Avatar [SPOILERS]

[Aaron]

Yup.

[Deepcrush]

Theres nothing saying they can't come back and mine somewhere the natives aren't. Though that would make for a pretty boring film.

Going back to the old case of no one really getting how big a planet is?

But what if the world is flat and their ships fall off into space at the edge of the world!!!!!!!!

[Sionnach Glic]

Then the answer is simple. Humans will land on the upside-down part of the planet and begin mining from below the Na'vi.

But if they are faced with 15-20 years without no matter what they do, then it may be better to just stop using unobtanium. Earth did without it before it was discovered, after all; if necessary they can again. It's a matter of whether the cost of converting back to whatever they used before is greater than the cost of struggling on for 20 years and then (maybe) having it again.

I've still not seen the movie (I'm going to see if I can get a ticket today), so I'm not sure how vital Pandora's unobtanium reserves were. Did Earth have other possible mining sites they could exploit in the meantime? Or were they getting all their fuel from Pandora only?

It seems impossible to me that it would be worth that much if they had some big glut of the stuff back home, or indeed any other source of supply.

You may be right. I'll check out the movie and let you know what I think later.

Also, I found an interesting article about the original plot for Avatar. Quite a bit different. I'll post it in a little while.

[IanKennedy]

Theres nothing saying they can't come back and mine somewhere the natives aren't. Though that would make for a pretty boring film.

Going back to the old case of no one really getting how big a planet is?

It's a 'relatively small' moon, large enough to have an atmosphere. The whole place seemed to be covered in vegetation suggesting that the natives are everywhere. The other problem part is that the unobtainium seems to be co-located with the places the natives live. Home tree, for example sat on the largest deposit they had ever seen. I got the feeling that the stuff being there somehow caused that tree to be so much bigger than all the others. This in turn made it attractive to he Na'vi as a special place to live. I can well see that they may take that tack in the second film only to find that the Na'vi and the ore are somehow related. It would fit with the 'tree hugging' nature of the first film and give the humans the issue of what to do about it. I would love to see the film end with the locals being wiped out by the humans and the place strip mined. Not because it would be the right or wrong thing to do, but it would be a logical outcome. The problem is that the American film industry would never make such a film.

[Tyyr]

It's a 'relatively small' moon, large enough to have an atmosphere. The whole place seemed to be covered in vegetation suggesting that the natives are everywhere. The other problem part is that the unobtainium seems to be co-located with the places the natives live. Home tree, for example sat on the largest deposit they had ever seen. I got the feeling that the stuff being there somehow caused that tree to be so much bigger than all the others. This in turn made it attractive to he Na'vi as a special place to live. I can well see that they may take that tack in the second film only to find that the Na'vi and the ore are somehow related. It would fit with the 'tree hugging' nature of the first film and give the humans the issue of what to do about it. I would love to see the film end with the locals being wiped out by the humans and the place strip mined. Not because it would be the right or wrong thing to do, but it would be a logical outcome. The problem is that the American film industry would never make such a film.

Yeah, odds are low they'd make that film.

"Relatively small" is a bit vague. The big two issues is that it holds an atmosphere of a pressure tolerable to humans, and has sufficient gravitational attraction to hold them in place. Unfortunately without some numbers one way or another on things like atmospheric density, physical size and mass of the moon, etc. it's hard to put any numbers to anything. Regardless, even a small moon can have a lot of surface area and in human history at least at that kind of development level populations aren't very high. Even today, barring satellite observation, there are a lot of places in the world you could establish a pretty sizable mining operation and no one would know about it. Of course none of that matters if the Nav'i are naturally co-located with unobtanium.

It'd make for an interesting film though, sort of a sci-fi version of the American Indian relocations in US history.

[IanKennedy]

It's a 'relatively small' moon, large enough to have an atmosphere. The whole place seemed to be covered in vegetation suggesting that the natives are everywhere. The other problem part is that the unobtainium seems to be co-located with the places the natives live. Home tree, for example sat on the largest deposit they had ever seen. I got the feeling that the stuff being there somehow caused that tree to be so much bigger than all the others. This in turn made it attractive to he Na'vi as a special place to live. I can well see that they may take that tack in the second film only to find that the Na'vi and the ore are somehow related. It would fit with the 'tree hugging' nature of the first film and give the humans the issue of what to do about it. I would love to see the film end with the locals being wiped out by the humans and the place strip mined. Not because it would be the right or wrong thing to do, but it would be a logical outcome. The problem is that the American film industry would never make such a film.

Yeah, odds are low they'd make that film.

Yup, the only way you get a film like that is when it's a real world event from history. Even then the current vogue is to try and sugar coat it in some way.

"Relatively small" is a bit vague. The big two issues is that it holds an atmosphere of a pressure tolerable to humans, and has sufficient gravitational attraction to hold them in place. Unfortunately without some numbers one way or another on things like atmospheric density, physical size and mass of the moon, etc. it's hard to put any numbers to anything. Regardless, even a small moon can have a lot of surface area and in human history at least at that kind of development level populations aren't very high. Even today, barring satellite observation, there are a lot of places in the world you could establish a pretty sizable mining operation and no one would know about it. Of course none of that matters if the Nav'i are naturally co-located with unobtanium.

Yup, it's vague because we have no data, as you say it's hard to pin down. We know very little about the unobtainium for example. It has the ability to make mountains float for example. We don't know that this isn't working in reverse in other areas of the planet. Gravity does seem a little odd on this moon.

The Na'vi seem to be fairly well spread on the moon, they were able to call on other tribes in a fairly short time in order to fight the attack on the second tree. Not enough to make a difference but they did gather quite a large force in a reasonable time.

It'd make for an interesting film though, sort of a sci-fi version of the American Indian relocations in US history.

Indeed but with 10 foot smurfs.

[Tyyr]

Yup, the only way you get a film like that is when it's a real world event from history. Even then the current vogue is to try and sugar coat it in some way.

It'll swing back the other way to the ultra dark and grim before two long. With any luck we might get a year or two of just honest movies based on actual events.

The Na'vi seem to be fairly well spread on the moon, they were able to call on other tribes in a fairly short time in order to fight the attack on the second tree. Not enough to make a difference but they did gather quite a large force in a reasonable time.

For argument's sake that could be a factor of the local terrain. Advantageous areas to live in will draw in greater populations even if they keep to themselves. Something about the area (maybe heavy unobtanium ore deposits) could be influencing the Nav'i to congregate in this area. Less hospitable areas might not wind up with as many Navi' for other reasons. It's all just speculation though as even if more movies get made its highly unlikely any of them would go into anything like this level of detail.

Indeed but with 10 foot smurfs.

Eh, lots of good sci-fi has been made that draws MAJOR parallels to historical events and come off quite good.

[IanKennedy]

Yup, the only way you get a film like that is when it's a real world event from history. Even then the current vogue is to try and sugar coat it in some way.

It'll swing back the other way to the ultra dark and grim before two long. With any luck we might get a year or two of just honest movies based on actual events.

We can but hope.

The Na'vi seem to be fairly well spread on the moon, they were able to call on other tribes in a fairly short time in order to fight the attack on the second tree. Not enough to make a difference but they did gather quite a large force in a reasonable time.

For argument's sake that could be a factor of the local terrain. Advantageous areas to live in will draw in greater populations even if they keep to themselves. Something about the area (maybe heavy unobtanium ore deposits) could be influencing the Nav'i to congregate in this area. Less hospitable areas might not wind up with as many Navi' for other reasons. It's all just speculation though as even if more movies get made its highly unlikely any of them would go into anything like this level of detail.

Perhaps, the only problem with that is if it is the unobtainium that causes the gathering then mining elsewhere isn't going to work.

Indeed but with 10 foot smurfs.

Eh, lots of good sci-fi has been made that draws MAJOR parallels to historical events and come off quite good.

I didn't say it was a bad thing, I was merely making a joke of the blue aliens. Being a Star Trek fan I found it a little odd than none of them were hairdressers, for example.

[Sionnach Glic]

It'll swing back the other way to the ultra dark and grim before two long. With any luck we might get a year or two of just honest movies based on actual events.

Good luck with that. Nearly every Hollywood writer has his script run through a PC filter first these days.

Hell, I remember reading a review of Blackhawk Down that claimed the movie was racist because the bad guys were all black.

[Tsukiyumi]

...Hell, I remember reading a review of Blackhawk Down that claimed the movie was racist because the bad guys were all black.

Right. Because Somalia has such a diverse racial composition.

[Tyyr]

No, I've heard that one before as well. It was very very sad.

[Tyyr]

$300 million dollars spent on a movie and THAT'S the story they tell? Good lord that was painful. Gorgeous, unbelievable, actually made me like 3D, but so incredibly painful to pay attention to the characters. Wow.

[Nickswitz]

Why? What made the characters so horrible?

[Tyyr]

They were cardboard characters. Walking cliches phoning in their performances. The only one who really invested in his character was the Colonel and he was the damn bad guy. To top it off they never had anything interesting to say, even once.

[Praeothmin]

They were cardboard characters. Walking cliches phoning in their performances. The only one who really invested in his character was the Colonel and he was the damn bad guy. To top it off they never had anything interesting to say, even once.

Like I told a friend when he made the same remarks:
Sure, the characters were somewhat bland in two-dimentional, but then how would you compare them to SW's prequels?

He said:
"Come to think of it, they weren't that bad..."