Corrected entry: The science of Pandora is all wrong. For example, they have regular days and nights there, but Pandora is not a planet, circling a sun, it's a moon, circling a planet. The days and nights would coincide with the rotation around the planet. For an extended period, when the planet was between Pandora and the sun, it would be dark, probably weeks at a time, and the opposite for daylight hours. In addition, because Pandora is a satellite of a gas giant, that means its orbit would be millions of miles in variance. There would be a few weeks of winter as it came several million miles further from the sun in its orbit, and then it would be several weeks of blistering summer as it came closer. The vegetation and ecology of the movie are treating the moon as if it had the same cycles and system as a planet, which is impossible. Even it took Pandora a year or more to orbit its planet, so that seasons were more regular, that means it would be in darkness for months as the planet was between it and the sun. If it rotated in a month, that means that it would be going through all 4 seasons 12 times a year, or however many months there were to a Pandoran year.
Garlonuss
31st Dec 2010
Avatar (2009)
7th Jan 2010
Avatar (2009)
Corrected entry: Why don't the avatars have a GPS chip implanted in them while they are being "grown" on the trip from Earth? They lost Jake when he got separated from the group and the Marines couldn't locate him when they were fighting. You would think that the avatars cost millions if not billions to make -- and they couldn't put a $30 GPS chip in their neck?
Correction: First off, GPS requires a network of satellites around the planet in order to give the GPS a frame of reference to cue off of. But if you meant a simple locator in order to get a bearing and distance from a point of origin, remember that the location there are sections of the planet where the electromagnetic fields are strong enough to cause the naturally forming superconductor unobtanium to create giant floating islands. That amount of local magnetism would greatly hinder any kind of tracking device they may have decided to include. That's exactly why they ended up fighting where they did at the end.
Wrong, there are GPS devices that work in a mesh topology (using each other to transmit signals) plus you have the orbital space station as well. Again, a tracker could have been placed to track the body regardless of the location or altitude.
Yes, but either way it requires building enough of a network to make it usable. The humans are all centered in one or two areas and only the remote avatars are regularly sent out and there's only a few of those to begin with. There's no way they get enough locators out there to create an accurate mesh network. Besides, there's still the massive local magnetism.
How can they be using "each other" when all avatars are in the same location inside the building and just one gets lost?
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Correction: You're making wrong assumptions based partly on Earth's moon and based partly on simple misconceptions. Earth's moon is tidally locked with Earth (meaning that the same side is always facing Earth) but not all moons are necessarily like that. If Pandora is not tidally locked, it would definitely have its own day/night cycle, independent of the planet it orbited. And, yes, it's possible that it would pass in the shadow of the planet, and that would explain why the life there evolved bioluminescence so that they all glow in the dark. And it's entirely possible that we as an audience are simply not on Pandora long enough to enter into that dark season. And thirdly, given the distance that the gas giant is likely orbiting from its star, the distance change because of Pandora's orbit is completely negligable. Likely less than a percent of the total distance. Earth seasons don't happen because the distance with the sun changes. It is because the axis is tilted and different parts of the earth get aimed more or less directly toward or away from the sun.
Garlonuss ★