# Does Avatar have underlying plausibility? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 4, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683 "2010-01-04T22:04:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/62 "2010-01-06T21:57:20Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > What does that even mean? It means it has a valid point to make because it’s insistent! I did like the Money Pit. Even though the entire house building was done in a virtual world. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/63 "2010-01-06T22:12:06Z")
I watched _Virtuosity_ in the theatre, got beaten up by Russell Crowe on my way home. ---
**Author:** ![Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/64 "2010-01-06T22:19:55Z")
> [@alterego](#): > > If you stick with the third scenario then you may have to accept that Avatar is a fantasy movie that is implausible. Why would you want it any other way? I mean, if I wanted a movie to be plausible _that_ badly I suppose I could do it to any movie. There, I’m happy now, Star Wars is possible. Is this how organised theism started. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/65 "2010-01-07T06:38:47Z")
> [@alterego](#): > > Yours and all the other replies to my comment are overly strong. In my comment I admitted it may not have been the intended interpretation. I clearly pointed my comment at those who simply didn’t understand the VR argument and claimed it was incompatible, which is not true. There’s two things wrong with this statement. One is your contention that your interpretation is compatible with the events portrayed in the movie. The other is that people are disagree with you because they “don’t understand” VR. In point of fact, the only person in this thread who doesn’t understand the concept of virtual reality is yourself. Consider this. The central conflict to the story is the desire of a corporation to control mineral resources that exist under the Navi tribal lands. If the Navi and their forest existed purely in a virtual simulation, there would be no reason to force them off their land. The people in control of the simulation could simply produce as much of the item as they wanted. Properly speaking, value has no meaning within a virtual society, because, due to its virtual nature, there can be no such thing as true scarcity. Anything that’s needed, can be instantly and perfectly reproduced, infinitely, at the touch of a button. This is the major conceptual hole in your theory. There are, of course, the massive textual holes in your theory, the most glaring being the absolute and total lack of anything in the entire movie that suggests any portion of the film’s events are taking place in VR. To accept your theory, one would not only have to invent a significant amount of backstory, but you have to actively ignore large portions of the film that explicitly state that Sully is inhabiting a physical body on an actual planet. There is, and I say this with absolutely no hyperbole whatsoever, as much support for the events of _Avatar_ happening in a virtual reality, as there is for _The Sound of Music._ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/66 "2010-01-07T10:51:40Z")
Well, how _do_ you solve a problem like the N’avi? ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/67 "2010-01-07T11:08:41Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, how _do_ you solve a problem like the N’avi? Destroy them all and tell Earthling they never really existed. Nuking them from orbit would do the trick. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/68 "2010-01-07T12:57:08Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > Destroy them all and tell Earthling they never really existed. Nuking them from orbit would do the trick. Just for singing in the abbey? Harsh. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/69 "2010-01-08T01:24:50Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, how _do_ you solve a problem like the N’avi? _Do - a deer, a six-legged deer…_ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/70 "2010-01-08T01:51:17Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > _Do - a deer, a six-legged deer…_ \*'ray … our side has bigger guns! Me … a stud … who’s not Na’vi, Far … around a distant sun! So … I wish I could be blue! La … a note that rhymes with na … … tiri … a babe who’s noble too! Which brings us so much dough … dough … dough … dough … .\* ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683/71 "2010-01-10T00:27:55Z")
“And the avatars in our story are living breathing bodies in a real word. They are not, as the word has been appropriated by the cybersphere, are not synthetic alter egos in cyberspace. Just to be clear, this is not a Matrix type story” - **James Cameron** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XrQgA2PWvg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XrQgA2PWvg) (3:20) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-avatar-have-underlying-plausibility/523683.md?page=3)