Pandoran biosphere

The fictional Pandoran biosphere, from James Cameron's Avatar, teems with a biodiversity of bioluminescent species ranging from hexapodal animals to other types of exotic fauna and flora. The Pandoran ecology forms a vast neural network spanning the entire lunar surface into which the Naʼvi and other creatures can connect. The strength of this collective consciousness is illustrated when the human invaders are defeated in battle by the Pandoran ecology, after the Naʼvi 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 possible.[1]

Naʼvi

Appearance

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.[2]

In Avatar, the Naʼvi 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 Naʼvi differ from humans in having blue striped skin, pointed and mobile ears, large eyes, catlike noses and teeth, tails, and hands each with three fingers and a thumb (hybrid avatars, on the other hand, retain the five-fingered hands 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 Naʼvi also have a distinctive tendril feature protruding from the back of their heads, surrounded by hair (resembling a long plait 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 Naʼvi were initially conceived to be more alien in appearance. Cameron recalled that when one of the main characters, Neytiri, was originally drawn, she had gills and other protuberances. In addition to feline features,[3] the species was redesigned to seem more human so that audiences could better relate to it.

According to Cameron, the appearance of the Naʼvi 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 Naʼvi, aren’t placental mammals. I designed her costumes based on a taparrabo, a loincloth worn by Mayan Indians."[4]

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 Naʼvi look like humans.[5]

Culture and language

According to Entertainment Weekly, "The Naʼvi can commune with animals on their planet by literally plugging their braid into the creatures' nerve systems. To become a warrior, a Naʼvi must tame and ride a flying creature known as Ikran."[3] The Naʼvi also use this neural bonding system, called "tsaheylu", to mate with a "life partner", a bond that, when made, cannot be broken in the Naʼvi's lifetime. This is akin to human marriage.[6]

The Naʼvi way of life revolves around their religion, and the Home tree. The Naʼvi sleep in hammocks in large groups for comfort and as a warning system.

Conceived for the film was the Naʼvi language, a constructed language often spoken by the actors when they played Naʼvi characters. The Naʼvi language was created by communications professor emeritus and linguistics consultant Paul Frommer of the University of Southern California. He designed the language so as to be speakable by human actors, combining syntactic and grammatical rules from other existing languages. Frommer created over a thousand words for the Naʼvi language and coached the actors who narrated Naʼvi characters.[7] When communicating to humans in the film, Naʼvi characters – especially Neytiri – speak in accented and broken English.

Human visitors see the Naʼvi as possessing a religion, whose chief and possibly sole deity is a benevolent goddess known as Eywa. But the Naʼvi belief in Eywa turns out not to be merely a matter of religious faith. Unlike any earthly deity, Eywa's existence, in the form of a global bio-botanical neural network, turns out to be a scientifically demonstrable reality. The Naʼvi are able to physically connect to Eywa when they use their braids to connect to the Tree of Souls and other similar flora which function as the global brain's interfaces. Eywa is said to have a connection to all things Pandoran.

Political power is exceedingly diffused, with each clan being a sovereign entity under either the diarchical rule of both a temporal chieftain and a spiritual chieftain, or the monarchical rule of a single individual who holds the two separate offices simultaneously. The numerous clans are seemingly only ever brought together as a tribe by Toruk Makto, a messianic war chief whose office is both impermanent and apparently the only one with an authority that covers the entire race of Naʼvi. By the time of the film, there had only been five Toruk Maktos in the history of the tribe, and the last one had ruled no fewer than four generations before the present day. This may be due to the fact that the Toruk Maktos seem to draw their power from a situation of explicitly external danger, and therefore are not really necessary for the day to day internal running of the tribal clans. Succession to the various offices is smooth, however, based more on popular recognition and customary worthiness than on anything else, and respect for hierarchical superiors appears to be high.

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".[8] Neville Page worked on Avatar as the lead creature designer. He, Wayne Barlowe (author, artist, and initial lead creature designer), and Yuri Bartoli (concept designer and supervising virtual art director) adapted Cameron's conceptions of the fauna into a design that served three purposes: to appear expressive, to function with animation technology, and to seem realistic.[9] 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, so the designers returned the design to the fictional creatures. They found that the prime challenge in designing most creatures was to give them organic appearances, including skin texture. Some creatures were also designed to have special breathing holes located in the trachea, copying how cars have intakes.[8] Challenges that the creatures posed for visual effects technicians were to form "walk and run" cycles for six-legged creatures and to impart credible flying for creatures that had four wings.[10]

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."[8]

The fictional moon has less gravity than Earth, so the creatures' larger sizes match their environment. Most Pandoran wildlife is hexapodal, or six-legged. Much of the fauna and flora is bioluminescent, 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.[11] 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.[12]

List of fauna

Flora

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.[23] 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 greater atmospheric thickness, weaker gravity, and stronger magnetism on Pandora.[1]

List of flora

Various other 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 be bioluminescent as in the movie.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Kozlowski, Lori (January 2, 2010). "Inventing the plants of "Avatar"". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 3, 2010.
  2. Duncan, Jody (January 2010). "Avatar". Cinefex (120): 138.
  3. 1 2 Rottenberg, Josh (December 18, 2009). "James Cameron Talks Avatar: Brave Blue World". Entertainment Weekly (1081): 48–51.
  4. "James Cameron: Playboy Interview". Playboy. December 2009. Retrieved February 13, 2010.
  5. Germain, David (December 21, 2009). "'Avatar' creator Cameron shares alien shop talk". Associated Press via Google News. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  6. Staff (January 4, 2010). "Avatar fans promised alien sex scene on DVD". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved January 7, 2010.
  7. Milani, Matteo (November 24, 2009). "An interview with Paul Frommer, Alien Language Creator for Avatar". Unidentified Sound Object. Retrieved October 15, 2010.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Anders, Charlie Jane (December 9, 2009). "Pandora's Creatures Were Partly Based On Cars". io9. Gawker Media. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  9. Cohen, David S (December 27, 2009). "'Avatar' unleashes a new kind of creative". Variety. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  10. Desowitz, Bill (December 21, 2009). "Avatar: The Game Changer". VFXWorld.com. AWN, Inc. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  11. Choi, Charles Q. (December 21, 2009). "How much real science is in 'Avatar'?". msnbc.msn.com. MSN. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  12. Richard, Michael G (February 16, 2010). "Y'Know the Flying Dragons in Avatar? Tiny Real-Life Version Discovered in Indonesia". Treehugger.com. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
  13. "Direhouse". Pandorapedia. 20th Century Fox. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "A Look Into the Making of Pandora for AVATAR". IESB.net. S&S Media Services. December 6, 2009. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  15. "Mountain Banshee". Pandorapedia. 20th Century Fox. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  16. Kennedy, Gerrick (December 4, 2009). "'Avatar' designer on Jim Cameron, banshees and those nagging 'Delgo' comparisons". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  17. 1 2 Anders, Charlie Jane (December 10, 2009). "Those crazy color schemes are from the ocean floor — and Art Nouveau". io9. Gawker Media. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  18. Wilhelm, Maria; Mathison, Dirk (2009). Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora.
  19. "Hammerhead Titanothere". Pandorapedia. 20th Century Fox. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  20. "Thanator". Pandorapedia. 20th Century Fox. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  21. 1 2 Maher, Kevin (December 8, 2009). "Avatar: pictures of James Cameron's fantastic new world". The Times. Retrieved December 27, 2009.
  22. "Viperwolf". Pandorapedia. 20th Century Fox. Retrieved December 28, 2009.
  23. "Video:Pandora Discovered". 2009-12-08.
  24. Anders, Charlie Jane (February 4, 2010). "27 Avatar Questions, Answered By The Movie's Designers". io9.com. Retrieved February 8, 2010.
  25. "Avatar: Pandorapedia – Hometree". 2009-12-08.
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