Luminous 3-D Jungle Is a Biologist’s Dream

By CAROL KAESUK YOON

Published: January 18, 2010
When watching a Hollywood movie that has robed itself in the themes and paraphernalia of science, a scientist expects to feel anything from annoyance to infuriation at facts misconstrued or processes misrepresented. What a scientist does not expect is to enter into a state of ecstatic wonderment, to have the urge to leap up and shout: “Yes! That’s exactly what it’s like!”

So it is time for all the biologists who have not yet done so to shut their laptops and run from their laboratories directly to the movie theaters, put on 3-D glasses and watch the film “Avatar.” In fact, anyone who loves a biologist or may want to be one, or better yet, anyone who hates a biologist — and certainly everyone who has ever sneered at a tree-hugger — should do the same. Because the director James Cameron’s otherworldly tale of romance and battle, aliens and armadas, has somehow managed to do what no other film has done. It has recreated what is the heart of biology: the naked, heart-stopping wonder of really seeing the living world.

The real beauty of it, though, is that you do not have to be a scientist to enjoy the experience. “Avatar” is well within reach of becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. And while the movie’s dazzling animation and use of 3-D has received so much attention, it cannot be anything but the intense wonder so powerfully elicited, rather than merely the technical wizardry itself, that has people lining up to see it.

There have, of course, been many films that have depicted the excitement of scientists during discovery (think of Laura Dern in “Jurassic Park,” gleefully sticking her hand into a pile of dinosaur dung), and, from “Lord of the Rings” to “Star Trek,” there has been no shortage of on-screen fantastical floras and faunas.

But rather than having us giggling at a tribble or worrying over the safety of the children when a T. rex attacks, Mr. Cameron somehow has the audience seeing organisms in the tropical-forest-gone-mad of the planet Pandora just the way a biologist sees them. With each glance, we are reminded of organisms we already know, while marveling over the new and trying quickly to put this novelty into some kind of sensible place in the mind. It is a mental tickle, and wonderful confusion sparks the thought, “Oh, that looks like a horse, but wait, it has six legs and it’s blue, and whoa, that looks like a jellyfish but it’s floating in the air and glowing.”

The clues that we are “not in Kansas anymore,” as we are told early on, can be seen in every aspect of the life of Pandora. If there is one color that is most decidedly not a classic Earth tone, one that is least associated with living things, it might just be neon blue. And so many things on Pandora, like the Pterodactyl-like ikran and the deerlike yerik, are a staring, screaming blue. Another thing we do not expect from most living things is light. Yet on Pandora, life glows everywhere in the night, including the long, pulsating white Spanish-moss-like strands elegantly dangling off tree branches and the brightly glowing green and purple ferns.

And touching closest to home, Mr. Cameron has put a version of ourselves on Pandora, the Na’vi people, with whom he uses every trick. For they are blue, they have bioluminescing spots on their faces and they display the other of Pandora organisms’ stunning quirks: they are huge, at 10 feet tall.

To so strongly experience these kinds of wonderfully shocking similarities and dissimilarities among living things is the kind of experience that has largely been the prerogative of biologists — especially those known as taxonomists, who spend their days ordering and naming the living things on Earth. But now, thanks to Mr. Cameron, the entire world is not only experiencing this but also reveling in it.

What is sort of funny for me is that I spent much of the last six years working on a book about exactly this, about how inside of all humans there is a deep desire and ability to really see life, to see order among living things, and about the joy that comes with it. So at the end of “Naming Nature” (W. W. Norton, 2009), I make a plea to readers to go out into the world and see the life and find the order in the living world around them. I may have to amend the paperback to suggest, or you may want to begin by, heading into a darkened room to see “Avatar” and have your mind blown.

Please excuse me if I seem a bit breathless, but the experience I had when I first saw the film (in 2-D, no less) shocked me. I felt as if someone had filmed my favorite dreams from those best nights of sleep where I wander and play through a landscape of familiar yet strange creatures, taking a swim and noticing dinosaurs paddling by, going out for a walk and spying several entirely new species of penguins, going sledding with giant tortoises. Less than the details of the movie, it was, I realized, the same feeling of elation, of wonder at life.

Perhaps that kind of potent joy is now the only way to fire up a vision of order in life. Many biologists of my generation (I will be 47 this month) were inspired to careers in science by the now quaint Time-Life series of illustrated books on animals or by the television program “Wild Kingdom,” rugged on-screen stuff for its time (“Now my assistant Jim will attempt to sedate the cheetah”). But maybe that isn’t enough anymore.

Maybe it takes a dreamlike ecstasy to break through to a world so jaded, to reach people who have seen David Attenborough here, there and everywhere, who have clicked — bored — past the Animal Planet channel hundreds of times without ever really seeing the animals. Maybe it takes a lizard that can glow like fire and hover like a helicopter and a staring troop of iridescent blue lemurs to wake us up. Maybe “Avatar” is what we need to bring our inner taxonomist back to life, to get us to really see.

And waking up and seeing is what “Avatar” is about, as its characters tell us repeatedly, as when the marine hero, Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, struggles to make sense of his love interest’s passion for life on Pandora.

“Try to see the forest through her eyes,” urges Dr. Grace Augustine, played by Sigourney Weaver, head of the Avatar project.

And here we have yet another reason for scientists to love this movie. Who has not tired of seeing scientists portrayed as either grant-greedy maniacs or naïve dangers to humanity, shouting “I’m sure the creatures are friendly!” just before being devoured? In films, scientists are often assumed to be inhuman to some degree, and if they become more human as a film proceeds, it is by becoming less of a scientist.

Instead, in “Avatar,” Dr. Augustine begins as usual, abrasive and obsessed with her own project. But the audience begins to like her more and more, not because she becomes less involved with the life on Pandora, but because we become more involved with it.

“Get it?” she asks, after explaining the beauty and importance of the life on Pandora to her corporate nemesis. And though he does not, by that point, we do.

And — spoiler alert! — that is why when she, dying, arrives at the most sacred and most biologically important site on Pandora, it is with a sympathy and respect that we laugh when her first thought is that she really needs to take some samples. There is no line between her wonder, her love of the living world and her science. We get it.

James Cameron Planning 'Avatar' Trilogy

by Lindsay Robertson

By now everyone knows that not only is "Avatar" a huge hit, but also director James Cameron never expected it to be anything less than a blockbuster. So it's not a huge surprise that the director confirms this week that he has always planned to do an "Avatar" sequel, and hopefully even turn the franchise into a trilogy (you hear that, George Lucas?).

"I've had a storyline in mind from the start - there are even scenes in 'Avatar' that I kept in because they lead to the sequel," Cameron tells Entertainment Weekly in this week's issue. "It just makes sense to think of it as a two or three film arc, in terms of the business plan. 'The CG [computer graphic] plants and trees and creatures and the musculo-skeletal rigging of the main characters - that all takes an enormous amount of time to create. It'd be a waste not to use it again."

In other words: Cameron is taking a kind of "green" approach to the blue-skinned characters: Recycle, reuse, and reduce what might otherwise be underused filmmaking.

Directors often hint about sequels that never come about, but the fact that "Avatar" star Sam Worthington has already signed on to reprise his role as Jake Sully suggests the plans look pretty solid. And Cameron has had good luck with sequels in the past: "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" made more than seven times as much money as the original "Terminator"; and "Aliens," Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's "Alien" may not have outpaced the original at the box office, but it was by all other metrics a solid hit.

As for other cast members returning for an "Avatar" sequel, actor Stephen Lang, who played Colonel Miles Quaritch, the baddest guy in the movie, thinks he could make a return: "You think those two arrows in my chest are going to stop me from coming back?" Lang told EW, "Nothing's over so long as they've got my DNA."

Whatever Cameron imagines for the planet Pandora in the sequel, he'll probably stick with an environmentalist theme.

When asked this week at a private industry screening of the film in Los Angeles about the film having a "political agenda," Cameron said, "I don't know if there is a political agenda exactly, but as an artist I felt a need to say something about what I saw around me. I think we all need to take stewardship of our planet," adding: "I think everyone should be a tree hugger."

If the "Avatar" sequel does happen, it'll be a few years before audiences can lay their 3D-glasses-enhanced eyes on it. Cameron is currently in pre-production on his next movie, "Battle Angel" in which he'll use some of the same CG technology he created for "Avatar." That film is slated to hit theaters in 2011.

Avatar -- Film Review

By Kirk Honeycutt, December 10, 2009 06:38 ET

Bottom Line: A titanic entertainment -- movie magic is back!

A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world.

As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is "Avatar." And he did it almost from scratch.

There is no underlying novel or myth to generate his story. He certainly draws deeply on Westerns, going back to "The Vanishing American" and, in particular, "Dances With Wolves." And the American tragedy in Vietnam informs much of his story. But then all great stories build on the past ( "Avatar" premiered Thursday in London).

After writing this story many years ago, he discovered that the technology he needed to make it happen did not exist. So, he went out and created it in collaboration with the best effects minds in the business. This is motion capture brought to a new high where every detail of the actors' performances gets preserved in the final CG character as they appear on the screen. Yes, those eyes are no longer dead holes but big and expressive, almost dominating the wide and long alien faces.

The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet. "Titanic"-level business? That level may never be reached again, but Fox will see more than enough grosses worldwide to cover its bet on Cameron.

But let's cut to the chase: A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story (watch the trailer here).

The story takes place in 2154, three decades after a multinational corporation has established a mining colony on Pandora, a planet light years from Earth. A toxic environment and hostile natives -- one corporate apparatchik calls the locals "blue monkeys" -- forces the conglom to engage with Pandora by proxy. Humans dwell in oxygen-drenched cocoons but move out into mines or to confront the planet's hostile creatures in hugely fortified armor and robotics or -- as avatars.

The protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a disabled former Marine who takes his late twin brother's place in the avatar program, a sort of bone thrown to the scientific community by the corporation in hopes that the study of Pandora and its population might create a more peaceful planet.

Without any training, Jake suddenly must learn how to link his consciousness to an avatar, a remotely controlled biological body that mixes human DNA with that of the native population, the Na'vi. Since he is incautious and overly curious, he immediately rushes into the fresh air -- to a native -- to throw open Pandora's many boxes.

What a glory Cameron has created for Jake to romp in, all in a crisp 3D realism. It's every fairy tale about flying dragons, magic plants, weirdly hypnotic creepy-crawlies and feral dogs rolled up into a rain forest with a highly advanced spiritual design. It seems -- although the scientists led by Sigourney Weaver's top doc have barely scratched the surface -- a flow of energy ripples through the roots of trees and the spores of the plants, which the Na'vi know how to tap into.

The center of life is a holy tree where tribal memories and the wisdom of their ancestors is theirs for the asking. This is what the humans want to strip mine.

Jake manages to get taken in by one tribe where a powerful, Amazonian named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes him under her wing to teach him how to live in the forest, speak the language and honor the traditions of nature. Yes, they fall in love but Cameron has never been a sentimentalist: He makes it tough on his love birds.

They must overcome obstacles and learn each other's heart. The Na'vi have a saying, "I see you," which goes beyond the visual. It means I see into you and know your heart.

In his months with the Na'vi, Jake experiences their life as the "true world" and that inside his crippled body locked in a coffin-like transponding device, where he can control his avatar, is as the "dream." The switch to the other side is gradual for his body remains with the human colony while his consciousness is sometimes elsewhere.

He provides solid intelligence about the Na'vi defensive capabilities to Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the ramrod head of security for the mining consortium and the movie's villain. But as Jake comes to see things through Neytiri's eyes, he hopes to establish enough trust between the humans and the natives to negotiate a peace. But the corporation wants the land the Na'vi occupy for its valuable raw material so the Colonel sees no purpose in this.

The battle for Pandora occupies much of the final third of the film. The planet's animal life -- the creatures of the ground and air -- give battle along with the Na'vi, but they come up against projectiles, bombs and armor that seemingly will be their ruin.
As with everything in "Avatar," Cameron has coolly thought things through. With every visual tool he can muster, he takes viewers through the battle like a master tactician, demonstrating how every turn in the fight, every valiant death or cowardly act, changes its course. The screen is alive with more action and the soundtrack pops with more robust music than any dozen sci-fi shoot-'em-ups you care to mention (watch the "Avatar" video game trailer here).

In years of development and four years of production no detail in the pic is unimportant. Cameron's collaborators excel beginning with the actors. Whether in human shape or as natives, they all bring terrific vitality to their roles.

Mauro Fiore's cinematography is dazzling as it melts all the visual elements into a science-fiction whole. You believe in Pandora. Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg's design brings Cameron's screenplay to life with disarming ease.

James Horner's score never intrudes but subtly eggs the action on while the editing attributed to Cameron, Stephen Rivkin and John Refoua maintains a breathless pace that exhilarates rather than fatigues. Not a minute is wasted; there is no down time.

Fictional universe in Avatar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the 2009 science fiction film Avatar, director James Cameron conceived of a fictional universe in which humans seek to mine the fictional moon of Pandora, which is inhabited by a sentient indigenous species and multiple fauna and flora. Located in the Alpha Centauri system,^[1] Pandora is a lush, tropical Earth-like moon of the planet Polyphemus and is covered with rain forests. Humans travel to Pandora in the 22nd century and discover that it is occupied by a sapient indigenous humanoid species called the Na'vi. The clan with which the humans have contact to in the film "[lives] in a giant tree that sits on a vast store of a mineral called unobtanium, which humans want as an energy supply."^[2]

The Pandoran biosphere teems with diverse bioluminescent species of hexapodal fauna and flora (which form a vast, complex neural network that covers the entire surface). Their sheer importance lies in the fact that ultimately, the conciously connected Pandoran defeat of the human invaders is due to the flora and fauna, not the Na'vi. In order to make the various examples of fauna and flora as scientifically feasible as possible, they were all designed by Cameron and his team of expert advisers.^[3]

Overall development

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron spoke of prioritizing story and character over the effects technology by explaining, "When they see a Pixar movie, they don't need to know about the hundreds of artists who slaved away at computers for years to make it. It's just: Do I like this story? Do I like the characters? I think Avatar will work that way."^[4]

Cameron explained his objective to seamlessly translate actor performances into computer-generated characters, saying, "evolved from a couple of things: growing up on a steady diet of science fiction, imagining alien characters, and being ultimately dissatisfied with what was possible with makeup and prosthetics, with an actor having to be in the makeup chair for six hours a day. This technology isn't about replacing or marginalizing actors. It's about allowing actors to transform and empower them to be as creative as they want to be. And by the way, we did tall blue people with pointy ears here. But we could easily have done a straight human face if we'd wanted to ... If we had put the same energy into creating a human as we put into creating the Na'vi, it would have been 100 percent indistinguishable from reality."^[5]

If Avatar is successful, Cameron hopes to explore the other moons in future sequels, books, and spinoffs

Na'vi

One of the challenges in designing Neytiri was making her look sufficiently alien and yet familiar and appealing enough to make Jake's attraction to her natural and convincing.^[10]

In Avatar, the Na'vi are a fictional indigenous species that live on the fictional world of Pandora. They are humanoid in appearance and are 9 to 10 feet (2.7 to 3.0 m) tall, having pairs of eyes, ears, arms, and legs like humans, as well as a nose, a mouth, and expressions recognizable to humans. The Na'vi differ by having blue striped skin, pointed ears, large eyes, animal like teeth, catlike noses and tails as well as having only four digits on their hands and feet. They are also taller than humans but also have narrower proportions in body frame. The Na'vi were originally conceived to be more alien in appearance. Cameron recalled that when one of the main characters, Neytiri, was originally drawn, she had fins, gills, and other protuberances. In addition to feline features,^[11] the species was redesigned to look more like humans so audiences could relate to them better. Cameron said that Avatar was more "science fantasy" than true science fiction and said that he would explain in the novel for the film why in the fictional universe the Na'vi look like humans.^[12]

According to Entertainment Weekly, "The Na'vi can commune with animals on their planet by literally plugging their ponytails into the creatures' nerve systems. To become a warrior, a Na'vi must tame and ride a creature known as Ikran."^[11] The Na'vi also use this neural bonding system to mate with a "life partner", a bond that when made, cannot be broken in the Na'vi's lifetime.^[13]

Conceived for the film was the Na'vi language, a constructed language often spoken by the actors when they played Na'vi characters. The Na'vi language was created by linguistics professor Paul Frommer of University of Southern California. Frommer designed the language so it could be spoken by human actors, and it combines syntactic and grammatical rules from other existing languages. The professor created over a thousand words for the Na'vi language and taught the actors who played Na'vi characters to speak it for the film.^[14] When communicating to humans in the film, Na'vi characters (especially Neytiri) sometimes speak in accented and broken English.

Fauna

James Cameron's core idea for the Avatar's fictional creatures was for them to be "superslick and aerodynamic, and be like a race car with racing stripes".^[15] Neville Page worked on Avatar as the lead creature designer. He adapted Cameron's conceptions of the fauna into design that served three purposes: look expressive, function with animation technology, and be believable enough for audiences.^[16] He and creature designer Wayne Barlowe sought to base the design of Pandora's creatures on race cars, but they struggled to adapt the concept. Page drew on his education in automotive design, recognizing the irony that race cars were based on real-life animals in having "bone lines". Existing automotive designs drew from seashells, turtle shells, and insects, and the creature designers returned the design to the fictional creatures. They found the biggest challenge in designing most creatures to give them organic appearances since they lacked excessive skin texturing. Some creatures were also designed to have special breathing holes located in the trachea, copying how cars have intakes.^[15] Challenges that the creatures posed for visual effects technicians were to create believable "walk and run" cycles for six-legged creatures and believable flying for creatures that had four wings.^[17]

The fictional creatures are not connected telepathically according to Cameron and the designers. However, even though they discussed the idea of the creatures being part of Pandora's "Worldmind", they preferred to interpret the creatures as having heightened instincts. Page explained, "Animals are hooked up to this planet. We're the ones who are detached... The way I dealt with it was, We have so much rich [material] here to reference, that we don't have to dream up a whole new process of animal awareness."^[15]

The wildlife on Pandora is considered mostly scientifically valid. The fictional moon has less gravity than Earth, so the creatures' larger sizes match their environment. Most Pandoran wildlife are hexapodal, or six-legged, which would be more expected in a world with more significant gravity than Earth's. Half of all Earth's known living creatures are hexapodal (being insectile), so hexapodal creatures are possible. The fauna and the flora are also bioluminescent, which is seen in creatures on Earth, such as fireflies and algae. The aforementioned breathing holes, located on multiple parts of a creature's body other than the mouth, are similar to spiracles in some of Earth's animals.^[18]

[edit] List of fauna

• Direhorse (Pa'li in Na'vi language) is a hexapodal equine-like Animal.^[19] The Direhorse was conceived and designed by Cameron and Stan Winston Studios. Cameron described the creature as a "six-legged alien Clydesdale with moth-like antennae".^[20]

• Great Leonopteryx (Toruk in Na'vi language) is an airborne predator native to Pandora. The fierce beauty and nobility of the leonopteryx gave the species a place in central Na'vi lore and culture. It is celebrated in dance, song, and with elaborate totems that symbolizes both the fear and respect accorded to the creature. The leonopteryx is considered crucial to the Na'vi sense of destiny and interconnectedness. Prior to the events of the film, it had only been tamed five times, and Neytiri tells Jake that the riders (Toruk Makto) brought peace among the Pandoran tribes. The Great Leonopteryx and the Banshee were designed with bright colors. Page based the colors on Earth's birds, poison dart frogs, and Monarch butterflies, though he altered the patterns so that their inspirations would not be so obvious to moviegoers.^[21]

• Hammerhead Titanothere (Angtsìk in Na'vi language) is a large herbivore with a head shaped like a hammer.^[22] The creature, which resembles a cross between a rhinoceros and a hammerhead shark, is angered easily.^[20] Its hide is impervious to human ammunition, though firing on it is known to anger it.

• Hexapede (Yerik in Na'vi language) are hexapodal deerlike creatures.^[20]

• Mountain Banshee (Ikran in Na'vi language) is an airborne predator who lives in mountainous territory on Pandora. Na'vi warriors attempt to bond with a Banshee, a dangerous and required rite of passage. A Banshee bonds to a Na'vi warrior for life.^[23] Page spent the most time designing the Banshee for the film so it would be convincing when it flew or perched. The designer said, "The hardest thing of all was having a Na'vi on top of it and flying it. You had to backwards engineer it. It was like designing and engineering an aircraft."^[24] Barlowe, who contributed to the Banshee's design, was influenced by manta rays and skates as well as relatively little-known pterosaurs and plesiosaurs that had "many, unique aerodynamic and hydrodynamic" characteristics.^[15] Like the color scheme for the Great Leonopteryx, color schemes based on Earth animals were used for various Banshees, though Page was inspired by Art Nouveau prints to warp the schemes so they would not look familiar to film audiences.^[21]

• Prolemuris Blue, hexapodal creatures based on Earth's lemurs.

• Thanator (Palulukan in Na'vi language) is a large hexapodal land predator.^[25] Cameron personally designed the creature.^[26] Its appearance is similar to a panther; Cameron describes the Thanator as "a panther from hell". The director explained how the Thanator is the most fearsome creature on Pandora, "The Thanator could eat a T-Rex and have the Alien for dessert."^[20]

• Viperwolf (Nantang in Na'vi language) is a hexapodal nocturnal carnivore.^[27] Cameron described the Viperwolves, "[They are] hairless with shiny skin that looks like overlapped armor. Most disturbing are its paws, which are like leathery hands."^[20]

[edit] Flora

Flora on Pandora are of a tropical type several times taller than that existing on Earth. Many, if not all plant and animal species have bioluminescent properties.^[28] It is also proposed that most species of flora are only able to grow in the presence of unobtanium. The flora specimens seen in the film were all designed by Jodie Holt, a professor of botany at the University of California, Riverside. According to Holt, Pandoran flora are able to communicate with each other through signal transduction and are larger in size than Earth flora due to a combination of factors such as the atmosphere on Pandora being thicker, gravity weaker and due to the fact that there is a strong magnetic field.^[3]

[edit] List of flora

• Helicoradian is a carnivorous plant that has red spiral-leaves. The plants are up to 3-4m tall and, when touched, they curl and collapse into themselves instantly.

• Obesus rotundus is a tree that looks like a puffball tree.^[3]

• Pseudocycas altissima is a plant that looks like a tall Earth cycad.^[3]

• The Hometrees (Kelutrel in Na'vi language) are great enough to house hundreds of clan members. The trees are honeycombed with natural hollows and alcoves in which the Na'vi sleep, eat, weave, dance, and celebrate their connection to Eywa. Adult Hometrees are more than 150 meters tall, roughly thirty meters in diameter ^[29]

• The Omaticaya inhabit a Giant Hometree, standing roughly 460 meters tall. A distinguishable feature of the movie landscape, the tree itself is central to the movie story arc. Like many sacred sites on Pandora, the Giant Hometree sits above a large deposit of unobtanium. It is destroyed by the humans using rockets, which leads to the Na'vi clans' alliance against the humans.

• The Tree of Souls (Vitraya Ramunon in Na'vi language) is a tree where the Na'vi are able to communicate with the biological network that exists throughout Pandora. Cameron described the Tree of Souls as "a big input-output station" and was inspired to design it by bioluminescence that he encountered during night diving.^[26]

• The Tree of Voices (Utraya Mokri in Na'vi language) is the most important tree to the Na'vi after the Tree of Souls. It is smaller but its appearance is similar and it too is illuminated. Neytiri tells Jake that it allows the Na'vi to hear the voices of their ancestors. It is destroyed in the bulldozer attack by the humans.

• Woodsprites (Atokirina in Na'vi language) are seeds of the "holy tree", appearing similar to airborne jellyfish.^[20]

• Various plants and trees that look like Earth's ferns, palm trees, mosses and grasses.

[edit] Humans

Of interest to the humans is Pandora's reserves of Unobtanium, a valuable superconducting mineral valued at "20 million a kilo". The name of the material is the same that of the mythical material often referenced in 20th century engineering which is more scarce and with more advanced capabilities than currently available materials.

In the Avatar universe, humans have achieved a highly advanced technological society, dominated by corporations and industries. One of Earth's most powerful corporations is the Resources Development Administration, a quasi-governmental organization that possesses a monopoly over all the resources in the Alpha Centauri system. The corporate administrator for the mining operation, Parker Selfridge, is an archetypical capitalist. Also, according to Jake, humans have "destroyed all the green" on Earth, suggesting that there is very little, if any, plant life left.

Humans are capable of advanced genetic engineering, and can grow Na'vi bodies, modified with human DNA to allow a genetically-matched human operator to control them through a mental link.

[edit] Technology

As with many science fiction films, many space vehicles, aircraft, ground vehicles, weapons and technologies were created to fit the story. Many were patterned after historical or contemporary technologies.^[30] Concept artist Ryan Church based many drawings on aerodynamic research from previously classified NASA and DARPA technical papers. Unlike the movie Aliens which employed one drop ship from de-orbit to ground combat, several vehicles cover specific roles of utility transport, gunship, and base resupply. This is similar to the specialization of aircraft and helicopters in the United States military since the Vietnam war.

• AMP suit Combat vehicle that is worn and controlled as a large "mech" motorized suit.
• Dragon gunship large four-post ducted-fan VTOL heavily armed transport and gunship which can deliever AMP suits through drop doors.
• Hells Gate is a secure forward operating base with airfield, comparable to Khe Sanh.
• ISV Venture Star is an interstellar transport using antimatter propulsion systems to enable interstellar travel. The ISV Venture Star is one of twelve similar ships travelling between the Sol and Alpha Centauri A systems, commissioned by the RDA as mineral carriers. Based on the designs of scientist and author Charles Pellegrino, and deceased scientist and author Robert L. Forward. Charles Pellegrino served as a science advisor on the film.^[31]
• Samson is a ducted fan VTOL utility aircraft similar in appearance and role to the Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey or contemporary UH-60 Blackhawk
• Scorpion Heavily armed gunship counterpart to Samson. Similar in role and appearance to the AH-64 Apache or Hind gunships.
• Valkyrie is a space shuttle-like transport which delivers cargo and passengers to the surface. It has VTOL capability by swiveling its fusion engines, and like the C-130 Hercules was adapted as a bomber to drop daisy cutter bombs out of the rear cargo ramp.

Avatar

I just watched Avatar (the latest filmed directed by James Cameron) for the second time around (the first time was with my girlfriend). I know that the film could a blockbuster hit. But the only thing is that when I watched it the first time was I was really tired and I think I just spend about 80% of time sleeping. The total running time is about 2hrs and 30 minutes. Hell yeah… I know that my girlfriend would be angry if she knew that I was sleeping while she’s enjoying the movie. But she I didn’t know why she didn’t notice that I was sleeping for I think the rest of the movie. Then the question came into my brain, is the movie really good? , my girlfriend didn’t bother to wake me up. Or she’s been taken into the world of avatars that she left me sleeping at the theater while she’s enjoying the beautiful nature in planet Polyphemus, moon Pandora. Then the movie is finished and we eat dinner, then she do is talk about the nice place in the world of Pandora, she hoped that there is such place here on earth. All she do is talk about the world of Na’vi but I haven’t any idea of what world was it is.
The second time i watched the movie, I am convinced that James Carmeron is indeed the director of the movie. And I also realized what the freaking world of Pandora is, and the beautiful nature that my girlfriend was talking about. I was really fascinated of its nature at night, the legendary” Halleluiah mountain”, another element called unobtainium , the hometree and the avatars. The film also cites the bond of nature and its inhabitants. It shows that the inhabitants are connected to its nature just like here in earth. One famous quote I just remembered is “the skypeople destroyed their own green nature, now there’s nothing left green on earth, and now their destroying your nature” the skypeople their talking about are aliens. Yeah aliens as in Humans. Humans that will be destroying the nature to obtain the material called unobtainium. After I watched the movie the second time around I know what my girlfriend was talking about during the dinner. And I think some of my theories why she didn’t wake-up me during the movies was correct. The movie was indeed very excellent, and I think I just been brought for a world that I will a perfect nature for about 2hours and 30 minutes with my avatar.
Now I know why my girlfriend didn’t bother to wake me up. You will take to a certain world that would think a paradise. My girlfriend just asks me if there’s a place like that on earth, before then a answered yes, (yeah because I didn’t watched the movie the first time) but I was wrong then. There’s no place like that in earth.
I just watched the movie twice, and indeed I just contributed on the second highest grossing film of the history. Maybe first avatar is catching up on “Titanic”(another James Cameron film)
If didn’t watched the Avatar on theaters you might regret it. The best way to watched it is on 3D, don’t wait for DVD release. LOl by the way my girlfriend watched the movie not once, not twice but thrice. Haha.. LOl she’s addicted to the world of the so called Avatar.
Avatar could win this year’s Academy Awards for best picture.