The use of “unobtainium” in this movie was pretty self-explanatory (as above) so I am not sure how much of an “inside joke” it is or what one would need to know to “get it”. I got it right away and I am hardly astute. I think it isn’t the getting it, but the moving on that is difficult for some.
And it would be interesting to know at least why we should be interested in obtaining the unobtainium. 
I know it’s a joke - it can’t ever be serious. It was just (for me) completely misplaced here - it’s not that I don’t understand what the term means, it’s that I didn’t think it worked at all when used here. It yanked me right out of immersion in the movie.
For all we know, the name unobtainium was bestowed in-story on the substance discovered on Pandora for its value and and rarity.
As I posted before, in the Avatar universe (described in the book Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, the material is a high-temperature superconductor that was discovered on Pandora by the first remote probes to explore that world. It was first dubbed “unobtanium” after the term for a sought-for but non-existent high temperature superconductor used by researchers in the 1990s. It was first used as a joke, but then the name stuck.
I’m a little surprised by people saying that a fantasy name for a fantasy material took them out of a fantasy movie. In any case joke names that became serious established terms are quite common in physics; examples include the Big Bang and quarks and their various “flavors” (up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange). The idea that a new valuable material might receive a joke name and have it stick is entirely plausible.
Yeah, and it was really cool when the giant animals started smacking humans with their thagomizers.
I guess I can buy that it was named that in that universe originally as a joke, but that the name stuck. And it actually makes some sense that it would be a high-temperature superconductor, since that goes some way towards explaining things like the floating mountains (it doesn’t completely explain it, but it’s at least a token explanation, enough for suspension of disbelief to take it the rest of the way). It’s just that I don’t like to have to stop for a fanwank in the middle of a movie, so the word did briefly pull me out of the movie a little. A minor flaw, to be sure, but I do think it was a flaw.
That’s all fair enough, but I’ve not read the book, and shouldn’t need to in order to make sense of the movie - it’s just bad detail design - although as Chronos says, it’s minor.
I think this has probably happened in real life - it’s not the principle of a fantasy name in a fantasy movie - it’s something a bit cheap about this particular name (or at least it is for me)
My husband and I saw it earlier today, and I must say it was absolutely amazing! The story line was far from perfect, but I was completely immersed in the movie. I must not have been the only one - the theater was busy, but no one ever spoke, coughed, or flipped open a phone.
I do have one question - what happened to Norm, the third scientist? I remember his avatar being killed and him running out of the trailer with a gun, but I don’t recall seeing him after that. Are we to assume he was killed?
Norm is there in a breathing mask at the end with some of the Navi and presumably some of the other scientists (in their avatar bodies), shepherding the other humans to their ships to leave.
I saw it last night. The only 3D showing with tickets available was at 1:40 in the morning - IMAX tickets are sold out for the following MONTH. Geez. I got 3D glasses that were fucked up so watched most of the movie without the stupid things until my boyfriend noticed and gave me his for the last hour of the film.
Anyway, it was pretty good. Stunning visuals, a simple plot but engrossing enough. I loved the female lead - she was very believable. It wasn’t a complex movie but I don’t think it ever pretended to be anyway.
We saw it in a completely packed IMAX theatre last Monday, and it was the same there - people were completely enthralled. At the end we almost spontaneously started clapping (a few people started but the theatre had emptied out too much for it to catch), and that NEVER happens any longer.
It was explicitly shown right at the beginning that the spaceship has two shuttles.
You know, you could have asked for another pair. They have tons of the things.
Saw it last night, in IMAX 3D to a packed house that was absolutely enraptured. While I personally think that many of the problems others have had are silly, I did wonder what’s the deal with the atmosphere. The biosphere is clearly an oxidative one which would almost certainly have to mean oxygen. So is it too low a partial pressure of oxygen? “Contaminants” that do bad things to Earth-based life (I’m thinking something like NOx or ozone?) Something along the lines of Niven’s “The Flight of the Horse” where air without the industrial contaminants is poisonous?
Other than that, while it might have had a simple plot to hang the visuals on, the plot worked and the visuals are gorgeous. The only problem I always have with 3D is that all my experience says that when watching a movie, things should be flat. Getting a real visual distance between layers always screws me up until my brain can get used to it. The trailer for Hubble 3D was really bad for me (though I would like to see that.)
That’s too bad, I thought the intention was to achieve the opposite. For you to forget about the MacGuffin because it wasn’t important. They were there to extract ‘resource X’, what that resource was, was irrelevant really.
On the other hand, I thought the geek in-joke about unobtanium was funny and a point in the movie’s favor. Obviously, YMMV.
Regarding unobtanium, according to the book, as a very high temperature superconductor it is vital for interstellar travel (being used to contain the reactions in the matter-antimatter drive that allows a significant percentage of light speed
to be obtained), for instantaneous (trans-light speed) communication (by "spooky action at a distance through quantum entanglement of particles), and the operation of maglev trains and production of computer hyperchips.
Thanks. I missed that.
The atmosphere is mainly nitrogen-oxygen, at a density approximately 20% greater than the Earth’s (but a sea level pressure about 10% less due to lower gravity). This and the lower gravity make the giant flying creatures possible, although the higher density makes it more difficult for them to push themselves through the air. Oxygen is at a similar partial pressure to Earth. What makes it unbreathable without a filter is a that it is 18% carbon dioxide, and also contains hydrogen sulphide (both from pervasive vulcanism caused by internal heating due to tidal effects from the planet and other moons). It also contains 5.5% argon.
Gotcha. Yeah, that would be a nasty mix to breathe in. Is that established in the opening and I just missed it, or is it in more of that external material?
Anybody watch SNL last night? Sigourney Weaver was the host and James Cameron made an appearance. It was probably the only part worth watching–pretty funny stuff.
In the security briefing at the beginning the Colonel tells people that the air is will kill them without a mask, but does not go into detail (as far as I recall). The info is from the Avatar book.
It might have worked better for me if it had been the scarred Colonel that referred to it as unobtanium, since his character was not really interested in the terminology. I guess it’s more like a reflex for me now though - I can’t help but synonimise unobtanium and ‘handwavium’ (and I expect we agree that the latter term would have been jarring)