The Science Behind Avatar

image via WallConvert

The 2009 film Avatar by certified film-god James Cameron was released to fantastic reviews and went on to become the highest grossing film of all time. In it, a paralyzed marine is assigned to deal with diplomatic efforts via an alien body to move the native Na'avi from their home tree so that RDA, the mining company, can mine out unobtanium from underneath it because . . . you know what, whatever. Most people didn't pay attention to the plot because they were so stunned by the beautiful visuals and realistic portrayal of the future.

And that's probably because more thought went into the science behind the film than you think.

image via Varnyavarld

"Science."

Take for instance the spaceship at the beginning of the film. It gets maybe thirty total seconds of screen time in the two and a half hour long movie, yet is probably one of the most well thought out spaceship designs ever put on screen.

image via Wikipedia

"Gene Roddenberry can suck it."

Every part of the ship is a vital piece of how the ship operates. Those big spheres at the front? Fuel of hydrogen and anti-hydrogen contained a separated by artificial magnetic fields. The revolving portion? Crews quarters for the personnel who need to stay away awake during the six year hibernation period for the rest of the travelers. They rotate to create artificial gravity; the more keen viewer might have noticed that they are attached by hinges. That's because during the acceleration and deceleration phase, the quarters stop rotating and fold into the ship.

The artificial gravity is then provided by the g-forces from either slowing down or speeding up to 0.7 the speed of light. And that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as how the ship works.

image via Wikia

The flux capacitor attaches to the warp core's compression coil preventing explosions that damage the hyper-drive.

If you're wondering how oxygen-breathing fire can happen, but humans can't breath in the atmosphere as a million other different people did, there is an answer behind that too; there is oxygen in the air. 

But in addition to that oxygen there is also hydrogen sulfide and chlorine, making the atmosphere poisonous for humans, but not for fire, or any of the many creatures that kill humans.

image via FlickRiver

Pandora is basically space Australia.

This also explains why everyone doesn't walk around with enormous oxygen tank all the time; the masks they wear simply filter out all the poisonous shit and make the air breathable.

Ok, that's small stuff. What about the larger more ridiculous things? It's not like the floating mountains could actually happen right? Well, wrong. Sort of. To make this plausible, you have to believe that James Cameron's fictional unobtanium conducts electricity at room temperature. But given that the material is fictional, and we'll believe anything James Cameron says . . .

image via National Geographic

Mainly that we must all see his movies.

. . . we'll go ahead and believe that. The bottom line is that as the world's most perfect superconductor, unobtanium floats in the presence of a powerful magnetic field. The Hallelujah Mountains are floating because of the incredibly powerful magnetic field on Pandora due to the tidal forces caused by the neighboring gas giant. In essence, the mountains crumble in an upwards direction.

image via ScreenRant

Just like the film's box office.

The whole process is very technical, which is why Cameron and his crew created a 380 page encyclopedia explaining how it all works.

The bottom line is that in a movie about people conducting diplomacy via avatar bodies with blue cat people, the most un-sciency thing in the script was probably the relationship between Trudy Chacon and Norm Spellman which was thankfully cut in the final edition of the film.

image via Youtube

I got an A in chemistry, and I can tell you there is no way in hell that was ever going to happen.