Cameron selects an Avatar

Renato · January 6, 2010

It seems fairly obvious that people that hated the film have one thing in common, some sort of personal dislike for Cameron first.

I hated the film but I've loved all of his other films... Well, except Titanic.

Edited January 6, 2010 by Renato

eugimon · January 6, 2010

I hated the film but I've loved all of his other films... Well, except Titanic.

btw. the boat sinks. sorry if I ruined the movie for anyone.

kaiotheforsaken · January 6, 2010

btw. the boat sinks. sorry if I ruined the movie for anyone.

DAMNIT

RDClip · January 6, 2010

It seems fairly obvious that people that hated the film have one thing in common, some sort of personal dislike for Cameron first.

I wouldn't say that is entirely true. I'd say the rational people that hated the movie hate movies that make up for poorly written stories with fancy CG. I didn't care how good Revenge of the Sith looked when it had such a terrible script that was equally poorly acted (and i like Ewan McGregor in most his movies)

I myself sort of disliked the movie(its good the first viewing with such a simple plot designed to get a simple emotional response), but didn't hate it. Moreso, i felt it let down itself with such a weak story. I hated Titanic for how overrated it became (and evidently drove Cameron kinda crazy enough to spend the next decade making underwater documentaries) And just to be clear, i usually like Cameron's films; Aliens and The Terminator are two of my all time favourite films.

Edited January 6, 2010 by RDClip

CoryHolmes · January 6, 2010

It seems fairly obvious that people that hated the film have one thing in common, some sort of personal dislike for Cameron first.

Maybe we just expect more from the man who imagined the Abyss and the Terminator. Those were thoughtful, inventive, and entertaining effects flicks done right.

peter · January 6, 2010

Regardless, it did and is doing quite well.

Once you're at the top of your game, there's only one place to go, and that's down. People expected Cameron to fail, maybe even wanted him to fail, and when he didn't, it just pissed them off further.

I didn't read any of the commentaries, predictions, or hate-threads based on the teasers and trailers, nor did I go watch this movie because someone told me to or said it was worth watching. I had no idea what this movie was about and went in a completely blank slate, not knowing what to expect. I figured it couldn't be as crappy as that Final Fantasy movie that came out a few years ago (Spirits within?). I was just bored one night and went to see it. It was just luck that I bought the tickets ahead of time, albeit I had to sit in the very front row, on the very far left seat, but somehow I still found myself liking the movie, even though my view was complete crap and my neck hurt for days after. And as I said in an earlier thread, I'm so glad I didn't read any of that $hit before I went to see the movie.

It's too bad for those who hated it, or thought they would hate it didn't enjoy the movie like I did. I'm not going to try and make people like it or make them say it's a good movie....All I can say is, too bad for you that you can't draw the same satisfaction from it as I have.

Yeah, I'd say Cameron phucking awesome, but the reality is he can't win 'em all over.

EXO · January 6, 2010

Maybe we just expect more from the man who imagined the Abyss and the Terminator. Those were thoughtful, inventive, and entertaining effects flicks done right.

You hated the movie BEFORE you saw it, so your expectations were biased to begin with.

I hated the film but I've loved all of his other films... Well, except Titanic.

I don't disprespect everyones opinion who hated the movie. But it seems kinda silly to go see a movie that's written, directed and produced by someone and come out surprised that it's dripping by their ideologies. And as if you've never seen a Cameron film before, they're almost all about technology vs. nature. What's the big surprise? Really? It took you this long to figure it out? :rolleyes:

anime52k8 · January 6, 2010

btw. the boat sinks. sorry if I ruined the movie for anyone.

btw, btw. you never see the witch and everyone dies, Tim Roth is a cop and everyone gets killed but mister pink,bill dies, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are the same guy, Samuel L. Jackson caused all the accidents, Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze, Snap kills Doumbledore, it's all Just a dream and there is no spoon.

I think that just about covers it.

Renato · January 6, 2010

I don't disprespect everyones opinion who hated the movie. But it seems kinda silly to go see a movie that's written, directed and produced by someone and come out surprised that it's dripping by their ideologies. And as if you've never seen a Cameron film before, they're almost all about technology vs. nature. What's the big surprise? Really? It took you this long to figure it out?

I never said I was surprised, maybe you confused me with someone else. But since you asked...

Here's how I see it. Avatar is not "technology vs. nature", rather, it's "humans vs. indigenous aliens". Terminator was all about humanity championing their cause against the cold, restless killing machines. Avatar is all about humans having become those cold and restless killing machines, and how we have to USE technology to rid ourselves of this humanity. That's the whole idea behind the avatars in the first place. I'd say Cameron did a total 180 right there.

Ironically, I would even go as far as suggesting that, as far as implicit messages are concerned, Terminator Salvation is a much more traditionally Cameron-like movie in that respect -- basically, humans have hearts but machines do not. After having seen Avatar, I really do wonder what kind of movie we would get if hell froze over and fans actually got their wish of Cameron returning to the director's chair for a new Terminator sequel.

To be clear, I do not have much of a problem if Cameron wants to preach: it's his movie, whatever. I only said I "hated" the movie because I felt ripped off with the paint-by-numbers simplistic, seen-it-all-before story, and the ticket price, since the 3D showings are much more expensive than standard movies. And the only thing that really seemed to come out at me were the bloody subtitles, anyway.

But, whatever, it's not the end of the world. There's still always True Lies. :lol:

A million apologies, but I do want one final stab:

He "wrote" it?? The only original thing in that script was the word "Unobtanium" and that's nothing to be proud of!

Thank you, I'm really sorry, that's it.

Edited January 6, 2010 by Renato

EXO · January 6, 2010

Oops. Sorry Renato. That "you" in my last repsonse wasn't specifically you... I meant to start another paragraph.

I guess I have to disagree about the 180 thing. Humans in this film already = technology. But it's still kinda moot because I'm not into the whole "ewoks beat the empire" or "hobbits beat the army of mordor" thing either.

As for T: Salvation... that is insane!!! That movie was so bad and boring. That's what I meant about people are more apt to be harsher on Cameron becuse he DID direct Aliens and Terminator, that they're willing to forgive the trash that McG's movie is.

And there's no way I would want another Terminator from Cameron... we've seen it. Even if Avatar wasn't to my liking I'd rather see another film that is different. Even I don't want to see an Avatar sequel. Maybe if it was written as a trilogy I'd be up for it but it seems like it's a done story. Just like Terminator 1 should have been. Again, I enjoyed T2, but it seemed to have made a mess of the first movie's continuity. That's the thing with Avatar and T2 as much as I want to complain about what it affects outside, the movies themselves are highly enjoyable and a treat to watch.

It's OK Renato... like I said... I can consider your stabs valid because it's actually about the movie. Its the ones that were biased against the whole experience or against Cameron to begin with that I find kinda silly.

taksraven · January 6, 2010

Maybe we just expect more from the man who imagined the Abyss and the Terminator. Those were thoughtful, inventive, and entertaining effects flicks done right.

The Terminator, yes, the Abyss, no. I dunno what it was about the Abyss, I think I just hated a lot of the characters. Cameron rarely gets beyond cliched characters.

Taksraven

taksraven · January 6, 2010

This is political, but it is in context. Its a review of Avatar by Australia's pissweak version of Anne Coulter, Miranda Devine...

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/hit-by-the-l...00101-llpp.html

What amazes me is how the right try to discount the film and whinge about its simplistic message, but its always obvious that they hear it loud and clear......

Taksraven

EXO · January 6, 2010

The Terminator, yes, the Abyss, no. I dunno what it was about the Abyss, I think I just hated a lot of the characters. Cameron rarely gets beyond cliched characters.
Taksraven

Have you seen the special edition? The story is more solid with the parts that was unwittingly taken out.

taksraven · January 6, 2010

Have you seen the special edition? The story is more solid with the parts that was unwittingly taken out.

Yep, I have an old VHS copy of it around here somewhere. It certainly is a superior version, but there is still some character stuff that makes me grind my teeth. (I am fairly sympathetic to Biehn's character when he is listening to the others crapping on about the alien and he is cutting himself in frustration.)

Taksraven

Omegablue · January 6, 2010

I find it funny how the certain people that have criticized Avatar for bad script, actually have dreadful use of sentence structure and grammar of their own. Nice.

I also really don't understand the various opinions and reviews across the net, about the story being unoriginal? Which movie is not based on a villain's intent challenged by hero's rise? Even teenage love films are based on that aspect. (Ps, not Twilight, even just the basic type)

Then I guess everyone might as well no longer watch any of the movies this year, cause their story is as unoriginal?

Whilst for those on a hateful trip against Cameron, firstly lets see your work? Secondly read the following. Which in my view is conclusive that Cameron as a director did more actual research than any other director in a long time. This to me is commitment not only as a director or an artist, but also by someone that has pride in his work.

First, a little background: I’m a professor of astrophysics who has

searched for planets, worked on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial

Intelligence) programs, and taught classes on life in the universe.

Right now, I’m helping to build a global network of telescopes to

search for planets and supernovae.

That is a long-winded way of saying that it is part of my job

description to think about the possibility of life on other worlds.

So when James Cameron makes one of the most expensive movies ever

made, and one that puts us right in the middle of an alien culture… in

3D.... well to say I’m interested doesn’t begin to cover it.

Since the movie has already been reviewed to death, I’m going to focus

on something that hasn’t been covered yet – the science. But while

this is interesting exercise, for me it is story first, and science

second. I’d put it like this:

Copernicus’ Law of Science Fiction: Bending the laws of

physics out of service to the story is fine, doing it out of ignorance

is unconscionable.

I don’t mind if the ships in Star Trek can go faster than the speed of

light – otherwise the story would be pretty boring. And I know

there’s no sound in space, but I want Star Destroyers to

rumble, and the Millennium Falcon to have that iconic whine. But if a

director casually gets science wrong for no real reason other than

that he is stupid or lazy (see ARMAGEDDON, THE CORE, and THE DAY AFTER

TOMORROW, to name a few), then to hell with him. If the filmmakers

don’t respect the intelligence of the audience, I’m not going to

respect the movie.

Fortunately, James Cameron has a knack for science that rivals his

moviemaking skills.

THE SCIENCE OF AVATAR

Historically, movie directors have had their asses kicked by

astronomers as far as taking us to exotic worlds. For the most part,

movie planets look like an extreme form of Earth -- they almost always

have an oxygen atmosphere at an Earthlike pressure and gravity. Movie

planets don’t even come close to matching the diversity of worlds in

our solar system: the surface of Io is a mottled, sulfurous

orange-yellow, constantly being repaved by volcanoes shooting hundreds

of miles into the sky. Titan has a thick smog atmosphere that blots

out the sun and rains hydrocarbons. Mars has planet-wide dust storms

and a 17-mile-high volcano that nearly reaches above the atmosphere.

Venus has a crushing, choking sulfur dioxide atmosphere with a

pressure 92 times that of earth, and a temperature that can melt lead.

Enceladus shoots ice geysers into space. And the real Pandora orbits

within the rings of Saturn. These are only a few of the hundreds of

planets, minor planets, and moons in our solar system: we’ve

discovered hundreds elsewhere in the galaxy, some of which seem even

crazier: super-Earths, nearly boiling puffed-up Jupiters, and objects

that may be free-floating rogue planets without a star.

So I can’t think of a better use for 3d and a few hundred million

dollars of effects than filmmakers starting to raise the bar to

finally approach the awesome reality of nature. Due to the limits of

budgets, finances, and creativity, I can’t think of another film that

has attempted something near the scale of what Cameron has done here.

I’ll address the different aspects of the science in sections.

FLORA AND FAUNA

From a visual perspective, Avatar’s Pandora is breathtaking. While

most movies have only hinted at the exotic nature of their worlds with

an establishing matte painting or two, here Cameron takes us on an

elaborate three-dimensional tour though various habitats, from the

treetops to the forest floor. He’s created a whole ecosystem, from

semi-intelligent trees to giant land and air creatures. Most seem

inter-related via symbiotic relationships. In fact, Cameron has taken

the Gaia hypothesis, that the biosphere of the Earth is itself a kind

of living entity, and sexed it up – the biosphere of Pandora is

essentially a god, and it’s networked! Creatures can plug into each

other via what amounts to USB hair and fiber optic roots. While some

of these ideas are not without their faults (see below), Cameron gets

points for creativity – this is true science fiction, not space opera.

I do have one minor complaint, that given their networking abilities,

the Na’vi should not be so technologically inferior to the humans. On

Earth, the largest barrier to technological progression was that

information that existed in the brains of primitive humans could not

be easily shared or preserved. As soon as writing was developed,

suddenly it was possible to store information outside of the brain,

and record and build upon knowledge. The knowledge available to a

human or tribe went from one brain’s worth (and a minimal amount of

oral tradition), to thousands, and ultimately billions of brains’

worth. The result was a technological and social explosion. Hominids

have had technology like spears for about half a million years, but

only 7,000 years after the development of writing we had left the

planet. And the sharing of knowledge is still undergoing a revolution

with the development of the internet. Now we have instantaneous

access to the combined knowledge of the entire history of humanity.

Since the Na’vi have had the ability to download information and share

it in a massive network for long periods of time (evolutionary

timescales), they should be way ahead of us in terms of technological

development. Still, I have to give Cameron a pass here. It is

thematically necessary that the Na’vi are technologically primitive,

and their root-network is necessary to the plot. Maybe you could say

that they could have evolved more technology, but they don’t need it

or want it. Still, that reeks of the “Noble savage” idea, and I have

to agree with Stephen Pinker that that is a bunch of hoo-ha.

But my major complaint from an evolutionary standpoint is that there

is no way in hell that life on Pandora would evolve to look so similar

to Earth life: there are humanoids, space horseys, hammerhead

rhinoceri, and pseudo-pterodactyl beasties. And to make it worse,

they have DNA, and the DNA is close enough to our own that Na’vi and

human DNA can be combined! Again, I have to give Cameron a pass.

First, it is easier for the audience to relate to familiar things.

And more than that there is a significant plot point that I won’t

spoil towards the end of the film that hinges on humans and Na’vi

having similar DNA.

One way out of both my evolutionary nitpicks is the panspermia

hypothesis -- that life in the galaxy was seeded in multiple places by

an advanced civilization. But even then the odds against evolution

producing such similar animals on different planets is astronomical.

Since we have a clear record of evolution on Earth, some civilization

would have had to keep taking specimens from earth, first

pterodactyls, and ultimately humans (after they evolved), and then

would have had to deliver them to Pandora, possibly modified via

genetic engineering. That would be an interesting sequel: humans and

Na’vi come together to confront their godlike humanoid ancestors!

Grade on astrobiology: A for the scale of the ecosystem, C for being

too much like Earth – call it a B overall.

WORLD AND STAR SYSTEM

Pandora is a moon of Polyphemus, a fictional gas giant orbiting Alpha

Centauri A. I’ve always wanted to know what the view would be from

the moon of a gas giant. Can you imagine a quarter of the sky being

taken up by a massive cloud-covered planet visible night or day? We

get to see it in Avatar, and since Jupiter is the king of the gods,

maybe majestic is an appropriate word to describe it. I wonder if

Cameron’s choice to set this on the moon of a gas giant wasn’t a slap

in the face to Lucas, as if to say “this is RETURN OF THE JEDI done

right.” (I know it is ambiguous in the Star Wars universe whether or

not Endor orbits a gas giant.)

But what had me really geeking out is the choice of the star system.

Alpha Centauri A is perfect. First, as the closest star system to the

sun (4.37 light years), it may well be the first star we travel to.

Second, it is familiar in that you can see it with the naked eye if

you live in the southern hemisphere – it is the brightest star in

Centaurus. Actually, what appears to be a single star can be resolved

as a binary system if you use a telescope. It is Alpha Centauri A, a

bit more massive than the sun (1.1 solar masses), and Alpha Centauri

B, a bit less massive than the sun (0.9 solar masses). The choice of

G-type stars near the mass of the sun is great – they last for

billions of years – plenty of time for life to evolve. They are in an

elliptical orbit around a common center of mass, which means they come

together and drift apart over the course of one 80 year orbit. The

two stars get as close as 11 astronomical units (an AU is the average

Earth-Sun distance; 11 AU is about the distance to Saturn), and get as

far apart as 36 AU (about the distance to Pluto).

Would you see the companion star (Alpha Cen B) in the sky from

Pandora? That depends on where it is in its orbit. At the farthest

distance it would be a few hundred times the brightness of the full

Moon as seen from Earth. But your eyes are logarithmic detectors, so

it would actually only seem a few times brighter than we perceive the

Moon. At its closest approach, Alpha Cen B would be a few thousand

times as bright as we see our Moon. This is not all that bright – in

comparison, on Earth the Sun is about half a million times brighter

than the Moon. So on Pandora, if Alpha Cen B is up in the daytime

then you might not even notice it, depending on how far away it is in

the sky from Alpha Cen A. But if it is up at night (as it would be

for half the year), it would never get completely dark – the sky would

just be kind of dark blue.

Technically, there is a third star in the system, Proxima Centauri,

but it is a tiny red dwarf a huge distance, about 12,000 AU, away – it

is not even clear it is bound to the system. At any rate, it would

not be prominent in the sky as seen from Pandora. Incidentally, my

first job as a graduate student was to help calibrate the fine

guidance sensors on the Hubble Space Telescope to help my advisor look

for planets around Proxima Centauri. Sadly, we didn’t find any.

It is an interesting question as to whether planets around either

Alpha Cen A or B could exist in stable orbits that would last for

billions of years. You might think they couldn’t because the gravity

of the other star would perturb any forming planet.

However, simulations show that at least at Earth-like distances,

stable planets can form in that system.

Grade for astronomy: for the choice of star system, setting in on a

moon, and around a gas giant, Cameron gets an A+.

THE STAR’S EFFECT ON LIFE

Electromagnetic radiation comes in many forms, gamma rays, x-rays,

ultraviolet, visual, infrared, and radio. Our eyes evolved to see in

the narrow range that the sun has its peak output -- the visual band

-- and the flora and fauna of Earth evolved pigments and colors that

work at these wavelengths. But this isn’t universal -- some animals

can see a narrower region of the spectrum than us, and others see

farther into the ultraviolet or infrared. Our cornea blocks most UV

light, but bees, for example, don’t have one and can see farther into

the UV. They can see patterns in flowers that we can’t.

In fact, colors are really something manufactured in our brain –

physically colors are just different wavelengths of light ranging

uniformly from short wavelengths (violet) to long (red). What we see

as blue or green or red helps us differentiate sky from grass from

blood, but to a creature from another world, all these things might

appear as the same color. In fact, you could imagine that bats might

use echolocation to “see” rough surfaces as one color and smooth

surfaces as another. So since colors are something created by our

brains and not intrinsic to the universe (only wavelengths of light

are), it is virtually certain Pandorans would see color differently

than we do.

Alpha Cen A has almost the same temperature as the Sun, but it is just

a bit hotter. As a result, the star puts out most of its light at

visual wavelengths just like the Sun. But the star’s output is only

part of the story – the oxygen and ozone in our atmosphere block much

of the ultraviolet light from the Sun, and water vapor blocks some of

the infrared light. Pandora doesn’t have an oxygen atmosphere (if the

movie mentioned what gasses it contains, I didn’t catch it), so we

might expect more of the ultraviolet light to reach the surface. The

creatures there might be able to see farther into the ultraviolet.

There might be all kinds of patterns that the inhabitants of Pandora

can see that just look blue to us. Maybe that’s which there are so

many blue colors in the film. To take this a step farther, I would

have loved to see a scene where a character sees beautiful colors or

patterns as an Avatar, only to have this beauty evaporate into a

uniform sea of blue when he sees the same vista with human eyes.

Another feature of Pandora adding to the ubiquitous shades of blue is

that bioluminescence seems to be a staple of the ecosystem. As

Massawyrm points out, this makes sense for a world that may spend days at a time

shrouded in darkness. Remember that a day occurs when Pandora rotates

on its axis. But it might take a month or so to orbit its gas giant,

which we know looms large in the sky, and could blot out the sun for

days.

Grade for the astrophysics: For the fact that this world doesn’t have

an oxygen atmosphere, and the plausible use of color, A.

PHYSICS

Since Pandora is a moon and is presumably smaller than the Earth, the

gravity would be lower. This is alluded to in the film, and creatures

do grow larger and survive falls from greater heights than you could

on Earth. I wonder if Cameron dialed in a different gravity to the

physics engine rendering everything. To my eye, for at least the

human scenes, the gravity looked just like Earth gravity, but then

again if the gravity is close the differences can be subtle.

Virtually all science fiction movies feature planets with gravity at

1g, since, of course, until now, filming has always been done on

Earth. Since here so much of the world was created inside the

computer, I would have liked to see this aspect pushed a bit farther.

In one of my biggest pet peeves regarding the science of Avatar, there

is one scene where the gas giant, Polyphemus, can clearly be seen to

be rotating in the span of about a second or two. Let’s say it

rotates about a degree out of 360 degrees in those 2 seconds. That

means it makes one rotation in 720 seconds, or 12 minutes! Jupiter

takes about 10 hours to rotate. So the gas giant in Avatar rotates

about 50 times faster than Jupiter. Winds on Jupiter can exceed 100

meters per second, so the winds on Polyphemus would have to exceed

5000 m/s – this is supersonic and clearly implausible. Here’s one

case where Cameron opted for visual effect over realism, but to me the

bargain isn’t worth it. It looks unrealistic and takes me right out

of the movie. But I do like the look of the clouds on Polyphemus –

they look like a cross between Neptune and Jupiter. The highlight is

a giant storm resembling Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. That is

particularly appropriate for Polyphemus, named after a mythological

cyclops.

But my biggest beef in Cameron’s trading physics for visuals is those

goddamn floating mountains. Seriously, floating mountains? How the

hell do they stay up there? This is such an egregious flouting of the

laws of physics that surely there is some reasoning behind it.

Between the fact that Pandora seems to be sort-of at 1g, the

impossible rotation of Polyphemus, and the floating mountains, physics

is one one area AVATAR gets a marginal fail on Copernicus’ Law of

Science Fiction. But on all the other aspects of science, Cameron

gets either a pass or passes with flying colors.

The dream of interstellar travel will only become a reality far beyond

our lifetimes. But I love the fact that today I can be deeply

immersed in not just a plausible, but a compelling alien world just by

putting on a pair of 3D glasses and visiting my local theater. Even

if I have to drive 100 miles to see it in IMAX, that is nothing

compared to interstellar distances! And I love that there is a

filmmaker that plays more than lip service to the science in his

films, stimulating discussion and thought about distant worlds among

geeks everywhere. I was inspired to do astronomy after seeing STAR

WARS as a kid. I’m willing to bet that a fair fraction of tomorrow’s

astronomers will have decided to devote their life to the discovery of

new worlds because of AVATAR.

Mail Copernicus

-- Copernicus

Thanks for the enthusiastic response to the article. Thanks for all

the emails, and it is nice to see some interesting discussion in the

talkbacks (who knew?). A few updates:

People have sent links to several sources that explain many of the

questions I had. One is the pandorapedia. Another is A

Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of

Pandora. And people sent the script treatment. I have not read

the entirety of that last one yet, but the first two are interesting

reading.

Levitating mountains: As dozens of people have pointed out, the

mountains supposedly contain unobtainium, a room-temperature

superconductor. Superconductors expel magnetic field lines, and as a

result magnets can levitate above a superconductor. Here

superconducting mountains are apparently levitating over the strong

magnetic field of the moon or planet, or both. I had thought about

some kind of mechanism like that but dismissed it for two reasons:

(1) how could mountains form, stay in place, be weathered and shaped,

etc. (2) if there is unobtanium in the floating mountains, why not get

it there so as not disrupt the Na'vi. But I think I was just

short-sighted. In the case of (1), the intention is that the

mountains started out attached, but broke off and floated upwards at a

certain point, and now they sort of float around. I buy that, at

least enough for a cool movie scene. And for (2), maybe the

unobtanium in the mountains isn't the right kind, or isn't pure, or is

hard to mine. Interestingly, a geologist emailed me with another

sighting indicating the strong magnetic field of the planet: the stone

arches seen at the climax seem to be from mineral growth along

magnetic field lines. Awesome.

Plenty of people have asked where the water comes from for the

waterfalls in the floating mountains. To me, it is just like a normal

mountain, with the bottom missing. Where does the water come form in

normal mountains with waterfalls: rain and snow. Yes there was tons

of water, but have you ever been to Yosemite in the spring? When the

snow melts it all comes down at once, and it is an impressive sight.

And this is a little out of the purview of this article, but plenty of

people have also asked why the humans didn't nuke the planet from

orbit. (A) maybe they didn't bring any -- the proverbial "somebody's

gotta go back and get a shitload of dimes" problem, and (B) you people

scare me! Why doesn't the US just nuke countries we don't like? That

is not cool, man.

Planet rotation: Someone affiliated with the film who asked me not to

name them (but who ought to know) says the planet rotation scene was

intended to be time lapse. Brilliant. I'll have to see it again to

confirm that, but I'd buy it, because I think there were other shots

where the planet didn't seem to be rotating quickly.

Oxygen atmosphere: I said that Pandora doesn't have an oxygen

atmosphere, but I was wrong about that -- it does, but it has other

gasses that are poisonous to humans. Clearly Cameron, a fellow diving

and deep sea enthusiast, thought of this, because the people only need

simple gas masks to breathe, and not huge oxygen tanks.

DNA: The Pandorapedia says the Avatars don't have DNA, just something

analogous so that you can map to it. Great! Although, from my

memory, the movie implies they do have DNA. I'd need to see it again

to be sure. Maybe the character explaining it knows as much about DNA

as most people do and just got it wrong. If I had a nickel for every

time I was at a partly and someone told me that they heard that "they"

(meaning scientists) have broken the speed of light, teleported

something, etc.

Interstellar travel: From the pandorapedia: "Mission Profile: 0.46

year initial acceleration @ 1.5 g to reach 0.7 c; 5.83 years cruise @

0.7 c; 0.46 year deceleration; 1 year loiter in orbit around Pandora;

Mission Duration: 6.75 + 1.0 + 6.75 = 14.5 Earth years. However,

relativistic effects shorten the time onboard ship to slightly less

than 6 years each way."

Hmm, I don't think that calculation is quite right, but it is close

enough. To see, let's take the special relativistic part, the

cruising speed. If ET is Earth Time, ST is Ship Time, v is velocity,

and c is the speed of light, then ET=ST/SQRT(1-v^2/c^2). So

ST=5.83*SQRT(1-0.7^2)=4.1 years for the cruising. Even if you assume

there is no time dilation on the accelerating and decelerating parts,

then the trip is only 5 years, not 6. Maybe they are including the

hanging out on Pandora time. To do the calculation correctly I'd have

to drop some GR on you bitches, and I'm too lazy and you'd be bored.

70% of the speed of light is a good figure though -- it is almost

plausible! From what I've read of the ship technologies, they sound

very well thought out too.

Eyes: One of those sources mentioned that some of the creatures have

two pairs of eyes -- one visual, and one that sees in the IR for

nighttime hunting. Sweet! This is not without precedent. We have

two separately evolved "circuits" for vision in our brains -- one

primitive automatic one and another one for conscious sight. Look up

"blindsight," where people with damage to the latter circuit can't

consciously see, but can catch a ball. And of course we have two

types of cells for day / night vision in our eyes: cones that allow

you to see color when there is plenty of light, and rods that allow

you to see black and white only, but give you night vision. Try this:

put an eye patch on while you are inside for about 30 minutes, then

go out where it is dark and blink between your dark and light adapted

eyes. You can really see the color difference. It is awesome.

Wow, it appears that many of my nitpicks about the science were

actually taken into account by the filmmakers and there are answers.

I'm impressed! Hats off to Cameron and company for getting all this

right. I can't wait to use this film in my introductory astronomy

classes.

-Copernicus

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440

Duke Togo · January 6, 2010

It seems fairly obvious that people that hated the film have one thing in common, some sort of personal dislike for Cameron first.

LOL, right. Which is why I've seen every movie he's done besides his first two (Piranha II and The Terminator) in the theater during their run, and have them all on DVD. Clearly, I hate the man. :lol:

Duke Togo · January 6, 2010

I hated the film but I've loved all of his other films... Well, except Titanic.

How can you hate Titanic? Kate Winslet is in it!

the white drew carey · January 6, 2010

He "wrote" it?? The only original thing in that script was the word "Unobtanium" and that's nothing to be proud of!

Actually, 'unobtanium' has been around since the 50's in both real-word engineering and sci-fi.

Cameron didn't even make that up.

Duke Togo · January 6, 2010

Have you seen the special edition? The story is more solid with the parts that was unwittingly taken out.

Including the "beat you over the head" ending? I really like The Abyss, but the extended ending is weak and unnecessary. It's as if he decided he wanted to make an entire movie like the ending of the extended cut of The Abyss, and made Avatar.

I have ALOT of problems with this film, but I enjoyed seeing it in the theaters in 3D. If people can see it in 3D, I recommend that they see it. I just feel let down by Cameron; I expected much more out of this film.

eugimon · January 6, 2010

Actually that the Nav'i are technologically stuck mirrors human development. There's an idea that says that the more access a particular people have to natural resources and the more hospitable the environment is (up to a certain point), the less likely they are to develop more advanced industry. If you look at the resource rich areas of the world, mainly the equatorial tropics, you'll see that human culture stalled out roughly around bronze age. Compared to their cousins in more northern climates like Europe or East Asia, there's a distinct lack of progress across the board, textiles, agriculture, pottery, metal working, etc.

The nav'i appear to have no need for technology outside of what they already have and thus having no outside pressure to promote it, they didn't.

peter · January 6, 2010

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440

Holy $hit...................can't argue with that.

Edited January 7, 2010 by >EXO<

promethuem5 · January 6, 2010

Holy $hit...................can't argue with that.

Holy $hit, why would you quote that whole block of text for a one-like reply? Pay attention.

EXO · January 6, 2010

LOL, right. Which is why I've seen every movie he's done besides his first two (Piranha II and The Terminator) in the theater during their run, and have them all on DVD. Clearly, I hate the man.

it seems to me that everyone, including people that hate Cameron went to see the movie, or at least downloaded it and watched it several times. And that's not evena guess, it based on comments on this thread.

Speaking of...

None of these numbers impress me. Adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind is still number 1 all time at the box office. 3D ticket prices inflate Avatar's take even more.

Do you even know what that means? That's just one of those numbers that fanboys love to blurb about... Do you understand that you're comparing ticket sales from a movie thats been out since 1940? To a movie that's been out less than a month. Also, both movies have been released under different circumstances... number of movie houses, Home releases (meaning less follow up theatrical releases), population and worldwide tracking. I mean you just say whatever and pretend it matters. These 2 movies will never have anything to do with each other and never will.

spacemanoeuvres · January 6, 2010

Saw this in IMAX 3D over the weekend. 3D was neat, the movie itself was...meh, forgettable.

Can't understand why folks are that excited about one way or the other.

eriku · January 7, 2010

Saw it again tonight in 2D and I actually enjoyed it more. The 3D was very cool, but I felt like I was less distracted with the 2D version. Can't wait to get the DVD and check out all the behind the scenes making-of stuff that is bound to be on it.

nugundamII · January 7, 2010

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440

yeah yeah blah blah blah im a professor of looking at stars blah blah your all stupid and im smart blah blah blah look at me i can calculate the square root of Jupiter blah blah blah you didnt like the film you hate cameron!

whatever

geez .... just cause im critical of a movie that was ok for only backgrounds but lacked any real story i hate cameron WOW!

then your write this unnecessary long winded speech about science. Dont presume that some of us here are not knowledgeable of current scientific discoveries. I for one subscribe to and read science publications. I am amazed at what they are discovering. You mention super earths but that is just theorizing a rocky planet and has nothing to do with "earth like" Currently they can only detect Jupiter sized planets as they pass along an orbit around the star. There is a project in place that should be able to detect smaller planets but then again its a stretch to detect anything close to the size of our earth and the fluke of it being in the Goldilocks zone is very rare. If I want to watch a scientific film some come to mind where films have a good story which tie the viewer to the characters. I like that. I like feeling something for the character on screen. And a lot of us are saying that. But they are also saying that its cool to watch the special effects.

"In one of my biggest pet peeves regarding the science of Avatar, there