In the 2009 science fiction film Avatar, director James Cameron conceived a fictional universe in which humans seek to mine unobtanium on the fictional exoplanetary moon, Pandora. The Earth-like moon is inhabited by a sapient indigenous humanoid species called the Na'vi, and varied fauna and flora. Resources Development Administration (RDA) scientists, administrators, recruits, support, and security personnel travel to Pandora in the 22nd century to discover this lush world which is inhabited by many lifeforms including the human-like Na'vi. The clan with which the humans have contact in the film "[lives] in a giant tree that sits on a vast store of a mineral called unobtanium, which humans want as an energy supply".[1]
The Pandoran biosphere teems with a diverse variety of bioluminescent species ranging from hexapodal animals to exotic fauna and flora. The Pandoran ecology forms a vast neural network spanning the entire planetary surface into which the Na'vi and other creatures can connect. The strength of this collective consciousness is powerfully illustrated when the human invaders are defeated in battle by the Pandoran ecology, after the resolute Na'vi were nearly defeated. Cameron utilized a team of expert advisors in order to make the various examples of fauna and flora as scientifically feasible as he intends.
In the film, Pandora is depicted as being located in the Alpha Centauri A system approximately 4.37 light-years (276,000 AU) away from Earth. It is one of the many natural satellites orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus,[8] named for the Polyphemus of Greek mythology. Pandora's atmosphere is a mix of nitrogen,oxygen, carbon dioxide, xenon, ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide. Humans cannot breathe this for long, so they wear Exo-Packs when outside their buildings or vehicles.
Pandora has lush, tropical rainforests that cover much of its continents. Pandora also possesses a lesser gravitational force than Earth does. The geology of Pandora is strongly affected by the presence of unobtanium, a mineral whose superconductive properties allow it to float in magnetic fields. This property makes it highly valued by humans, who mine it for transport back to Earth. Pandora's levitating Hallelujah Mountains contain significant quantities of unobtanium, which allows them to ride the strong magnetic fields in their region.
Na'vi
Appearance
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One of the challenges in designing Neytiri was making her look sufficiently alien and yet familiar and appealing enough to make Jake's attraction to her natural and convincing.[10]
In Avatar, the Na'vi are an indigenous species that live on Pandora. They are humanoid in appearance and are 9 to 10 feet (2.7 to 3.0 m) tall, having pairs of eyes, ears, arms, legs and feet like humans, as well as a nose, a mouth, and expressions recognizable to humans. The Na'vi differ from humans in having blue, striped skin, pointed and mobile ears, large eyes, catlike noses and teeth, tails, and four fingers (hybrid avatars retain the five fingers of their human DNA). While taller than humans, they have narrower proportions in body frame. Their bones are reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fiber. The Na'vi also have a distinctive tendril feature protruding from the back of their heads, surrounded by hair (resembling a long braid or queue), feeding directly into the brain. This organ allows them to connect with other organisms around them, transferring electrochemical signals such as thoughts and memories to the trees, plants, and other creatures. In the original script, Cameron refers to these as "Jubilees" although the word is not used in the film and may be changed by the time the novel is published. The Na'vi were initially conceived to be more alien in appearance. Cameron recalled that when one of the main characters, Neytiri, was originally drawn, she had fins, gills, and other protuberances. In addition to feline features, the species was redesigned to look more like humans so audiences could relate to them better.
According to Cameron, the appearance of the Na'vi character Neytiri had some specific inspirations and requirements: she was inspired by Raquel Welch's character in Fantastic Voyage and by Vampirella, noting in the latter's case, "the fact [Vampirella] didn’t exist didn’t bother me because we have these quintessential female images in our mind, and in the case of the male mind, they’re grossly distorted. When you see something that reflects your id, it works for you.... Right from the beginning I said, 'She’s got to have tits,' even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals. I designed her costumes based on a taparrabo, a loincloth worn by Mayan Indians."
Cameron has described Avatar as more "science fantasy" than true science fiction and has said that he would explain in the novel for the film why in the fictional universe the Na'vi look like humans.
Culture and language
According to Entertainment Weekly, "The Na'vi can commune with animals on their planet by literally plugging their braid into the creatures' nerve systems. To become a warrior, a Na'vi must tame and ride a flying creature known as Ikran."The Na'vi also use this neural bonding system, called "tsaheylu", to mate with a "life partner", a bond that when made, cannot be broken in the Na'vi's lifetime. This is akin to human marriage.
Conceived for the film was the Na'vi language, a constructed language often spoken by the actors when they played Na'vi characters. The Na'vi language was created by communications professor emeritus and linguistics consultant Paul Frommer of University of Southern California. He designed the language so it could be spoken by human actors, combining syntactic and grammatical rules from other existing languages. Frommer created over a thousand words for the Na'vi language and coached the actors who played Na'vi characters on speaking it for the film. When communicating to humans in the film, Na'vi characters – especially Neytiri – speak in accented and broken English.
On religion, the chief and possibly sole deity of the Na'vi is a benevolent goddess known as Eywa. The Na'vi are able to "connect" to Eywa when they use their braids to connect to the Tree of Souls and other similar flora. Eywa is said to have a connection to all things Pandoran.
Fauna
James Cameron's core idea for the Avatar's fictional creatures was for them to be "superslick and aerodynamic, and be like a race car with racing stripes". Neville Page worked on Avatar as the lead creature designer. He adapted Cameron's conceptions of the fauna into design that served three purposes: look expressive, function with animation technology, and be believable enough for audiences.He and creature designer Wayne Barlowe sought to base the design of Pandora's creatures on race cars, but they struggled to adapt the concept. Page drew on his education in automotive design, recognizing the irony that race cars were based on real-life animals in having "bone lines". Existing automotive designs drew from seashells, turtle shells, and insects, and the creature designers returned the design to the fictional creatures. They found the biggest challenge in designing most creatures to give them organic appearances since they lacked excessive skin texturing. Some creatures were also designed to have special breathing holes located in the trachea, copying how cars have intakes. Challenges that the creatures posed for visual effects technicians were to create believable "walk and run" cycles for six-legged creatures and believable flying for creatures that had four wings.
The fictional creatures are not connected telepathically according to Cameron and the designers. However, even though they discussed the idea of the creatures being part of Pandora's "Worldmind", they preferred to interpret the creatures as having heightened instincts. Page explained, "Animals are hooked up to this planet. We're the ones who are detached.... The way I dealt with it was, We have so much rich [material] here to reference, that we don't have to dream up a whole new process of animal awareness."
The fictional moon has less gravity than Earth, so the creatures' larger sizes match their environment. Most Pandoran wildlife are hexapodal, or six-legged. Much of the fauna and flora arebioluminescent, which is seen in creatures on Earth such as fireflies, many deep sea animals, and some microscopic algae. The aforementioned breathing holes, located on multiple parts of a creature's body other than the mouth, are similar to spiracles in some of Earth's animals.The flying reptile-like creatures in the film can be compared to extinct flying reptiles such as pterosaurs and to the modern gliding lizard Draco sumatranus.
List of fauna
- Direhorse (Pa'li in Na'vi) is a bioluminescent hexapodal equine-like animal with tongues similar to anteaters. It is scientifically known as Equidirus hoplites. The Na'vi use the Direhorse to hunt. The Direhorse was conceived and designed by Cameron and Stan Winston Studios. The Direhorse is grey with blue stripes and stands thirteen feet (3.9 meters) tall, fourteen feet (4.2 meters) long. The Na'vi "break" a Direhorse by connecting the fleshy tip of their hair to the animal's antennae. Xenobiologists call this a neural whip. Once intertwined, the Na'vi rider can communicate motor commands instantly through the neural interface; however, this connection does not lead to a life-long, exclusive bond, as it does with the Mountain Banshee. Cameron described the creature as a "six-legged alien Clydesdale with moth-like antennae". The Direhorse uses its long tongue to eat the sap out of Pitcher Plants.
- Mountain Banshee (Ikran in Na'vi) is an airborne predator who lives in mountainous territory on Pandora. Na'vi warriors attempt to bond with a Banshee, a dangerous and required rite of passage. They are cousins to the Great Leonopteryx and they are scientifically known by Xenobiologists as Pterodactylus giganteus. A Banshee bonds to a Na'vi warrior for life. They are four-winged creatures that, like the Leonopteryx and Direhorse, have a biologically produced carbon fiber flexing on the skin. Neytiri had a Banshee named Seze (translated from the language of the Na'vi roughly as "blue flower"). Page spent the most time designing the Banshee for the film so it would be convincing when it flew or perched. The designer said, "The hardest thing of all was having a Na'vi on top of it and flying it. You had to backwards engineer it. It was like designing and engineering an aircraft." Barlowe, who contributed to the Banshee's design, was influenced by manta rays and skates as well as relatively little-known pterosaurs and plesiosaurs that had "many, unique aerodynamic and hydrodynamic" characteristics. Like the color scheme for the Great Leonopteryx, color schemes based on Earth animals were used for various Banshees, though Page was inspired by Art Nouveau prints to warp the schemes so they would not look familiar to film audiences.
- Great Leonopteryx (Toruk in Na'vi, meaning Last Shadow) is the apex airborne predator native to Pandora. It is scientifically known as Gavilandora maxima. The fierce beauty and nobility of the Leonopteryx gave the species a place in central Na'vi lore and culture. Leonopteryx are scarlet with black stripes and a midnight blue crest on top of the head and on the lower jaw. It is celebrated in dance, song, and with elaborate totems that symbolize both the fear and respect accorded to the creature. The Leonopteryx is considered crucial to the Na'vi sense of destiny and interconnectedness. Prior to the events of the film, it had only been tamed five times, and Neytiri tells Jake that the riders (Toruk Makto, Rider of Last Shadow) brought peace among the Pandoran tribes. Later, as an act to regain the Na'vi's trust, Jake became the sixth Toruk Makto. He managed to capture one by jumping on it from above from his Banshee, but released it after the battle with the humans ended, saying Toruk Makto was no longer needed. The Great Leonopteryx and the Banshee were designed with bright colors. Page based the colors on Earth's birds, poison dart frogs, and Monarch butterflies, though he altered the patterns so that their inspirations would not be so obvious to moviegoers. The skull and crest shapes appear to be derived from pterosaurs from the genus Tapejara.
- Hammerhead Titanothere (’Angtsìk in Na'vi) is a large hexapodal herbivore whose massive, low-slung head features bony projections on either side of the skull, similar to Terran hammerhead sharks. These protrusions are often used to push and destroy objects: a single sideways thrust of the neck being sufficient to down a significantly-sized tree. It has exceedingly thick, gray skin. There is a small "fan" feather structure on the head that it flares up as a warning symbol seen in the film and in the video game. The creature, which resembles a cross between a rhinoceros and a hammerhead shark, is angered easily. Its hide is impervious to human ammunition, though firing on it is known to anger it. This massive, grazing creature travels in moderately large herds or packs of 10–20 animals. Avatar creature designer Yuri Bartoli explained to io9.com about the creature's colorful threat display: "Originally, the Hammerhead just had to be a huge creature, big enough that even a Thanator would think twice about attacking one. A threat display is meant to be seen, so it required bright colors that would stand out against its more muted body". It is moderately social, but also extremely territorial and hierarchical. A soft ungulate mouth is protected by a rigid, beak-like jaw structure. It is scientifically known as Titanotheris hammercephalis.
- Hexapede (Yerik in Na'vi) are hexapodal deer-like creatures. They are dark blue herbivores, with white and yellow stripes. Twin horn structures sheathe a thin, patterned membrane structure. Their small, sloped skull is topped by this light-colored fan structure. This fan has an eye pattern on it similar to those found in Terran insects. A skin membrane hangs under the jaw and runs the length of the neck. Twin lines of dark hairlike bristles run down the Hexapede's back. The antennae are at the back at the head. As a threat display, the Hexapede flares up its twin membrane structure like a satellite dish and retracts both lips. It is scientifically known as Sexcruscervus caeruleus.
- Prolemuris are blue, hexapodal creatures based on Earth's lemurs. They have two eyes, small nostrils, and their two upper arms are partially fused. Like most Pandoran creatures, it has a queue on the back of its head. They have lateral skin membranes on each side of the body. They have large eyes and grow 1.5 meters tall.
- Thanator (Palulukan in Na'vi) is a large hexapodal land predator that is believed, by the RDA, to be the apex land predator. It is scientifically known as Bestiapanthera ferox. Cameron personally designed the creature. The Thanator is first seen when Jake wanders off into the jungle, and touches multiple Helicoradian leaves, and they retract to reveal a family of Hammerhead Titanotheres behind. The Thanator scares off the Titanotheres, then goes after him. Jake later escapes the Thanator by going over a waterfall. It is black with white fleshy skin under each hand. Its appearance is similar to a panther; Cameron describes the Thanator as "the panther from hell". The Thanator has ten sensory quills connected to six pads at the rear of the skull that flare up before it attacks the prey. The director explained how the Thanator is the most fearsome creature on Pandora, "The Thanator could eat a T-Rex and have the Alien for dessert."
- Viperwolf (Nantang in Na'vi) is a hexapodal nocturnal carnivore. They are scientifically known as Caniferratus costatus. They have bioluminescence for pack identification. Cameron described the Viperwolves, "[They are] hairless with shiny skin that looks like overlapped armor. Most disturbing are its paws, which are like leathery hands." They are vicious in combat but treat their babies in a loving, nurturing way. They are seen in the daytime caring for their babies and have green eyes. They have a laugh which sounds like Earth's hyenas. Like most Pandoran creatures, they have antennae. They have opposable thumbs allowing them to climb trees as well as stalk from the ground, thereby are able to create a three-dimensional hunting field.
Flora
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The Helicoradian plants in Avatar were based on Spirobranchus giganteus, a species of tube worm common to many seas on Earth. These worms quickly withdraw into their tubes when disturbed.
Flora on Pandora are of a tropical type several times taller than that existing on Earth. Many, if not all plant and animal species have bioluminescent properties.[ The flora specimens seen in the film were all designed by Jodie Holt, a professor of botany at the University of California, Riverside. According to Holt, Pandoran flora are able to communicate with each other through signal transduction and are larger in size than Earth flora due to a combination of factors such as the atmosphere on Pandora being thicker, gravity weaker and because there is a strong magnetic field.
List of flora
- Helicoradian (Loreyu in Na'vi) is a carnivorous plant that has red spiral-leaves. The plants are up to 3–4 metres (9.8–13 ft) tall and, when touched, they curl and collapse into themselves instantly. They are zooplantae, part animal, part plant. They are first seen when Jake wanders off into a forest of Helicoradia, touches multiple leaves, and they retract and coil up to reveal a Hammerhead Titanothere behind. According to Avatar designer Craig Shoji, the behavior and design of the Helicoradian was based on the Christmas tree worms, tube worms that live on coral reefs. In the video games, it has the ability to heal the player.
- The Hometrees (Kelutral in Na'vi) are great enough to house hundreds of clan members. The trees are honeycombed with natural hollows and alcoves in which the Na'vi sleep, eat, weave, dance, and celebrate their connection to Eywa. Adult Hometrees are more than 150 meters tall, and roughly 30 meters in diameter.The Omaticaya inhabit a Giant Hometree, standing roughly 460 meters tall. A distinguishable feature of the movie landscape, the tree itself is central to the movie story arc. Like many sacred sites on Pandora, the Giant Hometree sits above a large deposit of unobtanium. It is destroyed by the humans using rockets and missiles, which leads to the Na'vi clans' alliance against the humans.
- The Tree of Souls (Ayvitrayä Ramunong in Na'vi [Cameron: Vitraya Ramunong]) is a tree where the Na'vi are able to communicate with the biological network that exists throughout Pandora. Cameron described the Tree of Souls as "a big input-output station" and was inspired to design it by bioluminescence that he encountered during night diving. In the film, the tree is seen to be capable of transferring a specific consciousness from one body to another.
- The Tree of Voices (Utral Aymokriyä in Na'vi [Cameron: Utraya Mokri]) is the most important tree to the Na'vi after the Tree of Souls. It is smaller but its appearance is similar and it too is illuminated. Neytiri tells Jake that it allows the Na'vi to hear the voices of their ancestors. It is destroyed in the bulldozer attack by the humans. This was where Jake and Neytiri chose each other as mates and mated before Eywa.
- Woodsprites (Atokirina’ in Na'vi) are seeds of the "holy tree", appearing similar to airborne jellyfish. Neytiri describes them as very pure spirits, and scolds Jake for slapping two of them away. The Omaticaya Clan plants one of these seeds with the body of a deceased Na'vi, so the Na'vi's consciousness will become part of Eywa.
- Various plants and trees that look like Earth's ferns, palm trees, mosses, grasses, bamboo, and succulents. Several forest plants of Pandora resemble the Earth's zoanthid soft corals, which can bebioluminescent as in the movie.