Accidentally-Correct Writing: In the movie, Pandora is a moon orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus which in turn orbits Alpha Centauri A, the main star of the Alpha Centauri system (which is the nearest star system to the Sun). Flash forward 12 years later and NASA seems to have found a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A in the habitable zone. In short, Polyphemus was defictionalized, and it's possible that there might just be a Pandora orbiting it just as in the movie. Whether we're going to meet actual Na'vi there is, of course, yet to be seen.
Banned in China: It was released in China, but its 2D version was pulled from cinemas very quickly afterwards despite the film being the most popular shown in China ever at the time. It was long rumored that it was because of its message, which could be seen as being potentially inspirational to oppressed people within China, but a more likely reason was that it was eating into the profit margin of a state-sanctioned biopic of Confucius starring Chow Yun-fat that was running concurrently. The 3D version was released there without incident.
Based on a Dream: The Na'vi were partially inspired by a dream James Cameron's mother had about a tall blue woman.
Cash-Cow Franchise: Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time (while Avengers: Endgame briefly surpassed it in 2019, it was quick to reclaim this title via rereleases in March 2021). So along with the merchandise, back-to-back-to-backsequels are scheduled, and Fox milked it as much from home video releases as they could.
Stephen Lang bulked up to portray Quaritch as a man who compulsively exercises out of a desire to be in peak condition at all times.
Extremely Lengthy Creation: James Cameron started to work on this almost right after Titanic was finished in 1997. Unfortunately, because he kept waiting for the technology to catch up to his vision, people started to place it on lists of "movies that will never be made".
Follow the Leader: Not necessarily in terms of style or plot, but a number of movies that had been filmed in 2D were hastily retrofitted with an additional dimension in the wake of the Avatar phenomenon (including Cameron's own Titanic).
Hey, It's That Sound!: The odd, barking "cough" sound made by the dire-horses is identical to the calling sound the raptors make in the first Jurassic Park film (watch in the kitchen, when the raptor calls for its buddy to look for Tim & Lex). Of course, they should sound the same: both are the cough of a male walrus or elephant seal. Some of the thanator's roars seem to be the same as those of the T. rex, as well. Both films used the same SFX shop.
Kids' Meal Toy: Despite this movie's adult themes, it did still manage to get a set of six Happy Meal toys from McDonald's. These consisted of light-up figures of Jake Sully, Neytri, Tsu'tey, Direhorse, the Hammerhead Titanothere, and the Great Leonopteryx.
Killer App: For the Blu-ray format. It sold 1.5 million copies on release day, 6.2 million after three weeks. For quite a while, you couldn't walk into a Best Buy without seeing it all over the TV wall.
No Dub for You: Until the 2022 theatrical re-release, this movie had no official dubbing in Bulgarian, Polish or Romanian (although it did have a Voiceover Translation in Polish for its DVD/Blu-ray release, and another one in Bulgarian for a televised screening on bTV).
Orphaned Reference: In the scene where Norm, Jake, and Grace trek through the jungle for the first time, the camera briefly focuses on a bug called an Arachnoid scurrying on a tree trunk. The bug’s brief appearance was meant to foreshadow its role in the scrapped “Dream Hunt” sequence, where Jake would take part in a Na'vi rite of passage that involved getting stung by an Arachnoid and seeing his destiny through vivid hallucinations.
Playing Against Type: Big time in the Japanese dub: While not being the first time that Keiichi Nanba (as Selfridge) has voiced villains by any chance, he is normally typecasted on voicing heroic roles, the Nice Guy, the Butt-Monkey, or something along those lines. In this film, he voiced an Evil Colonialist, and a Smug Snake to boot.
Role Reprise: Sigourney Weaver reprises her role as Grace in the Saturday Night Live sketch based on the movie titled "Avatar Sex Gone Wild!"
Saved from Development Hell: Both the original film and its sequels were delayed multiple times. Both sets of delays occurred to make sure that the technology necessary to film the movies were up to snuff.
Science Imitates Art: Ikrandraco is a genus of pterosaur named after the Ikran, a dragon-like flying alien that the Na'vi use as a mount. The pterosaur has a similar crest on the end of its lower jaw as the fictional creature (unlike most crested pterosaurs, which either have a crest on top of the skull or on both upper and lower jaws).
Sequel Gap: The original came out in 2009; the first sequel came out in 2022.
Trend Killer: Avatar is widely credited by analysts with ending the dominance of film stock in the motion picture industry. Shooting on film had been commonplace for over a century, mostly due to the lack of viable competition, but even after professional-quality digital cameras rose to prominence in the late '90s and early 2000s, most directors and studios stuck with film. Avatar, meanwhile, used digital video to facilitate its 3D display and copious use of CGI, and its skyscraping success resulted in the rest of the movie industry quickly adopting the technology as well. Over a decade later, usage of film stock for new projects is limited to much smaller niches, with digital cameras overwhelming them in prominence.
Updated Re-release: The movie was rereleased in theaters in August 2010 with new scenes. The theatrical cut returned to theaters again in 2022 remastered in Dolby Vision and 4K.note Upscaled to 4K, as the film was shot in 1080p and all the visual effects were done in 2K.
Vanilla Edition: The Earth Day release of the movie has absolutely nothing outside of the movie, main menu, and an options menu. Even the 2-disc BluRay set. Then Fox releases a "special edition" set in late 2010...
James Cameron originally planned on filming Avatar immediately after finishing Titanic. He soon found that the visual effects technology of the time wouldn't be sufficient for portraying Pandora.
Project 880, James Cameron's original script (here; summary here). Some items of note:
Earth and its environmental problems are explored. (Sully has never even seen a forest, so Grace has to practically hold his hand when they go into the woods.)
We see Josh (Jake) Sully's Avatar being born — Sully actually "births" himself. Also, his reaction to walking again is quite different: it takes him a while to gain any sort of strength, and then he cries.
Instead of being mindless inert bodies, the Avatars are depicted with a rudimentary consciousness similar to newborn babies, able to cry or reach out to their Comtrollers for comfort.
It's revealed the Avatar program originally existed to train Na'vi to be an indigenous workforce for the Corporation, since it's so expensive to send human workers. Obviously, they didn't like that.
There is an Avatar controller who is burnt out because his Avatar died with him in it. He committed Avatar suicide because he had fallen in love with a Na'vi girl who had been killed by the military.
The Avatars have a Na'vi guide named N'Deh who is sleeping with Grace. At one point, his name would be Va’Ru and he would be the first Na’vi to meet Jake instead of Neytiri.
Grace survives the soul transfer.
Many of the creatures are significantly different in the script. The banshees are more like manta rays in their description, while the Thanator is instead called a Manticore and possessed a venomous stinger tail.
Some creature concepts were entirely cut from the film, such as the Slinth, a panther-like creature with a spearing head, or the Snake Tree, a hydra-like carnivorous plant with six toothy heads.
The Banshee's do not bond for life in this script: they fly away once they disengage from the rider. Also, the entire concept of "Toruk Makto" is non-existent: the need to tame one to regain the Navi's trust was never in the original script, and both Jake/Josh and Tsu'tey get to ride on a mated pair of Leonopteryxes both of which are unfortunately killed in the final battle.
Matt Damon, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Chris Pratt auditioned for the role of Jake Sully. Damon says Cameron offered him the role and 10% of the box office (which would have been around $250 million) but he turned it down.
Michael Biehn, Cameron's old go-to-guy from the '80s (Kyle Reese in The Terminator, Dwayne Hicks in Aliens, etc.) was the original choice to play Colonel Quaritch but Cameron decided not to use him because he thought he would have made the film feel too much like Aliens.
Brie Larson auditioned for a part (though she doesn't remember the audition).
An entire musical culture was created for the Na'vi. Complex orchestrations were created in this alien style (that took into account the fact that the Na'vi have four fingers) and songs and chants were developed in the Na'vi language with lyrics that had cultural significance unique to the tribe primarily seen in the movie. Unfortunately, James Cameron struggled to comprehend the final product because it didn't sound "right" to ears familiar with European musical styles. So, most of the work was abandoned in favor of "traditional" orchestrations and almost all of the meaningful Na'vi lyrics were swapped for nonsense syllables that fit the music while sounding sufficiently alien.
"I See You" could have been performed by Beyoncé, who was James Cameron's dream choice. but she wanted too much money. Hence the gig went to Leona Lewis (thanks to his daughter being a fan of "Bleeding Love").
Since the movie employs basic tropes in a story plotted in a simple way, it is possible to imagine it to be a lot like other stories. It isn't really any more or less "derivative" than anything else. This is the first movie on TV Tropes that has sparked people to list so many different stories the movie reminds them of. A look at the list may reveal something about the themes and elements that stick out in people's minds:
Foremost is the film to which Avatar is the most direct Spiritual Successor, Return of the Jedi. The main action takes place on a forest moon far from the core interstellar human civilization; many names are similar (Endor/Pandora, Ewok/Eywa, Solo/Sully); there is heavy emphasis on practical mysticism (The Force/Eywa's "network"); and the plot involves a mighty, technologically advanced force occupying a world for sinister ends, and being overcome by "primitive" natives in alliance with rebel forces. The final battle revolves around a large superweapon that must be destroyed from the inside. Had Lucas gone with his original plan of making Endor's inhabitants towering Wookiees, the similarities would have been even stronger!
Handsome man (American/European) goes to a distant, exotic locale as part of the invasion force, falls in love with the native culture, and turns against his own to save them: Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and The Last SamuraiRecycled In Space That no one remembers A Man Called Horse (1970) and Lawrence of Arabia tells you everything you need to know about this entry, possibly because not every 'person changing sides' story is automatically similar to Avatar.
Transform the protagonist to resemble the invaded, non-human natives, add a deep mystic connection to their environment on a spiritual AND physical level, villains dead set on exploiting natural resources for financial gain, and an environmentalist message and we get FernGully: The Last Rainforest.
Albion has a very similar plot, a planet with large 'network of energy' that connects all living beings, and even the natives of the planet look almost the same (only smaller and less blue), they even have a specialized organ that allows them to telepathically communicate with each other (a crystalline formation on their forehead). The game was released around the time Cameron first conceived the plot for this movie.
A Death World is the only place in the universe where one can find an extremely costly substance that's important for interstellar travel. An off-worlder shows up and finds a place among the natives, eventually leading them to victory over his people. Bonus points for him fitting their legend, riding a giant powerful animal. Double bonus for having an ecologist working for the bad guys but in essence one of the good guys, who also scoffs at the bad guys for their industrialist interest and missing the beauty of the planet itself. Anyone still question Dune was an influence here?
A disabled man goes to a distant land and meets some miners who are trying to mine precious minerals from underneath an ancient forest being guarded by intelligent native creatures. He also meets many of the forest-dwellers and becomes friends with them, especially a certain young woman. Then the miners and forest-dwellers get into an all-out war where many are killed while he tries to stop the war. Yep, it's Princess Mononoke.
The little-known 2001 Italian animated film "Aida of the Trees/Aida degli alberi", very vaguely based upon Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, features no humans, but two warring populations of humanoids with feline features. Arborea is peaceful and resides in huts on the branches of a giant tree, Petra is militarized, technological and wants to usurp Arborea's resources. As the article linked in the Italian wiki page for the film shows, there are a few visual similarities as well.
A disabled employee of a powerful interstellar company goes to a hostile world to find its secrets and discovers that the natives have very close links with the planet to the point that said links are almost psychic, that the planet itself is sentient, and that the planet opposes the planned mining exploits to the point that it starts fighting back. She also becomes good friends with the natives, falls for a particular man who has a rather important role there, and her disability is cured by the end of the book- it's Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's book Powers That Be.
Pinball
What Could Have Been: Avatar was to have been designed by Steve Ritchie; he pursued the license for that game. After his first layoff from Stern Pinball, Steve posted his design blueprint on his website.
in the habitable zone. In short, Polyphemus was defictionalized, and it's possible that there might just be a Pandora orbiting it just as in the movie. Whether we're going to meet actual Na'vi there is, of course, yet to be seen.