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Where the frig in the Periodic Table does one find "Unobtanium"?

Jesus H Christ. It's fiction. Fiction usually contains at least some fictional elements. The establishing premise of the story is that a mineral is discovered that is so valuable (a naturally occurring room temperature super-conductor) that it motivates humanity to undertake the incomprehensible expense of mounting an expedition to another star.

Did you hate the mystical golden glowing suitcase in Pulp Fiction too? It's called a MacGuffin, get over it.

Entity, meet biological warfare (easily possible, given the ease with which the DNA was replicated) and a gaggle of large asteroids being flung at the surface just for good measure (also possible, given the massive energy require to go FTL (or was it near-light?) speeds in the first place).

Right, run into trouble with the natives, level the fucking planet. Destroy the life-supporting capabilities of an entire habitable world (potentially the ONLY accessible habitable world other than Earth for all we know). Brilliant. Let me guess, you think the Middle East should be turned into a sheet of glass to make it easier for the oil companies?

Plus you know, it's a mining corporation. They brought a small defence force, not extinction-level bioweapons. And your argument that "because they managed to make it to another star, clearly they can throw asteroids around like tinkertoys" is just an assumption on your part that is not supported by anything we've been shown.

That being said, I fully expect Earth to return to Pandora in one of the sequels, and retaliate with far nastier weapons.

The truth is that Cameron puts a lot of thought into his world building, even if a lot of it doesn't make it up on the screen. (Because Cameron understands mass appeal, and that doesn't include technobabble). I've read he's written a multi-thousand page "Bible" that Avatar is based on. The thought that has gone into it is actually pretty fascinating. Ie, ISV Venture Star is a pretty interesting read... especially the part about how is was more economical to have the engines at the front, angled out slightly and "pulling" the crew habitat along, instead of a more conventional, rigid design with the engines pushing the ship. That's a LOT of thought to put into the spaceship design, when you consider it's onscreen for maybe 20 seconds.

(Pandorapedia, btw, is an official 20th Century Fox site, not just some fans making shit up)

Read about the design of the star ship in Pandora:

http://www.pandorapedia.com/human_operations/vehicles/isv_venture_star

For example:

Engines:

Two, arranged symmetrically in a tractor configuration. They are angled outward a few degrees off the ship’s longitudinal axis so their exhaust plumes bypass the ship’s structure. This results in a slight cosine loss to thrust efficiency, and the body of the ship must be shielded from the plume’s thermal radiation, but the mass-savings advantage of a tensile structure outweigh these disadvantages. Since a very long truss is needed to separate the habitable section of the ship from the engines which produce large amounts of radiation, such a structure would be prohibitively massive if it were a conventional space-frame truss designed for compressive loading. But the carbon-nanotube composite tensile-truss creates the necessary stand-off distance at one tenth the mass. Essentially it is a tow cable with enough torsional rigidity to allow the ship to maneuver, including the pitch-over maneuver which must be performed to turn 180 degrees for the deceleration burn when inbound to Pandora.

There's tremendous amounts of thought that went into creating the universe of Avatar (I read they wrote a 5000 page "bible"), even if the majority of it didn't make it up on screen.... because James Cameron (apparently unlike you) understands what makes a movie sell (hint: not scientific exposition).

That's one reason I am really looking forward to the book, Cameron will get a chance to insert a lot more of the detail that was left on the cutting room floor for the movie.

But the Na'vi don't have fur. I don't understand why people keep saying they do.

Because they are clearly shown to in the movie? Anyway, I looked up the "canon", and Word of God says they have hair, "although Na'vi cranial hair raises another question, as no other Pandoran animal observed to date possess hair".

Like humans, they only have patches of fur, but they do have fur. So there. :->

Indeed. Check this out if you haven't already: http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star

I don't think there was anything in that movie (except, perhaps, ironically, for the near light-speed travel the humans used) that wasn't feasible

It appears a lot of thought went into that as well, the Pandorapedia* goes into a lot of detail on that starship we see: http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star

It even posits a propulsion system (photons produced from matter/anti-matter annihilation, magnetically accelerated by the superconducting Unobtainium) that seems, at least to a layman like myself, to be plausible. They then accelerate over 6 months to 0.7C.

Huge kudos for not skipping/cheating on the whole interstellar travel physics like, well, pretty much every other sci-fi movie ever made.

*Disclaimer: I don't know if the info on Pandorapedia comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure looks like more than your typical fanboy post-hocs.

According to the Pandorapedia, the starship we see at the beginning is only one of twelve in a constant supply chain. The round-trip time is given as 14.5 years, so one may posit that 5-6 ships are already en route, with the next one due to arrive in about a year.

Cameron and co evidently wrote a 5000-page "bible" for his universe, I think a LOT of thought has gone into everything.

I don't know if the info at http://www.pandorapedia.com/ comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure doesn't look like some fanboy just "made it up"; the detail is fascinating. Take for instance this excerpt about the design of the starship we see at the beginning:

http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star

Engines: Two, arranged symmetrically in a tractor configuration. They are angled outward a few degrees off the ship’s longitudinal axis so their exhaust plumes bypass the ship’s structure. This results in a slight cosine loss to thrust efficiency, and the body of the ship must be shielded from the plume’s thermal radiation, but the mass-savings advantage of a tensile structure outweigh these disadvantages. Since a very long truss is needed to separate the habitable section of the ship from the engines which produce large amounts of radiation, such a structure would be prohibitively massive if it were a conventional space-frame truss designed for compressive loading. But the carbon-nanotube composite tensile-truss creates the necessary stand-off distance at one tenth the mass. Essentially it is a tow cable with enough torsional rigidity to allow the ship to maneuver, including the pitch-over maneuver which must be performed to turn 180 degrees for the deceleration burn when inbound to Pandora.

Awesome.

Cameron and co evidently wrote a 5000-page "bible" for his universe, I think a LOT of thought has gone into everything.

I don't know if the info at http://www.pandorapedia.com/ comes from a Cameron approved source, but it sure doesn't look like some fanboy just "made it up"; the detail is fascinating. Take for instance this excerpt about the design of the starship we see at the beginning:

http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star

Engines: Two, arranged symmetrically in a tractor configuration. They are angled outward a few degrees off the ship’s longitudinal axis so their exhaust plumes bypass the ship’s structure. This results in a slight cosine loss to thrust efficiency, and the body of the ship must be shielded from the plume’s thermal radiation, but the mass-savings advantage of a tensile structure outweigh these disadvantages. Since a very long truss is needed to separate the habitable section of the ship from the engines which produce large amounts of radiation, such a structure would be prohibitively massive if it were a conventional space-frame truss designed for compressive loading. But the carbon-nanotube composite tensile-truss creates the necessary stand-off distance at one tenth the mass. Essentially it is a tow cable with enough torsional rigidity to allow the ship to maneuver, including the pitch-over maneuver which must be performed to turn 180 degrees for the deceleration burn when inbound to Pandora.

Awesome.

Acording to Pandorapedia there should be now another ship on the way due in less than a year. Flying at 0.7 c . Powered by antimatter . Should I say relativistic antimatter weapons ? Lets see who wins the second round :)