Avatar

Post Reply
User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:32 am

born-again-atheist wrote:
Plus all the big fuck off robots, and the big fuck off missiles and the tiny fuck off bullets.
And the cost of the avatar project itself, and the cost of housing and supplies and... well, you get the idea.

If a film is going to be pegged as 'epic' then logistics actually matter, for once.
the idea of the Avatar programme originally was to interact with the natives to get them to become a workforce.

Furthermore the planet Earth is dying so costs maybe are irrelevant compared to what unobtanium can do
Last edited by Elessarina on Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:41 am

"it failed like the new Star Wars and their... mido whatever the fuck it is."

Scientists don't seem to think so..

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol ... tml?page=2

May I also remind you that science fiction is often a driving force of invention

http://www.dailycognition.com/index.php ... tions.html

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 7:50 am

born-again-atheist wrote:
My problem was that it was a rather trite approach to the whole thing.
I should have added.. it' also somewhat of an injoke in science fiction. like the Wilhelm scream is in movies.

Whatever you say about James Cameron I think it really is clutching at straws to suggest the man is lazy when it comes to the science in his movies. He may not explain it explicitly in the movies but that doesn't mean there isn't an explanation

Trolldor
Gargling with Nails
Posts: 15878
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 5:57 am
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Trolldor » Fri Jan 15, 2010 8:12 am

Elessarina wrote:"it failed like the new Star Wars and their... mido whatever the fuck it is."

Scientists don't seem to think so..

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technol ... tml?page=2

May I also remind you that science fiction is often a driving force of invention

http://www.dailycognition.com/index.php ... tions.html
The problem with Cameron's Greenpeace commercial was not that it was implausible, but that it was never justified or explained. Not just the science, but the mechanics, the reasons for actions.
So these guys master interstellar travel with who knows how many planets available to them, and choose a single planet to conquer all to get a metal which doesn't seem to have a practical purpose where the trees are not really trees but animals with neurological pathways - not to mention memory and sentience - which look and behave like trees.
And they just ignore something like that? Are they already so disaffected with xenoforms that they can not see the practical use of studying a network of memories spanning... millenia? One which reaches around the entire globe and can only be accessed by a very specific USB drive.
And exactly how many alien life forms must they have encountered to treat the Native Americans the Navi Image
Like that?

If these are the first signs of intelligent life on another planet humanity has encountered, the last thing to happen would be an expedition to get metal from a big fuck off tree by blowing it to shit. Nothing in the movie explained any of their actions. It was just assumed that 'corporations are automatically evil and will blow the fuck out of anything to get at rock' - at least Alien(s) justified their plot with Weyland-Yutani seeking the Xenoforms for military purposes instead of "just because".
"The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don't like that statement but few can argue with it."

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:21 am

born-again-atheist wrote: The problem with Cameron's Greenpeace commercial was not that it was implausible, but that it was never justified or explained. Not just the science, but the mechanics, the reasons for actions.
That's not what you said earlier:
Avatar ignored magic and tried to use science. It failed like the new Star Wars
born-again-atheist wrote:So these guys master interstellar travel with who knows how many planets available to them, and choose a single planet to conquer all to get a metal which doesn't seem to have a practical purpose
There are still limits in interstellar travel.. the Alpha Centari system is the closest to Earth

born-again-atheist wrote:
where the trees are not really trees but animals with neurological pathways - not to mention memory and sentience - which look and behave like trees.
And they just ignore something like that? Are they already so disaffected with xenoforms that they can not see the practical use of studying a network of memories spanning... millenia?
That is what Dr Augustine is studying hence her taking samples everywhere and she doesn't really begin to understand it until later on in the film

But more importantly..... ARE you even aware of the human race and what they do? Are you kidding me.. ? We disregard nature, rape the planet, make species extinct, abuse animals for fun...

born-again-atheist wrote:And exactly how many alien life forms must they have encountered to treat the Native Americans the Navi Like that?
Again do you know humans? I once read about how a bird was thought to be extninct and a guy looking out for this bird saw one.. what did he do? he shot it..

One of the reasons I despise religion is the fact that it gives humans an inflated sense of importance and makes them think they can treat other species like crap. You seem surprised that humans would act that way - are you aware of what goes on in the world.. look at how we behave to members of the same species - Slavery was no so long ago, there is still genocide happening worldwide.. Do you think we'll act any differently in 140 years? Do you think if our planet is at stake we will?
born-again-atheist wrote:If these are the first signs of intelligent life on another planet humanity has encountered, the last thing to happen would be an expedition to get metal from a big fuck off tree by blowing it to shit.
Earth is in a seriously bad state. Jake tells you that
born-again-atheist wrote:Nothing in the movie explained any of their actions. It was just assumed that 'corporations are automatically evil and will blow the fuck out of anything to get at rock' -
You say that as though it is a fabrication of human behaviour....that is what we do

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:58 am

A quick search can find some of the information you are looking for..
Unobtanium:

It is a room temperature super-conductor for energy, which makes it very valuable: it is worth $20 million per kilogram (roughly 2 pounds) unrefined (worth $40 million per kilogram refined) on Earth. However, It is prohibitively expensive to mine on Pandora as humans are unable to breathe in the Pandoran toxic atmosphere. Because of this, all personnel are required to wear a Exopack which is very cumbersome. Humans transport Unobtanium on trucks called Hell Trucks from the mines back to Hell's Gate for refining.

Unobtanium proved to be the most baffling of scientific discoveries in the area of superconductors as it had an extremely strong magnetic field, reversing prior knowledge that all superconductors repel magnetic fields. Furthermore, unlike the fragile crystals of human-created superconducting compounds, the substance found on Pandora was a stable quasi-crystal with its atoms arranged in a never-repeating but orderly pattern with fourfold symmetry. This structure was not only structurally rugged but also has microscopic voids in the quasicrytalline structure that contain the magnetic flux lines. Unobtanium has a unique magnetic field and properties of superconductivity, causing it to levitate.


The Hallelujah Mountains, a rich area of Unobtanium. On Pandora, the magnetic effect causes huge outcroppings of Unobtanium to rip loose from the surface and float in the magnetic vortexes. These huge islands, named Hallelujah Mountains by Earth's explorers, are called Thundering Rocks by the Na'vi, who hold them sacred. The unique magnetic properties of Unobtanium are used to contain and direct the energy of the Matter-Antimatter annihilation which propels ships like ISV Venture Star.

Without Unobtanium, interstellar commerce on this scale would not be possible. Unobtanium is not only the key to Earth’s energy needs in the 22nd century, but it is the enabler of interstellar travel and the establishment of a truly spacefaring civilization. Making a feed back loop, the more Unobtanium is mined, the more ships can be built, and more mining equipment can be sent to Pandora .

Originally, the term "unobtanium" was a joke used to describe hard-to-access materials. However, over the years, the name appears to have stuck.

When the world's first low-temperature superconductor was created in the late twentieth century, it proved to be useless because of inherent instabilities. Further efforts proved futile, and researchers finally termed their goal "Unobtainium" (the spelling was later changed to "Unobtanium" to conform to the chemical element naming, although Unobtanium is a compound not an element)[citation needed]. There matters stood until the first unmanned exploration vehicle reached Alpha Centauri System and discovered deposits of a room temperature superconducting substance on an Earth-like moon named Pandora - Unobtanium had been obtained at last.

User avatar
Clinton Huxley
19th century monkeybitch.
Posts: 23739
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Clinton Huxley » Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:38 am

Unobtainium is just a McGuffin and an excuse to have floating mountains that will look "cool" in 3d. No need to analyse it too deeply. To be fair, the science in pretty much every sci-fi film ever made is nonsense and Avatar looks to be no exception.
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:15 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:Unobtainium is just a McGuffin and an excuse to have floating mountains that will look "cool" in 3d. No need to analyse it too deeply. To be fair, the science in pretty much every sci-fi film ever made is nonsense and Avatar looks to be no exception.
Good science fiction is always based on good science just because you don't like science fiction does not make it nonsense

User avatar
Clinton Huxley
19th century monkeybitch.
Posts: 23739
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Clinton Huxley » Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:41 pm

Elessarina wrote:
Clinton Huxley wrote:Unobtainium is just a McGuffin and an excuse to have floating mountains that will look "cool" in 3d. No need to analyse it too deeply. To be fair, the science in pretty much every sci-fi film ever made is nonsense and Avatar looks to be no exception.
Good science fiction is always based on good science just because you don't like science fiction does not make it nonsense
I'd disagree. I'd say you could still have a good sci-fi film with dumb science in it. It's the story and the characters that are really important. The fact that you can't have FTL travel doesn't spoil your enjoyment of STar Trek. Sci-fi films will usually try to cover such things as FTL with some vaguely sciencey sounding flim-flam, culled from the more speculative pages of a supermarket science mag but they might as well just say that the FTL travel is achieved by magic.
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:16 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:The fact that you can't have FTL travel doesn't spoil your enjoyment of STar Trek. Sci-fi films will usually try to cover such things as FTL with some vaguely sciencey sounding flim-flam, culled from the more speculative pages of a supermarket science mag but they might as well just say that the FTL travel is achieved by magic.
Actually in Star Trek the technology is well explained.. and although they achieve FTL it is not actually FTL travel in the regular sense but by warping space.

NASA has even conducted research into it

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/techn ... at_prt.htm


Anyway here is a wikipedia article explaining why some scientist think that warp capability may be possible:

While thought experiments of theoretical physics continue to be formed, no scheme that may allow travel at warp velocity has yet been devised that has also been accepted by mainstream science. Some physicists have proposed a model of FTL travel, formulated in the context of Lorentzian manifolds, which are used in general relativity to construct space-time models.

These models do however show that while it is indeed impossible to exceed the speed of light, in principle it might be possible to circumvent the problem by suitably "warping" spacetime itself. The most renowned theory, known as the Alcubierre drive, uses terminology in accord with Star Trek jargon: "warp factors" measure the warping of space-time, not the magnitude of actual velocity. In his book The Physics of Star Trek, Lawrence Krauss states that while it is possible to actually travel at a velocity greater than that of light via warp drive, huge amounts of negative energy are required to make it work. Gardiner developed a timetable for the development of the warp drive from analyses of history.[3] He concluded the realization of the warp drive might be achieved around the year 2180.

An FTL propulsion system — based on Alcubierre’s warp drive — that utilizes dark energy to propel a spacecraft faster than light has been proposed, and could revolutionize space travel according to an article on the website of Cosmos Magazine [4]. The concept is supported by the calculations of several physicists at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Comparable to the warp drive concept of Star Trek, their theory states that a spacecraft could travel at warp velocity in a bubble of space-time, by manipulating dark energy — the mysterious invisible force allegedly responsible for the observed acceleration in the expansion of the universe. Essentially, the spacecraft would remain in the same place, while space-time ahead of the craft would shrink, expanding again behind it.

At present, there is no known way to naturally or artificially establish a separate, finite space-time region or "bubble" — as mentioned, such a region is necessary to locally suspend or encapsulate the spacecraft within its view of a "normal" space-time. Concurrently, external from that region, there would exist a "warped" space-time, through which the separate region travels at velocities exceeding c, the speed of light.


Artist's impression of a viewer's perspective in front of a ship at warp velocity.In 1996, NASA established the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, which sponsored some speculative work on warp drives. This program was discontinued in 2002.

The following formula (Einstein field equation), based on general relativity, theoretically permits the travel of an object at a greater velocity than that of light, provided that space-time is curved:[5]


Gμν is the Einstein curvature tensor, which describes the curvature in space, while the constant G without indices is Newton's gravitational constant. Hypothetically, if space-time is warped properly, the velocity of the traveling object does not technically exceed the speed of light, even though they appear to be moving faster than light to observers in normal space-time.

In 2007, physicist Richard Obousy proposed that a warp drive could be created by directly manipulating the extra dimensions of string theory.[6] His idea suggests the expansion of space-time is a consequence of the vacuum ground-state of higher dimensional graviton fluctuations. The vacuum energy equations can be expressed as:


In this model, it is the radius of the extra dimensions that directly controls the expansion of space. Obousy suggests that it is superstrings that wrap around the extra dimensions and thusly keeping them compact, but that a sufficiently advanced civilization might influence a string and locally adjust the size of the extra dimension creating a controlled expansion and contraction of the space surrounding an interstellar craft. In July of 2008 it was reported that two Baylor University physicists have outlined how a faster-than-light engine could be created by manipulating the 11th dimension, a special theoretical construct of m-theory. [2]

According to research by Finazzi, Liberati and Barceló [7] the "warp bubble" seems to be unstable.
There are some other articles on it:
http://news.discovery.com/space/warp-dr ... ngine.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHar ... 063&page=1

User avatar
Clinton Huxley
19th century monkeybitch.
Posts: 23739
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:34 pm
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Clinton Huxley » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:27 pm

Interesting articles, Ele (and hopefully realisable....) but do you think you'd enjoy Star Trek less if the FTL was never explained? I doubt it. Or how about Space 1999? The moon gets shot into interstellar space by an explosion and the inhabitants of the moon base thereon encounter a new star system every week, therefore clearly travelling at massive multiples of the speed of light. Total nonsense but Space 1999 was still great (especially that woman that could change into a hawk....)
"I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled"

AND MERRY XMAS TO ONE AND All!

Imagehttp://25kv.co.uk/date_counter.php?date ... 20counting!!![/img-sig]

User avatar
Gawdzilla Sama
Stabsobermaschinist
Posts: 151265
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am
About me: My posts are related to the thread in the same way Gliese 651b is related to your mother's underwear drawer.
Location: Sitting next to Ayaan in Domus Draconis, and communicating via PMs.
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:32 pm

Okay, that's it. I'm going to go see it today. :levi:
Image
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:39 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:Interesting articles, Ele (and hopefully realisable....) but do you think you'd enjoy Star Trek less if the FTL was never explained? I doubt it. Or how about Space 1999? The moon gets shot into interstellar space by an explosion and the inhabitants of the moon base thereon encounter a new star system every week, therefore clearly travelling at massive multiples of the speed of light. Total nonsense but Space 1999 was still great (especially that woman that could change into a hawk....)

Tbh I used to watch Space 1999 but was very young at the time and now remember little of it ( but I do rememebr the strange hawk woman). But I get your point.. Star Wars is not diminished by the fact it includes faster than light travel (although Star Wars is technically fantasy). However although some of the science might seem to stretch believability or the realms of possibility in science fiction it is always grounded in some science fact. Clearly our scientific knowledge grows I think that most movies made/ directors who direct in the genre today would use whatever means possible to ensure that the science used in their movies is as real as is possible and use scientists and theoretical physicists so come up with scenarios that are plausible... I know that may not always be the case but I think James Cameron is pretty thorough when it comes to things like that.

User avatar
Elessarina
Bearer of Anduril
Bearer of Anduril
Posts: 9517
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:12 pm
About me: The Fastest Ratz.. apparently
Location: Rivendell
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Elessarina » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:49 pm

Gawdzilla wrote:Okay, that's it. I'm going to go see it today. :levi:
Lol.. you're certainly assisting it in its toppling of Titanic.. the movie will stand at $1.5bn after this coming weekend. Finally, today, it has been released in Italy...they must have been going crazy having to wait a month to see it.

I am yet to see it in Imax .. I had best hurry

User avatar
Animavore
Nasty Hombre
Posts: 39276
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:26 am
Location: Ire Land.
Contact:

Re: Avatar

Post by Animavore » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:51 pm

Do you have an explanation at hand as to how a moon around a gas giant is able to sustain life like on Pandora? From what we know of our own solar system (and a couple of others) gas giants are way out of the goldilocks zone and the one moon which may have life, Europa, gets its heat internally due to the constant contraction and expansion of the moon due to Jupiter's immense gravitational field. From what I know its possible it may contain microscopic organisms or may some larger jelly fish things but as far as I know it would be quite impossible for it to house any life like on Earth. Anything on that?
Libertarianism: The belief that out of all the terrible things governments can do, helping people is the absolute worst.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests