Avatar (again)

[ysengrin]

A few (non-spoiler) things to think about ... and a warning that comments may well *be* spoilery, so avoid this thread unless you've seen the film.

The environment of Pandora has been worked out in great detail for the film. All the 'higher' life is based off of a hexapod (six limbed) base. With a very notable exception - the Na'vi.

The avatars are supposed to be a hybrid mix of human and Na'vi. Aside from the interesting point that life on Earth and Pandora must have a lot of similarities for that to work (and that Earth biotech is really, really advanced), the film offers a lot of details that show the avatars are *not* Na'vi -- they smell different, have a different number of fingers and possibly other gross differences as well.

Pandora seems to be the only source of Unobtainium (which is supposedly a room-temp superconductor, though I'm not sure that's stated in the film). Is it possibly biological in origin?

There's also a big chunk of ecological speculation that *is* spoilery, so I'll leave it for later.

Comments

Re: This comment contains a minor spoiler.

[aeto.livejournal.com]

It was subtle at first... I noticed every time someone would get on or off one of the riding animals, they would run their hand down the left tentacle thing (I lack a good name for it). Only later did I realize they were detaching their hair-tenticle-thing from the animal's. They'd similarly reach for it when they first mounted the animal.

Did you catch the "interesting" comment at the start? When Jake first was in the Av, he reached for his pony tail, and ran his fingers over the little tentacle things. Someone near him (Grace?) made the comment, "don't play with that, or you'll go blind."

Uh.... I wonder if that means... Hmmmm...

Re: This comment contains a minor spoiler.

[pippinbear.livejournal.com]

That was one of the "good bits" of the film for me; when I noticed, for example, what they were doing early on in the film as they got on and off their mounts and figured out they were mentally linking to the animals, that gave me a pretty good feel. It was nice not to have to be told some things, but to figure them out for myself. Gave me the impression I was, in some minor way, doing a bit of science for myself. :)

Re: This comment contains a minor spoiler.

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

Oh, the "weird stuff" certainly works with the Na'vi; but I wonder if the "weird stuff" on the avatars was not properly functional as the folks who made the hybrids would have no idea what it was for -- or because of the density of (assumed) sensory endings it was assumed to be a secondary sexual characteristic.