Ok, so Avatar still stands as the highest grossing movie of all time, and with the release of its sequel, The Way of Water, I thought I’d do a deep dive on the original movie to point out the hidden details, easter eggs, and things you might miss. Throughout this video, I want to go through 23 of the best things in the film to point out some great attention to detail.
The movies have been out since 2009, and these are things I’ve noticed over the years, read online, and been told by people over the almost decade and a half since its release. I’ve tried to credit people where I could be hugely sorry if I forgot your name from that thing you told me back in 2013. I’ll never forget the times we had together, though.
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Avatar (2009) Breakdown
Now in the movie, we follow Jake Sully, who ends up becoming an avatar after the death of his twin brother. His brother was part of the program that created avatars so that humans could roam the planet Pandora using host bodies.
In order to create this link, human DNA had to be embedded into the hosts so that they were aligned enough with their drivers that it wouldn’t cause issues. Humans are of course also used to doing things with four fingers, and we can see that all of the human Avatars carry four fingers and a thumb on each hand.
Now, throughout the movie, Jake and Neytiri get closer, and we actually see a four-finger mark on her later on in the movie. When Neytiri has her war paint on, we can see that she has a handprint on her chest. This has four fingers on it, showing that Jake helped her apply it.
Another thing that you might not have noticed is that all of the human avatars also have eyebrows. The Native Na’vi, however, don’t, and this is a more subtle detail to set them apart.
Speaking of body hair, we also subtly see the passage of time through Jake’s hair growth throughout the film. In the opening of the movie, he has long hair, which is then cut short once he’s drafted. Jake gets a buzz cut, and later on, the sides of this hair grow out. Eventually, he has a full head of thick hair at the end of the movie before he gets transferred to the Na’vi body.
Huge shoutout to Philip Lipton Schrute on Reddit for pointing out that 99% of the animals of Pandora have six limbs whereas the Na’vi just have four. Similar to our own Earth, they evolved to walk upright, and much like how we gained opposable thumbs, they gained shoulders.
However, there is something beyond that, and in the trees, we see lemur-like creatures swinging, which just have two. These are actually the missing link and the stage between the other animals of the planet and the upright Na’vi, who climb trees and walk in a bipedal stance.
For the Thanator, they actually reuse the roar from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, which is a nice little nod to that movie. (insert roaring sound)
In another reference to Jurassic Park, the Direhorses also make the same noises that the Raptors do. (insert sound)
Now the movie sees the Na’vi going up against the forces of Colonel Quatrich. James Cameron has often inserted metaphors for the US military in his work and the soldiers we follow in ALIENS were deliberately meant to look like how the US dressed during the Vietnam war. The Xenomorphs were very much the indigineous species with the US trying to make the planet theirs. This is the same in the case of Avatar and Cameron subtly embeds the Stars and stripes flag into the environment early on. When Jake Sully meets the Colonel for the first time we can see him giving a meeting and behind him there are several striped blinds. These are spaced apart evenly and in the top left hand corner we can also see a box. This layout makes it represent the flag and thus when we meet the Colonel he’s an embodiment of the US. Don’t get annoyed at me being British yeah, I hired Jared.
Cameron says the message of the film is more that whole nature thing rather than him being against the military but this could be echoing movies like Patton to show how it symbolises the nation.
Other hints that Jake is in with the Marines happens when we see him climbing vines to tame the Mountain Banshees. He uses something called the S-Method which is taught in Marine Bootcamp as a way to traverse ropes and vines.
Now, in a more positive nod to a US institution, we also see that Sigourney Weavers Grace wears a Stanford top when we first meet her. Sigourney actually graduated from Stanford back in the 1970s, so this is a nice little nod to her past.
She also smokes at several points, and according to the making of this cigarette, it was actually CGI. A CGI cigarette, if you will. Instead, she used a tootpick as a stand-in, and this was meant to show that she didn’t care about her health in her actual body, just in her avatar.
She drops this line. (Don’t play with that too much or you’ll go blind.) Now this is pretty much the d**k of the Na’vi, and it’s what we see them using later to get it on. In case there are any kids watching this, ask your parents what it means about him going blind from playing with it too much, and eh, nice little detail from Jimmy C there.
What Is Pandora In Avatar (2009)?
They head out with Norm, who is also part of the program. We can catch him wearing a cap with dots on it, which are actually Braille. When put into a braille translator, these read 1969, which was the year of the Moon Landing.
Other cool details are that Trudy’s ship is actually referred to as Rogue One. I was thinking this might be a Star Wars reference, but that movie didn’t come out until 2016, so it seems unlikely. I racked my brains to think if it had been used before, but I’m pretty sure that’s the first time that it pops up in the universe. Instead, I think she’s simply referring to the fact that she went rogue from her initial mission and is now fighting with the Na’vi.
Jake is captured and taken prisoner, but rather than locking his hands together like they would on Earth, they grab his ponytail to bind him.
Grace ends up teaching the Na’vi kids through The Lorax. This actually plays into the themes of the movie, and in case you haven’t read it, the Dr. Seuss story is very much a cautionary tale. It teaches respect for the environment and animals, as well as the idea of preservation so that future generations can thrive.
The movie is very much about embracing nature over industrialization, and the planet of Pandora is a paradise that’s rich in a mineral called unobtanium. It’s a pretty stupid name, but Cameron didn’t actually make it up. The word itself originates from the 1950s, when it was used by aerospace engineers to refer to a material that was either very costly or impossible to get a hold of. Its term tends to be used widely across the board in aerospace when engineers are coming up with names for things that need to be able to withstand re-entry. The heat caused by this can melt most metals and thus the idea there’s something like this has been used for that purpose.
Huge shoutouts to Collossus13 for also pointing out that Pandora and the planet also have ties to mythology. Pandora orbits a gas planet called Ployphemus, which has massive storms around its equator in the same way that the eye of Jupiter does. This having one eye means that it’s referred to as a cyclops, and Polyphemus was also a cyclops in Greek mythology. Pandora orbiting it seems like an eye, and thus, this is why the gas giant is called that.
At the end, Jake ends up becoming one with his Avatar, and his consciousness is transferred, which will take us into Avatar 2. However, depending on what version you watch, the opening shot actually foreshadows this. Now the extended edition opens with shots of a rainforest. However, the theatrical cut has Jake in his blue tank, which we get later on in the extended edition. This shot has him basking in a blue light, somewhat foreshadowing the ending.
Avatar (2009) Ending Explained
The movie also carries the idea that death brings new life, and this is somewhat seen throughout the movie. Jake’s brother’s death gives him the opportunity to have a new life on Pandora, and the death of his body at the end also allows him to become a full-time Na’vi.
The home tree is also burned, and its death starts off a new life for the characters to move onto. Just like how Jake’s brother was cremated, the tree is burned too, but from the ashes rises something more. It’s details like this that are at the heart of the movie, and they’re what help Avatar become more than just the rollercoaster ride that it could end up being.
And that closes out the movie. Taking a trip back to Pandora was an enjoyable one, and I can’t wait to see what other details we unearth in the upcoming sequel. As of making this video, I haven’t seen it yet, but if you have, let me know your thoughts on it below, and if there are any details we missed, make sure that you drop them in the comments.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of House of the Dragon Season 1 on December 15. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on, and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month, and the winners of the last one are on screen right now, so message me at @heavyspoilers if that’s you.
If you want something else to watch, then make sure you check out our breakdown of the perfect scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming. We break down the entire thing, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you want to know more.
With that out of the way, thank you for sitting through the video; I’ve been Paul, and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
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