Avatar (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Banned in China: It was released in China, but its 2D version was pulled from cinemas very quickly afterwards despite the film being the most popular shown in China ever. It is likely a large part of this was its message, which could be seen as being potentially inspirational to oppressed people within China. Oddly enough, China still allowed the 3D version to be shown even afterwards.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • For Quaritch: Colonel Bastard, Colonel Monster, Colonel Awesome, Colonel Coffee, Colonel Quidditch, Lt. Surge, the Q-Man.
    • For the Na'vi hair-braid that links to everything: "Bio USB", "Ponytalia"
    • The planet Pandora orbits is sometimes referred to as "Bluepiter," since it looks like... well, a blue Jupiter (made kind of obvious by its Great Blue Spot).
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: A rare animal example: The odd, barking "cough" sound made by the dire-horses is identical to the calling sound the raptors make in the first Jurassic Park film (watch in the kitchen, when the raptor calls for its buddy to look for Tim & Lex). Of course, they should sound the same: both are the cough of a male walrus or elephant seal. Some of the thanator's roars seem to be the same as those of the T. rex, as well. Both films used the same SFX shop.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
    • Frank Jr. from Friends.
    • Fisher from Bones.
      • His role in Bones is also used in a later episode when he and two other characters want to go watch Avatar in a cinema.
    • The Persian ambassador/ Doctore from 300 and Spartacus: Blood and Sand is the leader of the Horse Clan.
    • Dr. Grace Augustine is played by Sigourney Weaver!
    • Jake Sully is Marcus from T4 Or, for some of us, Australian Macbeth.
    • Trudy is Ana Lucia from Lost.
    • Neytiri is the blue-skinned version of Uhura from Star Trek.
    • Colonel Quaritch is Freddy Lounds from Manhunter.
    • Sagat as the leader of the Omaticaya.
  • Killer App: For the Blu-Ray format. It sold 1.5 million copies on release day, 6.2 million after three weeks. For quite a while, you couldn't walk into a Best Buy without seeing it all over the TV wall.
  • The Red Stapler/Defictionalization: The Chinese renamed one of their national park mountains as Avatar Hallelujah Mountain because of this film. Of course, according to James Cameron, the design of the mountains in the film are inspired by the mountains around southern China. In particular, Huangshan.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The Marine colonel swigs from his coffee mug in the middle of a gunship attack, like Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.
    • Also, there are oodles of Aliens Shout Outs. Let's just mention that Sigourney Weaver's first appearance on-screen is inside a capsule and leave it there, although to prevent one accidental similarity Cameron changed her character's surname to Augustine rather than the original Shipley, which he decided was too similar to Ripley. Believe it or not. Also, RDA company man Parker Selfridge is a bit more sympathetic than Weyland-Yutani company man Carter Burke.
    • Wainfleet acts as a door gunner in one scene, can't wait to kill some innocent civilians, and says "Get some!" several times throughout the movie, just like the door gunner in Full Metal Jacket.
    • The original Avatar Project leader (before Grace and before its focus on the Na'vi) was Dr. Cordell Lovecraft, and the project was called "Dark Dreamer". (Fun fact: Lovecraft was awarded several Nobel Peace Prizes, only to be withdrawn by protests from several groups... one of them being the UN.)
    • The burning direhorse is drawn from The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many thought it was a shout out to various films, but it actually drew from real life. Reality Is Unrealistic strikes again.
    • The biggest deposit of Unobtanium within 200 klicks is coincidentally buried right underneath the Na'Vi village. So the whole job of the Avatars is to help relocate them to another location. Sounds exactly like several squabbles between Native Americans and the United States, particularly the Black Hills region (which the Supreme Court in 1980 found to have been illegally taken from the Sioux, but they weren't willing to give it back because it had had over a century of private development and South Dakota's second largest city on it).
      • Then you get to the Na'vi fleeing the tree, which looks just like Trail of Tears depictions.
    • Helicopters firing toxic gas on tropical natives? Marines with flamethrowers "securing" a village? Did we just smell napalm in the morning?
    • There's also the Colonel referring to the Na'vi as "terrorists", and saying they'll use "shock and awe" tactics.
    • The ritual Neytiri does when she saves Jake from the Viperwolves (and kills one) is reminiscent of Ohlone (and probably some other Native American tribes) praying for forgiveness to a killed animal for killing them. Depending on how many hundreds of years you go back, similar rituals and beliefs were prevalent pretty much everywhere.
    • The destruction of the Omaticaya hometree, and especially its immediate aftermath, takes on a very similar appearance to September 11, another well-known disaster involving a very tall, inhabited structure crashing violently into the ground below. Although from a standpoint of proportional significance among the entire Na'vi population, it would be more akin to nuking most of Manhattan.
  • What Could Have Been: James Cameron originally planned on filming Avatar immediately after finishing Titanic. He soon found that the special effects technology of the time wouldn't be sufficient for portraying Pandora.
    • Project 880, James Cameron's original script (here; summary here). Some items of note:
      • Earth and its environmental problems are explored. (Sully has never even seen a forest, so Grace has to practically hold his hand when they go into the woods.)
      • We see Josh (Jake) Sully's Avatar being born -- Sully actually "births" himself. Also, his reaction to walking again is quite different: it takes him a while to gain any sort of strength, and then he cries.
      • It's revealed the Avatar program originally existed to train Na'vi to be an indigenous workforce for the Corporation, since it's so expensive to send human workers. Obviously, they didn't like that.
      • There is an Avatar controller who is burnt out because his Avatar died with him in it. He committed Avatar suicide because he had fallen in love with a Na'vi girl who had been killed by the military.
      • The Avatars have a Na'vi guide named N'Deh who is sleeping with Grace.
      • Grace survives the soul transfer.
      • After encountering a giant, gas-filled hydra in addition to the "slyth", Jake has good reason to swat away Eywa's seeds.
      • Josh Sully gains the Na'vi trust by being a member of the community. He also excels in a major hunt.
      • Josh Sully shows his leadership not by taming a dragon but by leading a raid on Hell's Gate to rescue prisoners.
      • Josh Sully isn't the only one to ride a big dragon.
      • Pandora is a living entity and it sees the humans as a virus. It has been mobilizing the plants and animals to attack all along because it wanted to force the humans out. It's been actively curing human diseases, which was making the Corporation rich (not that that's going stop them from wanting to wipe out its Death World jungle).
      • There is no unobtainium beneath Hometree. The military wants to wipe out the local Na'vi to send a message to all the tribes that they must be obeyed.
      • Some of the humans and the Avatar controllers rise up in the final big battle, which includes busting out some captured Na'vi from Hell's Gate.
      • A making-of special on FX reveals that this was filmed: The avatars hijacked one of the logging machines and attacked the control room.
      • Josh Sully tells Earth that any humans that return to Pandora will get a disease that will wipe out humanity (he's lying).
      • Sully ends up leading the Avatars, rebel humans, and a small group of Na'vi loyal to him personally in alliance with the larger Na'vi force, instead of uniting the entire race under his own banner.
      • In the final battle, the animals fight beside the Na'vi instead of waiting until the rout.
  • The Wiki Rule: Avatar Wiki.
  • Write Who You Know: Sigourney says she based her portrayal of Grace on James Cameron, in that she's a perfectionist Jerk with a Heart of Gold.

Similar Stories

  • Since the movie employs basic tropes in a story plotted in a simple way, it is possible to imagine it to be a lot like other stories. It isn't really any more or less "derivative" than anything else. This is the first movie here that has sparked people to list so many different stories the movie reminds them of. A look at the list may reveal something about the themes and elements that stick out in people's minds:
    • Handsome man (American/European) goes to a distant, exotic locale as part of the invasion force, falls in love with the native culture, and turns against his own to save them: Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and The Last Samurai Recycled in Space. That no one remembers A Man Called Horse (1970) and Lawrence of Arabia tells you everything you need to know about this entry, possibly because not every 'person changing sides' story is automatically similar to Avatar despite what the Hatedom claims.
    • Transform the protagonist to resemble the invaded, non-human natives, add a deep mystic connection to their environment on a spiritual AND physical level, punch clock villains dead set on exploiting natural resources for financial gain, and an environmentalist message and we get Fern Gully.
    • Albion has a very similar plot, a planet with large 'network of energy' that connects all living beings, and even the natives of the planet look almost the same (only smaller and less blue), they even have a specialized organ that allows them to telepathically communicate with each other (a crystalline formation on their forehead). The game was released around the time Cameron first conceived the plot for this movie.
    • A Death World is the only place in the universe where one can find an extremely costly substance that's important for interstellar travel. Said planet is populated by natives who are unstoppable warriors due to living on said planet. An off-worlder shows up and finds a place among the natives, eventually leading them to victory over the colonizers. Bonus points for him fitting their legend, riding a giant powerful animal, and having a special name in their native tongue. Double bonus for having an ecologist working for the bad guys but in essence one of the good guys, who also scoffs at the bad guys for their industrialist interest and missing the beauty of the planet itself. And a a knife fight at the end. And the protagonist becoming king of the planet. Anyone still question Dune was an influence here?
    • A disabled man goes to a distant land and meets some miners who are trying to mine precious minerals from underneath an ancient forest being guarded by intelligent native creatures. He also meets many of the forest-dwellers and becomes friends with them, especially a certain young woman. Then the miners and forest-dwellers get into an all-out war where many are killed while he tries to stop the war. Yep, it's Princess Mononoke.
    • Dueling Movies: By sheer accident or twist of fate, several movies have come out since production began on Avatar that are somewhat similar:
      • Battle for Terra has a similar plot and a similar look and feel, was an animated film (though not necessarily for kids), and had a mediocre reception in general.
      • Planet 51 also dealt with the "human as alien invader" story (as a comedy, of course).
      • Delgo, another movie about two different sapient races coming to blows over... something, to the point where the creators of the former attempted to sue Cameron over the production of Avatar.
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