Word: planets
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...epic follows an ex-Marine named Jake Sully as he struggles for survival on an alien moon called Pandora, home to a tall, blue, humanoid species called the Na'vi and to a mysterious resource called unobtainium, which draws humans in a future century to colonize the planet. Jake (Sam Worthington) must inhabit the body of a human-alien hybrid, or avatar, to breathe the noxious air on Pandora. There he falls in love with a Na'vi woman and finds himself at the center of a human-Na'vi battle. The story had been knocking around in Cameron...
...gimbal by grips. For scenes that combined live action with CG, Cameron used a new tool called a Simulcam, which allowed him to see actors playing in exotic CG surroundings in real time. Cameron's goal was to shoot as if he were filming a documentary on another planet. It was the kind of filmmaking environment that required both imagination and patience. A crew member wrote a set catchphrase on a whiteboard: "It's Avatar, dude, nothing works the first time...
...script element Fox had initially objected to was Cameron's failure to explain unobtainium, the precious resource that sends humans to Pandora to strip-mine the planet ruinously. Unobtainium is a joke term engineers have used for decades to describe any needed material that is rare, costly or difficult to obtain. For Cameron, the specificity of unobtainium is not important, and despite Fox's objections, he never explains in the movie what makes unobtainium worth the trouble of interstellar travel. But the answer to that mystery is that the substance's room-temperature superconducting properties make...
Thanks to massive spending (and borrowing) by its state-owned development companies, Dubai was soon every inch the global financial center. It's home to the sail-shaped Burj al-Arab, the most expensive hotel in the world, and the unfinished 160-story Burj Dubai, the planet's tallest building. Its coastline has sprouted archipelagoes of man-made islands shaped to represent a date palm and a map of the world...
...author writes that going green is an aspect of contemporary thrift. Being mindful of the earth is a corollary of being frugal: "Being energy conscious at home, buying clothes at yard sales and vintage stores, and similar thrifty actions both save money and reduce our impact on the planet." Simplify, simplify, simplify...