Avatar- Braver, Faster, Stronger

To contact us Click HERE


The cinematic technology of box office blockbusters is ravenously consumed by popular culture. Millions of people around the world fill darkly lit rooms to see these works of art. In the average 90 minutes of a film so much is presented to the audience that it is impossible to comprehend everything. The following is the first I cover the science in blockbuster propaganda, starting with the best of the best.

Avatar(2009), directed by James Cameron, is the highest grossing film of all time having pulled in $2,783,165,628 USD worldwide. Of course, this is not accounting for the wonderfully painful ticket price inflation, which would leave it actually 14th. (Behind Ben Hurr and eight spots behind Cameron's Titanic.)

Avatar was and is a massive business venture. Video games, soundtracks, re-releases, 3d, 4d, IMAX, toys, promotions, cereal, you name it and it probably was painted blue for at least a week.

James Cameron does it big and that is why he was the man for this half billion dollar production. Aliens (1986), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and Titanic (1997) are lesser known films of his.

Oh, can you say, 3 Oscars, another 42 award wins & 32 nominations?

No you can't, but Jimmy can.

As a master propagandist with a degree in physics his ability to create a far more scientific world in a person's mind is amazing.

In Avatar the viewer is bombarded with stunning visuals and strong emotional content. So many different yet familiar themes are thrown at you it is difficult to take it all in, in one viewing. Let's start "Part 1" by addressing the major sciences presented to us in the film and the truths behind them...

Unobtainium, Pandora and Floating Mountains
As is the calling card of science fiction we find a consistent scientific theme wove into fantasy.

On Pandora, a life supporting moon in a distant solar system, the military industrial complex of Earth has discovered unobtainium.

I describe it a "magical, super-conductive, rare earth magnet-on-crack, like mineral"


Avatar's magical rock makes entire mountains with waterfalls, float in the air.


Try not to confuse this with the magical unobtainium from "The Core", which turns heat into energy.

(Joking. I know you won't, because you didn't see it)

There are many signs in the movie that infer gravity and electrical activity on the fictional moon. But to sum up this science quickly, forces this strong would rip the iron from our body.


Currently no room-temperature superconductors are known to exist or thought possible.

A highly magnetic moon with an atmosphere, closely orbiting a gaseous planet, would absorb far too much radiation, magnetic and electrical energy for humans to step foot on without major protection. But we can dream thanks to James Cameron and FOX...


Genetically Engineered Trans-human Na'vi

In the movie, a team of humans transfer their consciousness to a transgenically modified hybrid of the Pandoran indigenous species with a dash of human DNA. 

"Although neuro-scientists are working on brain-machine interfaces have allowed humans and other primates to control the movements of machines, Miguel Nicolelis, the Duke University neuro-scientist Popular Mechanics consulted, notes that the transfer of one's consciousness into a biological body is several orders of magnitude beyond what is currently feasible."*

The trick to this science is the consciousness transfer. With the level of advancement in transgenics or genetic engineering, we could feasibly make the human/smurf body with today's or only slightly future technology.

You doubt that?

Meet spider-goat, http://www.physorg.com/news194539934.html, a transgenic goat whose milk makes spider-webs. While spider-goat isn't from a extraterrestrial moon, to be uploaded with human consciousness, it is an amazing advance to human-smurf hybrids.

As far as putting your mind into something else, biological or machine, we have to be happy with the advancements in biology and neuroscience.

According to a time-line based on Moore's law (exponential growth of technology) 2013 is supposedly when we will have the computational power to digitally "copy" a human mind and in 2025 we will be able to "paste" it.**

This of course is still speculative, most studies have only been able to digitally recreate portions of mice brains, which is far from uploading yourself into a genetically engineered body of "ET" for Halloween. But its being worked on as you read this, rest assured.

Robotic Exo-Suits
Similar to the "power loader" from Cameron's "Aliens", Avatar's exoskeleton is based in a very real and current technology. In fact armed forces are just 3-4 years away from seeing these exoskeletons, de-tether on the unclassified level.

Expect heavy use in military and in industry, because after these hit the market, who would want a forklift? If you aren't excited about running around with the ability to give the Lincoln Memorial a "wedgie" in just a few years... you are just silly.

As you would imagine from a world at war the majority of the research in this area is focusing on making the technology smaller, stronger and more resource efficient. The exo-suits featured in Avatar are large and awkward compared to realities current focus.

As technology advances we will probably see larger flight capable robotic suits for military purposes in a decade.


Holographic Display
Another technology Avatar portrayed that isn't too far from being sold in Wal Mart, is holography.

"The technique of holography can also be used to store, retrieve, and process information optically. While it has been possible to create a 3-D holographic picture of a static object since the 1960s, it is only in the last few years^[1] that arbitrary scenes or videos can be shown on a holographic volumetric display."***

Holography is what I would deem, grade a awesome.  Basically, the better computing becomes this stuff gets better and better. Expect this science to pervade the consumer market beginning in the next 2-4 years.

Of course it will be decades to see anything like we see in the movie.


(Put the tech in this video on my, list of things I want like a eight year old on Christmas.)

The current technologies are costly and usually involve real-time three dimensional computer projections on screens or video feeds.


Still awesome. Imagine being 6 years old learning about dinosaurs with one of these things... because it is going to happen.

Space Travel & Cyrogenics

While researching this subject I came across one gentleman who went into amazing detail of the flaws, in the math and exaggeration of science, in Avatar's space travel.

I will not subjecting you to that level of detailed hatred, though i was impressed...

Avatar's method of interstellar travel is actually very accurate for Hollywood. Elongated ships, anti-matter engines and cryo-sleep are among the tops ideas for serious cosmic journeys.

Human hibernation will involve inducing mammalian hibernation through genetic therapy.**** A few documented humans already have been shown to exhibit hibernation genes naturally in times of great stress.


Studying mammalian hibernation is also benefiting cardiovascular care with new approaches on how to lower & manage vital signs besides the chuckling derived from studying this picture.

How long will it be until you can sleep away a trip to Alpha Centauri A? I'm not too sure. But you can remember you heard it here, it's gonna happen.


---

Living up to its production costs that rival the GDP of some slave farms, the science presented in this fiction is based in very sound and current research. While the technologies portrayed in the fiction are exaggerated for propaganda sake, they hold enough real science to appease me...

More impressive than the science in the movie, to me, is the science of the movie. And that is another story for next time. The half billion dollar production of Avatar presented underlying themes and agendas in a new format as no other blockbuster ever has. Avatar 2 is currently scheduled for release, December 2014






*http://io9.com/5428485/how-does-avatars-science-stack-up
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading
***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography
****http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/BNG/ACT-RPR-BNG-2004-JBIS-Morpheus.pdf