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The Science of Avatar
Jamie noted a bit on
The Science of Avatar running on Ain't it Cool, written by a professor of astrophysics who has worked on searching for planets and SETI. I believe I might be the last person on earth who hasn't seen it; here's hoping I can find 3 free hours over the holidays.
I haven't seen it because all of my friends have torrented the damn movie, some even watched horrible cam rips with a foreign language and no subs.
Nobody wants to go to the cinema any more.
Fuck you, torrents.
Read further down the article. He acknowledges that people have already corrected him on these points, leaving him further impressed with the movie.
John
Unobtanium was silly - the entire theater laughed out loud on that one. I look at it as Cameron respecting the viewer's intelligence. This is a story about people, and the conflict between races, etc. The reason humans are there isn't important - just that they aren't leaving unless forced. I think Unobtanium - that is, something so obviously ridiculous - is Cameron's way of saying "yes, I know it's a silly premise but let's move on". Like "dilithium"
Would you have preferred some elaborate BS? Because I'm sure they thought of it and chose this instead.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Look, the plot is basically Dances with Wolves in Space, but still -- this movie was an example of amazing, expensive effects paired with an actual story.
Want a comparison? Watch Avatar, enjoy it, and then watch something like Transformers 2, and then see if you don't vomit from sheer disgust.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Agreed, and he said this:
I do have one minor complaint, that given their networking abilities, the Na’vi should not be so technologically inferior to the humans.
That ignores the reason humans first started developing significant technology; the agricultural revolution. That was the point when we extracted ourselves from nature and took over control of food. That's what allowed us to create advanced settlements and the rest is (pre-)history, as they say.
See the philosophical novel Ishmael for the basis of this argument.
Given the "living in harmony with nature" theme in the movie, one could hardly expect the Na'vi to have done the same.
Hey mate, spare a sig?
You're going to judge it before you've even seen it?
I saw it, and I think it was a great movie. It's not Shakespeare or Dostoevsky. It's a *simple* story, painted in primary colors. Don't confuse that with bad ( Come to think of it, some of Shakespeare's stories were rather simple -- Romeo and Juliet, anyone?). The effects are also good, and are masterfully woven into the story, not just there for no reason ( Except for Cameron's canonical human in robot-suit versus giant living organism. I think it's his leitmotif of man+technology versus nature, so it kind of summarizes the whole film, one could argue.)
Hollywood will make crap movies regardless of what Cameron does. This one is good. See it in 3D; it's not just a gimmick, it aids in your immersion into a fictional world.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The plot isn't bad, it's just nothing new. When taken as a whole, the movie is wonderful.
er... Unobtanium is a word that's been used for sometime now, like before I was born. Knowing the word already and then hearing it in the film I felt that either the character was making fun of how amazing this metal was, or that James Cameron was poking fun of the "made up material/substance" we so often see in sci-fi to explain things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium
I've seen the film, in IMAX 3D (gave me a two day headache) - and I guess I missed the giant stone arches near the end of the film.
But, somebody who worked on the film anonymously emailed the writer of the article to explain some of the problems they saw. Namely: the gas giant rotating faster than it possibly could. And there is speculation that the floating mountains contain unobtainium, which is a room temp superconductor.
The mountains were formed on the land, and "broke off" sailing upwards over the magnetic pole of the planet. They are repelled by the magnetic field underneath them, counteracting gravity.
This is very silly, as minor magnetic perturbations would make the mountains flail about wildly, just as trying to hold a magnet up in the air with another magnet is very difficult.
Also, he doesn't address what properties of unobtainium exist that would likely "save Earth". Why would a rock that was a room temperature superconductor save Earth? You couldn't build nuclear power plants from it. Perhaps it has properties that make it 1000x more powerful than uranium? None of this gets addressed.
"I didn't watch it and I don't like the idea of it, so anyone who does like it is obviously a moron and is a sign of things to come for our society. Why can't people be intelligent like me and like some obscure movie by some obscure director???"
BooHoo, get off your high horse. The movie is visual excellence, nothing compares to it in that department.
If it's any consolation, Shakespeare's plays were considered trashy pulp theater at the time.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Everyone seems to be making the ASSUMPTION the the Na'vi are preindustrial.
1. The Na'vi can link directly to many other animals that are happy to serve them, and and the Na'vi in return care for them.
2. Planet wide network for storage, upload and download of information, long term store, processing, and on demand local grid processing, including the ability to do a total upload of a person.
3. Unobtainium, a planet wide "natural" super conductor that allows for floating mountains.
4. Eywa, the operating system put in place to regulate everything, including guiding the Na'vi to stay in harmony with everything else.
It seems to me that the Na'vi went though their own singularity, and what we see as primitive is the biotechnology leftovers from a older culture, but they have set themselves and their decedents with a ideal environment, the ability to live, have kids, grow old, then upload when the time is right. Use large off-planet element nuclear synthesis to create the unobtainium, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability ), and setup the biosphere and the infosphere for long term in habitation by ignorant people. In a head to head comparison of Na'vi vs humans, the Na'vi are superior in almost everyway.
Medicine - Eywa takes care of that much better.
Education - A direct mental link for sharing of information.
Physical form - not much is explained beyond carbon fiber in the skeleton, but onscreen of what Jake goes though is beyond what a normal human can handle.
Information storage, processing & retrieval mostly superior, with the exception of speed given the late start the other animals had in the battle.
Long term care of their wold and sustainability - Although the world seems genetically engineered for the Na'vi,over time some drift has occurred as not all animals retain their friendliness, but in times of crises, can revert back.
Given that this is part 1 of 3, and the hints on screen and referenced to, this is my suspicion. Most people have problems thinking about the singularity as it is so encompassing, enabling, and yet compressing. The Na'vi are just one result of who remains after a biological singularity.