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Premise
Warning! This premise contains spoilers
Source: Wikipedia.org
In director James Cameron's original script treatment of Avatar, a man tries to make his way as a miner by combining with an alien during an interplanetary war in which aliens can manifest themselves by possessing human bodies - avatars.
When Avatar was titled "Project 880", a casting call was put out in June 2006 with a plot description provided, saying, "In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture."
In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as "a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence... an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience... [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling." The January 2007 press release described the film: "Avatar is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution.
It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival" and "We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language."
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Full Synopsis
Warning! This synopsis contains spoilers
Source: IMDB.com
In a distant future, humanity discovers the planet 'Alpha Centauri B-4', and for those scientists and astronauts who've traversed the gulf between neighboring suns and arrived on its alien soil know it as 'Pandora'. A world filled with an incredible diversity of beautiful and deadly ammonia-breathing lifeforms.
Its also a world that harbors treasures and resources almost beyond price. But just as the original Pandora's Box wrought devastation on those who would use it for their own gain, so too this world may destroy not just the Pandorans home, but ours as well.
Avatar is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival.
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Character Description
Warning! These descriptions contains spoilers
Source: Wikipedia.org
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, "a paralyzed former marine who undergoes an experiment to exist as an avatar, another version of himself... an alien – 10 feet (three meters) tall and blue." Sully is able to be part of the alien world in his avatar, a genetically engineered biological body that can be remotely operated by a human consciousness.
Director James Cameron cast the Australian actor after searching the world for promising young actors, preferring relative unknowns to keep the budget down. Worthington auditioned twice early in development, and has signed on for possible future installments.
Zoë Saldaña as Jake's alien love interest who is betrayed then loved by Sully. The character will be entirely computer generated. Saldaña has signed on for possible future installments.
Sigourney Weaver as Grace, a botanist who mentors Jake Sully. Weaver dyed her hair red for the part. Her character was named Shipley at one point. The character reminded Weaver of Cameron himself: "very driven and very idealistic".
Michelle Rodriguez as an ex-marine pilot. Cameron had desired to work with Rodriguez since he had seen her in Girlfight (2000).
Giovanni Ribisi as Selfridge, a passive-aggressive character.
Stephen Lang as a Marine Corps colonel. Lang had auditioned for a role in Cameron's Aliens (1986) that he did not get, but the director remembered Lang and cast him into Avatar.
Joel David Moore as an anthropologist who studies plant and nature life like Weaver's character.
Matt Gerald as the main villain.
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Avatar Descriptions
Excerpts: James Cameron's Old Scriptment
Warning! These descriptions may contain spoilers
Now that official images have been released by the Avatar filmmakers, we provide here descriptions from James Cameron's old scriptment. The Avatar narrative is teaming with various creatures, locations, and craft, but only the official images descriptions are displayed.
These should not be considered the final descriptions. It's most likely Cameron's final script could differ significantly. I will update these descriptions once the final script is officially released by the filmmakers.
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AEROSPATIALE SA-2 SAMSON: "Behind him they are loading up a VTOL utility vehicle about the size of a Huey helicopter. It is an Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson.
The Samsons are armed only with a door gun, and are the prime-movers of air operations here. They are used by the scientists to reach their remote worksites, and by the construction and mining teams to move personnel and supplies."
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BANSHEERAY: "a bansheeray hurtles at him from above the trees. It is a small one, less than a three meter wingspan. Shaped like a manta ray, it swoops through the trees on translucent wing membranes.
We get a glimpse of glassy fangs unfolding from its mouth like cat-claws, then the cannon blows it into chunks. Quaritch's canopy is showered with blue Pandoran blood."
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HALLELUJAH MOUNTAINS: "On Pandora the [magnetic] effect causes huge outcroppings of unobtainium to rip loose from the surface and float in the magnetic vortices. These floating islands circulate slowly in the magnetic currents, like icebergs at sea, scraping against each other and the towering mesa-like mountains of the region.
The Pandorans call them the Thundering Rocks, and the entire area is sacred to them. Which could be a problem, since the humans have come to mine these mountains and get rich. Which is why they are called the Hallelujah Mountains. They float like clouds made of rock, amongst the fixed mountains and swirling cloud structures. Where they
are in clear sunlight, they cast hard shadows on the land below.
They are overgrown with foliage at the top, and a straggly beard of vines hangs down beneath them like the roots of an air-fern. The sides are shear cliffs. Waterfalls, originating on the mesa-like tops, stream down the sides and dissolve into spray at the bottoms like upside-down geysers. The local peaks and mesas actually project above the level of the craggy underside of the few floating mountains Josh can see, so it's obvious that collisions are inevitable.
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PANDORA: "Pandora, a planet of the Alpha Centauri starsystem. Like everyone, Josh has heard of Pandora, or more properly Alpha Centauri B-4. Discovered by the first interstellar expedition twenty five years ago, Pandora has been the single most interesting thing to happen to the human race in ages. The news services love to run clips of the wild scenery on Pandora, and its bizarre flora and fauna.
To a culture which has lost all contact with the natural world, Pandora is mysterious, primal, and terrifying. Pandora's atmosphere... a poisonous brew of ammonia, methane, CO2, oxygen and nitrogen. Even a little hydrogen cyanide. You can just tell, even from orbit... this is a planet that has life. Just as the plants on Earth are green with chlorophyl, the plants of Pandora, based on a different biochemistry, are mostly purple. The tones range from purple-blue, through violet to magenta. Josh catches glimpses of the rainforest through the clouds as they skim over the endless purple carpet.
Other than the color the trees look like trees. They have trunks and branches and leaves... though some of the shapes are strange, and the proportions are wrong. There are waterfalls feeding highland rivers, and Josh sees more flocks of the bird-like things. They pass a few small patches of open grassland. The magenta grass ripples in the wind like wheat.
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POLYPHEMIS: "The most amazing thing about Pandora is that it doesn't actually orbit its sun directly, but is actually in orbit around an enormous planet, a gas giant almost twice the size of Jupiter, which in turn orbits the yellow sun of Alpha Centauri B. This monster planet has been named POLYPHEMIS, for the great cyclops of Greek myth. This is because, like Jupiter with its Great Red Spot, Polyphemis has a vest cyclonic storm like a great dark pupil in its vast disk. The eye of an angry god looking down on Pandora.
Pandora, despite being almost as big as Earth, is technically a moon of the giant planet. Polyphemis has thirteen other moons, some closer in, some farther out. Depending on what's where in its orbit, Pandora can have two or even three moons in its sky at once. Pandora and the other moons cast large black shadow dots on the parent planet, like beauty marks."
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POWERSUIT: "A massive metal foot crashes down into frame.
Cut wider to see that it belongs to Miles Quaritch wearing a POWERSUIT.
This is a robotic walking machine, bipedal, about 4 meters tall (14 feet).
Though massive, it is gyroscopically balanced and quite agile, able to duplicate most human motion.
It is heavily armored, and armed with a huge rotary cannon, a GAU 90, built into one forearm. Quaritch uses a psionic link to control the machine."
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STURMBEEST: "Josh and Zuleika hear a thundering sound and around the bend ahead of them comes a solid wall of stampeding STURMBEEST. Visualize an indigo and orange
wildebeest five meters tall, weighing ten tons and moving like a locomotive. . .
There is an undulating river below... a river of sturmbeest. Thousands of them on the move. Their indigo and orange
stripes merge into a rippling moire, a living rapids of thundering muscle. . .
The sturmbeest go into evasive action, turning unpredictably, and kicking out with their back hooves as they crash through underbrush and decimate anything in their path. When the sturmbeest feel threatened the stream divides, branching out into smaller trails through higher trees."
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TROOPERS OF SECFOR: "Nearby Josh sees several Troopers of SECFOR, the RDA security force, a kind of private army operated by the Consortium.
The troopers wear full helmets, rebreathers, and body armor, and carry heavy automatic weapons. They look constantly outward, toward the perimeter.
They are a hardened bunch of men and women, who live by the philosophy that sharp eyes, fast hands and a warm gun are the keys to survival on Pandora, the most badass bush in history.
Among the arriving passengers are twenty new troopers. They double time down the ramp, carrying their huge packs and kit bags. They smartly salute the hardened SECFOR troopers, who eye the new meat with smirking disdain."
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