the botany of ‘avatar’
One of the advantages/disadvantages to reading the Los Angeles Times is their focus on Hollywood and their idea of what constitutes a major news story. Page 24 of the front section of this morning’s paper features an interview with UC Riverside botanist Jodie Holt on the consulting work she did for the current James Cameron science fiction film, Avatar. In addition to helping shape the look of the plants in the film, her plant descriptions and taxonomies form a chapter of the fan book, Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora.
Above: Hometrees on the moon Pandora, from the Pandorapedia [ source ]
Edit [January 10]: I finally made it to see Avatar. While it’s not the sort of film I usually take myself to I had a great 2 hours and 42 minutes of escapism.
Some of the most striking botanical things seem to be the filmmaker’s borrowings from what earth’s marine life forms do already: plants with spectacular nighttime bioluminescence, seeds that float (while glowing) like marine jellyfish, or plants that glow when stepped on like certain marine algae. Actually I was surprised by how many plants I recognized already: ferny things, banana-leaved-looking things, tree-like things, grassy things. (Maybe that was botanist Jodie Holt’s influence?)
It made it look like Earth and Pandora were seeded with many of the same primordial spawn, which might be the case since humans were able to travel to Pandora in just a few years. If any filmmaker wants to option this compelling other story of divergent evolution on Earth and a distant planet’s moon, just e-mail me.
January 02 2010 10:05 am | Categories: gardening • places | Tags: Avatar • botanists • films • Jodie Holt
tina on 02 Jan 2010 at 3:24 pm #
This is the second post I’ve seen on Avatar-must be a gardener’s movie?
lostlandscape on 02 Jan 2010 at 3:36 pm #
I’m not a gonzo science fiction fan so I still haven’t seen it, but it features Sigourney Weaver as a botanist on an alien moon. The idea of a film about a botanist sounds compelling!
Susie on 02 Jan 2010 at 7:19 pm #
I have to admit…the visuals are spectaular.
Town Mouse on 02 Jan 2010 at 8:12 pm #
Ah, come on. Go see it! I do think this is a movie you’ll want to see on the big screen. I really enjoyed it, and it’s interesting how they worked with different professors to get the botany and language right.
Unfortunately, it’s the warrior, not the scientists, who is the really important guy. But I still found it very enjoyable…
ryan on 03 Jan 2010 at 10:37 am #
I enjoyed it. Hackneyed story, but it’s filled with gardener eye candy.
steve on 06 Jan 2010 at 12:30 am #
My good friend Annette at IsraeliMom.org is a webmistress and something of a futurist. She thinks Avatar is the way things will be next in moviedom and in some other ways. Lordy, the visuals are intensely gorgeous.
Meredith on 06 Jan 2010 at 2:50 pm #
I enjoyed the movie very much… and I generally avoid hollywood films. There is definitely much to recommend if you are a plant or earth-lover.
Pam/Digging on 08 Jan 2010 at 10:21 am #
Avatar nature scenes and It’s Complicated veggie garden are the talk of the garden blogosphere at the moment. I’ve seen the 1st, not the 2nd, and can add my praise for the extraterrestrial foliage in the movie. It’s incredibly well done, and I’d love to see the movie again for that alone. As for the plot, yes, it’s simplistic, but actually I really enjoyed the whole movie. Good acting, good visuals, a green message.
Mr. McGregor's Daughter on 08 Jan 2010 at 12:45 pm #
Thanks for the info, I enjoyed reading that interview. It is a visual feast of a movie for gardeners, and really needs to be seen on a really big screen.
Greg on 09 Jan 2010 at 11:13 am #
Okay, I guess I really have to go check out this movie.
Guy Webb on 10 Jan 2010 at 4:00 am #
As a Master Gardener, Lotusland Docent, Advanced Green Gardener, and Board Member of the Ventura Botanical Gardens, Inc., I found AVATAR utterly fascinating in all respects (other than the fact that Segurney Weaver as the Chief Botonist is a frenetic smoker in the alien atmosphere of Pandora…) All of the flora and fauna in the film had some basis in reality or at least in historical myth. In other words, everything looked and sounded realistic and familiar while at the same time being entirely new and strange. Do yourselves a favor and see this film on a big screen and in 3-D. Truly stunning…
Frances on 11 Jan 2010 at 2:56 am #
I wanted to return and comment after seeing the movie for myself. It was a visual feast along with a sweet if violent love story. I will be seeing it again, this time with more attention to the flora and fauna. I loved the glow in the dark forest scenes the best, but the whole experience was very satisfying. This is one movie that lived up to the hype and more.
Frances
Karen Vaughan on 12 Jan 2010 at 3:51 pm #
We already have a number of glow in the dark fungii. Don’t know how they would transplant to make a night-glowing garden. I usually don’t have much success transplanting fungii, no matter how much mycelium and humus I bring along.
I too was fixated on the familiarity of the Pandoran botany, with a large nod to sea fauna. The fungii that closed up were so like sea anemonae. The seeds were of course like jellyfish.
lostlandscape on 13 Jan 2010 at 8:59 pm #
Thanks for stopping by to comment, everyone. It sounds like I’m not the only one who thought it was worth seeing. It seems like it’s the sort of film that’ll be good to know even if you don’t love it because everyone has already been coming up with all sorts of Avatar references. And I think Karen’s idea of a naturally glowing garden is one someone needs to make a reality. That would be a garden I’d rush to, even before lining up to see Avatar.
[ Lost in the Landscape ] » bloom day—in 3d! on 15 Jan 2010 at 12:03 pm #
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