Unobtainium Why?

[Plurralbles]

people are still talking about avatar!?

Myabe it's like a super heavy Uranium like thing that magically stays stable even when its weight is 500g/mole or something. used to produce power I guess.
Or maybe after doing some weird stuff to it, it can become very strong and humanity decides that it needs to be able to drill to the core of hte earth to gain resources that they can't reach any otehr way because they've used it all in the crust.

It's kind of irrelevant to the hippy message the director wanted.

 

[Pingieking]

Or the craziest idea, what if it's a monopole? That would be CRAZY AWESOME!

Maybe that'll go towards explaining those floating mountains. Seriously WTF?

Actually, that would be one of the sweetest explanations in cinema history! The mountains are floating because they're basically giant monopole magnets! It would also kind-of explain why their electronics go crazy when they're flying around the floating mountains.

 

[sagacious]

actually unobtainium is an inside joke from the movie industry and shows just how lazy the writing was in avatar: Don't get me wrong it was very pretty, well acted, well designed & had a lot of emotional resonance, but it was really really really badly written. By now 2 out of every 3 readers of this statement have jumped on the respond button to tell me how wrong i am... but before you do, go back and watch the movie again. This time take in the actual writing rather then the pretty pictures.

Back to my main point. Unobtainium is an inside joke from the movie industry & is a term used to describe any plot breaking substance that a movies base concept is built around. Consider it to be the furry little critter in gremlins (because those rules did not make sense), the microchips in small soldiers or the crystal growing crystal in Superman Returns. all these are examples of unobtainium.

-M

I think you'll find that "Unobtainium" is an Aerospace engineering term, not a movie term. It is Engineer slang for any material required by a design that doesn't exist, is too expensive, or is not available in high enough quantities.

 

[cheese_wizington]

I just don't understand why they named it unobtanium. That's hardly a positive outlook.

 

[cheese_wizington]

Or the craziest idea, what if it's a monopole? That would be CRAZY AWESOME!

Maybe that'll go towards explaining those floating mountains. Seriously WTF?

My theory is that the huge gas giant that pandora orbits is pulling the mountains up with it's gravity.

 

[gigastrike]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unobtainium
If I had to guess based upon what I've seen and that isn't mentioned on any website, I'd say it drives women wild.
That's reason enough for most Earth Men to go to any lengths to get their hands on something, even what no person can rightly grasp.
They search for flowers from Elysium if they thought that it would instantly earn them any woman's favor!

So "unobtanium" is just a general term used to describe any material that is too perfect to exist? That's really lazy on the writer's part. Not only did they not come up with a use for it, they didn't even give it an original name.

 

[ribonuge]

Perhaps it's a bit like Spice?

Yeah it's basically the same metaphor I think.

Perhaps it is an extremely rare form of marmalade?

They kill for some good toast with marmalade in the morning.

 

[KDBTV]

They were super lazy on how to explain about what it does
So they cut it out
Wait until the director's cut comes out and maybe they might tell about it

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Or the craziest idea, what if it's a monopole? That would be CRAZY AWESOME!

Maybe that'll go towards explaining those floating mountains. Seriously WTF?

My theory is that the huge gas giant that pandora orbits is pulling the mountains up with it's gravity.

And yet leaves everything else?

 

[TheDoctor455]

A fossil fuel of sorts I guess, or at least a metaphor for a fossil fuel.

No, more likely a metaphor for one of the several gold rushes.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Its like Tiberium.

Except less Brotherhood of Nod and Scrin.

And C&C didnt have giant Blue hippies.

yeah, too bad there wasn't the ammount of Vehicles and Warmech there were in Tiberian Sun...

 

[Piorn]

Some kind of Superconductor, maybe?

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

BECAUSE IT FLIES! IT'S FUEL! how did they get to this forsaken planet then?

 

[thiosk]

Because the designers are lazy?

But also I would surmise that unobtanium would be part of the theoretical G-block elements, an island of elemental superheavy stability far out beyond the transuraniums, where no truly stable isomers exist.

 

[Pegghead]

Well that says it right there, unobtainium is unobtainable. Back on Earth it's probably just used as jewellery or metal but it's so expensive because it's so rare.

 

[hazabaza1]

It makes lightweight, durable, nice looking hats.

 

[blalien]

That's 20 million in 2154 dollars. That's probably like 50 cents today.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Because of its ridiculous magnetic properties. Something like that could be used to build matter-anti matter annihilation engines for space craft, which could reach upto 92% the speed of light.

EDIT: Also it could be a superconductor. one of the holy grail's of science is finding a cheap superconductor

But... it's not cheap.


It looks like borg cube in the movie, so maybe it can self repair?

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

Well, they made a big point out of how Earth was all fucked up, so I guess it's either something they need to 'fix things' back on Earth, or it's a great source of energy to replace our used-up natural reserves.

Considering the tone of the movie, it's probably the latter.

 

[Falseprophet]

EDIT: Also it could be a superconductor. one of the holy grail's of science is finding a cheap superconductor

This, according to the Avatar wiki [http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unobtanium].