to shoot down Samsons/Scorpions before that scene, which was just not shown, I guess.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Human No More

That is a small continuity error (actually, one of the only ones that DO exist) - aircraft are not kept with weapons loaded, unless about to be used. Of course, if she had had those missiles loaded, she could have shot down Quaritch without him ever even having known what had killed him... but that would be a lot less dramatic

An excuse might be that she had used them to shoot down Samsons/Scorpions before that scene, which was just not shown, I guess.

Just checked my screencaps, and Trudy's Samson had the missiles when they escaped. So, I figured she'd used the eight up already.

[SnowRider]

An excuse might be that she had used them to shoot down Samsons/Scorpions before that scene, which was just not shown, I guess.

This. I figure she used them against other Samsons on her way to get to the Dragon gunship.

[SnowRider]

Another thought occurs to me about this question.

What if Jake and/or Trudy decided to use the munitions in those rockets for other purposes, like making hand grenades or something else like that?

Where did Jake get the explosives for what he had with him when he attacked the shuttle, for example? Did he use some or all of the explosives contained in the rockets for that purpose?

[ScottWashburn]

What Jake used looked to be some sort of hand grenade with the usual pins and safety levers. Not missile warheads, I don't think. Considering the various weapons that Trudy, Norm and Jake's avatar were carrying I think that was just stuff on Trudy's helicopter. The fate of the missiles is still unknown

[Fosus]

I think her Samson started spinning because the rotor which was hit turned to a bad ancle.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by SnowRider

Another thought occurs to me about this question.

What if Jake and/or Trudy decided to use the munitions in those rockets for other purposes, like making hand grenades or something else like that?

Where did Jake get the explosives for what he had with him when he attacked the shuttle, for example? Did he use some or all of the explosives contained in the rockets for that purpose?

He had normal grenades, he removed pins from them before throwing. Creating another explosive out a missile's warhead would be extremely difficult if it was even possible at all (due to the missile's arming mechanism). The grenades were from the same supplies as the machine gun and the upgraded door guns on the Samson - it probably carried them, especially since it was last used when equipped for the attack.