Avatar (2009) - 22 questions

Question: I've got two questions 1)What Neytiri meant when she said that she mated with Jake before Eywa? 2) How did Tsu'tey know that Jake and Neytiri have mated?

Answer: (1) Neytiri means that she has bonded with Jake in the eyes of their deity, that, by Na'vi tradition, they are effectively married. (2) Jake and Neytiri show up holding hands, and it's clear that Tsu'tey, who was already suspicious that they had an affection for each other, spots it. He's not stupid, he can work it out for himself.

Question: Does this movie take place in the same universe as ALIENS?

Answer: No. The Alien franchise, which kicks off in the year 2122, depicts a human civilisation in possession of faster-than-light transport and multiple interstellar colonies. The civilisation seen in Avatar, the majority of which is set in 2154, do not appear to have FTL travel, as they take six years to travel to the Alpha Centauri system, a distance of approximately 4.5 light years.

Question: What does the mineral the RDA is after do? It's probably a superconductor, but it could also be a catalyst for hydrogen production (explains the floating mountains), or elements from the Island of Stability*, which are super-nuclear-fission fuel. Is it added to other materials to make them stronger and better, like platinum? Does this mineral make practical fusion possible, or even antimatter reactions? Is it an actual anti-gravity mineral? What is it? *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium_(Star_Trek)Fictional_elements_and_materials.

Answer: It's described as a room-temperature superconductor. That's all we get. Its primary purpose is to drive the plot.

Question: Can someone explain how the link between the human and the Avatar is actually completed? There does not seem to be a physical link. Does it have a range?

Answer: While the precise details are never spelled out, each avatar is created by combining native Pandoran DNA with the DNA of the intended user, hence the avatars resembling their human selves. This allows a neural link to be created, using unspecified technology, between the human brain and the genetically similar brain of the avatar, allowing the user complete access to the senses of and control over the avatar body. If there is a maximum range over which this can be achieved, it is not mentioned at any point in the film, although the fact that all those using the avatars are present on Pandora would seem to rule out the link functioning over interstellar distances.

Question: Now for people who have mastered the art of nearly light speed travel, wasn't it odd that they could not have destroyed the tree of souls with missiles launched from a distance? Dropping explosives seems so primitive.

Answer: This is answered in the movie itself. The Flux Vortex area in which the Tree of Souls sits interferes with the instruments of weapons and aircraft, rendering them imprecise or unusable. This is why every time the pilots flew into the Vortex, the had to navigate by sight alone.

Question: All the creatures in Avatar are six-limbed but the Na'vis are four-limbed. Isn't it a fault in an evolutionary point of view?

Answer: Not really. It simply means that the Na'vi split off from the common Pandoran ancestral tree much earlier in their development, before six limbs became a common element. This could also explain why the Na'vi only have one sensory appendage while most of the other life forms have two.

Question: Why doesn't Jake show any kind of emotion when he watches his brother being cremated at the beginning? I realise that the brother was the higher achiever of the two, but to not show as much as a tear for him seems really odd to me.

Answer: He knew his brother was dead, had been dead for some time. It's likely he'd already done his grieving. Also, he's a marine; he's certainly seen a lot of his comrades fall. Death is part of his way of life.

Question: This question is more based on the soundtrack of the movie. After comparing the soundtrack CD to the music scores in the movie, I noticed there's some moments where the music is only heard in the movie, such as when we're first introduced to the floating mountains or the flute music that plays when Jake learns to ride on the direhorse. My questions are: Why were these left out of the soundtrack? And where can I find similar tracks to these? Not exact tracks, in case I can't find them, but similar music.

Answer: Simply put, there is only a finite amount of storage space on a CD and something's got to give, so the composer and James Cameron decide what stays and what goes. As for finding similar music, one of the many criticisms of the Avatar soundtrack is that certain parts of it sound too much like other James Horner soundtracks. For instance when Neytiri is in the battlefield looking bewildered as people and animals are dying around her, many of the musical cues are a direct lift from Horner's other composition for Enemy at the Gates, and this is not an isolated case either.

Question: When Jake and Neytiri return to Hometree, how did Tsutey know that they had mated with each other?

Answer: Jake and Neytiri were holding hands and Neytiri had her hair unbraided. It is also possible that when Na'vi mate, their appearance changes slightly in a way that only other Na'vi could see.

Question: I'm assuming that floating rocks are made from Unobtanium - thus able to fly. But where did they get all the water to supply the waterfalls?

Answer: It's never stated that the floating mountains are made from any particular substance. And it's doubtful they're made from unobtanium, otherwise why would they need to mine it from underneath the Na'vi's tree? The mountains float because of some magnetic properties in that area of the planet. As for the water, I imagine it comes from the same place water comes from on mountains on Planet Earth -- melting snow.

Question: Jake's paralyzed legs really look small and thin and weak. How did they make the actor's legs look like that, since he's not really paralyzed? Or did they edit a pair of fake legs in?

Answer: It would have been done with digital effects.

Question: When they get the injured Grace to the Tree of Souls, she's naked, just covered in vines. How did they get those plants to cover her and hold onto her like that? And why use plants, and not common human underwear? And come to think of it, why does she need to be naked in the first place? Sure, the roots need to access her body, but wouldn't it do to just access her head?

Answer: It's a semi-religious ritual being performed by a deeply spiritual alien race. As a result, the answer to any question along the lines of "Why does it have to be like this?" can only be "Because it just does".

Question: Why are humans unable to breathe the air on Pandora? A lack of oxygen seems plausible, but then the fires which erupt during the Hometree bombing wouldn't be sustained.

Answer: Couple of possible reasons. (1) There is oxygen, hence the fires, but it's got something toxic mixed in with it. (2) It's not oxygen, but another gas capable of allowing combustion to occur. Either way, humans couldn't breathe it.

Question: When Neytiri's father dies, he gives her his bow. Does that make Neytiri the chief? Or is Tsu'tey the chief now? And who's the chief after Tsu'tey dies? I read somewhere that Jake has got the face markings of a chief in one of the final scenes, suggesting he's the new leader. Though that seems a bit weird, given his lack of experience.

Answer: After the death of Eytucan, Tsu'tey becomes the chief - he was established as chief-in-waiting earlier in the film. After Tsu'tey is killed, the implication is that Jake becomes the new leader - while, yes, he lacks experience, he nevertheless has the respect of the clan for his taming of the Toruk and his role in subsequent events. Also, bear in mind that the Pandoran wildlife entered the battle en masse, something that Neytiri interpreted as Eywa, the Na'vi deity, answering Jake's pre-battle prayer. Between his status as Toruk rider, his actions in the battle and his apparent endorsement by Eywa, that would be more than enough for the highly spiritual Na'vi clan to make Jake their new leader.

Question: What do they need masks for when Pandora has enough oxygen to sustain fire?

Answer: First, oxygen isn't the only gas that burns. But more than that, they specifically say that the atmosphere is toxic. If that's the case, it doesn't matter how much oxygen there is. They simply get poisoned.

Question: Do the Avatar alien creatures on Pandora connect with horses, dragons, the soul tree or whatever with their tail or a pigtail in their hair or both?

Answer: The connect with the pink fibrous tentacles contained in their hair.

Question: There is one part of the film I didn't quite understand. The whole war at the end of the movie was to stop the humans to bomb the Tree of Souls. However, wasn't that tree already destroyed by the dozers the morning after they "mate for life"? Also, how was Jake with the tree praying before the war when it was destroyed?

Answer: I was confused about that too, when I saw the flim, but it's actually the tree of voices that is destroyed, not the tree of souls. They look almost identical, the tree of souls is never destroyed. That's what Jake is praying to before the war.

Question: Is it really likely that a main governing body on Earth wouldn't have a say in whether or not humans eradicate a whole species, not just on Earth, but on another planet, and a humanoid species at that? It just seems odd that a mining company owner has the final say on whether a scientifically significant race lives or dies.

Answer: Earth is six years away. The company can do whatever the hell they like, partly because there's nobody there to stop them, but mostly because ultimately what people really care about is results. If they keep up a steady flow of unobtanium, whatever methods they took to get it will be largely ignored. And with nobody around to say otherwise, painting the Na'vi as the aggressors in the situation would be relatively easy, allowing them to claim that they were merely defending themselves and that the Na'vi brought it on themselves by their hostile actions.

Question: Are the Na'Vi aware or at least able to sense if one of their kind is an Avatar? They don't seem all that surprised when they encounter one of their own kind wearing army clothing and wielding a human weapon (they actually go so far as to dub Jake a 'dreamwalker,' which I took to be their term for a Na'vi body being remotely controlled by another being), yet later on when Jake and co.'s true status as impersonators is revealed, Tsu'Tey makes a huge uproar of disgust about it.

Answer: I think the fact that the Avatars all wear human clothing is a bit of a give away; the Na'vi simply tolerate the avatars (remember Neytiri tried to kill Jake). Tsu'Tey isn't angry that they are actually human, he's angry that their ulterior motive is trying to get them to leave their home.

Question: Did journalists disappear by 2113? Why didn't Jake and the scientists try and contact someone on Earth (or even upload the whole thing on Youtube of the future)?

Answer: Because it wouldn't really do any good. Firstly, as is observed in the film, while bad publicity isn't ideal, it's worse to come back with no profits. A successful mining mission, even with some local casualties, would swiftly override any negative publicity from actions taken to secure the prize. Plus, they're six years away from Earth. Even if they could somehow get a message out through a communications system that's likely rigidly monitored by the company running the operations, it's not as if any backup could rush to help them - all they have to work with is what's right there on-planet.