Avatar: a 160 minute 3-D journey to another planet.
Well, if you go to see James Cameron’s new epic, “Avatar”, in 3-D, that’s as close as the 'average person' can get to a trip to another planet, for 3 hours and maybe about $12. (Think how much space tourists will pay soon.) Pandora, in fact, is a very reasonable facsimile of what a small planet close to an M Star 20-30 light years away (and in the goldilox zone) would really look like. The climate is moderate, the atmosphere thinner because the planet is smaller, and the plants have as much blue and violet as green. Actually, Cameron shows a gas giant in the horizon, so either Pandora is a moon of that giant (like Titan around our own Saturn) or very near it. Actually, astronomers say that it is highly likely that a planet like this would keep the same side toward its sun, leading to a permanent Hurricane Katrina right underneath the sun if that side were covered by ocean.
As for the politics, it’s familiar. Yes, this is a left-wing movie, all $300 million of it in budget (that's what it costs for Hollywood to simulate interplanetary travel for moviegoers), from a supposedly conservative-linked studio, 20th Century Fox. (The Fox trademark looks great in 3-D). There’s mention of 'shock and awe' (remember George W. in 2003), but there’s also a statement about advanced civilizations pillaging more primitive lands for natural resources. We see scenes that look like 'mountaintop removal' in southern West Virginia, although the “spice” (to refer to Frank Herbert’s 'Dune' and the 1984 film) here is a rare earth metal. Most of the planet has a landscape roughly like the mountainous parts of southeast Asia or southern China. There are even some floating mountains (I’m not sure how that could really form). There are jungles and epiphytes, and enormous trees connect to make walkways in the sky. And we learn that the trees are connected underneath in a kind of organic Internet.
That brings us to the natives, the Na'vi, who are tall (12 feet) and thin (because of low gravity) and have hairless bodies covered with purplish stripes. Through some cosmological coincidence, their DNA is almost compatible with humans, which invites the concept of the 'avatar' as the human 'sky invaders' have bred clones of Na’vi who are 'operating' by men 'sleeping' in pods who experience the avatars as alternate bodies.
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a disabled jarhead, is the central hero, who has been offered a chance by “the Company” for restoration of the use of his legs if he will go on a mission to pacify the Na’vi and get them to give up a sacred site overlaying a future rare earth mine. Jake, in assimilating as a native person, will learn that the people live in complete harmony with nature because it gives them everything, including the organic Internet (maybe even Facebook). And, it gets predictable; his alter-person falls in love (in Second Life, to be sure); and then he turns 'traitor' of sorts against his 'own'.
The other knick here is that although jarheads perform the avatar mission and a veteran mean jarhead (Stephen Lang) is in charge, they actually work as contractors for a Dick Cheney company. Sigourney Weaver comes into the script as a kind of Ripley: first the mean scientist, turning kinder as the movie progresses (eventually joining the mission). Joel Moore is especially appealing as one of Jake's buddies, almost too nice to be a Marine (he looks like Cilian Murphy to me). The 'racial' contrasts are striking: if the Na’vi are supersized native Americans (again, a bit of an analogy to Jamestown, perhaps), the sky invaders are the typical Europeans, here even pretty hairy. I wonder how they made Jake’s legs look shriveled.
There’s an early scene on the spaceship before landing, and the rendition of the massive bay of sleeping pods is striking. That’s probably what a spaceship housing a crew for a 30 light year journey a century from now would really look like. Too bad I won’t live long enough to actually see it. Generativity matters.
Here is 20th Century Fox's official site.
James Horner's score resembles that of "Titanic" with a four-note theme that is repeated, and forms the basis of a concert overture (A minor) for the closing credits, as well as the main song. The YouTube link for the song is here. There is something cool about an 'organic Internet' tied to the biosphere of a planet. That utility would facilitate telepahty, and allow people to read the intent of their fellow citizens to existential levels, and have a big effect in areas like family values. (On Earth, if I have a lucid dream about an intimate encounter with someone I worship, does the other person know by microtubular telepathy during sleep?) Horner said that Pandora was about 4-1/2 light years away. That puts it near Alpha Centauri (or Proxima, where there is an Earth-like planet) . Not likely; I'd say 40 light years is more reasonable, and as a full planet, not a moon, so its temperature is more stable.
The concept of the story could be compared to Warner Brothers's 'Outland' (1981), and Sony's recent indie film "Moon".
Picture: Jamestown VA (mine), 2009
Update: Aug. 19, 2010
The History Channel Universe series 'Time Travel' episode today did say that Pandora is supposed to be a moon near a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B. It's pretty unlikely. Actually, AMC Theater's feature intro shows an outdoor movie audience on an M-star planet with blue plants, and an extraterrestrial city in the distance. M-star planets could well have plants with photosynthesis that look like those in the AMC trailer.
end