The Many Questions of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’
For the full review of James Cameron’s Avatar, click here. In the scorecard review format there is a section called ‘Questions.’ No matter how beautiful this film was to look at, there are many questions I have left. And since it’s more than usual, a small paragraph just wouldn’t do. Plot spoilers will be discussed, so if you want to go in fresh … avoid this article.
Why do we need Avatars?
This should be an obvious question. Apparently we need to be able to get along with the Na’vi, and the humans decide the only way to do that is to look exactly like them. But, it’s obvious the Na’vi recognize that these blue things aren’t like the others. So, why not just be humans, and approach the Na’vi that way? The Na’vi embrace all living things. Why not humans?
Were the avatars supposed to be from another tribe?
Eventually we realize that there are many tribes on the planet of Pandora. Were the humans as avatars trying to trick the Na’vi into thinking they were from an English speaking tribe who likes school? And exactly how long was Grace trying to teach them?
Unobtanium – Why is it worth anything?
It’s called unobtanium because it’s unobtainable. Yes, Captain Obvious, but why does it have value? Is it an energy source? That’s never mentioned. So, since that would have taken one sentence like, “Do you realize one ounce of unobtanium would run our factories for five years?” We have to assume unobtanium is like diamonds. They are worth something because we have decided they are. So are we the only planet that wants them? Are we selling it to other countries, planets? No clue.
Is the U.S. military going after unobtanium or is it a business?
I’m leaning toward business. I think Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, is a CEO-type, right? That would make everyone else some sort of contractor for hire. The tough part here is that Stephen Lang is playing a character called Colonel Miles Quaritch. But I think he’s retired from the military. Plus, Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) says she wasn’t hired for this stuff (killing). Also, Parker’s team and the Na’vi are the only ones on the planet, right? We didn’t see any reporters there that would tell on the humans for killing the Na’vi, right?
Is this a time where having sex with other species is the norm?
Here’s the thing, Jake Sully has sex with Neytiri. Yes, he is in his avatar at the time. But, that’s not the issue. The issue is, why is he attracted to her? His human mind finds her hot.
Can anything inhabit the body of the Na’vi?
To me, this is the really big question. OK, there’s this magical tree, that has lots of feelers, that can take one living thing and bring it into the body of a Na’vi. The Na’vi knew this. That’s why they took Grace there. So, how did the Na’vi know this? My theory, this is like the cow’s milk thing. At some point, somebody had to me the first to drink the a cow’s teat. Actually, that theory doesn’t really work here. So, my thought is that at one point a Na’vi and a squirrel-like creator from Pandora were hanging out by the tree, and then all the sudden, BAM … that squirrel’s brain was inside that poor Na’vi’s body.
Hard sleepers?
So, until the very end, wasn’t there any moments where Neytiri thought that Jakesully (what the Na’vi called him) was an insanely hard sleeper? I mean, did he just always seem to have perfect timing until the military started yanking him out of his avatar body?
There are lots of avatars at camp, why would Jake go into the jungle?
So, Jake’s first (or second) day in an avatar body is the day he joins on a mission? He doesn’t know the area, he doesn’t know the creatures, he doesn’t know friend or foe. Yet they hand him a gun, and tell him to protect the others.
We need to dig, can we?
That seems to be the question some human should have asked the Na’vi. Not sure if that ever happened.
Is The ‘Avatar’ Story Headed Towards Another Planet?
James Cameron Announces “Avatar Day” on August 21, 2009
Avatar – interview with director James Cameron
Avatar day – August 17 – from Titantic director James Cameron
More questions with James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’
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Here’s a better question. So the humans have designed this avatar technology that is supposed to be incredibly expensive. We see a fair number of Avatars in the human camp, so this isn’t something brand new, Jake isn’t a test model or anything like that. So on top of all the previous questions here: why in God’s name would you spend all this time and money designing these perfect avatars and then say ’screw this plan! Send in the marines!’ Surely someone with some brains would be sent in to compete with the CEO guy and Colonel Duke Nukem. No, Sigourney Weaver’s character doesn’t count because she clearly has no power or authority over them.
It seems like a colossal mismanagement of time and resources. You’ve just discovered an alien world people! Surely the scientific benefits of studying every facet of life on this world is more important than obliterating the local population to steal some metal! Metal that’s purpose isn’t even explained!!!
“why in God’s name would you spend all this time and money designing these perfect avatars and then say ’screw this plan! Send in the marines!’”
According to the movie, it seemed that the Corporation (which remains unspecified) thought that the natives could be easily bought out and moved from their current location (much like the Native Americans). After years of attempted diplomacy, Quaritch and Parker begin to get fed up. What a lot of people seem to miss is the fact that Jake Sully is actually directly responsible for the invasion.
SPOILERS
Remember the video log that Jake records? In one of them, he clearly states that the Na’vi will not leave their homeland under ANY circumstances. After hearing that, Quaritch and Parker decide to use military force against the native people. So, it seemed that Parker was reluctantly supportive of the Avatar program up to the point that he hears Jake’s video log. So, the story isn’t really as incoherent as everyone is making it out to be.
I have a question, does anyone know aprox how many board feet were in the Na’vi’s “Home Tree” I would really like to know. I bet it was in the millions if not billions. So not only were the humans going to profit off of the metal but also they could have harvested the wood to build houses and infrastructure. It’s too bad all of the capitalists got sent back to Earth. If they would have stayed they could have turn that planet into something wonderful.
You mean like Detroit?
Wait, didn’t we overlook the weapons? At the very beginning of the movie, we have a 14 or so foot tall avatar with a gun that looked like it was to scale. That is a very big gun. And the first two of the local wildlife were completely unaffected by it. Yet the locals use nothing but but pointy sticks and arrows. Which (spoiler alert) bounces harmlessly off of helicopter glass. Until a couple days later, after they are supercharged by magic and can take down helicopters in one shot. This is good because prior to this, their greatest threat was a bulldozer which they were completely defenseless against. Now they are safe until someone decides to go after Unobtanium with anti arrow technology, which naturally will never happen as they’ve only managed sophisticated space travel thus far.
Brilliant. Thanks. Totally forgot about the arrows. I did talk to my friend about that after we saw the film. Here’s my hunch, they got a couple of extra stars, or bonus points, or whatever they save up for in this video game, and traded them in for BIG arrows. That’s how they took down the helicopters.
Good point about the arrows! Missed that myself.
I think that the “very big guns” that the humans have don’t change anything about the arrows defeating helicopters. First of all, they could only take down the helicopters in one shot if they hit the operator; not to mention that the arrows didn’t penetrate the glass of the bigger helicopters with one shot, just the smaller ones with one or two people inside.
I don’t remember in detail the scenes you’ve described in the movie, but, as far as I can recall, Grace tells Jake that his gun shells would not kill the “titanothere” and the “thanator” because of their heavy organic body armor. It is safe to assume that Na’vi arrows cannot kill them either and that the Na’vi don’t hunt those particular animals (or so I guess). In the movie, Neytiri does kill though a “viperwolf” to save Jake’s life. According to the Pandorapedia, the viperwolf’s body is also armored, but apparently it is not invulnerable to Na’vi weapons and , accordingly, I assume it should not be invulnerable to human guns either (Jake didn’t shoot at the pack of viperwolves though; instead he tried to scare them off with fire). There is another scene where, as part of his training, Jake makes a “clean kill” with an arrow, but I don’t remember what animal he was shooting at. Most likely, not all Pandoran animals are armored or invulnerable. The point is that those which are, like the aforementioned thanator and the titanothere, are a match even to 22nd-century mechanized warfare, as shown in the final battle scene. Note also that, even though a Na’vi cannot kill certain animals, he/she can however control them by “mind-melding” with them. Most Na’vi apparently can do it with the “banshee”; Jake in particular could mind control a “toruk” (lenopteryx) and Neytiri is shown in the end of the movie to be able to bond with a thanator (the same animal Jake couldn’t kill with his gun). On the question of arrows penetrating the gunships’ glass, I’m afraid I don’t have a logical explanation (I’d have to watch the movie again to look for an answer).
I imagine the guns were designed for those huge ass machines that regular soldiers used. They were just roughly Avatar height so it worked for both.
But yeah, those animals the Na’vi do NOT hunt. They hunt a deer-like creature.
Digging around in some of the back story materials for this movie, I noticed they mentioned the arrow thing. It’s ballistic glass on those choppers, but if you launch your arrow from a fast dive it’s going much faster than when you fire it from the ground. I imagine it would have to hit fairly perpendicular, or it would just glance off.
“Horse archers riding at 40mph on a horse gained around 25% extra penetrative force when firing their arrows (Go Mythbusters!
)”
“At the very beginning of the movie, we have a 14 or so foot tall avatar with a gun that looked like it was to scale” Jake was in Avatar form when they got off the Osprey looking gunship and he picked up one of the door guns to tote with him. It was like carrying around a cannon compared to the other guys just carrying regular machine guns. I noticed that too, I thought that was funny that he just picked up the door gun and started off with it. Reminded me of ripping guns off tripods in Halo ODST and carrying them around.
With regards to the arrows, (spoilers) the first lot are all glancing hits which still cause scratches, and the shots where they go through the glass are point blank range in a straight line through the glass – they are right in front of the helicopters. So it is plausible
(1) Humans need avatars because they can’t breathe Pandora’s air (rich in ammonia and Co2). The amount of time they could stay outside wearing masks is limited. (2) I believe the Na’vi fully understand that the avatars are vessels for “dream-walking” humans and not people from “other tribes”
(they’re actually quite smart , you know !). BTW, avatars are actually called “dream walkers” in the Na’vi language. (3) “Unobtainium” is valuable because it is a room temperature superconductor capable of generating huge magnetic fields. It is used for example in the matter/antimatter annhilation engines of Earth’s interstellar space ships and is critical to 22nd-century Earth technology. (3) The RDA is a private corporation that hires former US military personnel as security ops. Strictly speaking, it is not a government operation. Earth governments, through something called the “Interstellar Commerce Authority”, have however granted the RDA monopoly rights over interstellar commerce and mining. (4) Jake’s sexual preferences are none of my business. (5) Pandora actually has as a biological neural net that functions with bioelectric signals flowing through tree roots. The “sacred tree” appears to be the central hub of that net, like a central biocomputer where brain information (memories, conscience, etc.) from other life forms (including aliens like Grace or Jake) can be “downloaded” or even “uploaded” to other bodies. Apparently, the biological neural net is also itself sentient and can communicate telepathically with the Pandora fauna (through the antennae that most animals seem to have on their heads). That’s how it tells the animals to attack the humans as self-defense. The Na’vi also have a more limited capacity of “mind-melding” with other animals by attaching the neuro synaptic conduits that grow from their cortexes to the aforementioned antennae of the animals. Using the same mechanism, they can also tap into the biological neural net to access e.g. a database of memories of their deceased ancestors. I don’t know how they “discovered” those capabilities, but it’s actually part of normal Pandoran life evolution, unlikely though that would be in a real-world scenario. Scientifically, it has nothing to do really with “souls” or “deities”, but rather with biolectric signals and neuroconduits. An important point is that, while Pandora looks DECEPTIVELY primitive, its ecology is actually HIGHLY EVOLVED, in a scale that is not found anywhere on Earth. (6) I also asked that myself and I don’t know how the Na’vi interpret the avatars’ “long sleep” cycles. (7) Jake had military training. Therefore, he was considered useful out in the field. (8) Yes, Parker mentions they tried to negotiate with the Na’vi , offered them “medicine”, “schools”, “roads”, etc, but apparently “there was nothing” the humans could offer them that they considered useful. Given how similar the Na’vi are to humans, I find that rather unlikely though. Probably, it was the company’s fault that they did not have anyone on the staff with the appropriate diplomatic skills to negotiate with the Na’vi. And, yes, humans definitely MUST dig or, otherwise, without the unobtainium, Earth’s economy would collapse and interstellar travel itself would be impossible (a terrible scenario for Earthlinks, comparable to cutting down the “Tree of Souls” for the Na’vi).
Sweet … that’s what I’m talking about. Most impressive Mbruno.
As far as I know, most Avatars had their sleep cycles in the base itself. Jake was teh first allowed into teh camp (which was why he was so damn tired, as he had to ‘wake’ with the Na’vi.) Even Grace wasn’t allowed into the Hometree till Jake was there a while.
1- Firstly, to last for extended period of time in the atmosphere without the breathing masks. To better appeal to the Na’vi, as the Na’vi DO embrace most things…
But they still have an insane dislike for humans and even after all these years, (See below.) it has only slightly improved.
3 – No way an Avatar could be mistaken for a Na’vi. Avatars are a mix of Na’vi and Human DNA and it shows physically. Avatars have five fingers, Na’vi have four, for example. It’d be like …like a pure Japanese woman and a half Japanese, half English woman. There’d be differences.
4- According to the ‘Guidebook’ , it’s being mined to solve the energy crisis on Earth. The movie is set a hundred and fifty years ahead… bet there’s no more oil. 1kg = 20 million dollars.
5 Both, most likely. But it’s mostly business if they hire soldiers and freelancers… there’s no one country involved.
6- No. Na’vi are the first aliens that humans have come across. However… Jake probably isn’t the first to sleep with a Na’vi. See 7.
7- Probably not… Avatars are just human DNA genetically merged with Na’vi DNA so transfering conciousness from one brain to another is fairly easy. If it wasn’t, there’d be no Avatars.
Also, the reason they knew it would work was because Jake wasn’t the first human to be transfered. 20 years beforehand, another human was given the transfer for saving Neytiri’s younger sister from humans.
8- Well, they called them dreamwalkers. There must have been some understanding of how an Avatar worked. Grace probably explained it. She always seemed to be blunt and honest, which is probably how she made friendships with them.
9- Because all the other Avatars were scientists. Would you really trust a weapon to an untrained scientist? Also, in answer to the person who commented about the size of the gun, those guns were probably designed for those giant metal human robot things. Which are the size of an Avatar.
10- It probably did happen, this entire thing started at least 20 years earlier.
how do you know about no. 7?
Offical James Cameron released game for ipod and iphone. (Offically from him, that is.) Shows them as being there 20 years earlier and follows the story of the first human to become Na’vi.
Also shows why Neytiri and parents have such a hatred for humans.
would it be too much trouble if out of serious curiosity i asked you to elaborate on that story?
It’s pretty small and simple, from what I can tell, it is an iPhone game. hehe
Seems like someone called Ryan was one of the first to be an Avatar there. He made friends with the Na’vi, slowly. Came to like them a lot.
Neytiri’s sister was captured by humans during a raid and it was Ryan who lead the party who rescued her a while after. He was given his Avatar body for good.
Some Scientific type niggles.
1) Trees leaves are green, logical conclusion, tree leaves contain chlorophyl. Why isn’t the oxygen count higher in the atmosphere?
2) On the subject of atmosphere – flames – wouldn’t they burn differently in an oxygen poor environment high in ammonia(?)? (I missed the atmospheric composition)
3) The atmosphere would most likely act as an irritant on exposed skin if it was high in ammonia.
4) Even though it was stated that the gravity was 50% of the earth’s, it was never realized in the film. Actions would be exaggerated in lower G, wouldn’t they?
According to what I read, it’s a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere at similar levels to Earth, but with 18% CO2 and a little bit of Hydrogen Sulfide from all the vulcanism (not mentioned in the movie). I’m guessing that the high CO2 makes it impossible for our lungs to offload our own waste CO2 and we pass out. I’m also guessing that if it weren’t for the Hydrogen Sulfide irritating your airways, you wouldn’t even notice you’re breathing the wrong air, and wouldn’t reach for a mask in time.
The same source mentioned it was 80% Earth gravity.
Ok, It’s the Hydrogen Sulfide that must be the issue.
Shamelessly copied from wikipedia:
0.0047 ppm is the recognition threshold, the concentration at which 50% of humans can detect the characteristic odor of hydrogen sulfide [1], normally described as resembling “a rotten egg”.
Less than 10 ppm has an exposure limit of 8 hours per day.
10–20 ppm is the borderline concentration for eye irritation.
50–100 ppm leads to eye damage.
At 150–250 ppm the olfactory nerve is paralyzed after a few inhalations, and the sense of smell disappears, often together with awareness of danger,
320–530 ppm leads to pulmonary edema with the possibility of death.
530–1000 ppm causes strong stimulation of the central nervous system and rapid breathing, leading to loss of breathing;
800 ppm is the lethal concentration for 50% of humans for 5 minutes exposure(LC50).
Concentrations over 1000 ppm cause immediate collapse with loss of breathing, even after inhalation of a single breath.
end quote
Near the end of the movie where Jake is exposed to the outside air, he starts breathing very rapidly – that’s got to be the Hydrogen Sulfide.
i still wanna know how they do it. i’ve been thinking about it, and it would be really weird if they used their hair tentacles. i mean, it would literally be like using a sex organ to control animals and connect with the past and nature. its just odd. it leads onto the rather perverted question of wether that means they can make their banshee’s feel good too? unless, heres a theory, they have sex organs, but also use their hair tentacles simply for ‘connecting’ and hieghtening the sensation?
The ‘tentacles’ are just nerve endings leading to the brain. It’s like… like if we psychically connected our brain to a horse while we rode it. Or if we connected it to a lover as we had sex.
It is simply an added way of connecting. They have the usual reproductive organs. Connecting the ‘tentacles’ is like… well, like claiming their bancheee. It is their way of claiming each other as mates for the rest of their life.
yeah i get it now, if you go to the site james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com it like explains everything, thanks though
They way they “Do It” would take on an entirely new meaning to them. As they make it abundantly clear they are deeply involved and connected to all living things, I would assume 2 people focusing their “connections” in a highly emotional state would be pleasurable. Neytiri was extremely loving and peaceful if you will to everything she bound to. There will be many holes if you hold everything to human standards. I personal thought every important question had a pretty nice answer.
A sincerely odd thing that has bothered me since TRULY A GREAT QUESTION;
How come when Na’vi, mainly as a whole, know that these “Avatars” are “DREAM WALKERS” and not actually part of a Na’vi tribe. For example, at one point the “psychic queen” says the “Sky people” cannot learn our ways, and says this to JakeSully’s Avatar, as if she knew HE was a “DREAM WALKER” inside the avatar and not actually a Na’vi. BUT when JakeSully inherently “dies” out of the avatar because the (big red button) was pushed, the entire Na’vi tribe sees this and GASPS, saying, “see! it was a fake! it was a demon!” As if they didn’t know that before…
Did they really know these fake Na’vi look-alike Avatar’s were really being controlled by the “sky people” ?
That my friends, is a question that continues to bug me.
I’ll be back to this page to see if anyone has an answer.
It’s because, because teh Avatars are a genetic mix of Na’vi and human, have traits that are unique and obvious. Such as five fingers (where Na’vi have only four), smaller irises compared to Na’vi, ect.
They probably gasped because, let’s face it, how often would they have seen the removal of a dreamwalker from the body? They clearly have some idea of how it works if the Avatars are called Dreamwalkers… but to see it like that is a different thing. Usually they’d see at the most an Avatar/Dreamwalker lie down and appear to sleep till the next day.