Michiel van der Velde A statistical impossibility

James Cameron’s Avatar Blog Series: Introduction

"They've sent us a message, that they can take whatever they want, and no one can stop them. Well we will send them a message... that this, this is OUR land!"

The buzz word recently; Avatar. Unless you've been sleeping under a rock for the last month or two, you of course know "Avatar" is the name of James Cameron's (known from the films Titanic and the Terminator film series) newest film, which features photo realistic CGI to tell most of the story.  With Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang in the leads, Avatar is an epic science fiction film which stands out with its detailed environments filled with unique plants and animals.

Avatar describes the word of Pandora, a moon orbiting the gas giant, Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri system, almost 5 light years from here. In the future, The Resources Development Administration (RDA), a corporation with a military force larger than that of most countries. The corporation travels to Pandora to mine a valuable resource, hilariously named 'unobtainium', and encounter the indigenous sentient and sapient Na'vi, tall (approximately 3 meters/10 feet), blue-skinned humanoids who live in tribes (clans).
Unfortunately, the largest deposit of unobtainium that has been found, is right below the home of the Omaticya Clan, a clan of proud forest warriors, who are unwilling to give up their home.

Without going in too much detail and ruining the film for you if you haven't seen it yet, I will just say the film is about the struggle of the Na'vi people in the fight against the human 'invaders'. Jake Sully, a wounded marine who has lost the use of his legs, goes to Pandora in the place of his brother, who has been killed, in the Avatar Program - where human operators are linked to Avatar bodies (essentially Na'vi DNA combined with human DNA to allow the operator to take control of the body). His mission is to gain their thrust, and get them to move.

Now, the film has several very interesting things about it, ranging from the diverse plant and animal life on Pandora to the amazingly realistic computer generated environments and people. Being intrigued by the film, I will dedicate a blog series on the film and everything it contains.

This blog is serving as an introduction. Some topics I intend to discuss:

• The computer generated imagery, of course, as this still is a mostly computer oriented blog;
• The environment, the abnormalities and the explanations behind them;
• The ships and vehicles used in the film;
• The customs and other interesting facts about the Na'vi.

So, if you're interested, come back in a few days, and I might have posted one or more blogs in the series.